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Monday, 27 April 2015

18TH BIRTHDAY VLOG | Maggie Chyi Chyi


Hello people! 

I'm so excited to share this new video of mine, which is my first attempt at vlogging! It's definitely not the best video but I did try my best at not stuttering at the phone camera. 

The main reason why I wanna do this vlog is to record down my birthday not just in words, but in actions. My friends and family who were not able to spend my birthday with me like the old time can also watch this little video of mine to see how I spend my day. Or rather, how much nonsense did I sprout, haha.

Also, I've been wanting to do vlog for a long time. You guys know how addicted I'm to YouTube and when I watched all those vloggers' daily vlogs, I feel like doing it too, because it seemed so fun! But trust me, it took me a lot of guts to do that...

Anyway, I hope you guys can also go and check it out and give me suggestions on how to improve my vlogging skills or something. 

Till next time people.

xx

Wednesday, 22 April 2015

Goodbye Seventeen


Hello people! 

It's currently 9:14 pm and this means that it's only a few hours left to my 18th birthday! 18! I never really thought that I'm going to be 18 so fast. I don't feel any different, both mentally and physically. I feel like I've stop growing mentally since 16 or something. Well, generally I just don't feel like 18. 

(FYI, in Malaysia we don't count your age according to your birthday but rather the year you're born in. So if I tell the others I'm seventeen, they'll assume I was born on 1998 instead of 1997. And also, they'll think that I'm pretending that I'm a year younger. Well, well.)

Birthdays are not a huge deal in my family, but we always celebrated it together as a family. For the record, this is the first birthday I don't get to celebrate with my family.  Sure, we did pre-celebration, but that's not the same. I don't get to be with them on my actual birthday, and that's making me a little bit sad and nostalgic. I'm not going to post up any birthday celebrations photos on this post, because I'm saving it for the next blog post on my birthday, yay! Be ready for tons of food (hopefully) photos! Not to mention, cakes!

Anyway, the main reason I'm writing this post is to kinda reflect on the seventeenth year of my life. Last year was both exciting and wild. I had my ATCL piano recital, which was terrifying and my SPM examinations, which indicated an end to my secondary school life. There's a lot of great things happened too, like how I won a prize in a nationwide Chinese Creative Writing competition, which was totally out of my expectation and how I actually got great results for both my piano recital and my SPM examinations. 

Being seventeen for me was terrifying, as I learnt the fact that I was going to leave home and thinking that I'd never survive in another city, in an unfamiliar environment. The seventeen-year-old me was always busying doing college applications, applying for scholarships, attending educational fairs, said that she's going to study very hard but in the end fell asleep watching Criminal Minds. She was reckless, brave and scared both at the same time. Afraid of making the wrong decisions, terrified of dreaming dreams that might never come true. She was brave too, finally trying out YouTube after fantasizing it for so long, and wouldn't back down when people actually disliked her videos. She insisted on her own point of views and tried not to care what other people had to think of her.

I think I'll really miss being seventeen, where I was under the protection of home, in my comfort zone and forever in secondary school with my friends and family by my side 24/7. I hated the idea of growing up and facing new things, and be even braver to overcome new obstacles. But really, I think everything turned out quite fine in the end, and for that I'm eternally grateful. I did got used to college and living away from my family. That makes me cherish my family even more, and the time I spend with them and my bunch of crazy friends. I miss them so much. 

I can't stay forever 17, no matter how much I wanted to stay 17, but really, I'm somehow glad that I grew up and had to move out of my comfort zone. I learnt a lot, and gained a lot of new experience. It makes me cherish everything I took for granted before, and make me look at things with a new light. I once thought that I won't survive, like literally, I won't, but I did, amazingly. Should I be proud of myself? I guess I should, haha. Even though it's the thing or phase everyone needs to get through, it doesn't mean that it's any easier. 

So... this is an end to my seventeenth year, and into a new journey. I still can't believe I'm going to be 18. I closed my eyes and let my mind ran wild and I feel nothing like 18. What does 18 feels like? I don't know. I feel like I'm still the same. Maybe a little older, a little wiser, a little crazier. Other than that, I'm still the same me. 

I'm kinda excited and terrified for tomorrow to come. I'm actually planning to do a birthday vlog so I get to keep all the memories afterwards. Also, a lot of people who are close to me aren't able to spend my birthday with me, so I think it's kinda good for them to get a view of what I'm doing that day. Sure, I'll still be writing a blog post on it, but I don't think it'll be the same, since one is in word form whereas the other is in video form. And I used to watch a lot of vlogs by youtubers and they all seemed so fun, so I figured maybe I can do one on my birthday. The thing is, I'm kinda shy to do videos around people. Also, I only have my phone to film, so it's kinda hard too. I feel weird, but I want to do it. It's like a totally new experience for me, and you know what they say #YOLO. I know there won't be a lot of people watching it, but what I really care is about who are the ones watching it. If the one I care about and the one who cares about me watch my videos and blog posts, it's already enough for me. Like what they say (again), quality > quantity.

Oh can I just say a little something out of the topic? No offense if you're reading this (and you identify who I'm writing is actually you, I know you meant no harm and were just joking). Today in class, my friend kinda make fun of me saying that my likes on my instagram photos were so little whereas she got a lot. I know she's not boasting, she just enjoys making fun of me (in a good way, not like bitching or something). The thing is, I used to care about that and will take offense when people compared stuffs like that. But I realized when I grow older, this kind of stuffs doesn't really matter. I mean, yes, probably you got a lot of likes, and I got only a little, but I know the one who matters to me notices my post or photo or status and likes it and give me comments and for me, it's all that's really matters. Yes, of course I'll feel a little bit discouraged if my videos don't get a lot of views, but that doesn't matter, because I'm doing what I really like and should I be caring about how other people think of this? Maybe yes and maybe not, this is very subjective.

Which is why I wanna try doing vlogs, because even if it only gets like 10 views or something, I know that that 10 views are the people who are really interested and care for me and my life. Well, and because I'd really love to do a vlog. Let's just see how. If the vlog ended up too bad, I'll just share it among my closest friends and family (probably, but it's kinda embarrassing for me to show my videos to my family.. it's just weird. And also, we don't have the habit of making home movies, or even constantly take pictures, so it's kinda weird for me to develop such interests in making videos. But hey, you'd want to try it out after watching so many videos on YouTube! Curiosity always got the best and the worst of me, haha!) but if it turns out to be decent enough, I'll put it on YouTube, and run the risk that other people (or some so-called friends) will judge me.

It's time to do some conclusion but I really don't know what to say. Just that... goodbye seventeen. I'll miss you terribly and I promise to be better. Or I'll try very hard not to be worse, haha. I'll definitely look back at 17 with a big smile on my face. 

Farewell, farewell.

Till next time people.

xx

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Lucky?


Hello people! 

First of all, I wanna thank all of you who read my last post and watch my videos and give me comments about it! I really appreciate them all and it's good to know there's someone out there who likes my music, however small amount the people there is. If you haven't watch the original song or the blog post regarding the back story of the song, you can click HERE for the video and HERE for the blog post. Don't worry, I won't make you bleed through your ears so you can go check both of those out. 

Enough of the advertising and promoting of my new video, here comes what I wanna discuss today. Or rather, just voice up my opinion. Not sure if this is going to be a long post because I need to head back to college just in the matter of half an hour for a welcoming party of a volunteer club, but let's see what I can do in mere half an hour.

If you are a follower or a constant reader of my little blog, you'd know that in March I wrote about a post named "March" and also another late night post of me feeling extremely weak and the one that stated that I was feeling happier. To be completely honest, I feel fine right now. Happy, even. So thank you for sharing my pain by reading those painfully long and tedious posts of mine. 

In the post "March", I wrote about my SPM results and how well it turned out to be. And the other post stated how much it stressed me out to be label as a "top student" and stuffs, because I feel like I'm not one of those "smarty pants" but rather the one who got lucky. 

Yes. I'd admit myself that my results involved a lot of luck and of course, God's grace (sorry if you're not religious), but not just recently, a lot of people after knowing my results have two kinds of reactions. Let's just divide these people into two main groups: one that knows me since secondary school and the other one that knows me since college. Those who know me since college think that I'm really smart to get such good results whereas those who know me since secondary school (well, a lot of them) claimed that I'm lucky. I know I'm lucky, I know I am. But really, do the excellency of my results based solely on luck? Then what am I without luck? Nothing? A person that can't achieve anything in life?

I know most of them said that out of kindness and some, jealousy. I can't really blame them since the impression I gave them during my secondary school years was that I was a slacker. I really was. I hardly paid any attention in class, I ditched school quite often, I never ever did my homework and I was not in the "top ten" list in my class. In short, I never did anything that proved my intelligence and hardworking to reap such results (I know there're a lot of people out there who got even better results than me but hey, this is already considered great to me). I was also never the one who'd tell people that I didn't study at all and study the shit out of myself at home, deceiving everyone. No, that's just plain wrong and I'm not that unethical.  

Okay. Here's the thing. Even though I constantly said that I got this result by being lucky, I don't like that phrase "yeah, you're lucky" slammed right into my face. Sometimes I said that I'm lucky to avoid conflict and to make the other person feels better because he/she had worked even harder than me but didn't have the luck to get better results than me. No offense, but that was me being nice then truthful in this blog post. I'm sometimes so sick of people claimed that I'm lucky till I wanna yell at them: "What? All that I have was just luck???" 

I admit, this is quite contradictory to my previous post where I said that all I gained was just fluke. Okay, maybe some part of it, but when I said I'm a slacker, that doesn't mean that I slacked every single minute of my life. Do you know how it hit me when I knew that it's only a week from some kind of important examinations, then I sort of freaked out and started to cram whatever is important into my head? Do you know that I stayed up in order to flip through everything and to make myself remember all the major points? Yes, maybe I don't need to study as much as you do, but that doesn't mean that I don't need to study at all. My procrastination may be going really strong, but that procrastination made me worked even harder the night before examinations, just because I knew I was so doomed the next morning. 

Those are not luck. As little as my efforts might seemed to be, I did something that can contribute to some part of my results. Do you know how hard it is to study maths just by reading them? Yeah, that's a result of my procrastination because I was lazy to do maths, I needed to cram them all in my head by reading them. I knew how much I had to pay for not constantly studying and revising, but I did try my best to salvage as much as I could. That's effort for me to you. 

You can't compare your study hours to mine. A lot of people asked me how on earth I could score an okay mark in my internal school examinations when I spent the night before the examinations watching Criminal Minds. Here's my not-so-secret secret: I used my brain. I used common sense and I used logic in answering my questions. Also, I'm willing to lose small marks in order to salvage huge marks. For instance, I hate memorizing definitions and unless you have a photographic memory, you can't remember every single damn thing you cram down when there's so much more important things to remember. What I do is I gave up on the marks for the definitions parts (where it only made me lose one or two marks utmost) and concentrate on the important points. I didn't memorize the whole damn thing down too, I remember points and I formed logical explanation in my head. That's how I remember things, by making sense of them, not memorizing them.

So let's say, you need two days to remember all the things in a few chapters and I only need one day to completely understand and digest them without memorizing; can you really compare our rate in studying? No, you can't. Because the way we study is completely different. So, no, you can't say I got lucky because I never study; it's because I don't need to spend so much time on studying and I only need a little time to digest them down and then during examinations, I don't vomit out everything from the textbooks or notes given; I used my own words and sentences to explain and construct. That's why I can afford to be lazy even more than you do (though it backfired me a lot of times, ouch).

I know it also requires luck in scoring good grades, because like me, I didn't study everything but still manage to get good grades partially is because the topics I studied came out in the test (that's luck to you and me) and partially because I used logic and common sense in answering. Logic and common sense may not gain you full marks, but at least they won't left you with a miserable zero. 

Now that you get my point (hopefully), you get why I got offensive when people claimed that it was luck that made me get good results. It's not pure luck (I'm not denying there's luck, there's a certain amount of it), but rather my little efforts and common sense. I don't get the results I get because I'm "only lucky". Please don't say that to me ever again (but you'll still hear me say that I'm lucky because hello, to explain why I got what I got is this long, how long do you want to hear me bullshitting about all these stuffs?) that I'm only lucky. You can say that I'm lucky and that my brain helped too, or just don't say anything at all. Discussing my results with me might not end up good but rather awkward because I got better results than you and you're not feeling okay (some of you, not all okay? Please don't take unnecessary offense) and of course, my results can be linked to my depressed-stagey and existential crisis I was having quite a while ago. I seriously don't want to relive those. 

(I still have mood swings, but they're somehow getting a little bit better. Even though I wanted to crawl under my bed and never go out again, I encouraged myself to and it worked, thankfully. So don't worry, if you're.)

Half an hour time is up! I gotta go now though what I really want now is to get some sleep then have a hearty dinner later. But too late, I signed up for that and have no one but myself to blame.

Till next time people.

xx

Sunday, 12 April 2015

Back Story Of "Free Falling"

Hello people!

If you'd notice on your way clicking in this post, you must have notice the title. That's right, I did another original song on my YouTube channel and it's up now! How exciting for me since it's been a really long while since I did a singing video (apart from a few short clip on my Instagram) because I'm busying coping with college and life. If you wanna go check it out, here's a link for you:


Today is the day I said to myself that I must do a video no matter what happened. Then something did happen. Recently it was kinda the rain season over here in South Malaysia (where my hometown is located in) and it always rain during late afternoons and sometimes at night. I planned to get up early to finish a video but too bad, I overslept. Well, I knew I'd overslept but I let myself to get more sleep because I was reading a new book till 3 am in the morning. Then when I filmed the video in the afternoon, it rained so badly I had to wait for the period where the rain was not that heavy to actually filmed a video with better audio. But the audio still kinda sucks because I don't like my voice and I used my phone.

Well, well. That's not a bait for you guys to click in. What a good job, Maggie. Hmm.

Anyway, I rarely filmed any of my videos when my family is around but today seemed to be the exception since I missed the morning session where everyone was out and busy so I had to make it up in the afternoon when my mom was in the room sewing and my dad downstairs trying very hard to keep quiet because I asked him to. I was thinking that nah, then I needn't to do a video to embarrass myself in front of my family. Mind you, I'm quite shy and I don't like to sing in front of people. Video is another business because first of all, not many people will watch it and second of all, it's video, not real life. But then I had that... urge to do a video and I couldn't ignore that because that'd be wrong. For me, though,

Enough of my bullshitting and let's get to business.

I wrote this song this February. I was feeling really down and that's how this song made its way through me. I didn't write a lot of songs this year and I was worried that maybe I couldn't produce anymore music anymore, or I'd lost my muse. The main concern I was having was that I'd lost my passion I used to do a lot in my life due to the new-found busyness. 

College at first for me was really hard, but not academically at first. It was hard because I was away from home and I don't like that feeling of being away. Then the pressure of meeting new people and adapting into a new life really made me depressed. I felt like I couldn't fit in and the whole world was laughing at me for being such a loser. I missed home and my friends so much I literally die a little inside. Then when I got back my first psychology test and it was only 58 marks, I felt the whole world went grey, though now looking back I feel like I was so stupid. 

That one night I thought how big of a failure I was, the lyrics starting to pop out of my head and I jotted them down. A little by a little, I started to feel better on the inside. After finishing the song I felt like I untied a huge load from my body and left it behind me forever.

Verse one was about how I struggled on holding on to everything that seemed to be too overwhelming and for the second verse I felt like the whole world had abandoned me and that all my expectations and dreams were crushed and shattered. For the chorus, I was projecting more of how I considered myself to be an epic failure and that if I got a second chance, I'll do things right. Don't ask me by the definition of right. By then my definition of right was staying back home and do form 6, which my father'd have hated that idea. The definition of right for me now is not to procrastinate so much and excel in my studies, which you know is kinda hard to achieve because come on, how can I not procrastinate? It's so hard

Okay, enough of me keep telling you guys how lazy I am as a human being, let's once again get back to business. Here are the lyrics for you guys to see (or judge).

LYRICS:

I'm sinking
Underwater
Find it hard
To breathe

I'm trying to hold on
But feeling smaller 
Hiding like
A ghost

*Yelling stop 
Yelling stop

#Give me another chance
I'll do it right
Give me another moment
I'll shine so bright 
But the hope and light
Just slipped right through
And I'm losing sight 
of what is true
Just please
Help whoa whoa whoa

They're happy
To see me fall
I find it hard
To crawl

Expectations crushed
Dreams shattered
Running scared
To the darkness

*
#

Thoughts scattered around
Don't get to hear a sound
I'm free falling

And I'll be here to fight
I know I still gotta try
Looking for excuse
Feeling useless
I'm free falling

#

Don't worry, I'm feeling much more positive than the song lyrics right now. Well I guess it's because I'm back home already but have to get back today afternoon (it's midnight now). Too bad. I don't wanna face life up there. 

I'll try to make more videos but let's just see if I can. No promises but I'll sure do videos in the future, the only question is when. 

I hope you guys like my song despite my sometimes-weird singing voice and the audio and stuffs. 

Till next time people.

xx

Thursday, 9 April 2015

To You Who Hate Yourself

Hello people. 

This post is dedicated to all of you who feel insecure about yourself, mentally or physically. 

I know how it feels, being extremely insecure till you wanna hide yourself under your bed and never ever go out again. You keep on finding excuses for yourself to be socially inactive, to avoid people because you can see judgement in their eyes, though deep down inside you know it's only all going on in your head. It's not just a phase that people keep telling you that you need to get past through it, because it starts very early in your life and you can't seem to get rid of it even after many, many years. Instead, you continue feeling self-conscious with no self-confidence at all and you get used to it because you know it can't even go away. It stays with you presumably forever in your life, and the only way to survive is to endure it, and trying to get some fresh air above water before it pulls you down and attempt to drown you again.

You were being called names like 'ugly', 'stupid', 'unwanted', 'fat' and so many more horrible names till you lost count of your own beauty and confidence. The labels stuck on you even after you finished primary school, secondary school and follow you even more tightly in life. Sure, you tried to shrug off those labels, but the ones who stuck them on you nailed them so deep you can't pull those out without bleeding to death. Instead, you keep them with you to prove that you survived those cruel battles and those were your trophies of surviving. You wouldn't want to share your feelings with others because they'll regard your feelings as stupid and told you to get over with it, that your problems were meaningless and useless and small, compared to the others living in even worse conditions. 

Let me tell you something, there's no such thing as problems that are too small or insignificant. It is true that some people got it worse in the other parts of the world, but that doesn't mean that your problems don't matter. They do matter, and they matter a lot to you. They made you feel uncomfortable, sad, depressed, self-conscious, unworthy, unwanted and made you wonder what is worth living for anymore. They made you feel alone and lonely, that no one in the world will ever understand your pain and your loneliness. The truth is, there are so much more out there going through the same thing, it's just that we are all silent about it so that we won't be judged even more than the others and so that we can pretend that we're strong enough to fly with all those chains locking us down.

We're humans and we all have flaws; so why pick on each others and make each others feel bad about themselves? Why make us feel bad about ourselves? 

Some people were hurt before and they project their hurt feelings onto somebody else, telling that somebody what he or she was being told before, and to pull someone else down with him/her so him/her can feel better about themselves. This need to stop and this need to stop quick. This endless cycle is making even more people feeling worse about themselves and feeling worse about the world. Be responsible, face your own problems and don't make it others'. You know how bad it feels, pulling down by the others. So why do this to someone that actually can relates to you? Why discriminate people when you have the choice to share what little love you have to the world?

Even after many years passed and you had finally achieved something in life. That should make you feel good about yourself, but it still doesn't. The labels were screwed tight onto you and even though today when you're succeed you can't feel good about yourself. You look into the mirror and still see the thirteen-year-old you looking back at you with the word "loser" blazed over your forehead. Even if you lost a lot of weight you still see yourself as fat and ugly; even though you got extremely good results you still think that you're stupid; even there's that very special someone out there loving you you still feel unwanted, because the scars, they stayed deep down beneath our skins and in our heart. The disgust flows in your bloodstreams and roots deep into your mind till you got used of it. 

You don't know why it can't fade away. I don't know why it can't fade away. 

Maybe you're in school, feeling invisible; maybe you're standing in front of the mirror, feeling disgusted; maybe you're just there lying in your bed, wishing that everything about you can change in a better way.

You hate yourself, more than you can feel emotionally. 

You hate yourself for everything you are and not being everything you wanted to be.

But don't. Don't hate yourself. Tell yourself that you're worth it, tell yourself that you're beautiful, tell yourself that one day you'll shine as bright as the sun and set everything on fire till people can't take their eyes off you. 

You're never lonely and you're never invisible. Instead, you're unique and were created for a reason.

To be happy and to be you. The one and only you.

Look back at how much you had survived through and call yourself a survivor; look at how much you fought to live and call yourself a fighter. You're not weak, you're brave. Brave enough to face another day when all you wanted was to never get up again. 

Tell yourself that you're incredible by getting through day after day without falling apart. Tell yourself that everything'll be okay when things starting to fall apart. Tell yourself it's normal to feel sad or depressed,  as long as you acknowledge the feelings and decided to make a difference. Maybe getting out of  bed is a tough thing for you to do, so reward yourself if you're able to pull yourself out of bed and get through another day. Don't be ashamed of yourself and your so-called little problems. If they're huge problems to you, they're huge no matter what the others laughed at your "minute" problems. You're all that matters. You. 

Listen to people who encouraged you and block out people who try to pull you down. You don't need anymore negativity in your life. Do something you like on a daily basis. Go out on an adventure if you wanted to. Most importantly, don't compare yourself to the others. She may have a great body figure, he may have the brains or they may be the popular kids you always wanted to be a part of. But they're not you and they can never be you nor replace you or even make you feel smaller and weaker. Everyone is different in their own way. If you can see their strong side, why can't you find yours? 

You may be kind, empathizing, loving, shy, creative or anything else. Don't feel like you're not worth it. You're totally worth it, from the bottom to the top. Every inch of you, inside and outside. 

I hate myself and I have a hard time going through it. People don't regard this as seriously as other "important" stuffs. They think that self-conscious is just a phase you need to get through. Yes, I need to get through it, but how can I get through when everybody treat my fear as silly and stupid? This is where I start to tell myself that everything is going to be fine and learn to love myself day by day.

If you hate yourself, you know I feel you and I understand. I can't say it'll get better in a blink of eye, but it'll get better day by day, a little by a little. 

The only solution to stop you from hating yourself? 

Love. 

Learn to love yourself and see the positive side of things.

Love yourself, look for your strengths and love your flaws.

Wherever you are, if you're feeling unloved (including yourself), please know that I love you.

And I'll learn to love myself. 



Till next time people.

xx