February 7th: The Aftermath

Writing the title of this post feels dramatic. Sounds dramatic. In reality it is a lot less dramatic than it sounds. Rather, it's kind of surreal-feeling. A lot less stress. A lot of doing not much. Which I guess is basically what constitutes the summer holiday. Except this holiday has been a lot longer than any other holiday I've had in my life. It's 3 months long and I experienced so many firsts since the HSC finished on the last day, I don't even remember what day of the week it was anymore, on the 6th November and we all tumbled out of the L3 and L4 block relieved, excited, happy that we had finally completed, for all of us, our last HSC exam - Chemistry. For me, it was a mixture of both relief and an distinct sense of failure, but whatever haha, I left that exam at least semi-relieved that it was finally, finally, finally all over. While doing the HSC I had heard, inevitably, the analogy of it being like a long distance run, an endurance event and you must run it to the end and not stumble and fall and not get back up again like some have done. So when we all finished that exam we definitely all felt that entirely relieving sense of a large weight being lifted off our shoulders. For me, it was always the never-ending avalanche of things we had to remember (that I didn't remember completely), to do, to worry about always hovering over me. Our whole futures at certain points did feel like they hung over our shoulders. But even then when we were yet to know our results, our futures- we were relieved all the same time. It was finally over.

My 18th birthday family dinner with
my mum and nephew, he kept
moving so we couldn't get a
still shot haha

The next day was my 18th birthday. That day kind of felt also immensely surreal in all its finality. There was the whole "becoming an adult" thing and then there was the fact that I was finally graduated from high school that had at certain points, felt like it would never end. That day I had lunch with Allywa, Mim, KT and Alex and Brad and Ben too I think. That night I had small dinner party with my family.

Ally-wa, KT and me in front of
Flinder's Station in Melbourne.
TOURIST PHOTO, LOL. :)

The next day we left for Melbourne for schoolies and had a really nice 4 days shopping and eating out a bit and going to the beach etc. Mim and KT even made a cake for me and threw a mini surprise birthday party which was really nice. No one's ever done that for me before. And Allywa was extremely good at distracting me to leave to go the "bank" as she called it.

After we got from Melbourne there were a few days in between and then we had our Formal,  an event that seemed to go by really quickly for something that we had anticipated all year. Despite its finality, it was fun. Afterwards we headed to the afterparty with Mim and Allywa. KT went to Louise's. That was interesting.

Seeing snow for the first time  in
Miyagi Prefecture with
my Rachael, my awesome
roomie from NZ ♡

After the formal I started working at the sushi restaurant and then before I knew it 2 weeks had passed and I left for Japan. That was kind of amazing. Perhaps one of the most amazing trips I've ever been on in my life. But presently I don't think I can adequately express in words how amazing and life-changing that was so I will continue on.
My time in Japan passed quickly and before I knew it I was with Maggie at Sydney airport customs carting our luggage through the queue barrier, already saying goodbye to all the people we had met.

Purikura with Maggie in Tokyo! x3 Onsen buddies for life, haha. 

In front of the Bruce Lee statue
in HK with mum!

Afterwards I went back to work quite a lot until the 29th December when we left for Vietnam. In Vietnam we mostly just stayed in Saigon. On the 8th-12th we went to Hong Kong and Macau and then back to Vietnam where we went to Mui Ne for 2 days and then back to Saigon. On the final day we left I was kind of relieved to go back to Australia. I've heard it said that the return trip back is never the same. Things change. People change. Move on. Which really makes sense to me in terms of how different my trip to Vietnam was this time. The thing I think I will the most however about Vietnam is my Aunty's cooking, the fresh fruit and Uncle Liet. I got to spend more time with him in Vietnam and when it was time to say goodbye it felt kind of final and tragic and fleeting and poignant and sad. Like all goodbyes feel.

Now perhaps the most important detail I left out of this entire Aftermath post is really what my past self would be wondering if they were reading this post haha. How'd did I go? I passed, to my soaring relief, after accessing my ATAR results on the 16th December at 8:45 am.
It was a bit of another wait between finding out my ATAR results to university offers on UAC but finally it came. I received an offer to study at USYD to study a combined degree of Engineering/Arts like I had aspired to. But even now, in all finality of being an aftermath, I know its not really. Life isn't like that. I've heard it said that the clock doesn't stop ticking or slow down. Sometimes you just don't hear it. It's like that. It feels like its an ending but really, I feel as if it's an exciting year and exciting times ahead.






Nostalgic photo from graduation with Mim, Ally-wa and KT! Feels like forever ago (>.<)