The change in me

I changed in college. I know it, I feel it, and I am thankful of it. But I have been wondering about how much I have changed. I know the result, I know how it has make me the way I am now. I am less stubborn than before, and have a wider point of view now. I believe I have interact with more people in college than I ever had my entire life. And that's still tiny. Hehe. I am an introvert and shy person, after all.

But how I was processed to change, and just what causing it?

I have been wondering... and today I scrolled around the groups I am in in Facebook, searching for old photos to see the path I am walking. Then felt a wave of nostalgia 

*cue white handkerchief*

While I am screening and choosing the photos to show my journey to my current self, some of it are a very much remembered photos that I know will show my changes. But some others... I have never seen some of those photos, or never bothered to.

And from the photos, it's clear how much have changed I am, and the step by step process. In some time, it's express, while in other time, it takes so much time before I am affected

Let's start with the beginning :

                                                                                                                                                          

So curly. Much smile. Very cute.

This. Me sometime after admitted into uni

I am very influenced by the entrance ceremony that I promise myself that I would do my best here in this uni, that are said the best in my country. I had never really that motivated to do all I can before. Add it with my promise to myself that I will try to change myself in uni..especially in social life. I change my appereance (Curled my hair LOL) And well, you get a person who are willing to try anything. That's the start of the journey. The execution, though, is not as easy.

I joined organizations right off the bat. Two, to be exact. Theater and film cliques. I am involved in so many events people wouldn't believe that I am a shy, introvert, socially awkward girl, if they don't try to talk to me. It could be said that I enjoy the activities very much...

The event held by the film group....

...And me trying to put myself in the farthest corner

See how I failed?

.

.

.

HAHA.

I am horrified of people. I am STILL horrified of them even after I joined for 6 months. In fact, one of the reason I stayed is because I am horrified to the idea of talking to them to told them I want to leave. I'd always try to avoid them and run if I spotted one of my seniors.

No one know who I am!

Especially the theater members whose appearance is very scary. And they are very different set of
people from me. Confident, bubbly, love to show themselves to the point of narcististic, LOVE to hang out and socialize, attend many social events and in short, lead a social life very that I never even touched and never imagine it's exist outside the fiction.

But I still joined a theater competition which each new students in my faculty better participate (It's per major), and will help me big time in latter time. I am very awkward and shy around the people in my major, too, so I can't say it's a big progress now.

The gathering to welcome new members of theater group, Tesas, which I belong to even now

I could work with them, but not really anything else. I'd prefer to work silently than join them to enjoy ourself. I don't know what I am doing, and I'd avoid the crowd as much as possible. I tried to find another photo of me in this event where I am very involved, and all of it are a photo in the corner, trying to erase my presence. 

My treasured photo of Tesas with ME in it. Yes, among this narcissistic people who own tons of photos, I could only spot one or two photos with my face in it.

But really, I might not enjoyed the process, but I love what I have been through and what it brought me. It's long and hard, and clearly bringing me out of my comfort zone.

The past me will say "meh" of this kind of activity. 

Though I am not sure whether completely ignoring what I want for what I think I need is a good method of self-improvement, I am sure I would appreciate it more than doing only what I want and stuck at where I don't want to be.

While still not adjusted to socializing, the me I think everyone will despite is accepted.


And trusted.

The start of the commitment I could never back off

I grow to love uni life. Even when I still can't connect with the world, I want to try still. Who knows I am only couldn't connect with this different set of people? So I join one of the first wide-scale organisation in my university, the orientation to welcome new students.

The super serious me not noticing the camera

Well, I can connect more easily here, maybe because division is based on character as well. And there are wider range of people who I can interact with. Every one of them has a different views and opinions, and I have to face reality that... not only what  I do is important, because it will affect others.

I also join one committee of my major's event, Bookfest, and found the best senior I could connect to. She told me everyone in my major, not only my batch, has always been interested to me because of my clothing style. I don't know that. She is also the leader of my religious group senior in the campus, and invite me to help with the weekly service. I agree even though I don't really able to sing or play instrument. I am willing to help anything, trying to find my place.

And I found another organization, the religious group that I am fond of, but never really close because I can't find enough time @_@. I regularly become the Worship Leader there, thanks to theater practice I am able to, and that step by step built my confidence.

And... leaping through time, I am attending an international event. Hahah

It takes a long time before I am bold, confident, and brave enough to try something I always want to try : to connect with people outside my country. To experience the bigger world. The uni life had expose me to lives I never imagine I would touch and witness, and it push my curiosity to know other form of life more than ever

Yes my hair is back to straight

I tried once before, but I am too ambitious and haven't got enough preparation.

One year is needed to built my confidence and apply again. Luckily for me, the application is accepted in the first event I apply to. I am worried, because it's the first time I am travelling aboard alone, and it would require good spoken English, etc. I am worried I might come back the same girl who goes. I am affraid I can't connect and corner myself among the world displayed before me. But I am excited that I TELL EVERYONE WHAT HAPPENS IN MY LIFE! I rarely announced anything because maybe I think nothing interesting ever happens in my life (Which is not true.)

Peace!

Lucky me, that's not happening. There are only 3 people who got to go from my country, and so I can't corner myself. The event itself make activities that make it impossible to corner ourselves and be alone LOL. And while at the start of the event it still awkward, it soon melts off. 

Learn how to smile on photos, too 

Maybe because everyone is aware that we only have limited time, and with the fact that we are cramped with each other day and night, we open ourself quite fast. After all, we only have 2 weeks. Yikes! 

My favorite 3-person Indonesia representative shot. Miss this moment

. But during that 2 weeks, I learn a lot. A lot more compared than 2 years before it. I learn that I could be kind and get along just fine with people totally different from me. 

Sexy pose~

I learnt that when time is pressed, I could open up much faster, not the slow-to-know-me girl I always perceive myself to be.

First photo and tricked already LOL

That friendship could form much faster and last much longer, it's just with who you are bonding with.

Me sneaking to fit into the photo :P

 That if I want to be involved, it's okay, no one would object unless I am a disturbance

The closing ceremony...

And that if I can be a lot nicer, talkative, friendly, curious, and okay with close proximity with people I have only met and know for 2 weeks, why can't I for the people I have known longer? Not because their personality of course. Personality clashed everywhere.

Upon returning beck home, I am faced with the test to test my development... haha. To be the project officer of one of the national-scale performance of Tesas. With only 2 months left. HAHAHA. And, I also have to help my major with the all-new-student-theater competition 

I accept the challenge. I don't want to see this group go done a bad performance just because some misorganization. And you know what, the theater's advisor specifically chose me and one other member. He said that us, and only us could carry the mission. So we did

The poster of the event that will change my relationship with the theater member forever

The event are done from start until finished, but I don't know if it's successful or not. For me, it's clearly not. It's the worst but also the best event I ever become staff of. I consider it the worst event Tesas ever held. We lack it all : human resources, time, money, tools, experience. It's a very stressful environment with people who scarified not only their energy, time, mind, body, soul, but also money, and emotion. It's a huge sacrifice. Among theater member who is very expressive and emotional, it's chaos.

Some of the members said that they could stay insane because I am the leader, that my lack-of-expression face tell them that we must stay calm, like the leader. If there are anything good with my leadership in this event, it's this. It really feels like a challenge to me, to apply what I have learned in the Summer school. The main one is, I could be close to any people if I want to. Nothing is any deciding factor, not even time, not personality. It's effort to understand and stick with each other.

Through the stress, chaos and messy mistakes, we learn. We grow. Closer. I see them cry, I see them laugh. I see them in their utmost stressed state. I see the emotional abrupt ion and I see the emotion hold on inside.

And I start to open up 

The stress and burden between two events left me with no time to rebound, and I have no free time, too, while still have to maintain my college classes. And a part time job as a teacher... So I have no energy left to keep myself in check and hold my emotion. 

Me, as the leader, forced to "entertain" the member by doing... cosplay

 I laugh. I let my emotion in the opened. I tell them what's in my mind and what's bugging me. I share it with them. It's the first time I have go head-on with the person causing me problem, people I barely knew. To try and stand for myself. Before, I'd never try to speak my wants and intention. And they started to see the me hidden inside the poker facade. Not that I tried to put up the facade, it's just that I have difficulties expressing anything. I learn to know people, to befriend them, to go out of my comfort zone in social setting.

People start to recognize and appreciate my change. I got called from people I forget where I know, and I could only nod. Sometimes

And then, I fall in love.

Just that. Nothing big happened. I never fall in love before, and I don't know it when I fall. In the scene of cramped up people who only focus on their work with each other, it's not uncommon, but I never have it. I just happened. No sparkles. No fire. No heart-thumping scene. But I utterly desperately in love.

And without I know it, I am changing further.

A project film in class in which I am the director

I am spending more time with people. I tolerate their antics and foolishness. I learn to appreciate the time wasted with friends, even if it's not productive. I learn tolerance. I tried to now looked down on weakness and differences. I appreciate more what beautiful thing a smile and laughter is, because my spirit is clearly lifted for a particular smile. I act awkwardly and experience how to not be able to say things straightforward and frank. I learn how it is to get tangled in a romantic love. I learn how hard it is and starting to have tolerance to the problems caused by love. (Before, I think it's foolish to).


The relationship didn't go anywhere. But it give me more things to learn. I learn how to deal with a broken heart the good way (I presume, because we are still friend. And quite close). And.. I know how beautiful a feeling we will get when we fall. Hard. 

I am thankful how the relationship didn't just break and drift apart. I'd hate to fall in love after that. I always think it's foolish to break a perfectly fine friendship to a messy romantic relationship. 

And... with all that lessons, perhaps, I am trusted to be the President of the group!
...Which I refuse to, but I will be the Vice President. Okay nice. 

With the broken heart and spirit to start anew, I do my internship in Philippines. 

Why Philippines? Because this girls I met in Korea fill me out about their country!

It was like a quiz about how well  I could apply the lessons I learned in real life. This is the first time I am alone in the whole world in another country with no one to supervise or accompany me. I have to face new people without introduction. I have to stand and see if I could fit on my own. And to see if I could preserve relationships, hehe.

The send-away party of my internship. Did I success?

Well... the experience there is interesting in a different way with Korea. In Korea, I was brought to a dream world. This time, I have to search and make the dream world on my own. And I am ready to try. As the event with me losing my way as the start, it's a good one. I experience creeps and people trying to ask me out, too. 

The good-bye party with my roommies. We could get crazy together just being roomies for 2 months!

I got close with my roommates, all nice Filipino girls with their own stories to tell. People with different background could get along just fine. We are all searching for happiness, after all. Now, one is in Singapore and one is in Spain. I have another friends who are ready to help me travel no? HAHA.

When I got back, I am in a new situation : I am now have huge responsibilities within the theater group, and I have to teach my juniors, which show how cute it is people who you have to protect. I have never had junior-senior relationship before, well.... what do you expect from a lone wolf like me. I always thought it troublesome. But no. It's quite challenging, but very heartwarming. They still said they miss me until now. The people you help and reach out to when they have nothing to give you back always remember you the hardest, no?

And then I got the religious group left with only young members, as well. And that my major absolutely need me to one role of our major yearly event. Yeah. I notice how easy the people in my major approach and want help or what from me. They see me as the ready-to-join girl because I know nearly all the key player in my major, which is the ones who join the theater competition. Nice.

 I am seen, generally, as a very dependable girl who are ready to help, as long as you ask, because she is shy. I don't play around and with people a lot, but I could get into any group because they see my works in the groups I am in. It helps a lot, because I do need people to approach me, I am not that conscious of my surrounding still. AND because of that, I am chosen as one of my major top students. I am proud of  myself, really. I still didn't do what most people said I need to do in order to success, but I am fine to this point. I tried to close a gap in my skill set, that is my social skill, and I seem to do a good job.

I quit my part-time job as a teacher because I have no more time to spare... And focus more on my final graduation paper and back to my courses, because my GPA is falling. The more I focus on 'real life', the more I am slipping in grades. I am naturally not one to focus on real life, so...

Cha-no-yu class, the activities I use my spare time to attend in between grad paper. It keeps my sanity.

I tried to compensate with trying things I want to do from a long time ago, and also to broaden my social life and keep my mind sane. It's cha no yu, the Japanese Tea Ceremony class, and I could befriend this group of people, too. With my bestfriend from junior high because no matter how wide my social circle will be, I will always fall back and count on them.

I am forced more and more to work with people. I am not able to say "No" yet. So more and more works are handed to me. And I apply, apply, apply.

And near my graduation, I seem to have form a skill to befriend people without lengthy process, something I'd never imagine I would be able to, and something I once think are shallow. People who are meant to be friend will be friend, so why prolong the process? 

I approach, too, the people in my major that I have kind of 'neglect' all my campus life, and ... well, I am able to find welcome from them (again), despite my unableness to show up in anything. I learn, then, that after all people will have to accept your shit, too, not only you tolerating them. And it's still okay to attempt making relationship, despite all.

That's pretty much all I could remember about how I grow, socially, and as a person, in college. It is one of my target when I enter uni (to refine my social life), and that's all my effort up until my graduation. Not perfect, not quite what I first imagine, but for me, and this objection of mine..

When I graduate, I could say...

The aftermath of my thesis defense

I passed with flying colors.

*END*

nb. sorry it's sooooo long!