Feeling... Frantastic ;)

Hey-o! Hey-a! Um, hey!

(Awkward greetings are sort of my signature thing hehe)

Well, yeah. It's been a good.... 4 months (?) since my last post and I've realized that I often promise to write more and never actually follow through (sowwy!).

Anyways, that is definitely going to change soon, because, guess what? I AM DONE WITH MY O'LEVELS. Well, sort of. I made it through hell week, which is the bulk of all the stressful written papers, and now I only have 2 one-hour Multiple Choice Question Papers to think of, and they're spaced quite a bit apart, so I can sort of study but be chill about it at the same time.

Last post, I was in the middle of Prelims 1, and life kinda got pretty hectic from there. School kicked into overdrive and I had to like revise (had to, not to say that I did... I procrastinated, that's what I do :p) for Prelims 2 which was only a few weeks after. Yeah, there was a lot of studying involved, and there wasn't many fun things going on, or at least, nothing worth blogging about. I could've made some emo/sappy post about my feelings, but naaaah, had a bit too much of those on this blog already.

Gosh, I'm rambling. um how do u woRDS.

Okay. So, there were some pretty good things that happened towards the ends of the past few months. With the realization that O'Levels were coming came the realization that my time as a Secondary school student here in CJC Hostel was coming to an end. Like 2 years, gone. Just like that. And so I decided to make the most of it.

Back in October, the 11th to be exact, my hostel (or dorm, whatever you'd like to call it) held this Farewell Party for the graduating batch. It was organized by my juniors and it was a really cool Oscars/Awards Show themed thing. Me and my best bud, Ben, decided to 'match' (in the end we didn't really, but we both wore blue so close enough?). Maybe I should post a pic if Ben's cool with it.

But the BEST PART, without a doubt, was the fact that I got to perform. I was involved in two performances, one was a singing performance with the other Sec 4 girls in my batch. We did a mash up of Westlife's My Love and Ed Sheeran's All Of The Stars (it sounds kinda weird, but it worked!) followed by a rendition of Bastille's Pompeii (I love that song). It was really fun to prepare and gave me all these like farewell feels.

BUT (was is with all the buts in this post) even BETTER was the dance performance I sort of 'captained' I suppose. Now, I don't think I've actually said this on my blog, but I am obsessed with dancing. I was in my school's dance club back in the Philippines, back in 2nd Grade, and I would've stayed in it for years until I graduated, but then I moved to Indonesia, and I wasn't really able to continue dancing. (Disclaimer: when I say dancing here, it was really nothing high-level. If you're thinking I did all these ballet moves or anything, just, just stop. It was 2nd Grade so the moves where really simple. I did learn how to cha-cha so that was fun.)

When I came to Singapore, everyone sort of knew I used to dance (I think I mislead them though, and they thought I was really good at it) and last year, one of my seniors asked me if I wanted to perform at farewell. I was really hesitant at first, but in the end thought it would be fun. We called ourselves #7 (read: Hashtag 7) because there was only seven of us, and the performance went really well (better than I expected really). Though I was horribly, cringe-worthly off beat at some parts.

Fast forward, to this year. After seeing how well last year's performance went, I decided to perform again this year. So I recruited the other Sec 4's and I thought they were gonna be hard to convince, but they were surprisingly very enthusiastic about it. We called ourselves #8 (even though there were 12 of us) to keep the tradition going, and yeah. We did a Waltz, some K-Pop and even a Hip-Hop number, and I can confidently say, we went above and beyond what #7 did last year (yay for self-improvement!!)

I actually uploaded videos of the performances on my Youtube channel (actually just my Google account) and if you want to see them, click here!

 

What else has been going on..... ummm...

 

So farewell was really fun, and sort got me on this weird high. Sadly, the end of farewell, meant that O'Levels was even nearer. So yeah, I got through the worst it. Studying for Os was kind of infuriating, mostly tedious and really, really stressful. Most of my papers went well, so hopefully my results will be good next year.

 

I've also been really, really, really happy lately. Now, for me, happy is word I kind of don't use, because I don't use it lightly. For these past few years, my feelings of happiness are far too often erratic and fleeting, that it's hard for me to see myself as a happy person. It takes a lot to make me feel genuinely happy, as in being happy and in a good mood and smiling and laughing quite an extended period of time. And lately, I can sincerely say, that I've been happy.

 

This sudden wave of happiness all started when my best bud, Ben, (yeah, I think you're gonna hear a lot of references to Ben on this blog) in the midst of studying and stress, decided to show me a Youtube video, namely this one.

 

So yeah, it's a Tyler Oakley video, and I've known Tyler Oakley for quite a while. Before I moved to Singapore, which was like 2 years ago, I was a hardcore, internet fangirl. Tumblr was like a drug to me and through Tumblr I stumbled on Tyler Oakley. He's a Youtuber, a pretty well-known one now, but a few years ago he was just starting to make a name for himself. I remember watching him doing a red carpet interviewing Darren Criss (Tyler is like the Queen of Darren Criss Fangirls. I thought I was a hardcore DC fan, but no. Tyler Oakley proved me wrong).

 

But I'm not here to talk about Tyler Oakley.

 

Ever since I moved to Singapore I sort of dropped the whole internet fangirl, partly because it was really distracting, and mostly because internet here kind of sucks and is hard to get. But when Ben showed me that one little Youtube video, I heard so many bells ringing in my head, that I just had to sort of slip back into the skin of me-from-2-years-ago relive it all and so I decided to start with the other guy in Tyler's video: Connor Franta.

 

When I heard the name Connor Franta it sounded very, very, familiar but I had no idea why. His face was strangely unfamiliar, but I knew that I must've seen Connor somewhere. So I look him up and then it hit me: O2L. This is the same guy from O2L.

 

O2L, abbreviation of Our 2nd Life, is this collaboration channel on Youtube that started off with 6 guys, who would post a video on their assigned day of the week (Connor was Mondays). O2L started just a few months before I moved to Singapore, and since I was a hardcore, internet fangirl I was obsessed. OBSESSED. Keeping mind that this was a new channel, not many people tuned in to their channel, and I was sort of fangirling over O2L (mostly Connor) alone, like I couldn't talk about it with my friends. But I loved it, a lot, for some reason, even though the videos started out kind of... you know, not as good as they are know, and probably because I just found it refreshing to see some funny Youtube videos especially when I had nothing else better to do.

 

Sadly, that craze was sort of short lived, and I dropped my obscure Youtube days behind not long after I moved to Singapore. But after Ben showed my video, ohmygod, the floodgates have been opened and Fangirl Karin has been reborn. So yeah, if you can't tell by now I am OBSESSED with Connor Franta. He cut his hair in the 2 years I missed, and it made a huge difference to his look, I mean, no wonder I didn't recognize him. And the boy with the Justin Bieber hair and a few hundred subscribers, now has an awesome coif and almost 3.5 million subscribers. I mean seeing how Connor has just grown so much and done so much on Youtube, is just inspiring, and also kinda sad because I missed the whole 2 year evolution of it. But at least now I have a lot to catch up on. Teehee ;)

 

You can check out Connor Franta's videos at his channel here. While you're there you might as well check out other Youtubers like Tyler Oakley, Zoella, Strawburry17, Marcus Butler. When you start watching one Youtuber, you sort of fall into this vortex and get introduced to everyone else. It's a good kind of vortex though, trust me ;)

 

So yeah. I am in a really good place. At definitely a much, much better place than I was in last year. Ugh. 2013 just makes me cringe when I think about it really. It was really bad, in hindsight. Can we just forget 2013 happened and like never mention it again :/

 

But yeah, I promised myself to be a better person this year, and with 2014 coming to a close, I like to think that I have kept that promise. 2014 has been a pretty amazing year.

 

I'm still trying to figure out why exactly I'm so happy lately. And it's not like I'm being skeptical and purposefully questioning my happiness. It'd just be good to know, you know, for future reference.

 

And it's really more than just these fangirl feels. I guess seeing that video, rekindling my obsession for Connor Franta and everything Youtube, has reminded me of who I was 2 years ago. I was this girl, who although I was kind of shy and wasn't that outgoing, was pretty much comfortable in her own skin, and was very openly, and shamelessly, very (overly) enthusiastic about the things that she liked, even if they were things not many other people were into or understood or found weird. I didn't realize this until now, but I really miss being that girl. Being that girl who was interested in a bunch of different things, and was just this ball of energy and fangirling squeals and feels, who also had so much optimism and visions for her future.

 

That's what Youtube represents to me, I feel. It's a group of people who despite their own shadows, managed to break out of their comfort zones and dared to go for what they wanted and just do the things that they love and love the things that they do. And who knows, maybe one day, hopefully soon, I'll be doing the same thing.

 

I guess this new 'happy' me, isn't really anything new. It's more of me sort of reverting back to my old self, though also with a more grown, mature take on things. It's hard to fully explain. Especially to other people, who are so not used to seeing me like this. I think they just think I'm stressed (which I kinda am, or rather, was) and my bubbly cheer will fade soon. I hope it doesn't o.O

 

Right now, I just want to keep myself on this high. I've got good friends I can joke around with, I have my best bud Ben who is totally okay with me being my weird fangirl self (seriously, I doubt anyone else would), I'm excited about the holidays coming (so many plans!!), I'm excited to go out and have some fun with my friend as much as possible before the year ends and yeaaaah. I'm just in a good place right now. I don't really want to question it.

 

OH and I just turned 18. I feel old. But not really. And I can also drink now *cheeky grin*. I honestly cannot wait until I am in my 20s and have my own place and just sort of go on spontaneous adventures, possibly involving liquor. I don't know. God bless the soul who will have to deal with my hot-mess 20 year old-ish self. Haha. Looking forward to it though.

 

Ohmygod this turned out to be such a long post. Maybe I needed to blog more than I thought. If you managed to read this far, then bravo to you, thanks so much for reading. I hope you're having a good day or night or whatever, and even if you're not, then I hope you'll feel better.

 

I for one am feeling, (as my bae Connor Franta would say) fuckin' Frantastic ;)

 

'Till the next post!

 

--Karin Novelia, Having a Frantastically Fine Time