Forward and onward

You know what's more liberating than gorging on a piece of triple fudge chocolate cheesecake after a week of no-nonsense, clean eating, almost-dying dieting?
Answer: Forgiveness.


It's two more weeks to the New Year and with this free time that I have right now, I thought a lot about the things that used to plague me and I think I realized that it's time for me to take responsibility for the things I did. It's slowly dawning upon me that I'm turning 25 *inhale exhale* next year and that there are some things I need to leave behind in order to move on.


One thing I'd like to leave behind is this illogical perception that I'm "invisible". I've shied away from social media for a long time and kept myself hidden because I was afraid of how people perceived me.

Now that I think about it, I think I was afraid of how I perceived myself *jeng jeng jeng*. 

And I wanna get out of that. I want to feel comfortable in front of a camera as how I feel too comfortable being behind it. I want to own that room instead of slithering at the food section, hoping no one would realize that I had one too many cake pops. We all have a voice. And it's time that I use mine.

The other thing that I'd like to leave behind is holding on to hurt. Well, I will admit that going invisible has allowed me to face my demons head on and it helped me let go of sad events that left a scar in me. I take responsibility for my immaturity, for my insecurity and for the unpleasant ways that I handled situations and people in the past.

I think it's time that I forgive myself for I was only 19-21 years old with the maturity of a tadpole, so I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I was vulnerable, desperate to belong and just plain stupid. Now that I have realized my mistakes and acknowledged them, I think it's high time that I move on.


For 2017, I want to be kinder to people and to myself. I want to love people without expecting anything in return. Sounds like something only a divine being can do but hey, I'm gonna try. There are a lot of people who take pride in "not caring about anything or anyone" and I don't want to be that anymore. I don't want to march around saying "screw the world!" when actually, I feel differently inside. So yeah, enough of that.

I'm pretty excited for 2017. I'm excited to turn 25.
And I'm excited (and terrified) for what's in store.

I'm going home for Christmas

I'm pretty sure everyone has that one song (or movie) that feels like it belongs to them. I don't really know how to explain this but...you just feel like this song or this movie was written for you?

okay, never mind. you either get it or you don't. 

Christmas has always been a joyous occasion for me. I remember that one time when my dad brought home a tree and some decorations. My sister and I spent our time decorating the little apartment we stayed in for the first 14 years of our lives. It was a small living room, with second-hand furniture (my parents were poor at that time) and we had a small TV and some Mickey Mouse VCRS. We lived with little but we were taken cared of.

as the years went by and we moved to a bigger house, we kinda stopped decorating the house. being the design geek that i am, i continued decorating every year, sometimes alone, because my family grew disinterested over the years.
later on, my dad grew increasingly theological about everything and the whole 'christmas-is-a-pagan-festival' message creeped into our house (yes, it's true that christmas is a pagan festival and that the true meaning of Christmas is about Jesus's birth) and the atmosphere dimmed as the years went by.

in the last 2 Christmas-es, my house remained bare. decorating the house became a chore and as we grew older, we became busier.
also, i realized that my boyfriend wasn't really a Christmas buff too (i guess the biggest festival in his life would be Chinese New Year). we didn't really celebrate it together, seeing that we were in church 24/7 at that time.
by the time December rolled along this year, I knew that I had no magic left inside me. whatever childhood awe I had during 'the greatest time of the year' had already vanished.

anyway, back to this "song" that I was talking about.

I have a favorite Christmas song. It's called "Going Home For Christmas" by Steven Curtis Chapman.
It's a song about a grandma who loved the Christmas season and loved her family. Though she was ill and dying, she still planned the Christmas feast for the family. Halfway through the song, she dies.
Yeah, not exactly the 'ho ho ho it's a merry holly jolly Christmas' type of song.


In the song, she always reminded her family that while she was dying, she was joyfully waiting to 'go home' for Christmas. And that she will be "face to face with Jesus as we celebrate His birth" and that "this gift will be worth to her more than anything on earth."

*cue all my tears*

I guess this really hit home for me because it's been 2 years since I left Christianity and the church. I blogged about my experience last year and the pain has left me with ugly and bitter feelings towards God and the church. I was angry and occasionally blamed God for what happened, but I never understood why I was in this "woo hoo", crazy religion that seemed like a judgmental prison instead of the unconditional love showed by Jesus Christ. It's like, I've been a Christian all my useless life but I never knew this person of Jesus Christ and what this Gospel was. I felt cheated. In fact, I still do.


My wish this Christmas is that I will be like that grandma in the song.
This grandma (yeah i know she may be fictional) probably had a strong spiritual walk. This grandma probably loved her family with the same love that Jesus loved her. It takes a woman with a big heart to remind her family that though she was dying, she was still going home to a better place. And that going home to Jesus meant the world to her. I hope that this year, I will go home for Christmas and that I will go home to stay.


To all of you who made it this far on my post (sorry this took too long heh :P ), 
Merry Christmas and have a great year ahead!
I hope you will find that gift that will mean to you more than anything on earth.
XOXO

The five Malaysian reactions to "I want to pursue my Masters"

So here's the deal: I recently applied to pursue my Master of Arts in English Literature with hopes of starting in February.

Honestly, the thought of doing my masters never occurred to me until one day, when I was in the midst of deciphering the similarities behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels, (who also happens to be my spirit animal woot woot!) I had a mighty epiphany that perhaps I should just do it.

My parents were cool about it. Mom went all "finally, you have seen the light!" in a "i-dont-know-what-is-wrong-with-your-generation" type of way, while my dad went on and on about me publishing my paper in an academic journal and getting into a Ph.D program and finding a niche so that I will be a sought-after academic, bla bla bla. You know, very typical parent-like responses. Or maybe just my parents.

I've received a lot of mixed reactions from people whenever I casually mention about doing my masters. As I recalled all the different responses, I couldn't help but to note how well-meaning, varied and funny some of these responses were.

"Wahh so yeng ahh do masters. Then your work how?"
While I won't say that it's very yeng (the common phrase used by Malaysians regardless of race, which stands for 'very cool' in Cantonese) for one to do their masters, I would think that it's normal for someone who wants to specialize in a related field or to get ahead with their careers.
When I was still in college, my classmates were all ready to apply for Masters in Clinical Psychology while I was the one who was opposed to such an idea and chose the unglamorous life of being a working class millennial.

As for the topic of 'your work how?', I would say that there have been people who have pursued their masters part-time while working full-time, with the exception of people who can do their masters full-time without any means of income. I plan to do it part-time.


"Umm...English Lit is good lah, but I think you need something practical" 
True. Honestly, I also wondered if English Lit was the practical thing to do. I mean, I would have chosen Journalism or Communications or my initial plan of Art Therapy/Social Psychology, but I don't know why I just gravitated to English Lit. Like, there's this unexplained force behind this decision that is telling me that this is the course that I should do.

Okay, if I think about it practically, I would think that English Lit would come in handy if I continue my career as a writer/author but in total honestly, I'm pursuing my masters for the love of English Literature. I don't really see myself in the academic line and I still want to write for magazines or content marketing. What comes out of this would just have to be a surprise (this answer generally freaks the baby boomers, so perhaps I need a better comeback for this one).

"English Lit? That's great! I could never do English Lit!"
Actually, you can. It's just whether you see it as part of your future or if you love it. At the end of the day, it's to each it's own. But really, you CAN do English Lit if you set your mind to it. Just like coding or baking or astrophysics.


"Actually, you don't need to do your masters to be good in something. Just go and travel. Don't waste time."
This answer usually comes from the millennials but then again, they are millennials and most millennials don't know what they're talking about (like you're probably wondering the same about me). Like I said, I'm pursuing my masters for the love of literature and also because it will help me with my writing career. Just like Fitzgerald, I would love to publish a novel and hope that it could be a New York Times's bestselling novel. Hey, there are Malaysians who made it to that list and I don't see why I can't. It will come with a lot of hard work, revisions, knowing the right people, but it'll be worth it.


"That's great, Carissa. I'm happy for you. As long as it is part of God's plan"
I don't know what is in 'God's plan'. I've given up on this whole 'God's plan' thing after years of hearing this buzz phrase being preached in churches, but thanks. I will do my part and work hard. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. As long as I do whatever I can to see it through.


I'm still waiting (and hoping) to receive the offer letter. It should come by this month because the admissions department said so. I've passed the first round of the application and did the writing test that they've sent me and I really, really hope to see something in my inbox soon. I have my fingers crossed. I'm also waiting to hear back from a very very important job interview, so you can probably guess that I'm in pins and needles at this point.

In the mean time...