sabbyloh: Recapping 2013.

Since everyone is doing it, might as well jump on the bandwagon. It's high time anyway.

The first half of 2013 was very different compared to the second half. When 2013 started, all I remember was being super paranoid about my GCE AS results. My grades were announced some time around CNY, and although they could have been better (I assumed ALevel was a piece of cake back in 2012 - biggest mistake in my life so far), I was fairly happy.

On the 9th day of CNY, my grandma passed away. At that point, I felt like giving up for A2, cause it kind of seemed to me that no matter how hard I try, fate has its own way of working. No matter how hard I try, things get snatched from me in the end. I had to skip many lessons due to my late grandma's burial ceremony. By the time I got back to college, I was waaaaay behind.

Catching up on the syllabus was hands down the worst part of my entire ALevel experience. Lecturers were too busy to tutor me privately as mocks were just around the corner, and coursemates had their own workload to handle. I recall spending sleepless nights flipping through heavily vandalised library reference books while downing cans of RedBull trying to stay awake. Nightmare. Ugh. (I foresee 2014 to be like that as well since friends are telling me how tough uni life is. But let's wait for my 2014 recap in 2015, shall we?)

Anyway, I got shit grades for my mocks. I think everyone did. Maybe that was what shook me and woke me up? Not too sure, but after that I stopped reading reference books and started to spam past year questions. Honestly, I should have done that earlier. PYQs helped so much more than dusty library books.

May & June 2013 flew by so quickly. After weeks of camping in campus and probably few hundred bucks wasted on 4-shot Starbucks coffee, I finally graduated from college.

After that, things got SO different. I felt so free! Life became colourful again hahahah.

Here are some pictures of the more memorable post-ALevel events:

Prom!

Left: Prom after-party @ Vertigo Club
Mid & Right: My first time at a rave! Dash Berlin.

Have since then discovered that raves are totally NOT my thing. I'd choose clubs over raves anytime.

I was also somewhat a frequent flyer back then! 4 places in 4 weeks, FUIYOH. Though they're not long-haul flights la. But still!

I can proudly say that in 2013, I've learnt to pack for vacations like a pro.

2013 was also the year I travelled to a different country alone. (Okay, just our neighbouring country Singapore.. But I was nervous, k! I had to travel around Singapore alone via public transport too!)

Universal Studios Singapore!

Also went to HongKong & Macau..

.. and Bangkok..

.. and Penang with my college classmates!

Super colourful life!!

But then September came, and most of my friends left to UK for university. And my Pinoy maid ran away.

I was bored and very often got upset about the +8 timezone difference. Plus, I had housechores to do!

My highschool gang, randomly named "WeeWangWang".
2 of them have left to UK and 1 to USA :(

The boredom lasted for a while, before I discovered this awesome blogging community. Ever since then, I've been busy attending events, food tasting sessions and meeting new people. Thanks to ButterflyProject, I even got contacted by PR agencies :D :D :D

Meeting new people!
And you see the bottom right picture?
SO MANY CAMERAS ATTACKING A PIZZA. #bloggers

Oh, and two days before Christmas, my brother contracted dengue virus and was down for a couple of days. Because of that, that I've learnt how to handle and treat (not professionally) an 8y/o kid with dangerously high fever.

So.. Yeah. That was pretty much 2013 for me.