the 2024 recap

i had multiple different ideas bouncing off my head on how i wanted to do this but i just decided to stick with the blog entry because i didn't want to go through essentially the same thing on my instagram again (will save that for the concert-recaps and stuff...read as concert dump if u like LOL)

2024 has been wild. i think i finally found what i was looking for the entirety of 2023 - solid groupS of friends. i feel like before 2024 began i never really had a solid group of friends to lean on - it was always a mix of individuals from here and there that i would go out with or study with. and i never really felt connected to any group. don't get me wrong: softball exco was great. but i think the initial excitement died out after people started to disappear from cca and there was some tension within the exco and also people got very busy with their other commitments in school, and outside of school. and being in two orientations in 2023 wasn't the most fun time because i had covid for one half of one (business) and ofc this same covid thing made me have a kinda bad rep in the other (freshmen) which is kinda ironic that the semi-big clique they had all kinda splintered now because of other stuff so...not that i lost out on much? 

but 2023 is old news. i think one of the biggest takeaways from 2024 is to just 'say yes, think later'. i'm totally not quoting a youtuber on this, but the amount of opportunities u miss out on by saying 'no' to meeting with friends, or friends + mutuals, or going to events is staggering. even if u HATE socialising, the world revolves around connections and putting yourself out there. i mean linkedin is literally the modern facebook. or so i think. 

saying yes now means that u can already bookmark that date with something potentially important and worthwhile. and even if it seems daunting at first, and you dread having to carry it out as the date inches closer, in the end u will find a way to do it because it is basic human instinct to present yourself nicely so u dont end up having a bad rep. of course different ppl have different 'standards' of normal but the general range is still the same so unless u r really emotionally disabled (pls dont cancel me on this), u should be fine. i will not take any responsibility if u say yes and fk up in future cheers

from going out with more friends, meeting new groups of people, and being a bit more unhinged in the later parts of the year, it meant that i was able to fill my days going for more meaningful activities. im not the kind of person to sit around and study in the library. ur grades mean less and less in this world. and life is, admittedly, becoming a more uncertain guarantee (conscious juxtaposition) because of some imbeciles in the global political system. so go for concerts, go for holidays, drink with friends, club with friends, chill with friends, stargaze with friends, bike with friends (or yourself and lose your phone)...these are some things i did in 2024 that i honestly am really happy that i did because these moments, however small or big, will add up to a year that i will treasure deeply because it has been profound. 

but not every moment is happy. no life is perfect. no day is perfect...okay i retract that. no WEEK is perfect. even the week when i got taylor's tickets on the morning of 2nd march for her concert on 3rd march and i had good meetings with my groupmates after that...that wasn't a perfect week. though it was by far the closest i had to one. and i will just summarise some things that i regretted in 2024. 

first, i think i realised that all this time, i have been afraid to get into a relationship not just bcos of my shyness and fear of commitment but also bcos of potential breaking up. i think watching money heist made me realise that the time u spent with someone who really matters to u, just to lose them because of some snap decision that u made to be urself is really hurting. and i think it is the best way to say that there needs to be a balance between ur own future and ur relationship with other people around u. everyone wants their own ideal life but if u want to keep people in ur circle u have to find compromises. nothing in this world comes for free. and sure while the memories are good, losing someone is not fun to mess with. not when i am a sentimental person that still can't get over a box of cards that a friend wrote to me in 2020 but have drifted from since 2022. 

second, don't be afraid to voice ur own opinion/thoughts. i think a lot of times this year i made myself suffer more than necessary because i didn't voice my own thoughts. getting overlooked (sometimes) in softball, whatever the fuck happened in co this year (really give too many chances), and also whatever the fuck happened in group projects in y3s1. there's a line that needs to be drawn about respecting someone else and their decency. and i think me, and other people, have allowed that to transgress far too many times this year. maybe it's just singaporeans (i think it is) but we never like to communicate a problem with a friend/groupmate (and for some people even their exco/relationships) until it becomes a fking hydrogen bomb and 'kills' everyone involved. sit someone down, tell them to their face where they are going wrong and how they can improve. and sometimes u have to be monotonous or literally scold them becasue they just won't know they are doing things poorly/not doing things AT ALL but they are ignorant to it, whether it is because they are clout chasers or title chasers or pretentious megalomaniacs that want to take all the power for themselves

to end, i think this is why i want to write a diary. recording videos and taking pictures are one way to remember something. but taking the video and pictures means that u remove a part of your soul from the live action and u sometimes miss something important. im pretty sure amidst all the recording i did for my concerts, i lost a vital moment here and there especially for imagine dragons because i practically recorded every song. so sometimes, it is better to internalise everything that happens, and when u have a moment to urself u write down, somewhere, how u feel about what happened. and that is what this blog is for. it is a written commitment to remembering what i have experienced and how life is written in the moment for oneself, and i should savour every moment because it will never happen again as it did. 

- steve, who is sorry for being a couple days late was just thinking how i wanted to go with this.