Melody in Maastricht

Hey there :) Just in case you don’t know, my UWC journey has came to an end in May 2017. I had a blissful two years and surely a lot more to come up.

I’ll be moving from Maastricht to New York City and if you would like to continue reading about my life in NYC, changing from a UWC environment to college, and UWC reflection pieces here and there, STAY TUNED FOR MORE AT: melosmurfblog.wordpress.com \

Once again, thank you for all the support in the past two years, and friends that reacted to me with personal messages :) They were very very heartwarming <3 

maastrichtxmelody.tumblr.com shall move to melosmurfblog.wordpress.com :) see you there xoxo

love, 

hcoExams are up in 4 days and here I am again, blogging while I should be revising.  

The past month has been very interesting. A lot of reflection, with a hint of impulsion and here I am. The last 20 days of UWC. How shall I spend it apart from delving into my books. 

I’ll tell you the real story. UWC is an amazing testing ground for love or I should say dating. The intensity of relationships here is nothing compared to the mainstream dating you can find at home. Why? cuz you’re stuck here 24-7. Literally 24-7. You sleep, eat, go to class, go to CAS, spend every moment with each other.  And how does that feel? If you like that person, it feels amazing. 

In the past month, I’ve learnt that love is very strong, I’ve experienced the depths of sadness. I’ve been trying to piece myself and my broken soul together with the help of a lot of people. I learnt more about myself, how I deal with melancholy, how I deal with hatred, jealously and a cruel break up. 

I still remember how I blocked you and her on Instgram after you and her posted romantic pictures of Paris while I was with the people who loved me in Luxembourg. Once again, I fell for the trap of zooming too close. Zooming too close of the unnecessary pointless little things. Be it the sadness, realizing what a bastard he is, how much people around me loved and protected me and not judged me for what I did. 

And yes, I found you. You who gave me your hand when I needed it the most. When I was drowning in my sea of misery, you were there. Out of nowhere, you were there. When I was still perplexed about my relationships, you were there, you didn’t take advantage of my vulnerability. Thank you. Thank you for igniting hope. The hope that not all men are douches and the that I still deserved to be loved for all the crap I’ve made. 

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It’s been a particularly interesting 2 weeks. I’ve nearly only been spending time with you and then I once again realize the magic with relationships in UWC. You don’t need the name of a partner, all you need is that proximity that will seal the deal. 

And I owe you a lot of thank you’s. Thank you for loving who I am, my personality, my flaws. Thank you for letting me experience the beauty of the ordinary. I know ordinary is not the best adjective, pardon my shallow vocabulary. In the past, there were always pressure, on how I should act or I was too afraid to lose. I would hold on too tight which backfired me both times. Maybe it’s the fact that I know I will lose you that compelled me to be the truest form of myself. 

I never thought about our goodbye. I know I would be sad. I steered away from it every time, I try to avoid it in front of you. Whichever way we part, you shall always have a special place in my heart. It’s not the goodbye that haunts me. It’s the uncertainty of our next ‘hello’. It’s knowing that I’ll wake up alone, knowing that there will no longer be you beside me. 

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Sometimes I think to myself, if my ex didn’t happen, we probably wouldn’t even cross paths. Therefore, I’m grateful for that break up, for the tears of realization, for rediscovering all the companionships, friendships I built within the past 600 days on this island, for meeting you.

Contrary from the previous posts, this is hopefully not a sad piece, but rather a reflective piece. Although it might still be somehow revolving around what happened and you, I still gotta deal with it right? 

So, today was the first day that I actually talk to you again, not on chat, not on Messenger, but in person. Somehow, it reminds me of how we once were, when we were barely friends. It’s a good step I guess. Interesting enough, once I force myself enough, it became easier to let go of you.

Of course, I haven’t completely gotten over you, but it’s been an improvement. Sometimes, some memories still linger, some thoughts pertaining to you still pop up. Whenever your name is mentioned, I guess, I hear it and just smile. I don’t know why. Sometimes I feel like I know you, sometimes I feel like I don’t. Hearing what other people say about you, I try to picture your situation and how you’re feeling. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing, but I mean, one can’t really stop one’s mind from drowning into thoughts. 

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School hasn’t been the easiest lately. Maybe it’s you, it the tiredness from break, the heaviness that accompanied from returning from Budapest. I must say, Budapest felt like a dream. I still remember how much my heart was pounding when we were taking the train back from Amsterdam, because I knew time between us was running out. Once I stepped onto Campus, I told myself, no more communication. So I changed your name on Messenger, archived your chat and try to live a life in solitude. 

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It’s just weird that I can’t really comprehend things right now. There’s no motivation to work, I can’t really feel, I’m kind of sad, I don’t know what I’m doing. As time ticks, I realize there isn’t actually much time left. I’m perplexed, I’m drained, I do not know what to do. Do I spend more time with people? Or do I spend more time with myself? 

Now I try to reflect on my UWC experience, I start to wonder, what have I been doing in the past 1.5 years. All I know is that I’ve came far. I do not know what the future beholds, but one lesson I’ve learnt is that don’t waste time worrying about things that won’t happen in the future. (I’ll write another post about that, that’ll be long.) 

I am supposed to be studying but somehow I am not in the mood (yet), and I’ll get back to Economics in like 15 minutes.

It’s been funny how the past 2 days I’ve been contemplating about a lot of things, especially you. 

So, I watched La La Land with you in Pathe. Not to mention I got all wet from the snow when I arrived the cinema. But anyways, it was a magnificent movie. I do not regret watching it while I was all drenched with you beside me. 

Of course, this post is dedicated to you. You’re so young I must admit, but somehow I went pass the age barrier. You’re a risk taker, you live in the moment, you savour every bit of life, you take me on adventures that I’ll never forget. Sometimes I wonder, what have I got myself into, but you know what, now I’m like, whatever, just go for it (Of course with consideration of consequences.) 

If I were to describe our relationship, it’s like dancing in the rain, fun, adventurous and memorable. It might be short, but definitely a venture filled with love and memories. It wasn’t something I expected, (beyond expectations maybe?) 

Anyways, thank you so much :) 

<3

Unlike all the other years where I had some sort of new thing I joint and was extremely delighted, 2016 was more of a lesson. Yes, my growth was phenomenal, so was my change, so was my life. 

2016, I became an adult by age. 2016, I broke up with him and I fell in love again for you. 2016, I stepped into my last year of high school. 2016, I travelled to Greece, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, London, Italy, Portugal and Japan. 2016, I opened myself up to a lot more people, I started embracing myself, my flaws, my strengths and most importantly, my true self. 

2016, our world became more tumultuous. From Brussels Airport Attack to the Assassination of the Russian Minister in Turkey, I saw our world crumbling. I saw my home falling apart as well. From fishball riots in the Chinese New Year to the the Interpretation of Article 104 after the Legco oath incident. I got hopeless. I got lost. I am still lost. 

2016, my love life was on this roller coaster. From stepping into 2016 with you, continuing a long distance distance relationship, spending a sweet valentine’s day anniversary in Brussels, to communication breakdowns, break up on Brexit day, me pleading you for our relationship when my bestie at UWC visited, endless nights of tears, our bet in the summer, you being the person I could be vulnerable with. Yet I was still broken. Until, I fell for you. You opened me to a new world, a world that I wouldn’t have imagined. You are a companion who I can my true self with. He became a frozen figure in my life and you were here. I chose to tip for you, I chose to be irrational, live in the moment and savour what we can have left. Thank you, for the great adventures we’ve had in the last month of 2016. 

Well yes, that was my relationship life. and how about friends. All my friends went through the long dreaded DSE and got into Universities. They now have new friends, new lives and new perspectives, yet people that I’ve met in Secondary School, still remained who they were with me. 

My feeling for home changed. I first thought leaving Hong Kong was hard. I thought leaving home was gonna be a tough thing. Yes, indeed it will be, but I do not feel as sad. It took me one year. One year, to change my concept and perception of home. 

2016 was more than that. but these were some highlights that popped up when it comes to rewinding 2016. 

This morning, my facebook was finally not filled with the US presidential elections. Instead, it was filled with an incident that broke my heart, the PRC’s interpretation of Article 104 in the Basic Law. 

I was never a political person, but this was a violation of the judiciary. It is jeopardizing our judicial system, out core values, what is left of us. 

I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what will happen. Living abroad, I feel like home is not home anymore. I fear one day when I return, freedom has wafted into thin air, people zip their mouths, and people morphed into minds not knowing how to think critically. 

I am sad, that the next generation would not get to learn to values that I was instilled with. The beauty of freedom, the importance of democracy, the cruciality of having a sound and independent judicial system. I never knew the value of memorizing Hong Kong’s system when I was 14. 

I’m lost for words. I’m lost. I’m sorry for the cynicism. 

I was fortunate enough to find you. To find a person that guides me out of the dark, a person that helped me explore my own potentials, the person that influenced my way of thinking and perception to things. I met you, the Person.

We were dumb enough to fall in love, but it wasn’t until we got out of it, I realise who you truly are and how our relationship right now actually stimulates me (or even you) even more. To me, it’s the trust we’ve built, the safety you’ve given to me and how I don’t mind being vulnerable in front of you.

Perhaps you’re one of the people that knows me best, for what had happened and what’s happening. 

I kinda like how we are now. How we can be sincere and truthful for our thoughts, how we trust each other in not judging our values and beliefs. I guess we’ve both been able to figure out a little more of ourselves over the year. 

I have to admit I suck at packing. But this is not the point of my blog today, rather it is about the feelings of departure, is it only me? or actually everybody does experience a hint of that. 

Coming back

There’s always an anticipation before coming back. Maybe it’s because I’ve been missing the presence of my soulmates, the complexity of this city or simply my lovely family. I figured, every time I come back home, nothing much has really changed, well maybe a new furniture, but my room, nothing has changed. It’s so strangely familiar, in the sense that, something is different despite zero change in its physical appearance. Perhaps its the ambience, old pictures, the dust, the bits and pieces of memories I leave before each departure being permanently preserved in this room. 

Staying

The perception of home changes once you leave Hong Kong, whether it’s a UWC or elsewhere, home as in Hong Kong will never be the same. Maybe because I’m one of the few HKers in the school, I do miss speaking cantonese a lot. I miss the fast paced environment, the crowded streets and mtr, the convenience (aka 7-11s), the amazing tonal language, the food and the heat (debatable for this one I would say). Most of all, you get to appreciate the city’s beauty like never before. (Well it’s very bipolar, some people really hate Hong Kong.) Having the opportunity to leave led to my realisation that we take a lot of things here for granted. I know it’s not exactly the most reasonable thing to compare HK with Western countries or any other place if they don’t planning on leaving HK for whatever reasons. But sometimes I think, it’s nice to get out of the flamboyance and reflect. You get to see a lot more that you could imagine. You learn to embrace your identity. You learn to see this place from a different perspective. You learn to see the flaws and the greats. Most of all, you realize that this place means more than a dwelling. It’s a home, where your heart your greatest memories are. It’s where you grew up to become who you are. It’s the place that shaped your values, beliefs and behaviour. You realise how Hong Kong has slowing became a part of you.

Departure

To be rather honest, I see myself staying abroad for a bit longer. This means departure will become routine. Hong Kong International Airport will become a familiar place, goodbyes will be something that will be said every once in a while, hellos will hopefully be one of the things that we treasure more. Keeping in touch with people will take a little more effort, catching up with friends might be harder. But somehow, I feel like my mind and soul are still somehow in here. 

Goodbye

It’s been a fantastic summer. I had a lot of opportunities to chat and meet up with people as usual. It made me realise how my though process has changed so significantly over this one year.

The question that’s omnipresent in all these meet ups is ‘Where you planning to go for uni?’ It basically ends right there. No asking why, no more questions. Well maybe to a some people it’s feels slightly nosey to ask. Well, the point of this piece wasn’t that, it’s about the flaws of my local education and how education, ideally should be, and why I do not prefer coming back back for University. (Note that I said do not prefer, not NOT COMING back). 

Why do I not want to come back? 

Hong Kong’s Universities actually fulfilled a lot of my requirements, e.g. located in a city, extremely convenient, having a fun uni life, sports, not very difficult to make friends, etc etc. But something goes wrong... It’s the learning environment. 

It all starts young.

Since the age 3, the moment you step into the school gate, the pupil, S,  is very likely to become a slave in the system. The slave of exams, pressure, competition, extra tutor. If he was unfortunate to be in born in a family which is extremely grades oriented, it equates to having no life. Exams get harder (of course) as we grow. They become more competitive, more skill based and more demanding. 

What the primary and secondary education has done to our teenagers of the day is it stripped off their ability to THINK. Amongst my years group or seniors we always comment on our juniors, saying the quality is deteriorating, it just gets worse year by year. What we managed to do was to DESCRIBE the situation, but we never managed to EXPLAIN WHY. See, here is the problem, we only know how to ask what, but not why. Our education equipped us to be examination machines, but not intellects nor critical thinkers. Knowledge we gained became skills to ace an exam but rather the substance in the subject. What we see in a student became numbers and letters but not the potentials in his thoughts and creativity. What we’re left with is how to score high instead of the ability to ask why. This sounds extremely pathetic eh. 

This goes back to why I wanna study abroad. I feel like studying somewhere outside of Hong Kong, I would be able to be in a less grade-oriented place (which is untrue because the grade does matter). To be more exact, I wish to surround myself with people who believe in the same things as me, that education should be teaching individuals how to think, not what to think ;) 

I’m not criticising Hong Kong students and Universities, and I think it’s just a matter of time, getting out of the public exam/secondary school system, that they would hopefully understand what I’m trying to say (or actually already do). Please don’t mistaken me. All I’m trying to say is what I’ve observed and how I would like to base my decision on that. You’re always welcome to drop a line and have a chat with me :p

Well I actually have a ton of work to do, but I chose to came here and write. I’m just slightly bored from work and why not chill here?

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So what have I been up to lately? basically nothing. I’ve been sitting at home, sleeping, chatting with the same dude every night, trying to do something productive every day, occasionally going out for dinners and meet ups. Life has been pretty boring I must admit. 

For whatever reason, I just can’t focus. I’m trying to complete my never-ending list of tasks but NOTHING is good to go. My PS is under construction, my EE has just begun, my math IA is basically untouched, nothing is on schedule. 

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‘Why Bother?’ 

This line has been very mind boggling. I can’t fully decipher what it means yet. Or is the gist of this like what it’s stating? I really cannot. I have to admit I am at some emotional low, feeling empty, feeling unmotivated, feeling lazy. Is this the vestige of what happened two months ago? 

Yesterday marked the 1000th day we met. I haven’t counted days for an extremely long period of time but it just popped up. Tomorrow was supposed to be our 2 year anniversary, well not anymore. 

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What’s up next? While I see most of my friends merrily stepping into a new phase of their lives, I am sitting here TRYING to work my ass off. I am truthfully happy for them. I can’t imagine what they’ve went through, so I wish you all a blissful university life, you guys DESERVE it <3 

And me. What will happen to me? I have no idea. I am lost, but at the same time I’m not. This is perplexing, eh? It’s always been haha. 

I’ve been pretty ambitious. I told myself, ‘Shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you’ll land in the stars.’ 

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(As I was typing, the tranquil and soothing Cloud Atlas theme played. Right timing there.)

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Sometimes I wonder, how many people actually read my blog? How many people are hearing this very vulnerable me speaking to an open crowd that I don’t even know of their identities. How wide does this readership actually get? 

Anyways, if you do read my blog, thank you very much (: I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these slightly mundane but very sincere words of mine. If you haven’t, I’m sorry that the little mind inside Melody just isn’t interesting enough for you. 

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I’ve become a nocturnal animal, working at night, sleeping during daylight. HAHA I call it preparing for jetag lol. But seriously I think this needs a change. I’ve been sleeping at like 4 or 5 every day and waking up at 1 or 2 which isn’t the best. 

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Enough of gibberish, I should get back to my lovely mathematics. 

I’ve been pretty lazy lately, always staying up late, surfing the net, staying idle, not being productive, it’s just been a indolent period of time. 

I’ve been back for 3 weeks. 1 page of EE written, no progress for my math IA, nothing on my personal statement. What the actual heck am I doing. I’ve been meeting up with people, with friends, family, and long lost soulmates. 

I was never a big fan of ‘fate’. It seemed like an excuse for failure, a hotbed for discouragements, basically some sort of crap somebody made up light up your bad days. Having said that, I believe in the ‘meant-to-be’s’. Some people were meant to be together, some simply were not. Certain things were meant to be for you and the others not. We can’t have everything.

You and I, are we meant to be? If we are, then some time in some day our two souls would dwell as one. If not, then I guess we would be soaring to new heights just not as a couple.  

I’ve been pondering, whether I should wait and see, or I should go all out and YOLO. The usual old me would opt for the former, as I am not much of a risk-taker, especially when what I’m risking is something so close to my heart. 

I’ve had waves and waves of comfort and advice from loads of you. Thank you very much for asking, it is much appreciated. I’ve got the funniest shit from GO ALL OUT AND HATE HIM to ‘This is so not how you guys are ending. It still hasn’t ended.’ But I guess I’ll just let the ball roll by itself. 

Indeed, it still hasn’t ended, in the sense that we grow and learn from each other. We might not be heading towards a common goal, but in the past month, ruminating and fathoming, I’ve got to learn a lot about myself. Imagine us building an island together. Gloomy days and clouds have been shrouding for months, all it took was that thing to tip. Yes the tumultuous storm hit. It hit hard, but minimal damage occurred. Now, this island is frozen in time. Maybe someday the sun will come out, flowers will blossom and life will be restored or it might just stay as it is forever and ever while you and I construct different islands. 

Whatever happened happened, whatever happens happens and whatever will happen WILL happen. 

I can’t predict the future, I can’t force things to happen nor can I change the past. All I know is that if shit happens, suck it up, if I’m happy, be grateful and if I’m in love, savour and cherish every moment.