How To Not Waste Time (no discipline required)

Ooh I haven’t written in so long. Hi guys!! *heart emoticon*

So the first month of 2016’s coming to an end so I just thought I’d write some things. For one, January this year felt a little different from previous years, because it’s the first time I didn’t have to start the year fretting about work (because I decided to take a break before I start my new job next month, which I am super excited about by the way).

But anyways, in the short period of rest that I took, God placed sufficient freelance opportunities in my hands, and as I worked on that + other personal projects, I learnt some really valuable stuff about time, because for the first time I could work without the stress of crazy deadlines.

So I just thought I’d write this list thing just as a public diary of these random valuables I gleaned, that have nothing to with the obvious ‘be disciplined and spend your time wisely’ advice, because if it was so easy to do that we'd all be ferociously winning at life right now, instead of being on the internet reading this.

(Note: This isn't a conventional list and is largely an opinion. But these are opinions that have been tried and tested by yours truly and proven rather effective. Results may vary for you but either way, I think I’m gonna be very helpful already okay because I’m pretty sure if you google ‘how not to waste time', all you’re gonna get are motivational articles abt how you should stop checking your emails so often or stop watching too much TV, which you’re gonna try and fail within 24 hours, and feel even worse about your existence.

So here it is:

HOW TO NOT WASTE TIME (no discipline required)

1) Spend time with Jesus.

If you don’t believe in a God or whatever, you can skip this, but I’m putting this first because personally I find it paramount to seizing the day.

Something happens when we tithe our time, and acknowledge that if we spend it with the Maker of time itself, we can assure the rest of it can be blessed.

You might think this takes discipline and I’m lying to you on the first step already, but I actually really enjoy this - whether it’s listening to a good sermon (ask me about my favourite ones), or just reading a few chapters of the bible (you can read it in the MSG version it’s a lot more exciting), it feeds my spirit in a way that lasts.

And the best part about this is that a lot of my best ideas come from hearing/reading The Word, when that wasn’t even my aim.

I feel like a lot of people have turned to TED talks and random inspiring talks to get their life together, but I realise they add no value whatsoever to your life, apart from that 10 second kick of motivation, and before you know it you'd have wasted your time by watching the video of that guy talking abt how not to waste time, cos you saw a cool related link and started to continue clicking.

No click baits in da bible. Give time to Jesus, it's worth it.



2) Be thankful.

Jesus gave thanks for the 5 loaves and 2 fish before feeding the 5000, and it multiplied.

Thank God for time when you don’t have any, and you’ll find it.

If I’m not wrong, ever since I turned 20, I would constantly feel “old”, when I really was/am not. And I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one to have outgrown teenage-hood and started to feel like “OMG IM 20 I’M NO LONGER A CHILD yet I’ve done nothing with my life”. 99% of you must've gone through that too confirm.

But a couple years ago, when I had a revelation about the power of words, I just stopped saying that. I realize that’s one of the worst beliefs any young person could ever have about themselves. So many of us jeopardize the potential of our endeavours purely by the strength of our own destructive words.

And before we know it, we become old. Not in a physical sense, but in the sense where we lose the zeal of wanting to do something spontaneous, or crazy, or remotely risky with our lives.

And ever since I started to thank God for youth, instead of moping about being unaccomplished, doors opened for me and I started to do more. Quit the vicious of cycle of being unhappy about not having time, leading to even more time wasted. Be thankful (not just for time, but anything really. Like your job, people around you, etc), and you’ll have more.



3) Forgive.

A lot of people waste too much of their time getting mad at other people. We always have reasons to get mad.

Like at the girl at work spreading false rumours about you.
Or at the taxi uncle who took you to the wrong destination, then refused to charge you lesser for the detour.
Or at the old lady who messed up your maki-san take-away order and now you can’t eat the entire thing because you’re allergic to prawns. I don’t know.

(Ok I’m not allergic to prawns that was just a very specific hypothetical situation.)

But mostly I realize that waiting till the anger goes away always leads to a better use of time. Utilizing 1) & 2) helps.



4) Don't spend time on people who don't value time with you.

This might sound like a contradiction to the previous point, but it really isn’t. Pastor once said that forgiving a person doesn’t mean you have to be their best friend and I completely agree. (If you are a judgmental human please don’t argue with me on this, unless you can prove to me that every single person who has been a jerk to you magically all became your best friends)

It might sound harsh but seriously,

Don’t give pearls to swine. Don’t waste love on people who don’t appreciate it (unless it’s your job to or something I don't know.)

It doesn't mean to hold a grudge, it just means, to move on. Which actually aligns with forgiving, when you look at it this way.

Ok I think this is important to me because I really value my friendships, and I love keeping in contact with good friends I haven’t met in a long time, and I like it when an old friend asks me to hang out. And because this is a rather diverse topic and there are many appropriate situations to apply this, I'll just focus on something that really peeves me: BAILING.

Hate it when people do it to me, hate it when I have to do it to people. I’ve only bailed on a date at the last minute like, less than 10 times in my life? And it will always be for a really important reason, and I will feel really bad about it and immediately initiate a reschedule. So when people I haven’t seen in a while:

Bail last minute with no good reason
Or
Bail repeatedly (>3 times in a row),

My time is clearly not valued. And if I'm not worth your time, neither are you worth mine, pal. Next.


5) Organise your life.

Again this appears to require discipline but it actually doesn’t when you realize how awesome it seriously makes your life.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME YOU SAVE AND HOW AMAZING IT FEELS WHEN YOU KNOW WHERE EVERYTHING IS?? LOL.

Okay so while having a major room declutter over the past month, I realised what I'd been doing wrong for my whole life is that I used to pack things, not organize them. When i’d “pack” my things, they’d be neat for a week or so, until I can’t find something and I’ll flip everything over to find that thing. And then everything's a mess again.

Packing has zero thought process and never lasts, but when you actually organize things ie create folders, boxes, label them etc, you don't have to spend time searching for stuff anymore. And it’s not just because they’re categorized but because when you’re sorting them out in the first place, you think about what you don’t need anymore, so you throw away all the unnecessary junk that you have to otherwise sieve through in the future, had you decided to just pack it.

And oh yes plan your outfits if you're anything like me, i.e. your brain is unavailable in the morning.



6) Part with bad art.

Again, if this doesn't apply to you you can skip?

But this is a total creative person time-waster and it can be the worst thing ever. Fixing something messed up rarely works, so if you're at it for more than a day, sometimes you really just gotta make the painful decision of dropping it, and starting again from scratch.

The longer you spend on it, the more uneconomical it will be to redo it, so it's better to stop now than to stop 2 days later, when you could’ve been 2 days in on the new work.

I know it seems like precisely cos you spent a day on it, you shouldn't give up, but sometimes we just have to admit that some work we do is bad and unsalvageable. We're human and no one makes good art ALL the time. We can't never miss the mark.

Get rid of it and start again at the actual standard you want to be at, or if you don't love that project enough to redo it, just get rid of it period. And move on to something else. And do that better. Don't dwell over past work.


And last but not least, I don't know why I seem to be the only person in the world who does this...



7) Check rottentomatoes BEFORE you watch that movie.

Why don't people do this?

I don't get it. Don't bother if its anything below 30%.
(I say 30 cos I've watched something at 31% and I actually thought it was pretty good lol. And don't look at imdb because they can buy ratings.)

Art/entertainment can be subjective, but usually bad is bad.

If you couldn't care less about anything i wrote so far, please at least heed this last one. No one likes finishing a movie feeling like it was a total waste of 2 straight hours. At least not me.



But okay that's it. Yay feels good to be writing again. Hope you enjoyed reading this.
Excited to show you what I’ve been up to! Will do so soon. Lotsa ADVENTURESSSS okay bye love y'all.

P.S. Because I am too lazy to really announce on social media and what not, here's a last-minute announcement that my good friend Josh and I will be at Lasalle this weekend (23rd and 24th Jan) performing at the Gum Tree Flea Market from 12-2pm! Come down and say hi! They'll be giving out free truffle fries and who doesn't like truffle fries amirite it's like fries but atas version. Ok see you guys bye.

An Embarrassing Story.

I have no ideas.

I’m literally staring at a blank screen right now and there’s a ton of stuff I’d like to write about, but I'm in one of those moods where I'm super hard on myself and every single idea I go through just seems completely unamusing to me.

Anyway I just thought I’d do a blind portrait of myself (ie draw without looking at the screen), just to see how good I am at it.

This is so close to my actual face you have no idea. Okay I’m gonna draw a few more blind portraits for fun. I’ll write the answers after, so you can guess it while it’s being drawn.

(Answer: My dog)

(Answer: Blind man)

(Answer: Orange)



By the way, just so you know how embarrassing I actually am in real life, I was drawing with my eyes closed in a Starbucks filled with people. I am generally not very afraid of embarrassment*, because of an embarrassing event that happened to me once when I was 13. It was so bad that every embarrassing thing that has happened since was a total breeze. I still haven’t found anything that can top that and remind me again of what it feels like to be truly embarrassed. Good times.

*by the way, I know my boyfriend embarrasses me a lot, which is different, because he does embarrassing things bY CHOICE. But I'm talking about the kind where you end up as the joke of the century out of nowhere. Okay read on you'll get it.

(AND NOW I ACTUALLY HAVE A STORY IDEA TO WRITE ABOUT.)

So when I was 13 and just entered secondary school, I was getting on the bus one day and I had this backpack that was fat-ass because I had to carry a ton of french textbooks to 3rd language class that day. You'll see why the bag makes a difference later, but just note for now that I was a very ugly awkward sec1 tween.

So I got on the bus and barely took 5 steps down the aisle,

When the bus uncle accelerated suddenly.

AND MY BAG WAS SO HEAVY IT BEFRIENDED GRAVITY IN THAT INSTANT AND THE NEXT THING I KNEW:

I was literally on the floor flailing my arms and legs in the air like an actual overturned turtle.

And struggled to regain balance and as I looked up to this horror of a sight:

^That thing at the bottom is supposed to be my knees. It's my attempt at a POV drawing, I tried.

It was the worst thing ever. There was this group of ahbengs from some irritating/noisy boys school sitting at the back row who just erupted in the loudest laughter ever, and everyone else in the bus was either suppressing theirs or also uncontrollably laughing, including like this random unsympathetic old lady who had the kindest face, and I felt so betrayed by her.

But anyways, I just heavily peeled myself off the floor and moved to the side of the bus to stand.

And so I stood there for the rest of the bus ride, as the violent chortles from the ahbengs at the back row continued to painfully echo throughout the bus… and throughout the rest of my teenage life.

The end.

Lol ok I know it sounds really bad but in retrospect I’m so glad it happened because now every time I embarrass myself it’s akin to getting poked by a strand of hair compared to that massive STAB I had at my ego.

Okay that’s it. I updated. I probably won’t update anymore for the rest of the year because CHRISTMAS!! Have a great holiday guys byeee


P.S. Christmas is over and I just wanted to say thank you to every single person who supported the mini merch I sold over Christmas! And to the cool kids who told me how much they love reading the things I write, you guys are awesome. Hope you had a great Christmas! ;)

What I've been up to: Christmas Cards!

Hey guys!

So ever since I got my domain up, I've been thinking of ways to sustain this blog. I don't really wanna put on ads yet at the moment, so I thought I'd try starting with a little store. And since Christmas (my favourite holiday) is around the corner and I've always loved giving and receiving cards, I thought it’d be nice to sell Christmas cards for the very first time!

I'm really just testing the waters first though, so I’m just gonna sell them through Carousell and Instagram for now.

So do follow @ifonlywefartflowers on Carousell and Instagram for updates kay!

The cards are in sets of 4 and I tried my very best to make them really affordable, and if you get them before December, you get an Early Bird Discount!

All details can be found on the store page, but I’ll list them here anyway:

Early Bird Price (Till 30th Nov 2015):
$5.90 for 1 set (4 cards)
$12.90 for 3 sets (12 cards)

Regular Price:
$6.90 for 1 set (4 cards)
$15.90 for 3 sets (12 cards)

Includes FREE SHIPPING to Singapore.

I’m also only doing 3 batches of shipping. Dates are as follows:
1st Dec 2015 (All Early Bird orders)
12th Dec 2015
19th Dec 2015

I’m also capping these at a total sale of 100 sets, so grab them while they last!

Aand that's it. I'll just talk to you guys a bit about the cards and the shoot.

Dumb inventions still being used today.

Every single time I get an automatic flush blast toilet water on my butt, I get really annoyed and silently grumble about it, but never actually do anything about it.

But today, after the millionth time it’s happened to me in my office building’s bathroom, I decided that this is the day the silence comes to an end. I’m sure I’m not the only one, and it’s time we speak up for ourselves and not let such useless inventions continue to devastate our first world lives.

Here are 3 of the dumbest inventions still being used today:

(Yes I know there are tons of stupid inventions in the world like neck holders and boob cushions and there are tons of lists of why they are obviously dumb hence eventually stopped being manufactured, but I'm talking about dumb inventions that don’t seem to be recognized as dumb and are still used ubiquitously today.)


1) The Automatic Flush.

Is it so freaking hard to flush after someone else?

I mean, it might be nasty if you walk in on a toilet bowl filled with a fresh pile of crap,

but IT IS JUST A BUTTON.

Press it.

Also, if you want to completely eliminate the scenario above from even happening, you can maybe, I don’t know, FLUSH AFTER YOURSELF you inconsiderate vile excuse for a human being???

I don’t even see what purpose the automatic flush serves.

It doesn’t ease the effort of carrying 100 rocks I don’t understand why someone thought it necessary to invent it.

They also always install a manual button despite the automatic flush because they know it doesn't actually work. Because so far, after 99% of every piss/dump I take, the automatic flush comes on when I am NOT done, and when I am actually done, I still have to press the manual button.

Only 1% of the time does the automatic flush coincidentally come on exactly when I am done, in which I would have to spring from my seat at that very same second to save my butt, but because one can never fully escape the fury of the automatic flush, I'll still get some minor sprinkles of flush water on my thigh or whatever. It's gross.

(^hee I used butt and but consecutively in a sentence)

Inventions are meant to make life better. And I’d rather just press a flush button.

Moving along.


2) Bins with lids (AND WITH NO PEDAL)

Okay, they probably used these in the past when bin pedals were not invented, and I can understand that we all want lids on our bins to hide the unsightly trash in the bin, or deter pests from swimming around in them etcetc.

But a better inventor already invented a bin with a lid and with a pedal already, which actually serves the purpose of making things more convenient so whY ARE WE STILL going back to the stone ages and having to touch the damn lid omg I can’t.


3) Sheer Clothing. 

Okay this isn’t really counted as an invention, neither is it dumb in perhaps certain countries, but it is dumb in the context of Singapore, because you can’t just wear this out in public with just a bra underneath (not that I want to anyway) because we are so conservative here.

And so you have to wear it with a top inside, and that’s where all the problems begin. 

Because as you know THIS COUNTRY IS A FURNACE, so when you strut around in 2 layers of clothing (one of which is made of suffocating synthetic material), you are bound to die of heatstroke.

And when you’re in 2 layers you’re bound to sweat more, so that’s 2 sweaty tops at once straight into your laundry. Because why wash one top, when you can wash two??

And also occasionally the top underneath bunches up and you look like you have fat layers made of clothes. It’s sad.

But in general:

THEY’RE NOT CLOTHES IF I HAVE TO WEAR CLOTHES UNDERNEATH. 
 
Although okay, I know sheer clothes are consumer goods and I can just choose not to buy them, but I’m just putting them in the list because I only stopped buying them after learning the hard way.

The first few sheer tops I got looked perfectly fine in the dressing room, even with an inner layer, because no one thinks of consequences when you buy outfits in an air-conditioned dressing room.


Aand that’s it.

I’m sorry if a lot of this was rather toilet-centric. I guess when you are alone in a stall you are very highly irritable? I dunno.

Oh wells hopefully this will reach the hands of some toilet/clothes inventors and they will see the light and production will stop and the world will be a better place.

But anyway on to happier things, you can join me next time as I discuss the best inventions of our day. (Okay I’m just saying this because I thought it'd make a cool closing line, I don’t really have any on my list)


P.S. My drawings are kinda neat today? I hate how I am so inconsistent omg sometimes I draw so messily but some days I'm fine. 


P.P.S. By the way, I wrote this last week and I only posted this on Monday (it's Friday now). 

Just making it clear in case my bosses finds this post (which I hope they don't because that would be weird) because there was no way I could've written this on Monday because I've had the worst week of my life at work. 

I had 5 scripts to write by today, which were handed to me only at the start/middle of the week. And that's not inclusive of the half day I had to be on a recce and 2 days I had to be on shoot = time in which I can't work. And that's also not inclusive of the wall mural I had to help paint. I stayed back past 11 for 2 days this week and I just wish for some consistency because I've had days where I literally have nothing to do and then this week I have FIVE to complete within the week I want to cry omg.

Ok actually, I already did. 

Like today when everyone went for lunch (I couldn't because I was panicking and rushing work and I asked Kim to tapao for me) I just had this 5-second speed-bawl to myself while I was alone at my desk to release my feelings but obviously I pulled it together by the time everyone returned because I am strong. 

The worst part of all this is that I am a horrible multi-tasker and I cannot do 5 things simultaneously (In a normal situation I would clear them literally 1 by 1 but I COULD NOT because I would have a phone interview arranged regarding Project 1 while I'm doing Project 2, or while I'm on Project 3 the client will say they want me to rewrite Project 4 by the next morning LIKE I DON'T HAVE A LIFE BUT ACTUALLY THEY ARE RIGHT i don't). And when I am switching back and forth from so many big tasks, WITH THE ADDED FACTOR OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION I cannot concentrate and I forget a lot of tiny things while trying to remember the big ones. 

My brain has just generally been in a coma this week. I seriously thought I was bad at multi-tasking and bad at mornings and then this week happened and I just blew myself off my own charts of failure.

Also the other worst part is that Raph is currently living it up in Paris as we speak and while I am telling him how I did not have dinner he is sending me pictures of his magic croissant for breakfast or something I don't even know. 

Okay forgive me rant over I needed to vent. I have been running on adrenaline and grace the past week.

I should get some sleep.

Nobody paid me for anything.

So first off, thank you SGAG for featuring the post I did on my boyfriend’s latest obsession. You guys are cool. Also, writing a quick one just to clarify this, because some people are thinking otherwise:  

It was not an ad. 

Yeap. I’m sorry to disappoint you (and myself lol). I'm really not as shrewd as you think I am.

I’m assuming the reason why a few people were suspicious or whatever is because they thought it was an ad, and that I didn’t put a disclaimer on it, hence that wasn't nice.

But here's making it clear that I'm no richer than I was like, a month ago.

Although thanks for even thinking it looked like I deserved to get paid. :')

Fact is I've been working a 10-7 job ever since I graduated 2 months ago and I've been coming home at 9pm (because inaccessible house woes) and staying up late at night just to sing songs I like, and draw stuff I like, and write things I like. Because.

But I guess it kinda pays off to keep at something you love? Because I've had so many people tell me today that they laughed, and that's worth more than all the sleep I've sacrificed, and worth more than all the days I've come home feeling lousy because I'm struggling to write corporate pitches at work and worth more than all the times I wish I could just give up in life and become a balloon seller. And who knows, maybe someday I can actually do what I really love for a living. That would be a dream.

But anyway thank you everyone who said nice things to me! I'm so happy to have made you happy.

The tiniest of things.

Sometimes when I feel too busy, or feel like I’ve too much on my plate, I take a step back, pray, and perhaps think about the ever-famous image of the pale blue dot. You can google it if you don't know what's that.

 “From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

- Carl Sagan, the cool astronomer guy who requested to get that photo of earth taken, who also happens to write beautifully. 

There’s a pretty dark hilarity in that excerpt and I sad-laugh a bit every time I read it. Because the truth is that we are all trying to cram the world into our hearts.

We think it’s too big, that’s why it can’t seem to fit. But the truth is that it’s too small and leaving too much of it empty.

And then I think of how the God of the entire universe cares for every person in that speck.

That he would send His son to die for me, so that I’m forever righteous, so that I can call him Daddy.

That infinite incomprehension of why the Creator of the entire universe would want to sit down and spend time to love me, a speck in a speck in a speck.

And that,

That’s what fills my heart.

The Point of Instagram.

Tiny pictures = Signs of life.

I will never fully understand the bizarre phenomenon that is social media but I suppose I like following friends and writers and artists and knowing that they’re alive and well.

And animals I like all of your animal pictures.