Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Woah, I passed my 1 month of being here without even realizing it. 22nd March now. Left at 20th Feb. Week 4 in school just about done. Hmmm...
There's a few topics off the top of my head that I would like to address:
1) Numbers.
There's an undeniable obsession in this world about numbers. Your results. How much you're earning. Your age. Number of likes you have. Followers. None of this actually represents you/matters. But surely it changes the impression/level of respect what people think of you. It can be a good or bad thing, but the main thing is what YOU do with it.
I have like a pretty big following on my social media accounts that I've built up over the years - but it doesn't amount to anything as you can see... Still jobless, unwanted, single, feeling pretty useless. I'm still who I am with or without the very appealing numbers you see on screen. Social media is just a fallacy. Numbers don't necessarily equate to success. AND it doesn't give you a reason to boast about. It's good that I maintain level-headed and not get the fame into my head (something I would never do), but I know of people who think they're all that just because they are 'insta-famous'.
Think about those unknown athletes who are working in the circus industry, or slowly training their way up to represent their countries in the Olympics... No one knows them. They have zero followers, it won't be surprising if they don't even have Facebook. Too busy training.
Of course, there's so much I can do with what I currently have already built up, but that would be grinding and hustling hard from almost the ground up, especially when you're in a new city where people are fighting hard to grab similar opportunities. But, as a person who trained for 9 years, I'm still farrrrrr from being fully professional. I feel like the numbers don't add up, thus affirming what I've mentioned earlier that numbers don't matter.
Can you imagine the schedules of people like Pasha, Jason Paul and DK... I wonder if they still have thoughts like I do, and have periods of unemployment, struggling to keep up for their livelihood. But as the numbers increase, the person stays the same. They're not much different from us, essentially.
I just wish that as we grow, we don't forget our roots, don't forget who we are... continue working hard and not let it get into you head.
2) Virgin injury in Melbourne
Training has been great recently. Jumps are pretty solid - it's not really improving but it's also not worsening... so that's a plus point for sure. Dive rolls have levelled up a fair bit too, have been collecting clips for a hectic video!
So last Sat I went to look at this Kong Pre at Southbank, a pretty famous one, which is by no means very difficult but it was challenging because it was off 3 steps, pretty high drop to precision, and also a pretty big drop at the other side. I was like yeah I'd do it at some point, but didn't bother to try it because my legs are still sore from squats. However, not wanting to be useless, I actually forced myself to try it, as muscle soreness are just excuses and you're only truly good if you can achieve jumps on 'bad days'. After like several false starts I finally got over the fear and did the fucking jump! Stucked on the 2nd try, but I didn't do it as well in the next few attempts... Pretty happy I got over the fear though... reminds me over defeating the 'dragon' all over again. That's what Parkour is all about.
Right after that, I saw Nathan trying this frontflip off a pretty high wall and decided to look at it. Honestly it doesn't look pretty at all, but to be frank I felt like I should be able to do it because Nathan could do it. It didn't actually crossed my mind that I'm thinking that, and honestly I should've better judged it myself. I did it twice, the first time, I underrotated and slipped upon my landing, hurt my wrist a little bit. Second time, overrotated and crashed so hard on to my shoulder that I first injured back in London... which was a pretty serious injury. Glad that it was on grass and I had to learn it the hard way... Stupid decisions made without proper judgment. I really do need to work on my frontflips all over again. 9 years of training and I'm still making mistakes like that. It's not good...
To add insult to injury, I just signed up for gym membership and because of my shoulder, I can't quite gym like normal. Need to realize how important is it for me to stay injury-free. Oh well. Can't wait to start my hardcore 6wks Russian Squat/Smolov Jr./Squat Everyday routines once I get back to the sync of things.
3) Jobs & New Bike & Money & Future in general.
Went for another job trial last Sat, but up till now I haven't received any follow-ups from that. Probably not gonna be accepted - it's unpaid as well... sigh. Not sure when I can finally get a job. Can't believe it's so hard to get a job, never quite expected it from Melbourne. So silly going to shops after shops giving them paper resumes that is just going to end up somewhere in the corner of the office collecting dust.
Right now other than waiting for Bounce to hire again, I'm looking to get this bike delivery job... that's why I just bought a bike today (other than the fact that I broke my board/suck at skating) so that I can commute to school and the places around my neighbourhood quicker. Spent $200 on a 2nd hand 2 years old Reid Condor Road Bike and rode it from the city to Camberwell, taking me about 50mins. I was pretty damn tired, don't remember being exhausted like that with my Raleigh bike back in SG... Meh. But any other better bike would've costed me tons more... so I got no choice but to make do now.
I also paid my semester's outstanding course fees and re-realized how much money I'm spending on education. To be honest, I didn't really need this and I knew about this even before applying for the uni about 15 months ago. I'm not sure why I followed through until now, it's just that really scary trait of mine to commit fully into a decision that I kind of want, but not 100% certain about it. But the fact of the matter is I'm right here now, so I can't keep harping on this issue, despite how it truly is a hugeee (unnecessary) financial setback that I put myself in.
I have a few options in mind now after graduation:
- Continue living in Melbourne, continue paying roughly 812 (rent) + 20 (electricity) + 35 (wifi) + 30 (phone) AUD a month not including meals, and just find a full-time job to earn back as much money I can before travelling to the rest of the cities/places of Australia and NZ.
- Move to another city in Australia, try to earn back as much money as I can while crashing at someone's else place. Canberra/Adelaide... that's where I'm looking at.
- Head to Bangkok for a few months, rent a small studio apartment, cook Thai cuisine, learn the language, see what job offers I can get there and if I can earn my keep, live relatively stress-free, just go there and try to find myself.
- Just head back to Singapore after travelling, back to rent-free, comfortable life, grinding from whatever job I can find just like how I've been living during my 8 months Post-NS/Pre-Uni life, then see how it goes from there.
Still wanna go Redbull AOM next year and also a huge USA trip. 2017 goals all planned out! (seeing how crazy my commitment level is, I think it'll happen...)
4) Time.
Procrastination. I thought I'd have time to focus and do shit, but ever since we've gotten the wifi, I've been slacking off too much too often, not actually using it to do productive things. It's back to the poly days... I hope I realize the fact that I'm going to be spending that much of my parent's money, I should at least get the best out of this.
Trying to write down lists and slowly ticking them off. Life is still a bit messy and I really need to make sure to get it back on track. Blogging is also not regular enough but also because it takes a fair amount of time to blog, a bad habit of mine... but when I reflect on my life, I wanna spend time on it too.
5) Not sure what should I title this.
I'm starting to think that you just don't like someone because she's perfect for you. You just end up settling for the person who you think you can more or less 'make do' with because there's no 'perfect' somebody in this world. There's so many people you fall in love in first sight but slowly you the flaws start to surface and you're like, yeah... maybe not. Or, you go, yeah... that kinda suck, but I guess I can deal with that.
I know I've said many times about rejections and how it's no biggie. Yeah, I can deal with rejection but heck it does take a lot out of me. As much as I wanna not play games and be frank with someone, I don't want to make it known and find out that the feeling isn't mutual. Then things will start getting awkward or you just feel loser-ish and see no point in everything.
Then again, I'm never sure what I'm feeling anyway. So it's better to keep it to myself then to fall into that trap again...
Sometimes you just despair at that fact that there's just no one you can ever confide with, so much so that when you get even just the slightest glimmer of hope, you cling onto it and never let go. How ridiculous was it for me to keep heading back in hopes of that fairytale relationship becoming reality, walking blindly into the path of foolishness that I led myself into.
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Yeah. Pretty much sums up all that's on my head as of now.
I'm still somewhat enjoying the life I'm in now. But I think I've been giving myself too much leeway, as it has already been a month here. So yeah, looking forward to progress from today on.
Definitely also looking forward to get the remaining furnitures in for the house and finally make that house video and housewarming event.
Let's hope things start getting better!