Dedicated to Violet and Olivia

 Dear Number 4, Just like my other crushes, my feelings for you switch on and off. But unlike my other crushes, my feelings for them are not as intense as how I feel for you. I might be overreacting with what I'm about to say, but I feel like you might end up breaking my heart the most. You were the first person I properly met when I moved into our residence hall. When I opened my door to greet you, I was mesmerized by everything. You were the most beautiful girl I had ever met. By the moment I shook your hand, I knew I was going to admire from a distance. The irony of it all was that you were right next door, and I was going to dream of you a paper thin wall away. From then on, I loved every moment I had the opportunity to bond with you. We became super close throughout orientation week due to being podmates. By the end of the week, when we were at the beach, I even broke the wall of acquaintanceship and jokingly insulted you like we had already known each other for years. I found...

Dear Violet & Olivia, I thought I developed a good rhythm going on here with checking in with you every week, but you know me: I'm never consistent. Uni got busier, a second lockdown was enforced, and my mental health was tested even more. Now that I have the time and somewhat creativity to illustrate my life since I last wrote to you, let's pick up where I left off. The funny thing about leaving you where I did is that a lot of things changed that very week. On the Tuesday night, we had a floor pizza night that we won from winning a competition a while back. I had just come back home after an intense study session at the library, so I was feeling a little bit worn out and anxious. One of the thoughts running in my head was actually thinking that some of the girls on my floor had a negative impression of me, which stemmed from some of them ranting about some other people on the floor who they thought were annoying. After eating some pizza and sitting down in the common room...

Dear Violet & Olivia, You've caught me in a moment where I have actually remembered to write you immediately after an event in my seemingly boring life. So rare, isn't it? Well, here I am, sitting in the common room writing to you on a Sunday evening. But not just any Sunday evening; the Sunday evening subsequent to our residence hall ball.  This weekend there's a pod decoration contest where the prize is $100 for the floor, so my podmates decided to participate and we began our morning yesterday by going to town and buying decorations. Our theme was a golf course where the mission was to save an alien appropriately named 'X Æ A-12' and get them back to their motherland. We're planning to keep all the decorations up until the end of semester, but according to our residential advisor (RA) some parts are a fire hazard, including placing a decent chunk of confetti in front of a certain podmate's door. Other main attractions include the inflatable alien hang...

Dear Number 3, I'm not meant to be writing this letter because I don't have feelings for you anymore. I'm not even sure if I had real feelings for you in the first place. But I feel the need to write you this letter because you've been frequenting my dreams ever since the pandemic started, and it needs to go away. But before it goes away, I want to know exactly why your presence is haunting me. Let's psychoanalyze the shit out of this. Around this time last year I was still an emotional wreck, completely possessed by a wave of post-show pessimism. Playing Maria was, at the time, the only thing to have motivated me through life. Being one of my dream roles, I thought I would have never been able to reach such an important goal as a seventeen year old. Because of this concept, my mind would have perceived everything that came along with it to be significant as well. That included (and sadly, still includes) you. You complete asshole. This was your first le...

Dear Violet and Olivia, My re-transition into normal university life has overall been okay at face value, but I've become aware of how much it tests my anxiety. At the time I'm writing this I've just finished my first week of semester 2, which has to be the slowest week of my life. Of course a large factor has to be that we have moved from the sanctuary (for others, hell-like) of online study to regular on-campus study. One thing I'm personally thankful for is being in a country that has successfully contained the virus and everything has returned back to normal in a timeframe of three months. This means I've been able to return to my second home of my university dormitory, where I can actually talk to people my age. I'm not saying I don't appreciate my family, I just think exposure to people my age would be best for my mental development. I also can't see my friends often since they all study different things, so in a way the hall unites us.  Pushing th...

Part I: 15/07/20 Dear Violet and Olivia, One week from today I will be back in my dorm room after three months being at home. I've bought a bus ticket and have almost finished packing, so all that's left to do is wait, and then I'll take on my second semester from there. But I have to admit that I want this wait to be longer.  Yes, I felt nervous for my first ever semester, but I feel like the apprehension has grown in more menace this time around. I can count the number of times I've left this house on my fingers during the three months I've spent in remote study, and it has definitely impacted my mind. The thought of restarting every single thing I had already established terrifies me. I know it will be easier now that I had laid the foundation like making friends and developing a sense of the city, but I still can't help but feel nervous.  I absolutely admonish the adjusting period for everything. For me, especially, it takes a while for any kind of situation...