Goodbye 2016, Hello 2017

#NowPlaying / Robotaki - Right Time (ft. Ari)

Happy new year! Weighing out the good and bad times, 2016 has been another great year for me. Y'know, I actually think that it's amazing how many new experiences one could gain in a year? Though the thought of how fast time flies does scare me a little. 2017 is gonna be another brand new year and I just really want to take this moment to sit back and review the year and just remind myself how blessed I am. Tbh, I can't recall if I've set any resolutions for 2016 but what I could say is that I have my fair share of regrets and satisfactions in 2016 but I know that I'm definitely ending the year as a better and happier person.

Fun fact! This is actually the second time I'm writing this post. After writing over 3000 words, I figured I'll store that post as a draft for myself and post up a summarized one publicly instead. This 2016 wouldn't have been a great one if it wasn't thanks to my family, boyfriend and friends that's always by my side giving me their support in the things I love doing. My 2016 was actually a very interesting one. I'm really glad to finally "settle in" college and getting used to my assignment workload, so used to it that I was literally dying from datelines at the last two weeks because I got so much sleep during the early 12 weeks of the semester. I kinda wish I got used to it earlier though, I'm so late in getting used to things, I'm almost graduating!! Really thankful for all my lecturers that has given me so much guidance and patience! Also, my internship is in a few days time! I hope things goes well, I really love the web design works this company produces so I'm really glad to be joining them! 

The new experiences I've gained in 2016 is uncountable! I had so many firsts, for instances, working with multiple brands and companies for blogging purposes! Taking part in mural painting, digitally painting a peach that I'm really proud of, meeting so many bloggers/youtuber friends.(I never really had any before this year ^^") CODING A WEB SITE ON MY OWN, HELLO! Started doing travel vlogs! Travel overseas with my bestie! Had my first job (ok la, internship) interview! Which was to be honest, pretty fun haha. Gained so many new experiences this year, cheers to more in 2017! On the side note, I'm actually really happy to see me getting my blogging pace back and also how my blogging style has reverted back to 6 years ago when I've blogged so much about travels, food, and oh the hauls and makeup + contact lens reviews! Hopefully I could maintain this pace throughout 2017! Also, a very special thank you to West Coast for kick-starting this blogging journey for me with STGCC then a collaboration with Coca-Cola, and Butterfly Project for giving me opportunities to work with numerous beauty brands/e-commerce like Bourjois and Althea, as well as introducing me to so many new blogger/youtuber friends! And also to all the companies that I've worked with this year, thank you for giving me this opportunity. (:

May 2017 be another great year filled with surprises and challenges for me to tackle and grow into a stronger better person than 2016. Who knows maybe one of these days I'll finally figure out what I want to do for my career? Until next time!  ♡

- c a n d y - 

Semester 5 // A self reflection + rant

Hi, this semester is killing me, but I'm not giving up.

but I kinda still wanna rant.

because ranting feels good, and twitter has a 120 cap going on, so yeah.

I actually noticed that I'm constantly ranting about how I'm gonna fail the semester throughout my past 5 sems, but this is probably the first time I'm so close to my datelines yet so far from making any progress. Y'know I've grown so used to crying over my assignments during the previous sems, at some point, I just stopped?

The reason I stopped was simple. Every time I cry over an assignment, my eyes go puffy the next day - it was not cute. But I was very tired of making time. I just had to cry from the stress and lack of sleep. Often times I even questioned why I'm in a design course when I can't draw well. (people legit ask me this: why you in design when you don't even draw?? IDK)

A heads up though, no matter how much you think design isn't all about drawing, being able to draw saves you a ton of time. All my "I can't draw buddies" can relate. To deliver the results we hand up for our work, within the same time span as everyone else, we had to redraw that same thing 10 times just to match everyone else's standards. (and most of the time, we don't even match lol) But was all that worth it? It depends. Til today, I'm not sure was it worth it either. Perhaps I'll update my thoughts on this after I land my first job.

So what exactly am I blogging about today? I don't know either haha. I've kinda decided to write this post because after 6 months of not crying over assignments, I cried two nights ago. (over assignments) and it felt great the next morning.

I guess I just wanted to write.

To my dear self, never stop loving yourself. Always remember there are people out there that cherishes and values you (no matter how much you suck in making time for them now because you value sleep and health a little more now) There is always a backup route in life, your cgpa isn't everything even though 90% of the time you think it is. There are alternatives to scholarships. Sleep early tonight, wakeup earlier tomorrow and start work. Good night. 

Candy filled thoughts #2: Me? Vroom vroom? Driving?

Never have I ever imagined myself driving. You see, I'm so spoiled rotten into thinking that there will never be a day where anyone would see me holding a driving license. It literally took me an entire year to finally get my license, not because I had to retake the test or anything. Just the embarrassing fact where my procrastination and lack of confidence game was so strong to the point where I lengthened a short 3 month process to a year. 

Now now now, before you ask how did I even stretched it out to an entire year, let me tell you how unmotivated and scared I was, oki?

1. It took me forever to sign up for driving lessons (I was spoiled rotten, remember. BLESS ALL OF MY DRIVERS)
2. My driving uncle was very scary (well...not after I told him how much he scared me lol)
3. College was taking up a lot of my free time (I have poor time management ok, I'm sorry I can't handle both)
4. I had WAY TOO MANY long breaks. I literally go for 2 lessons, take a month off and forget how to drive. Continue another 2 lessons and take a 6 months break, and again forgot how to function a car AGAIN. Then all of a sudden I was super into driving like I cleared out my remaining hours during one fine semester break then my uncle set an exam date which I thought he was joking cause I still think that I'm a horrible driver but during the next lesson I found out that he wasn't joking so I had to hardcore practice every other day. 
5. Big cars scare me (especially when they just cut into my lane out of no where???)
6. I have no sense of direction
7. The raging heat from the sun is so not cute.
8. The route is super jam

but lets just say, if someone as big as a scaredy cat like me can do it, you can too! 

So to sum up this whole post, yeah I finally got my license on the 9th of May last week and my ultimate motivation was the urge to drive to Kepong for this dimsum I used to eat all the time lol. (but my bestie crushed my dreams cause she said that dim sum place not yummy anymore. super sad now.)

PS. No. I do not have a car, and I don't intend to drive for the next n years hahahaha bye

Until next time xoxo

- candy -

Candy filled thoughts #1 : education choice

For the past 3 weeks I had been enjoying my much needed semester break. I remember how I narrowed down my selections when picking a course to pursue for college. It started with my hatred towards maths, no joke. I wasn't particularly good in it, but I wasn't horrible in it either, I think. However I was really bad with memorizing formulas. I wasn't really fond of accounting either. As you can see, my lack of love towards these subjects has already crossed out two major fields of study. All this while I've enjoyed designing and writing as a hobby but I guess my fear towards presentations had strike off 'mass comm' in my choice of study for me, leaving graphic design as a solitary choice. 

Then people asked me how I ended up in creative multimedia instead. 

To be really honest, I have no idea. 

All I wanted was to learn web design cause it was the 'cool' thing on this virtual pet game website I log onto every single day back in primary. It's funny how each time I've quit the game I went back to it. Even funnier how I don't really 'play' the game right from the start but go onto the site's forum just to talk to people all over the world about design. Let's just say, meeting a few amazing designers on the site's graphics & programming forum had inspired my life a little. Trust me, it was really weird being a 10 year old then to talk about design and coding ._. But I guess it's a norm now to find 9 year olds learning how to function photoshop. I used GIMP previously, and I swear using it so much has it's pros and cons. 

Pro: you understand photoshop better.

Cons: you can't get use to photoshop.

Recently I've been having a little more free time so I decided to take some simple "name tag" commissions on the site's forums again. I've downloaded a number of new fonts to play around, so what's a better way to test em' out than to use em in name tags. I really miss the days when the forums were buzzing non-stop though. :( Well, just wanted to share some of my personal faves over here. 

^^^^^^^ love Cara ^^^^^^^

I guess my results for last semester was pretty alright, I'm actually really looking forward to next sem. Especially after seeing web design in the timetable! I don't think I'll like the subject? Pretty sure I'd get pretty stressed up over it as well but hey, it's something I've been hoping to learn since 10 years ago!! Definitely looking forward to it! Fingers crossed hoping that I'd actually like it too! I know many friends that has managed to self-taught themselves web design and are designing very beautiful php layouts so I do have hopes to be able to match up to their standards :')

So how did you guys chose your education/career path? Don't forget to follow my blog for more bits and bits of life that I find interesting! :) 

Treasure sleep

Remember the days in primary when you'd constantly boast about sleeping late? I remember back then sleeping past 1 in the morning was a cool thing. Not in college. At least, not in my book. I'm constantly craving for the days I get to sleep at 10 now. This is when you're constantly having 2AM, 3AM and 5AM nights. Sleeping at 10 is the real cool.

Ever since stepping into college, I've slowly understood why my friends that went into January intake socialized with me lesser now. You either deal with several 5AM nights a week(only when there's like 5 assignments due on the same week) or you lose your social life. Because trust me, I ain't risking that cgpa of mine (then again I'm so bad in presentations I've probably dragged my cgpa down already la). I'll get my work done even if it means getting 0 sleep. 

Come to think of it, I guess it's really just my time management issues. I admit, procrastination suck. Why do we even procrastinate anyways. I could be lazing in bed for two whole hours on the day before the assignment submission dateline counting the amount of assignments backlog. This usually follows with me crying at the amount displayed on my fingers then just simply rolling in bed, self reflecting then getting back up and go into my "deal with it, you gotta finish this" mode. yup. life. heh. Me being someone really slow also adds as a disadvantage sigh. But I guess most of the nights when I'm literally dying with assignments I'm always blessed with food and digital guitar lives. 2AM food deliveries are win. heshteggoverblessedfatlifepls 

This week seemed more peaceful. Other than the news that I have two presentations coming up (oh the horror) and me working on a couple new assignments that I feel utter hopeless in, I guess it's a pretty decent week. I mean, I had quality bonding time with my bestie over mille crepes, that's pretty rare y'know. After all, the last two weeks really ain't my week. Assignments and homework flooded to the point where I had to go for a facial, tell me how bad is that. Can't wait for tomorrow. Insidious and ice cream's gonna be good. :3

Photography class is win cause Ley korkor takes good shots of my hair hahahahahaha

fresh

entering college, new life, new blog.

jokes.

I had to switch back to blogger because I calculated the cost and figured that I don't wanna self-host my blog anymore. haha, 

pic creds to Jas baeb // & Ryan's cam is dope

Well that aside, yup, I survived the first week of college and so far so good I guess. I've always been more of an introvert in the past, having feared to make the first move and all but I guess walking up to a total stranger and placing your hand out, then proceeding to introduce yourself ain't thaaaaaaat tough. 

Despite it being just the second week of class, the amount of work you get in college is already starting to scare me. I mean, I already have like 1 presentation and 3 assignments pending. Then there's also the need in me to balance out my social life too! Let's just say late nights & waking up early then putting on contacts is a big nono in my book. So how? hobo to class every day with specs la. Even my makeup game died completely. :( I initially wanted to look less like a decaying zombie for college okkk... but I guess scrap that, pandas are pretty much well loved too, no?

Assignments and presentations aside (trust me, presentations scare me to no end. Just cause I've somewhat been able to approach people to make friends now, I still blank out and my brain just decides to malfunction the minute I get in front of the class.) I'm having a pretty good time. My breakfast buddies are entertaining, lunch breaks are pretty ok, met really nice and cool new friends that double as your ranting buddy & inside jokes buddies. 

I checked the back up I did on my old blog, my last blog post was way back in January...I think? Seeing how long I've been away from blogging, there's so much to talk about, but I guess I'll leave those for another time...or...never haha. I do have more makeup reviews & food reviews coming up soon! 

So hit the subscribe button!

and...

To better days in college!