Year 2012

Since it is New Year's eve, I decided to do a post about a couple of events in 2012. This year has been different from the rest of previous years, because I spent almost half a year living outside of Singapore. 

January - June 2012: 

Shanghai Work & Study

In year 2011, I made the decision to sign up for an overseas internship that would take place in the first half of 2012. Given the countries China, Vietnam and India, I chose what I thought was the least dreadful of the lot - Shanghai, China. Even though I had a lot of apprehension about the impending "suffering", (I have trouble with Mandarin/Chinese & possess a slight distaste from PRC culture) I decided to go through with it for the sake of gaining an overseas working experience for my resume. An Asian destination was much cheaper than US/Europe, furthermore seeing how China will become the next world superpower, I felt this choice was the most strategic. Upon experiencing Shanghai for a couple of months, despite the pain of getting used to the winter temperate, I had grown to love and appreciate China despite all the nasty things.

I would count myself fortunate to be accepted into OCBC Bank China. Being a Singaporean bank, the bosses and higher ranking management were mostly Singaporeans and so we were very warmly welcomed! I still had to deal with a lot of Mandarin, because my direct supervisors and mentors were local Chinese. Even my paperwork and documents were in Chinese. For my first month there, I was struggling to communicate in Mandarin, and relied a lot on my housemates for translation. (I had C6 for my O'level Chinese and an Ungraded for the Oral Exam. D: ) But I would confidently say that I now speak Mandarin more fluently than before! (At least enough to hold a proper conversation, and more importantly, to bargain!) (;

Besides the internship, the program also required us to take a study program at a local university. I was enrolled into the prestigious Jiaotong University and had to attend classes taught in Mandarin. D: Although I didn't understand about 80% of it, I enjoyed the part where we went on a field trip to Nanjing.

I also grew closer to this bimbo seen above, who was my roommate for a full 5 months. She had to tolerate my bad temper, and nagging and even though we had like multiple squabbles (one time so bad that I stormed off but returned home with a packet of salad for her so that she will forgive me lol). But despite everything we remain the bestest of friends, and maintained a true friendship where we could speak our minds and not take it to heart!

Throughout my stay there, I did miss home a lot, but I had my loved ones come visit me, and I was more than happy to show them around Shanghai! Jac had flights to Shanghai, so she visited me a couple of times. So glad to see her even though her layover was only less than a day each time. The best part was being able to stay over at her spacious and luxurious hotel (:

Early May, my sister came to Shanghai for a holiday! Nothing beats having family around. I took advantage of the local public holiday to show her around Shanghai, bringing her to all my favorite haunts (like my favorite XLB shop!), and even to some new places I've never been.

As my time in Shanghai was drawing to an end, baby came to visit right after his last paper and we ticked off our 5th country visited together! Managed to secure a full one week of leave from work and we traveled to Beijing. Though I didn't like Beijing, going to the Great Wall of China made up for everything, For the first time in 5 months I breathed fresh, clean and unpolluted air, and most importantly, I conquered another world wonder! (:

Shanghai made me open my eyes to the world. It exceeded my expectations and I took away more from it than I expected. I learnt that my future career choice would most likely not be in a bank, it opened my hunger for travel, it made me appreciate Singapore more, and it made me more independent.

September:

Formula 1 Grand Prix

It was my first time attending the F1 GP in Singapore, even though it has been held in Singapore for so many years, and I was so so blessed to win a pair of 3-day passes to the event from MTV Asia! I had already decided not to go seeing the price of the cheapest ticket (I'm not one to spend on intangible items) and I'm so glad I backed out of buying them because who knew I would be going after all, for free!

We skipped the first day because we had school, but on the second day I brought baby because it's he had never been there too. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the race, I was more interested in watching the concerts! So happy to be able to catch Maroon 5 live. Huge fan of Adam here! (: 

On the last day we skipped the races altogether and decided to camp out for Katy Perry's concert instead. 

CHOPE!

We camped at the barricade for about 6 hours but it was so worth it! We were super close to her and no one was in front of us to block the view.

So close!

Officially, this is my 4th concert in my entire life. I'm really not a concert person! But no doubt her concert was amazing - the theatrics, effects, everything about it was so awesome! She is really a great performer. 

I probably would not pay to go for F1 again, because cars aren't really my thing. But I might again if the performance line-up will be as spectacular as this year's. Overall I was quite glad to be a part of it.

December:

US Trip

The highlight of my 2012, and the best way to end the year would be the family trip to the United States of America! Our first trip to the West Coast was back in 2009, and I loved it so much. Couldn't wait to go back again and so this year we decided to cover the East Coast!

I finally ticked off so many things on my bucket list, such as seeing the Statue of Liberty in person, and going to Times Square and the Nigara Falls, and especially getting to visit my third Disneyland (only 3 more to go!) For the rest on the trip, I'm going to leave it for a separate post on it's own.

Upcoming in 2013:

2013 will be another exciting year. I'm going to start the year off with a bang and am heading to Boracay  in a week's time with my close friends. In early May, I would sit for my final University exams, and as soon as my last paper is collected, I would be on a plane to visit my boyfriend in NYC (yes again!). It would be a fantastic graduation trip even though I had originally planned for Europe, but my love for USA is still strong and I can't wait to go back!

In June, I'm finally graduating (after four awfully long years!) and it would mark my first step into real "adulthood". Though I find corporate life rather dull, I'm happy to finally chuck aside my books. I'm also rather pleased that I am close to reaching my target honors class, and by graduation I hope to have achieved it.

Although I have nothing planned for the rest of the year just yet, but I have so many potential goals that I wish to fulfill and I hope that the upcoming year will be even more awesome than 2012. This is my prayer to myself and to everyone reading this. Have a great year!