Recovery.

You know that you're an expert at complicating things,

but you make the war seem like such an easy game.

Because at the end of the day, no matter how much you try to run or hide from the truth, you'll still find yourself back at square one, facing the inevitable truth that you've been escaping all along. Maybe I've made things to complicated, but I was right. I deserved everything that happened to me. Even though I've shed a lot of tears and bled out a lot, I've become stronger. Perhaps it's just me developing a stone heart, but I've learnt an important lesson. To not give a shit about anything anymore. Recovery. That's what I needed, and I had it. I'm still going through it now, and I'm glad that I seized the chance to seek closure before it's too late. It went better than expected, didn't it? I was preparing myself for another round of self-torment again for thinking about what I did in the past, but it turns out that I was wrong.

I've managed to let go completely. Turns out that the feeling that lingered, was just the friendship. I've managed to move on to the next chapter of my life completely, without being stuck in the past anymore even though there'll still be times when I'll think back and remember everything that happened. I managed to move on. I can feel my recovery, and I'm really hoping that it isn't a placebo effect. I'm opening my eyes and letting it be free. Everything's been left behind, and I guess the only direction to go is forward now.

I think that I've grown a lot more this year than last year. I've managed to set my priorities straight so far, even though I'm lagging behind my study plans these few days, but at least I did the best I could to study for my Block Tests. It may not be my best performance, with all the exam panic and unexpected things that happened, but I'm ready to face the music. I'm ready to embrace and accept what I don't know, and the flaws that I keep having in my studies. I know that there may be a point in time when I am forced to downgrade a subject to a lower level, and I'm hoping that I'm given more time in deciding. Even though I detest mugging for the 4 content-heavy subjects that I'm learning right now, I can't seem to make a clear choice of what to drop, if needed. Maybe it's the change in teachers that I have this year, but everything seems pretty good now. Even if I don't manage to score within my expectations, I know that it's just a one-time off thing, since we weren't exactly given a lot of time to study for it.

Anyway, I guess things have been pretty quiet so far, even though I wished for more time for me to rest and recover. Well, I've just realized that it has been ages since I've last posted something optimistic. So I guess I'ma leave this post on a positive note. 

You make it all better.

53 Quotes That Will Make You Rethink Everything.

1. “Everything you can imagine is real.” ― Pablo Picasso

2. “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” ― Gilda Radner

3. “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” ― Isaac Asimov

4. “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ― John Lennon

5. “People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” ― Lemony Snicket

6. “Too many people spend money they earned..to buy things they don’t want..to impress people that they don’t like.” ― Will Rogers

7. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” ― George Bernard Shaw

8. “To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” ― Arundhati Roy

9. “Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” ― George Carlin

10. “Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren’t. I’m not surprised some people prefer books.” ― Julian Barnes

11. “People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.” ― Jim Morrison

12. “The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.” ― Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

13. “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…” ―John Lennon

14. “Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.” ― Jon Krakauer

15. “The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder

16. “If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.” ― Frank Zappa

17. “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.” ―Paulo Coelho

18. “I like to keep my issues drawn, it’s always darkest before the dawn.” ―Florence Welch 

19. “Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously.” ― Tom Robbins

20. “When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.” ― George Bernard Shaw

21. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ― Lao Tzu

22. “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” ― Marcus Aurelius

23. “The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” ― Ayaan Hirsi Ali

24. “There are no random acts…We are all connected…You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind…” ― Mitch Albom

25. “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” ― Woody Allen

26. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.―Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

27. “Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?” ― Mary Manin Morrissey

28. “Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.” ― Drew Carey

29. “You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened.” ― Jorge Luis Borges

30. “I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.” ― Anthony Robbins

31. “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” ― Winston Churchill

32. “His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.” ― Ernest Hemingway

33. “Pain is a pesky part of being human, I’ve learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can’t be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.” ― C. JoyBell C.

34. “We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. ‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’ And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” ― Terence McKenna

35. “I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.” ― John Burroughs

36. “Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.” ― Langston Hughes

37. “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content” ― Helen Keller

38. “Fate loves the fearless.” ― James Russell Lowell

39. “I think that we are like stars. Something happens to burst us open; but when we burst open and think we are dying; we’re actually turning into a supernova. And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before.” ― C. JoyBell C.

40. “You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.” ― Goldie Hawn

41. “Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” ―Graham Greene

42. “Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it…” ― Wilferd Peterson

43. “People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad.” ― Marcel Proust

44. “Happiness is not the absence of problems; it’s the ability to deal with them.” ― Steve Maraboli

45. “Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn’t it? And as you split the frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God’s will and His grace toward you that that is beautiful, and a part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons and to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough.” ― P. Harding

46. “That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.” ― Haruki Murakami

47. “If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being “asocial” or “irrational” in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to “explain,” which usually implies that the explanation be “understood,” i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.” ― Erich Fromm

48. “You couldn’t erase the past. You couldn’t even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.” ― Ann Brashares

49. “There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.” ― Jack London

50. “Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.” ― Osho

51. “Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” ― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

52. “If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life; it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.” ― Mitsugi Saotome

53. “Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.” ― Andrew Murray

Credits to: Brianna Wiest, The Thought Catalog

http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2013/06/53-quotes-that-will-make-you-rethink-everything/

Words I Never Said.

So many questions,
but I'm talking to myself.

Say something. Sometimes I wish I had the courage to say something. To speak up, to let others know of my opinions. Maybe if I actually said something, things might have changed for the better. But now, it's too late to muster the courage that was needed, and everything still remains unsaid.

I honestly want myself to stop thinking so much. I think I tend to over-dramatize my thoughts a lot. Like seriously a lot. It sucks having a tsunami of possibilities flooding in my mind over every detail that occurs. Maybe it's this thinking that made me analyze every situation at the best of my ability, but it doesn't help in letting me restore my inner peace. I think I've overdone it again. I've chosen to not heed my junior's advice and just go for it. Maybe it's plain stupidity on my part, because I simply lost the words to say when the conversation struck. But at least one thing's for sure now, that feeling. That feeling wasn't what I thought to be. It's just a linger. Linger for the friendship to be restored again. But no matter how much I want it to be restored, things will never be the same again. Would it be the same to leave our state now, then to wait for it to fall apart in the end again? This entire drama, it was entirely my fault, and I take ownership for it. I don't think anything I say, or anything I do, can make me forgive myself for what I did. Sometimes when I think of you, guilt fills my heart. You were always the forgiving one, but I was shutting you down, and out, completely every time you tried to save things.

I got to do something with the barriers I build up between others and me. Maybe they have grown stronger over the years after what I've experienced. The fear of meeting new friends and ending up in disappointment. To be honest, I wasn't exactly transparent with those around me, especially the friends that I've made during the past 1.5 years. I was quite superficial to them, and they didn't deserve the treatment that I was offering them. You know, it really sucks hiding in the mental cave that I'm always in whenever I'm outside, because I don't really interact much with others. It sucks even more forcing that smile on my face when things aren't alright. I don't know how many times I've mentioned this here, but it has got to stop. I will be happier no matter what happens. I guess it's really time to open up my mind and myself to my friends. It's time to stop speaking in silence and being afraid of saying something wrong. I guess I should really start opening up to those around me, especially those who have been supportive of me all these while.

But before I take this leap of faith, I really want closure. It was something that I took for granted, and left it hanging by a thread instead. I really want to start this conversation and see where it goes from there. I doubt I'll be given a second chance for what I've done, but at least when I look back, I took a chance and gave it my best shot. It's time to put an end to this chapter of my life, especially since it has lasted for quite a while. It's time to really start afresh next term, and have the confidence of making friends back again.

So much to tell you,
and most of all goodbye.
But I know that you can't hear me anymore.

Regrets.

A million little wishes float across the skies.

If I could go back in time to change things, to make it right, would things turn out differently in the end? Would I know who my true friends are? Would I know who are the ones who stood by my side throughout the past few years? Would I really open up to other people? It's always questions like these that make me feel disconnected with reality, because I'll be stuck in my own realm of imagination and thoughts. But honestly, all of us have regrets. From the little things, to not noticing the big things in life. We get too caught up with the things at our sight, that we ignore our hindsight. I was given the liberty to choose, and it was a wrong decision made. I've chose the little things over the big things that mattered, like my friends and family. I became so self - centred that I forgot who I were. I've became a monster and committed selfish and horrible mistakes, just to boost my ego. I've learnt my mistakes the hard way. I really wanted to run, to escape from the punishment that karma had planned for me. But it had to be a bitter medicine to swallow. I grew from this experience, and learnt many invaluable things in life. Maybe it was because of this experience, that I started becoming more judgemental. First impressions mean a lot to me these days. I'm starting to compare almost every single aspect of my life with others. I've already developed a different attitude to those who don't treasure a single bit of me. Maybe kindness does come with a price. A price of being used. I'm really sick and tired of this feeling. I know that sometimes, it may be ungrounded, but I still feel that I'm right. I'm really afraid of my mind these days. The thoughts that I'm having recently, they seem so surreal. It feels like it's only a matter of time before they come alive.

Dandelions.

Erase and Rewind.

Eyes make their meet in difficulties,
With wounded lips and salted cheeks.

I honestly wish you stayed. Looking back now, I can't believe that I have managed to survive the past 2 years living with this regret of not trying to make things right, or at least have a closure. I told a lie today, just to cover up the truth. It wasn't her that I was missing. It was you. I don't know why, but a wave of regret never fails to hit me hard whenever I see your name appear. Has the feeling returned? I'm not really sure. All I know now is that I'm missing your company. You were literally the only friend I had in my entire life who truly understood me. You saw right through me, no matter how I tried to cover things up and make everything seem okay. Damn. I'm sorry for everything that I've done. I know that you probably will not visit this blog again, but if you do, you should know who you are. Maybe it's just me having this one-sided talk with myself, convincing myself hopelessly that you'll return. But the truth of the matter is, I'm probably  casted away from your memories already. You stopped fighting when I wanted you continue, or maybe because I didn't even give you a chance to have a proper closure in the first place. Now, I can no longer press the erase and rewind button because nothing I do can change what happened, and will perhaps also give you a wrong idea of me. There's literally no reason for us to talk now. Sigh. There's no way of fixing a timebomb that had already exploded. A timebomb that I never discovered. I regret taking you for granted. Maybe it was you who made me play on the safe side; to mind my words whenever I talked, in case I said some things that I shouldn't have said. Maybe it was because of you that made me treasure my friends more. But it still feels really different without you. The days when we talked about everything under the sun and shared what made us down everyday.

Sigh. There's no point talking about all this now when I'm just a merely someone who has already been forgotten. I wish you stayed, but I'm also glad that you've moved on. Even if you stayed, you'll walk away again. And I know that I won't be able to survive another farewell, and will never forgive myself for what I have done. Salted cheeks. That happens whenever I think about what could have remained if I controlled myself. Perhaps you're the only one who managed to take parts of me away. Sigh. If only I could remove this feeling of mine completely.

Perhaps a feeling that keeps coming back, is a feeling that never left.

I wanna feel your beating heart tonight,
before the bleeding sun comes alive.

Dark Horse.

You should know what you're fighting for.

Dark Horse. These are the two words that I'll use to sum up my entire experience with Novus. Novus, we may be green, but every single one of us came from different backgrounds. I remember the very first time I met all of them, clearly unaware that this group of people would be the closest group of friends I'll ever be with throughout my entire stay here at NYJC. We had our fair share of awkward moments, knowing that we didn't have any popular kids amongst us, and feeling extremely discouraged thinking that we wouldn't be able to get as high as the other OGs. Right from the start, we had this mentality that we would not win at all, simply because we were not as cool as the other kids in the other OGs.

And that was when the other OGs decided to strike. I'm not trying to foster any hatred between the groups now, but all of us had to admit that we were the ones being belittled and looked down upon. It was quite obvious that Novus was constantly the topic in their whatsapp chats, and it wasn't because of how well we did, but because of how sucky we were to them. To be honest, it felt like Novus was the only family isolated from the other three families, simply because we were cast aside, like unwanted goods that did not manage to get sold during a warehouse sale. Even though I wasn't there for the first performance check, I heard that we were a mess. I remember us freaking out over the realisation of the amount of work we had to do during the holidays, when half of it has passed already. I still remember the very first day I learnt the choreography for "One-Shot". Damn. It was hard. Like seriously hard. It's probably the first choreography that made me doubt myself - whether I would be able to pull it off during the actual performance. Learning only the first half of the first set of 8 took up 2 hours of practice that day. We were that unproductive, when the other OGs were almost done with finalising and learning their dancesteps. Thinking back now, it's a feat learning those dance moves. We may not have perfected it, but we at least gave it our all, and that's what that matters the most.

Novus. We've had our highs and lows, with more lows than highs. It didn't feel encouraging when the other OGs looked down on us, seriously. The feeling that we got from the other OGs was that there was no longer an 'N' in NYJC. Maybe that's the main reason why we're so close now. We were at ground zero, literally, and we had no other families to rely on whenever we needed help. All we had was us. Maybe that's the reason why we only have one NOVUS. Not the popular-Novus and the poor-Novus. Just Novus, with our 'N' capitalised. What we shared to one another during the last day of orientation was right - we wouldn't be the same right now, if any one of us gave up halfway and left. Novus. All of us played an equal role in building what it has become today, whether it has been seen by others or not. The list could go on and on. Without Rachel and Heng Gee, we wouldnt be so bonded today, because it was those dance practices that gave us time to know one another better. Without Ben, I wouldn't have cute hamster cheeks to brighten up my day during mealtime. Without Brian, the ice and our personal barriers between us would not have been broken effectively... To put it simply in words, they were honestly the best group of friends I've ever had in my entire JC life.

Yes, we've had our fair bit of arguments, days when our anger would come out all of a sudden and shots fired towards one another. But at the end of the day, we forgive because we're one big family. I've never felt comfortable talking to 35 people individually or as a whole group before, despite the similar opportunities I had in the past. But because of Novus, I did. To be honest, they were the ones who brought the light into my life. I was at the stage of falling apart just days before we first met, with all the conflicts and thoughts flooding my mind. They were the ones who could make me smile genuinely without hiding any ulterior motive. They were the ones whom I could take off my mask of emotions and hang out with. They were seriously the ones who made me believe that I could belong to a circle of friends without thinking that I'm just being an extra there. They were the ones who restored my faith in true friendships.

To be honest, there were times when I felt like giving up on them. Maybe it was my mind overthinking and stuff, but there were times when my mind started to explode and made me wonder whether I was excluded from the family, especially after what some of them said to me. I tried to hold myself back for weeks, drifting away from the meetings and outings that they had. But as I walked away, my heart was empty. Like really empty. What would I be without Novus? Nothing. I wouldn't have learnt so much and changed into a better person without them. I would still be stuck in the past, thinking about the past instead of the present of the future. But they, they were my main motivation to come to school, so that we could hang out with one another whenever we were free. They are also the only group in NY whom I could be brutally honest with. They are the only ones who did not require any form of sugar coating whenever I had to address certain issues, because I knew that I wouldn't get judged for what I said, and that they really understood me and my intentions.

The outings we had. They may have been small (in terms of the outing itself, not the participation), but they were awesome in their own unique ways. I think that this group of friends would always have a special place in my heart, because they were the first group of friends whom I had steamboat, mass sleepover and Christmas with. There are just too many fond memories of us together that I can't recall. Thank you for the experiences that all of you have offered me, even though I couldn't make it for some. They're seriously the only group of friends who can make me feel the guilt of not being there with them, despite my emotions on any day, when I'm needed somewhere else. I'd always have this urge to head towards where they are even when I'm supposed to be somewhere else. They're that important to me. Seriously, if I could go back in time and change it, December 2013 would be the only December in my life so far, that I wouldn't change. They made that Decemeber the best month of the year, despite my bad memories with that month. They might be the greatest mistake I've ever made in my entire schooling life, with the tremendous pile of homework that needed to be cleared whenever I'm with them. But I would honestly commit that mistake of joining all over again, because they were blessings in disguise to me.

Novus. There's really no fear and no shame being in this family now. We fought, we fell, but we stood together as one all the way from the start to the end of this journey, and the many more that's coming. We were the dark horse of the orientation, from being a zero, to being our very own heroes. They may have taken down the Novus flag, and got done with Prima Volta, but nobody can take away that Novus part of me no matter what I do, or where we go.

Here's to the one and only... NOVUS.

We are the perfect storm.