A Work In Progress

"Don't count the number of "friends" you have on facebook or the followers you have on Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram. True friendship is counted in memories, experiences,and troubles shared; It's a bond built up over time in person,not a virtual tally on the Internet. It finds you; you don't find it. A relationship forms, you discover common interests, and you realize this bond is the closest thing to romance that is possible. True friendship is a relationship without sex or attraction. It doesn't judge, gossip, flake, and get envious. It stands by you through thick and thin. It supports you at your lowest ebb and celebrates with you at your highest point. It allows you to be yourself, good and bad. And its a two way street; you give and take equally. Some people won't like you, and you won't like everyone. It's okay. None of that matters. What matters is meeting like-minded people who get you, accept you, and will do anything for you."

- A Work In Progress by Connor Franta

It's definitely the best feeling to have quality friends around. This is to Lionel, my favourite person who'd always stand by me whenever I'm feeling down, who always fangirls about Frank Rossi together with me. To Frank Rossi, for being such a great friend, whom I hold close to my heart forever. Here's to Ray for the best car rides and great music, laughter and carefree chats. This is for Dafinah who has been there since the start of high school till now even though we've been separated and are now far away from each other. Sylvie, whom I can relate to when I talk about dancing or Godly stuff. To Kelly, for the great Singapore times and all the fun gossips haha! At last to my brother, my only closest friend from the same blood, who would never stop caring about me and take tumblr photoshoots of each other, and laughing about the movies we watched, and listening to bomb remixes and EDMs and chill beats. 

This quote is for everyone whom I encountered in my life and choose to stay by me. Thank you all.

Endurance.

I've been dancing often recently, and I found that endurance is somewhat a hard thing to achieve, and it's not just something you can get in just one day. It's experiences which constantly builds up over the time, whether or not you're dancing, running or going through emotional breakdowns. Every single time I experience a downfall, I notice that I'll just keep getting better. I'll run faster, I'll stretch my arms further, be stronger in ways that you and I couldn't possibly imagine. One day, these pains will start fading away because our body have gotten used to these scars and falls, and pain will be nothing but an eternal silence of the sea. That's endurance, and it's great to know how it can make you so powerful in the end, isn't it?

The war isn't over yet, keep fighting kids.

HAPPINESS IN FRANK ROSSI

"What makes me happy is making others happy. I think best of the world in life is making someone else smile, like, 'cause if you make someone else smile you're guaranteed to give another smile back on your face. I love it, it's my favorite thing. Yeah it's really cool, and I love doing it."

This quote is taken from the person I admire the most, my long-distance best friend - Frank Rossi. He's currently signed with IMG Models in New York, and just turned 19 on 22nd of March. My friends (Lionel, Sofi, Liz, Dana, Naomi, Aaisha, Bella, Amber, Aina, Imene) and I made him a birthday video and he appreciated it so much and I think that's all that matters. We just want to make him happy because he has unconditionally made us happy for the whole time.

The world really needs more people like Frankie. People need to know that it doesn't hurt to make others happy, because in the end, you're definitely going to smile and laugh back, which creates this win-win situation. I've seen people in my life who shows off their mood to people, say if they are having a bad day, they would give you this sour/angry face, and you'd probably wonder, "what have I done wrong?"

The thing is, sometimes it's best not to show too much of your emotions out, especially to people who clearly have nothing to do with you. The best solution is to keep smiling, because when you smile, you're actually telling your mind "keep smiling, keep smiling", and eventually you would light your soul back up again without you being aware of it.

Frankie has never failed us in terms of trying his best to make us happy. He has always been a genuine and lovely person the whole time, always filming vlogs and videos to make us happy, even going back to Seattle to reuinite with his family and friends, knowing that one of his friend's birthday is around the corner and it would be great to surprise him. I can't thank him enough. I'm sure that he would succeed in life one day.

I love you so much Frankie, you're my happy little pill. x 
- Carmen (rossiconfessions)

FRANK'S SOCIAL WEBSITES:

Instagram: @itsfrankierossi

Twitter: @itsfrankierossi

Snapchat: @frank.rossi

le coucher du soleil.

SUNSETS.

I stumbled upon a phrase from the book 'The Little Prince' earlier which caught my very own eyes. It said:

"And a little later you added: 

'you know, when a person is very, very sad, they like sunsets.' "

Recently, my life has been such a mess, but it was worth it after all, because it has shaped me to become something more. The moon and city lights, which I initially thought was beautiful and good, swallowed me whole and ran away with my secrets in the dark, not intending to give them back. I tried looking for the sunrise to help me, but it blinded me for quite a while, enough for me to lose my way. 

Now, I've came to the sunset and dwell in it. I hold on to it, not because I'm very, very sad, but because this moment gives me hope, and it makes me even stronger every day. As the sun goes down, I'll always be able to tell myself that I've made it through the day, and I can make it one more.

It's funny how it takes running away to rediscover your soul. I lost both things, but in the process, I found myself. I managed to hold on to the little things around me and climb on.

"How beautifully blind are we to ignore the smallest things around us, for it's the smallest parts around us that gives us the power to do the most brilliant of things."

Je suis fatigué d'évasion, Je vais me battre en arrière maintenant

(I'm tired of escaping, I will fight back now.)

My Testimony

Through these years of journey with God, I’ve learned one important thing: God is always there. He always was, and always will be. I believe that everyone has their own problems, whether they’re 25 or 60. We are all in the midst of accepting the reality of this world, which isn’t just as we thought when we were kids, when we were free to do anything we want and people would still say it’s okay because we are still immature.

I, myself have honestly dealt with quite a lot of issues when I’m going through my teenage years, and at one point I felt thought my life was going to fall apart. I cried occasionally while praying to God at night, because I’d always pictured Jesus sitting next to my bed, accompanying me with a pair of saddening eyes, but He would say nothing. Eventually, my relationship with God started drifting apart because I thought that He wouldn’t give me an answer no matter how eager and how much I prayed.

One day, I stumbled upon this message written by Elisabeth Elliot from the book ‘Through Gates of Splendor’, which is a true story about how five missionaries gave their lives in the jungles of Ecuador, preaching the Gospel. The message said, “It is not the level of our spirituality we can depend on. It is God and nothing less than God, for the work of God’s and the call is God’s and everything is summoned by Him and to His purposes, the whole scene, the whole mess, the whole package – our bravery and our cowardice, our love and our selfishness, our strengths and our weaknesses.”

As I ponder on this particular message, I thought, maybe all this time God has been trying to tell me that He’s in control of my life, but I was just too busy thinking of the outcome I wanted. It has been God, and it will always be God who can be the only one to set up our lives this way. We would always ask God the reason we are suffering so much, but the truth is that, He is making us stronger for what’s to come in the future. God always have a reason to all of this, and He doesn’t plan for us to suffer in vain because He is in control, like how Jesus knew that Lazarus was sick but He didn’t heal him, because He wanted to bring others to Christ through resurrecting Lazarus from his death.

We are not always sure where the horizon is. The One who laid earth’s foundations and settled its dimensions knows where the lines are drawn. God gives all the light we need for trust and for obedience, and it’s best to follow his pathway because it’s the only road which leads to greater and greater blessings. What’s best? It’s leading all of us to eternity.

Perspectives

This fine morning, I woke up a little earlier and went hiking with my friends, and to be honest with you, it was pretty hard for me to get up when my mind kept telling me that it was a public holiday.

So, after climbing the hill (which was filled with mosquitoes, and I got bitten at almost every single part of my body, and it was really itchy and till now, I'm actually trying my best to write without having the urge to violently scratch at those marks) that we found next to a newly-built apartment, I came down, only to see something which caught my eye and made me stop in the middle of the track.

It was a millipede, a rather large one, crawling its way to God knows where.

Curious, I used my walking stick and nudged it a bit. The millipede flinched, and moved into another direction as fast as possible. I wanted to take a closer look of its numerous legs, so again, I tried to push it to the slope with my walking stick so it would rest there and I could see the millipede better. But, the millipede frantically flinched and kept wriggling itself so it doesn't let me get a grip of it. I was frustrated, so with a little more force, I pushed it up again. This time, I noticed that the millipede doesn't have such quick reflexes like it did before, and as it turned itself around, I saw the cut that I made with the walking stick on its body from pushing it too hard, hitting it at the edge of the stone. The millipede turned around again, and slowly, it struggled to crawl towards its destination.

When I continued my way down the hill, my mind was flooded with pictures of the millipede. My mind kept telling me, "the millipede is hurt because of you.", and part of me was so guilty, even though there were probably hundreds and thousands of others (probably millions) in the world and it didn't matter. As I was driving home, I started relating this situation in a different way. I noticed that somehow, I might have experienced things like this in life.

I think sometimes this is what I do to people, I want them to be like what I expect them to be. I want them to talk to me, so why aren't they talking to me? I want them to feel my pain and comfort me, so why aren't they doing it? I would keep provoking them to achieve and go smoothly as what I have planned in my head. What happens then? I eventually hurt them without knowing it. I hurt myself too, because I feel incredibly guilty after that. This is probably unconscious suicide or something, but I think I'm starting to understand things in this way better than I did before. 

Maybe my expectations on people are sometimes to the certain extent that I would do anything just to make it happen, even if it's already dying. Maybe I need to stop making up so many future plans in my life that I might not even know whether it's going to happen or not, because I'm not supposed to be the one who's playing as God. God is God, and I am supposed to just follow His orders and prepare for what He has for me.

What a time to be alive, to be able to find out the bad side of your seemingly good characteristics, and try to change them.

9 Things I've Learned in 2015

After reflecting on my life last year, I've decided to share a couple more things that I've planned to change in myself for the better in 2016.

1. Don't Settle.

You still have so much time in life, and in the future most of your time will be filled up by work. If you want work to be interesting and fun every day, if you want to work without having to think 'oh it's Monday, I have to get to work again. Same old usual routine.', then now you should start finding what you love to do. Work is not necessarily a routine, it can be something you enjoy doing and won't get tired of, even if it means doing it 24/7. Get out of your comfort zone, and start looking for your passion, don't settle until you found it.

2. Eventually.

"But what if I can't find what I love to do?" you may ask. This point is best for you. Eventually, eventually everything will fall into place. Until then, you should embrace the fact that life is filled with surprises, whether you like it or not, and you are to welcome them. Don't expect things to go as you've planned.

3. Don't Overthink.

Insecurities, fear of rejection, and so forth. Those are the things that's going to hold you back. Those are the things hindering you from doing your best and becoming who you are. Ask yourself a question, what if those things that you're thinking are the opposite of what's exactly happening? Wouldn't it change your thought of a seeing a good person as a bad one? So stop overthinking, clear your mind and live life without unnecessary worries.

4. It's Okay.

It's okay to fail and be bad at things. It's okay to cry yourself to sleep every now and then. It's okay to end up never speaking to someone who meant the world to you again. It's entirely O.K.A.Y. It's completely normal, and all you have to do is cope and survive, and know that the good things are just ahead of you.

5. Change Your Perspectives.

Get into other people's shoes and try to understand them. Try seeing things in other people's perception, you'll begin to see and learn how different people have different ways of handling situations. From there, you can pick up a few lessons and improve on seeing things in a bigger picture.

6. Be Grateful.

Appreciate every little thing you have in life. Whether it's from the little flower in the garden, or the sunrises and the sunsets, to your family and relationships, it doesn't matter. Feel thankful for their existence. Thank them once in a while for everything that they do. If they've impacted you in one way or another, let them know, and thank them for it as well.

7. Travel More.

Don't just travel for the sake of telling people the list of places you've been to. Go for a legit adventure, I don't care whether it means exploring in or out of your country, if it's something that's worth exploring, go for it. Meet new people from different parts of the world. Get to know them. Acknowledge the different languages they speak and their cultural backgrounds. Take many pictures, or film people's passion and see the way their eyes light up when they talk about something they love.

8. Writing is a Form of Art.

Take your time to think about life experiences, and observe people every day. Write your feelings down, or write to people who matter to you. Write notes to your younger self. Make music if you're bad with words. Draw if you're bad with music and words. Be as creative as possible.

9. Love Yourself.

Everyone needs to have self-love, not just by the means of being narcissistic and such, but in loving yourself for who you are. Don't wait for people to come into your life and make you happy. Make yourself happy because you deserve it. Admire your flaws, count your freckles, sing off key even though you know you're tone deaf, because at times, flaws can in fact be beautiful somehow. What's the point of becoming someone you're not?

- written by Carmen Summers -