HELLO FRIENDS AND READERS! I'M BACK WITH A WORDY BUT HEARTFELT BLOGPOST.
I really enjoy blogging with just words actually. :O K la, I promise to have a Part 2 to this with shitload of photos for your viewing pleasure k! :)
This entire month of March was a hectic one for me. On one hand, I am expected to pass all the prerequisite tests during my training for my career. That probably sounded easy to you, but it made my month of March hell. 3 difficult and unfamiliar modules, totally unrelated to what I had studied in my past 18 years of education, to pass within 2 weeks and on the other hand, submission of vlog and blog every single friday for 4 weeks straight. 简直是要我的命 I tell you. Every single night, I only get to sleep 3-4 hours for the past 4 weeks and you cannot imagine how much I enjoy the luxury of extra sleep on weekends. My boyfriend, Leonard can be a live testament who witnessed the whole of process of me crying about the escalating stress level, talking less to him every night because of fatigue, dedicating bulk of my time on CNOS vlogs when I'm not a video-editing savvy person, as well as accepting and managing my stress level till date. I CAN OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCE THAT I SURVIVED CNOS 2.0 AND ALL MY EXAMS FROM 1ST MARCH TILL 31ST MARCH! And I've barged into April with a wide grin already. ^^
Enough of ranting.
If you haven't been following my blog and twitter, you probably don't know how much I had wanted to drop out of the CNOS challenges since the first food challenge. I was sitting at Shokudo waiting for my dinner to be served and suddenly i felt such GGGRREEAAATT inertia to take out the camera or to plan my script for my video introduction. I felt even more reluctant when I bore the thought of having to spend the next 2-3 hours filming and visiting all the foodie places. I wanted to give up since the start. It was Amanda, writer of
petiteloft.blogspot who gave me the push and ceaseless encouragement. Her words and presence are so powerful. If not for her, I wouldn't have made it so far till the end to even do this blogpost now, writing about my precious experience at the finals. THANK YOU AMANDA BABY! <3 :3
Honestly, frankly, from the bottom of my heart, i have to share some true words with you, my friends.
CNOS took a hell lot of my time away from meeting my friends and boyfriend. Not only did I "give away" all my students/tutees in order to keep my body and soul sane from fatigue, I missed singing and doing my youtube covers sooooo badly. I still have a very long list of songs that are waiting for me to cover.
Through this competition, I did some soul-searching and realised that hosting and vlogging are really not my kinda thing. I did learn many new add-ons and functions in my video editing software which I'll never find out if i had taken my own sweet time without CNOS though. Every Thu night of March, I would be rushing, compiling and working on all my video footages to produce a 3minute video which I spent 3-4 hours on to make sure that every video snippet flows smoothly into the next scene, that the songs which I had chosen were suitable for the context, the audio volume was adjusted to optimum during talking parts and the list goes on. Not to mention, I am more confident and more efficient with my video-editing techniques now. It was like a crash course month to myself as I explored and rummaged through the computer software application headlessly with blurry eyes, stressed-up mind and deadbeat body with all the other commitments on hand. I dare not say that I am a pro, but I see the potential in myself to pick up skills faster than I expected. And to do last minute work. :O
I studied Psychology for 3.5 years for my love and interest to observe, analyse and see through the dynamics and pattern of human behavior. Of course, in reality it's not so academic la haha. But yea, this competition made me recall some stuff which I studied in the past 3 years. I witnessed how an individual opinion evolved to become very extreme when it was transmitted over to a group. Of course, the opinion did have very strong basis that stirred up the same level of vehement agreement across a group of 20 people. Oh well. I also noticed that a certain combination of the Big Five Personality traits tend to brew successful and well-oriented people. Whatever I mention are my own personal subjective judgment k, so don't take them too seriously. Lol. Generally, those who are highly extraverted, un-emo, very conscientious, open-minded and moderately agreeable, tend to do well in this blogosphere. Birds of the same feather really flock high together. (Y) One more thing before I end this segment. Nothing so much related to psychology, but i realised there are very immature people out there who do things that piss others off and can still feel shamelessly self-righteous. It took just 1 person who took a series of brainless moves to annoy the hell out of 20 ppl. 'nuff said right? If you don't know what you did, i believe the only smart move left for you is to clarify where your problems lie and decide for yourself whether to rid those detestable characteristics/tendencies of yours. If not, you are fated to stay as a laughing stock for good.
Of course, last but not least, the greatest gains I took away from CNOS 2 are the 1) valuable friendship of all the awesome bloggers and 2) the realisation of how supportive and encouraging 80-90% of my social circle is!
Let me elaborate on point 1 first. OMG THIS GROUP OF XDD AND XMM SIAO ONE! Those *erhem* more mature ones of my age totally don't sound or feel like my age because when we play, WE PLAY WITH SO MUCH SWAG TOGETHER. The dynamics of most of the bloggers make us a constantly ecstatic and high bunch of fun kids who blog and hang and sing with sho much
sehh. It must be some good karma i had accumulated in my previous lifetime that I got shortlisted to compete in CNOS to meet them. Even though it's a competition, (almost *cough*) everyone fought fairly and passionately in the pursuit of their dreams and/or personal growth (for me). These are the cream of the crop who are coincidentally gathered together to wreck havoc. I dare to say, if we are tasked to complete a fun mission together (provided everyone has the time), IT WILL TURN VIRAL IN SINGAPORE. :O We are meant to meet and we will rock our corner of the blogosphere in Singapore right. ;) CAN'T WAIT TO MEET YOU GUYS SOON. RAWR!
Secondly. I have said it before and I will say it again. I CANNOT THANK MY SOCIAL CIRCLE ENOUGH FOR YOUR CONSTANT SUPPORT AND FAITH IN ME. I dare not say i have any fans (except the physical ones with spinning blades) because I'm very humble one. (LOL) But I am proud and very touched and lucky to be in such a cozy and supportive environment and culture among my friends who would painstakingly vote for me every 6 hours (before the voting system was taken down due to bugs), who would take the trouble to accompany me travel to Cine so often to do video planning and filming for me and with me, who would publicize my blog on their own accord, like my blog posts, share my link, comment on my posts and tweet me their feedback. I cannot thank all of you my friends enough. At the end of the day, I didn't win any of the top 3 prizes but i already feel like a big winner among the other bloggers to have all of you my friends and readers who visit my blog everyday and contribute to my humble daily uniques even when I don't blog for a few weeks. I LOVE ALL MY FRIENDS REALLY! In return, I promise you to do up better blog posts to keep you entertained and updated with food reviews, product reviews, motivational reflections, recount of blog-worthy experiences and especially music covers. I am really excited about the upcoming months with a number of sponsors emailing me for collaborations and advertorials. Let's hope things go smoothly so I can blog more often and do more giveaways. :) Whether the stuff that I give away on my blog are expensive or not, must take part okay cos 用心良苦 ar! :p You are my motivation and inspiration. <3
If you ask me, "Ziwei, will you take part in CNOS 3.0 again?" I would have to decline the tempting opportunity already. I HAVE FOUND A JOB AND POSSIBLY MY LIFETIME CAREER! In love with it and I'm dedicated to put in my BESTEST in my career so I get to drive a sports car / open a singing studio / set up a business / invest in worthy bloggers and blogshops / be a better, richer and happier girl/sister/girlfriend/friend/daughter in time to come. I will reveal my job title when I am more confident of myself in my profession. I've started up a more private work blog to document my learning journey every week as I grow to be more seasoned in the industry. Those who are interested in reading it, email me or comment with your email for the URL! :)
Till the next blog post! :)
Love,
