A Page of Me: Top 5 Events of 2020

Wow, 2020 flew past much faster than COVID-19 particles. But in all seriousness, that was what essentially happened the entire year. We hear about COVIID-19 literally everywhere we went; the malls, the MRTs, on the television and oh, did I mentioned about the MRTs? Yep, they're possibly generating another COVID-19 announcement as we speak. Social distancing has been used so frequently as if we love to stand really close to each other. Being socially responsible is possibly a statement people use to make themselves feel more righteous of themselves, but are likely to be the real culprits of not following rules and regulations. But enough with the real summary of 2020, because in this blog, I'll be sharing with you what happened in my life in this hectic and crazy year of 2020. Here are the Top 5 moments in my life.

#5: My YouTube Journey - Jan 2020 - Dec 2020:

So before I ended 2019, I was very stoked to share with my followers about creating a YouTube channel. It would be a channel that would talk mostly about my life, vlogs, gaming and cooking, just to name a few. Many of you who knew me would know that I'm not the most vocal person in the world. In fact, I'm actually super introverted and shy. So doing this seemed to be out of this world in my own perspective. But I wanted to try something different from just blogging. After all, I didn't want to be known as the guy who simply wrote module reviews. And so, I started my journey on YouTube back in January 2020. Looking back, I created possibly one of the most cringe videos ever in the Mukbang episode. I bought some simple Macs for the video, but given my crappy videoing skills, I ended up taking 2 hours to film what was a 10 minute plus video. That said, all my food was stone cold and yes, the video was not so great either. But after that, everything started snowballing and I had ideas after ideas to create different kinds of content that would essentially represent me. That's when the podcasts, cooking shows, gaming channels and vlogs came into place. And after all these, I'm possibly only gonna be remembered by the time I nearly cried on video due to me opening up about relationship issues. 

I realised that there were lots of reasons why my YouTube channel cannot continue as it is now. And surprisingly, it's not the fall out of love for making videos, because I do think that making videos is actually pretty fun to do. It is not because I felt lazy to create such videos given the small pool of views that I got. After all, having more views creates more pressure for me to deliver and I'm not sure if I'm ready for it at this present moment. The main reason for it potentially stopping was because of how I started; on the wrong foot. In other words, my initial decision to venture into creating distinct content eventually made things all the more difficult for me to grow my channel. Many people like the tea I brought in my videos. And truth be told, I love the tea as well. Sadly, those tea cannot last forever because I don't go around finding tea everyday in my life. As such, I ended up diversifying into other horizons.

And sadly, that's a decision that would eventually result in me potentially discontinuing my channel. However, perhaps I would look back at this as a learning curve to know what I should and shouldn't do. I learnt a lot as a videographer, editor and content creator and I'm ready to move forward from what was a fantastic project that could have been much more, but has reached its limit. So to those guys that supported me, thank you for doing so. Supporting someone like me is like supporting Tottenham winning a trophy in the Premier League lolol. But thank you for supporting even when you know I was pretty shitty doing the things I did. Do stay tuned to find out what I have in store for you next!

#4: Purchasing of PS5 - Sep 2020 - Nov 2020:

HAHA, this is like one of my lowkey proud moments of 2020. Everything seems truly fated with regards to the PS5; from its pre-order, purchase and "repair". It felt like I truly bonded with my PS5 even physically. Sounds weird right? But hear me out in this story okay?

So everything happened on one fine Tuesday. After eating Marche with my girlfriend, I went around a particular shopping mall (you can guess which place this is) thinking of what to do with my time with her. It was about 8pm+ and I thought about heading back early since there was an early morning lecture the next day. However, I had this forever lingering feeling on my mind; the PS5. Should I ask about it now since I was quite a distance away from the shop? However, my obvious curiosity made me and my girlfriend walk a pretty long distance back to the shop. This was one of the best decisions I've made this year. Apparently, I could pen my name down on the pre-order list first and make payment on a later date. Little did I know, a bunch of people have already penned their name down, so there are obviously more eager people in this world other than me lol. 

And so, I penned my name down and was told to make the payment on another day. But the one thing I was 100% sure of was that I made sure I stood a chance to get the PS5 over others who didn't penned their name down. Little did I know, the pre-orders were less than 4 days away. On Friday, unknown to the fact that the pre-orders were open at 11am, I went to JEM hoping that I could pen my name down and have a higher chance of getting the PS5; the same thing I did previously. Do note that I only needed one, but seeing that other people might get it too, I thought it would be a good idea not to put all my eggs in one basket, or shop for this matter. To my surprise, I was turned down by the owner of the shop, with reasons such as the pre-orders were already closed as early as 11.30am in the morning. Since I was there around 1pm, I thought that perhaps they were referring to the penned down names. So I thought, maybe I still had time to roam around different shops in Singapore to pen my name down. Then a message appeared on my phone.

It was from the shop that I penned down my name for the PS5. It stated that they the pre-orders actually began today and that it would entertain customers, according to a first come first serve basis. I was obviously stunned because that's where everything clicked. But it was also this moment where I realised that I had no time to lose. Seeing the message, I immediately decided to Grab down as quickly as I could to get to the mall. My girlfriend, who was with me that day, patiently followed me without any disagreements or sadness. While in the Grab, I was frantically calling other shops to enquire about the PS5 pre-orders, thinking that I would not be able to make it in time to the shop. Thankfully, I had my girlfriend to help me source out contact numbers from other shops just in case the one that called me failed to allow me to make the purchase. 

Upon getting to the place, I ran out and to the building, with my girlfriend trailing behind because she helped me carry my bag while I made the run. Thankfully, I successfully made the purchase and all was good. The receipt I received after making the purchase felt like holding $10,000 in cash around me whenever I walked around. It was that precious. As days past, I heard more and more news about some shops turning their backs on consumers successfully purchasing the PS5, by instead giving their set to their own members who couldn't make it in time for the purchase. That got me worried as to whether I would end up in a similar situation. But thankfully, none of that happened.

Hence, when the day of collection came, I was buzzing like a mad bee. I was excited because it just so happened that my exams ended a week before and I was looking forward to get my hands on my new console. And so I did. Getting to the store that very day made me feel like a king for once. It almost feels like you're the first one to purchase front row seats for a Taylor Swift concert. The feeling is unreal and being one of the few who managed to seal a PS5 to yourself is simply unreal. There was a long queue of people waiting to collect their consoles, so along with my girlfriend, we joined the queue to collect the console. 

The console was as heavy as anything else, but my heart and head could not feel any more lightheaded as all I could feel was a moment in heaven collecting the console. I've been waiting for this moment for months now with saving starting as early as last year. And now I got it in my hands. Since it was heavy, I found it difficult to carry it all through the mall, the MRT and back home, but I did successfully make it back home in one piece through public transport. 

I got home, prepped an unboxing video and got the console out. The smell of good, new, fresh from the factory PS5 just tingled my senses as I began to set-up my PS5. However, after attempting to turn on my PS5 again, my PS5 just slept like Snorlax after a huge lunch. It just wouldn't budge or turn on in this case. At first, I thought that perhaps the plug or wire wasn't connected properly. But fears slowly turned into nightmares as I began to frantically search on the Internet, particularly Reddit and YouTube to see if anyone had the same dead console as I got. But apparently, no one suffered the same fate as me. The thought of having a close to $1000 paperweight just flowed through my mind. Could I repair or exchange this PS5? And if I could, am I gonna need to wait for the next batch of consoles? After all, there are 0 available stocks on hand after hard launch. To make matters worse, I could not enquire about this situation until the next morning since the service centre for the PS5 have closed for the day.

That night was a grueling night. I tried and tried again, but to no avail. My dad saw my pitiful state and tried to help me, but to no avail. Yet, I had an outing with my girlfriend to Jurong Bird Park the very next day. Even if I could get it sorted out, there was a small glimpse of hope that I could do that immediately after due to the Jurong Bird Park outing. Hence, the very next day, I made the call to the service centre, who thankfully told me to bring my set down to the vicinity to let him have a look. But first, I needed to fully focus on my trip to Jurong Bird Park with my girlfriend, or at least I thought I did. Undoubtedly, my mind was drifting in and out of the worry I had for my PS5. I still tried my best to focus and enjoy, but it just felt like a bag of worry just rested on my shoulders.

In the end, me and my girlfriend attended a late bird show at about 3pm. After the show, the clouds looked really dark and it could only mean that the next show that we would go to would not happen due to the impending rain. After the show ended at 3.30pm, my girlfriend thought that I should rush home to quickly send my PS5 for repair. After all, no one was available to help me repair my PS5 on my behalf. Seeing that there was a window of opportunity, I rushed home via MRT. Note that Jurong Bird Park was literally at Boon Lay. So rushing all the way back to the east would definitely take more than an hour. Unfortunately for me, I could not take my own sweet time since the PS5 repair centre closes at literally 5.30pm. Finally, after a grueling long MRT ride, I was home at exactly 5pm. 

I immediately packed everything back in the original packaging and called grab because there was no time to really lug this all around Singapore on a public transport. Thankfully, I got there in time and apparently, it was discovered that I got a dud device. "The first issue of its kind" as what the repair person would say. I truly wondered how unlucky (or lucky) I could be to even get such a fate. Of course, anything could've happened during hard launch, but this just makes me feel like I could win the lottery 10 times in a row. And to my surprise, they did have a spare PS5 lingering around. In the end, I got the spare set and off I go on my way.

So I felt so so blessed throughout this entire journey, less so for the carrying of the PS5 because it was darn heavy, but it truly made me appreciate my PS5 much more than just a console for games. I sound crazy right?

#3: Teaching Tuition and Moving Forward - Apr 2020 - Dec 2020:
It seems like yesterday that I was just sharing about teaching my first ever JC student. After that short stint as a JC tutor, I stopped temporarily due to some personal issues during the first quarter of the year. But along the way, things started to get a little wayward during tuition and hence, the story I'm about to tell you today was me nearly losing all my passion as a tutor.

In April 2020, I was successfully accepted for a tuition assignment for a JC2 kid taking a private candidate. I was excited for that opportunity because I love a challenge in teaching a JC kid and to teach a kid in private candidate could seriously mean that the kid was willing to learn. So I was looking forward to teaching him. I remembered my first lesson to be one day before the start of CB and it would be the day I knew the challenge that I was looking forward to, was a challenge near impossible to beat. 

This JC student of mine turned out to be mildly autistic. His movements were very slow, very inactive and his body just seemed physically there, but mentally, he just wasn't. And the worse part of the situation, was that he did not even utter a single word throughout my lessons. The usual "teacher, I have a question", "yes", "no", "I don't know" or "can we focus on this topic today" were just replaced with utter silence. Only my voice and the boy's mother's voice could be heard. I was internally shell-shocked and left with a situation of helplessness. Doubt grew upon me. I was not trained for such a situation like this at all. 

And you might think that I should've dropped the tuition immediately the moment I knew that my tutee required special needs. Yes, I do not disagree that I should've dropped the tutee when I knew. But to be honest, during the first lesson, I thought he was so shy that he acted this way. His mother and the tuition agency did not reveal to me that he required special needs. Besides, asking his mother about this was rather rude in my opinion. That's why I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was shy and still tried my very best to do what was needed as a tutor as I would for the rest of my students. But as lessons gone by, I realised that it was clear something was really wrong and eventually, after three months, the mother herself admitted to me that the student has a disability that made him act this way. I really wanted to end the tuition the moment I knew the truth, but the mother has sincerely asked me to continue helping him and while the teacher side of me felt that I shouldn't continue with this student, the human side of me felt that I would only trouble the mother more if I told her I didn't want to continue. Besides, it was Phase 2 by the time I knew about the situation and A Levels was already nearing by. Finding a suitable tutor during such a pandemic was a tall order. 

So I decided to continue to give my best and more for him. I provided all the help necessary and every lesson, I was greeted with the same silence that felt more so than the previous lesson. Despite putting my best effort, the tests that I've provided him were returned close to blank. I would never know what he doesn't know because he refuses to talk to me. So this left me in a constant state of helplessness, possibly the most painful experience I had to go through. As I continued to strive to teach him, I ended up becoming sadder after every lesson. Every time I ended tuition, I needed a few minutes after I stepped out of the house to really center myself because it was really mentally exhausting to teach a special needs student. If I went back home after teaching him, I would just lock myself in my room and close my eyes to rest my head from all the exhaustion.

It truly was a time where I felt like giving up for the first time in all of my stints as a tutor. No one was there to truly hear me out asides from my girlfriend. To make matters worse, my mom did not ever once empathize with me and the situation I was facing. So my stress was building up each week and bit by bit, the feeling of hating to teach just started to creep in. Furthermore, seeing how the tests that I gave him were returned back to me with disappointing scores just added the icing on the cake. 

So that was the short story about my eventful tuition experience. It was one not to forget because of the turmoil and sadness it brought. It made me really feel like giving up tuition for good as a job because I felt worthless as a teacher and tutor. Thankfully for me, that tuition episode has already ended with the student successfully finishing his A Levels. However, in a surprising twist, I ended up having 3 new JC students and 1 new secondary school student that made me feel more than wanted and appreciated. My joy for teaching has returned, though a tiring job. But, I feel happier knowing that my students are improving under my care.

#2: Breaking of Friendships - June 2020:
Now this is a very difficult portion of the blog to write because till this day it still has an effect on me. They say if something doesn't affect you much, it probably wasn't worth something in your life. But I guess, a little part of me can't deny that this event has been one of the main highlights of 2020. Of course, you guys came here to hear the tea and tea is what you shall hear:

So there were 4 of us (not naming any names). Things were already starting to get rocky between two of my friends, C and B last year, and despite patching things up, it was very clear that neither party truly buried the hatchet as they promised to. It took perhaps a total of 3 days for me and friend A to help patch things back together between the both of them and we let that day past as if it didn't even happened. Not to mention, that friend C used to have occasional problems with friend A. The only thing that did not happen last year were problems between me and friend C. However, all this changed this year.

This year particularly, I noticed friend C changing a lot. He started to become his "own man" so to speak. He cared a lot of things a normal 24 year old would not care of at this point in life, like marriage, stocks, housing, etc. And good for him that he knew what he wanted, because I do wish that I was able to have a proper life goal myself. However, I did also think that along the way, he grew to become way over his head and thought that he knew way more than he thought he knew. In other words, it was dangerously veering towards a path of arrogance and belittlement, thinking that he knew it all and that we actually don't. Apart from that, friend C also thought he knew what was best for friend A and my love life and attempted to take matters into his own hands to help the both of us; a help that me and friend A did not appreciate because it was after all our own business and we could handle it ourselves. Lastly, friend C was rarely present in our meetups. Whenever friend A or B hosted meetups at each other's homes, friend C would usually be absent. But whenever friend C hosted meetups, we were usually there. Football meetings aside, whenever it came to the real bros meetup, friend C would be the missing piece in our group, which were largely unfair for the rest of us. Finally, after many years and after perhaps to be the only one to not have a problem with friend C within the group, I eventually started to have some issues with friend C.

So these issues rubbed me the wrong way and it started to build tension between me and friend C, particularly, during the March period and eventually during the Circuit Breaker period. Hence, during the Phase 2 period, I, along with friends A, B and C met up at the Bugis+ Prawning place. As usual, place and time were set by friend C, much to the unhappiness of the rest of us. But we did meet after all, to actually settle the issues between me and friend C. 

I had to be real. Usually I'm a kind of guy that would be giving people what they wanted to hear sometimes; perhaps just to make the other person happy or just to make peace amongst everyone. But I was not having it. I wanted to come clean and truly say how I felt. And for one, I felt like friend C needed a dose of reality of what was truly going on around him. So I did as I planned to do. I called out friend C fake superiority and strong ego as a façade for his very apparent inferiority and called out all the unfairness that was going on around for years that has made not only me unhappy but friend A and B unhappy. As expected, friend C denied thinking he knew more than we all do, but went on to also deny that he has a fake superiority to hide his true inferiority. Friend C was also strongly against the unfairness in meetups and instead blamed us for hosting places that was apparently "inaccessible" for friend C, like going to the 21st story of friend's A home or going to places like bars despite us never insisting that he should drink alcohol. In other words, I felt that the entire conversation has been just him saying that he is essentially right and that we should conform to his way of thinking. Halfway through the conversation, I just gave up and thought that friend C wouldn't change any of his ways no matter how hard I tried. This was when friend A and B started to argue with friend C about every single disagreement and unhappiness from the past, to which friend C would refuse to address them as it is in his nature to not address things from the past. Things moved back and forth without any major conclusion or agreement. After 2.5 hours of argument and debate, friend C and the rest of us went our separate ways, and that was the last time we 4 would meet with each other as friend C went on to cut us out of his life for good.

Within the next few days after the incident, friend C continued to cut us out from his life by blocking friend A and B on their Instagram and Facebook. He even kicked all of us out of our common WhatsApp group. Friend C, however, did try to reason out his stance to me privately on WhatsApp in a last ditch effort to convince me that he is right and that friend A and B were wrong. However, from a neutral point of view, friend C was trust trying to conform me to his views, understanding, and trying to make me agree with his point of view, to which I strongly disagree despite taking a much needed neutral stance. Friend C eventually stopped talking to me after failing to get me to agree with his point of view. Thankfully (or not), friend C did not block me from any social media, unlike the fates of friend A and B, but it was a month that truly defined the end of a 7-year friendship between us and friend C.

So the big question now is whether do I have any regrets in the things I've said or did with regards to friend C. The answer is no. I do not regret because I wanted to try to break the ego of his, built upon by people conforming to him and barely anyone disagreeing with him. But since he would not budge or actually thinking that perhaps I might have a point in saying what I said (and trust me, apart from friend A, B and me thinking that he has a huge stubborn ego, many others are also saying the same thing), he still thought that he was right. That's when I realise that me and him can no longer see eye-to-eye moving forward, much less friend A and B who perhaps dislike him now more than I do. In fact, I don't think that the word dislike should be used when it comes to me and friend C. Because I've decided that what was done should remain done. No point to harbor on what he did or didn't do. I have moved on and so did he. 

The 7-year friendship was great. But life moves on and me, friend A and B have found greener pastures in other areas of our lives. Sometimes I do wonder what would happen if friend C would apologize... 

#1: Getting Attached Once Again - July 2020 - Present:
Finally, among the multitude of challenges, setbacks and disappointments that I've received this year, the main highlight has to be the fact that I'm attached once again.

For the sake of her privacy, I'm gonna keep this short, sweet and as private as I could possibly be. But the story of how we met and eventually got together was too hard for me to pass. So it was on Good Friday when I first talked to my now girlfriend. And it was truly a good Friday indeed (so sorry :(), because all the gears started turning since that day. What made it even more special was the fact that it was during the COVID-19 season. Everyone in the country was pretty much in a lockdown and suffering with the lack of interaction, love and meetups. While of course, due to the lockdown, meetups were impossible. But it was during this time that we allowed ourselves to truly get to know one another, know what we wanted and allow our love to blossom without the need for fanciful dates, expensive items or the physical touch. In other words, we were literally just left with daily chatting via text and while some couples felt like the boredom will eventually consume them, we just did what we were handed with few complains. 

And for two months, given that the lockdown extended, we held on to that feeling that things were gonna get better. Dates were gonna eventually come by and we are gonna enjoy them. But I was truly thankful of the lockdown period. Because it also made me truly realise that I wanted her as my girlfriend. For someone who was yet to actually meet the other person in real life, this was truly a bold statement to make considering I only saw her through Skype about once or twice a week. But yet I knew and it wasn't long before Phase 2 came and we are able to see each other in real life.

The eventual meetup only ended up confirming what I initially wanted and after 3 months of getting to know each other, we got together. Maybe to some of you, you may feel like this is somehow a bit too fast. However, during the initial conversations that we had, it was discovered that I actually admired her in school about 2 semesters prior to actually officially talking to her. So I was rather surprised that the girl I once admired was talking to me at this point in time. Of course, some of my friends were shocked about it because it wasn't too long ago that I made a YouTube video about how my most recent date ended up in total tragedy. So for me to get attached a few months later was pretty much a shocker. Not gonna lie, it wasn't something that I expected either, but everything just clicked so well that event after event came by so fast and eventually, we got together. 

So you might be asking how is she different from the other girls I talked to or dated or was attached to before? Well, I would say that compared to the people that I've been attached to, she does not give me signs of uneasiness when it comes to potential cheating. In other words, there's an aura of security with her that was severely lacking in the other 2 girls that I was attached to. She also was willing to help me grow as a person through the best of support in all areas. Whether it was mental help or emotional help, she has always provided support whenever I needed it. She also has a direction in life, something that most girls I dated lacked a lot. This makes her steady in everything she does. And lastly, but certainly not the very least, she complements me in nearly everything; lifestyles, studying, gaming and many more. Yet ironically, we are similar to each other. So that's the few things that made me attracted to her.

To me, she is one-of-a-kind and I'm happy that our lives crossed path. Despite not having the initial dating life that couples would envision of such as going to the movies, cafes and outings, we still fostered a strong relationship that was like none other. 

Okay, that's all for the Top 5 Events of 2020. Other memorable events that have happened to me is that I'm just half a semester away from completing my NUS journey and studying as a whole heh. This has been one heck of a long journey and 2021 will only be just another fruitful year for me. Oh, and I was also selected for a MOE interview after like 3 attempts. Crazy, right? As promised, ggdotcom aired the "Crossing The Cheating Line Part 2" early during April/June. However, due to an even hotter demand, "Crossing The Cheating Line Part 3" was also released a month later. Never knew people like to know how you cheat yeah?

But anyways, next year will be a brand new year with brand new adventures. Hopefully COVID lightens up so that we are able to do even more new things in the upcoming year. Thank you for all your support once again... I hope to be able to produce more exciting content for you guys in the future. Wishing you guys a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Byeee!