CRAZYANKA ♥

I drew the above photo a few days ago to “commemorate” the start of my life in Singapore. If you’ve read my old posts, you’d know by now that I’d be taking up Visual Communication in Singapore, and that I’d be living there alone.

I’ll be leaving the country for good on July 13, and it’s so close already! In the night time I find myself touching walls and taking in the environment because I know I won’t be able to come back home in a while, and that when I do come home it won’t feel the same way anymore. It’s a very emotional experience. Sometimes it feels like I’ve already left but in reality I’m still here. I confuse myself too, so don’t worry if you didn’t get what I just said!

So I visited my school last July 5th to attend the second day of the orientation seminar, so I got the chance to be acquainted with my new classmates and lecturers. It is without doubt that I could say that I am yet again the youngest of my batch, and probably my school. The minimum age requirement for students here is that he/she must be sixteen years old, and technically I’m still fifteen, but I’ll be turning sixteen by the end of the month… so yeah!

I was told that the sessions didn’t have a lecturer-and-student atmosphere. When I arrived at the orientation, I felt so out of place since I didn’t know anybody (of course) and I didn’t have the guts to just say hi to a random person. Luckily someone talked to me and introduced everyone in the room for me, and she and other students started joking around and it made me feel a lot more comfortable. She was wearing a very youthful outfit, and she even had multiple ear piercings, so I was quite shocked when I learned that she was actually one of the lecturers!

Most of my classmates are Singaporean, but I also have classmates from Indonesia, Maldives, and Serbia. I haven’t met my dorm roommates yet, but I do know that they are of Vietnamese and Chinese descent. Pretty cool, actually! I hope I end up picking up a new language in my stay here.

On July 4, I learned that I had to attend the orientation seminar the next day, July 5. I didn’t have any new clothes at that time, since I planned on recycling an outfit the next day since we had a flight back to the Philippines on the night of the fifth. Since I didn’t want to look trashy on my first day of school and since I have the awesomest parents ever I had a Forever 21 shopping spree! But there was a twist — we made it to the store at closing time! So we were all dashing around looking at tops, accessories, and undershirts. I ended up buying an off-shoulder top, black lace-y skirt,and a striped sleeveless top used as an undershirt For accessories I grabbed a neat necklace with a studded cheetah pendant and heart stud earrings (which my mom picked out for me!) I also ended up borrowing my brother’s sling bag since the one I brought with me was khaki in color, and it wouldn’t match my outfit (super shallow! HAHAHA) and I’m also using hand-me-down Chucks from my mom, which my dad bought for her a few years ago

At the end of the orientation seminar, we ate pizza and chicken drumlets! Super refreshing after having played games and a variation of a water balloon fight.

Tomorrow would be the last time I’d get to sleep on my own bed. I really can’t believe it yet. It still hasn’t processed that I’d be leaving for such a long time, but I know I could handle this. I trust myself and I trust my family well enough to be able to live on my own, but one can’t help on being emotional about leaving. At least for me. The longest I’ve ever left my family was for about a week, when I went on a summer camp in Bataan. So I guess leaving my family — and everything I love, own, and known — for a couple of years is a really big step, but it’s not impossible! I’m not exactly the poster child of independent teens, but I can always be a child my parents can trust on something as big as this.

Hello, fifteen and independently dependent!