Follow your dreams.

11 days ago, I turned 22.

The past 2 years have been insane.

I dedicated the bulk of my time to La Novella Studio. As a result, I had one the best birthday presents presented to me in my entire life. I was invited back to Temasek Polytechnic last month for an alumni talk to the Marketing juniors.

I remember when I first accepted the invitation, I swore I could have kicked myself because I asked myself on what basis do I head back to school to talk to people? I am not an incredibly successful person and it's not like I have been through university education. But I realized that was my self esteem talking.

I headed back to school on the morning of 25th April with the support of the boyfriend and Qi Rong. I remember it was extremely nostalgic to head into school again. Walking around the school brought back a lot of memories that I seem to have forgotten because I was too busy working.

I saw all the marketing lecturers that has taught us before and it made me miss school even more.

After which, I got to find out that I was the first speaker of the morning. That made me extremely nervous. I walked up to the stage. My legs were shaking furiously as I spoke my greetings to people.

After that, I got a lot more confident. I realized all I was doing was to share my life with these young boys and girls who had their own set of dreams as well. I finished off my presentation and it was quite heartening to notice that people actually stopped to listen to what I had to say.

Q and A came and I came to the realization that my speech actually touched people's hearts. I had a lot of questions directed to me that day. And I answered every single question happily because I realized that these young people are full of ambitions that no one probably realizes.

I realized that my talk actually made them realize that going into university after poly is not the only choice available to them. If you have enough guts, and if you are willing to work hard enough, you can fight for your own piece of land as well.

And I was glad to have this opportunity to share my story because I realized that I managed to somehow, inspire people with my speech.

And it is quite touching. I really really felt touched when I realized that people were actually interested to listen to me.

So thank you Temasek Polytechnic Marketing, it was an extreme honor to head back to school and thank you for having me. 

7.5 years

9th of March 2013 is in 5 days time. 

We will turn 7.5 years that day. 

I don't want to be mushy about this but I suppose there isn't really anyway around this. 

Thank you for always going my way. Thank you for always thinking about what I would like to eat. Thank you for letting me buy all the clothes I want and forcing me into buying them sometimes. 

Thank you for being so similar to me. Thank you for having similar goals to me. Thank you for La Novella. 

I thank you for all the memories you've given to me. 

From all the "Your blog entries makes me blush/shy" 

to all the heartlessness you displayed in a certain rocky year of our relationship

to the first 9th of March we spent together in year 2006

watching a stupid movie and getting our first pair of couple ring. 

I remember our shyness made the shopkeeper laugh. 

I thank you for all the years you've spent trying to top each of my birthday celebrations. 

in 2006, you brought the largest bugs bunny to my place with a swensen's cake and studied with me afterwards. 

in 2007, you brought the largest tortoise plushie to school and a random old lady wished me happy birthday after asking about the plushie. 

in 2008, you got together all of my friends and put together a small celebration for me in swensens. 

in 2009, you booked a hotel room at sentosa's spa and resort and spent the craziest sum of money on an 18 year old. 

in 2010, you booked a hotel room at Capella and brought me to universal studios. You also teamed up with my 2 bestest friends to put up this surprise for me.

in 2011, we spent our entire day working on Thursday Tales and then we spent 10 days in Hanoi together happily. 

in 2012, you booked a hotel at Klapson's and put together the best surprise for me with my closest of friends. 

I cannot thank you enough for all the things that you've done for me. I cannot thank you enough for always putting up with my horrid, horrid moodswings and never being angry with me. 

Thank you for being you. 

I love you, that's all. 

I am such a weirdo

Really I am.

There are nights where I loop songs until I fall asleep. Old songs. Tonight it's "If You Don't Know Me By Now" by Simply Red.

There are also nights where I simply cry myself to sleep. For no apparent reason except that I feel like it.

Some nights I shine the torch light of my Iphone onto the kindle and read all night until I run out of steam or until my phone becomes too hot to continue its torture.

Also nights that I stare at the ceiling thinking about everything and then, nothing. Those nights, sleep eludes me.

Some nights, I busy myself with thinking about the business. So much so that sleep eludes me.

And then there are nights where I sit up all of a sudden and grab my pen or my macbook, whichever is available, and start writing or typing away, like now.

Also nights when I feel like I could melt into my own pessimistic self. Like I could just melt into a puddle of sadness.

And then there are nights I lie by your side and fall asleep immediately.

The life of a business couple

So it's been almost 1 and a half years since we opened La Novella Studio. While I wouldn't say that it is the most successful business around, I would have to say that we have came a long long way from where we used to be.

From a small run down place in ubi to a space that's 3 times the size of what it used to be and an ongoing cost that's more than 3 times of what it used to be is not an easy feat at all.

It hasn't been an easy journey for us.

Most of the times, we are broke. Very broke.

The two of us survive on his army pay of approximately $500 and about $300 of the studio funds as our monthly pay.

Yes, that is all we survive on.

I don't know how people come to the conclusion that because we are business owners, we are extremely rich and can afford more than what it seems.

The truth is that the truth cannot be further away from what people think it is. As a business couple, what we do is to always put the business in front of all of our needs.

This means that we have almost 0 dating time. And it also means that whatever profits we make from the studio goes right back into the studio for further expansion and emergency cash usage.

There are days where I am not sure if what we are doing is necessarily the healthiest for a relationship. We spend almost all of our time together and so this brings about a lot of opportunities for conflicts. We sometimes get irritated with each other over the smallest of miscommunications. We try NOT to iron out issues because we are afraid that if we do, it might affect our business relationship. (which is extremely wrong and is something that we are looking at rectifying)

But yes, we have came a long long way.

Back when we first started the business, I thought of it as a sustainable source of income but never ever thought that it will one day grow to this state.

I would never have thought that one day we would be interviewed by popular radio djs. I would never ever have thought that we would have met so many people and worked with so many organizations that I used to only dream about working with.

And this... This is all a part of our hard work. And of course a lot of luck that the people around us are all so precious.

So to all my studio customers, customers turned friends and long term friends, thank you, thank you all so so much from the bottom of my heart.

Both me and Gui Jie are eternally grateful to everyone who has helped us on this journey that we have put ourselves onto and we sincerely hope that when the studio reaches its second birthday, it would have achieved more than what we have right now.

So thank you everyone. We will continuously work hard and harder.

Love,
Vilvian

2013

2012 has went as quickly as it came. It's almost like a tornado really. I don't even know how time can pass this quickly without you realizing. 

2012 has been interesting. 

We maintained La Novella Studio and managed to expand. The studio is still extremely unstable but I will make it stabilize this 2013. 

The boyfriend survived a whole year and more or army and will be ORD-ing this June. 

We started working on a new brand. 

We became a lot more ambitious. 

...

And I think that is all to my life. 

Army, boyfriend, work, work, work, work, family, boyfriend, work, work, work.

Hopefully 2013 will be a year that is more fruitful. 

Hopefully 2013 will let me give my parents the type of life they deserve. To return to them the life they used to have will be impossible. But to give them something better than they have right now... I really want for that to happen. 

Je créerai mon propre destin

I wonder if there's any part of you that detects that I'm falling apart.

Sometimes I wonder if any of this is true. An I just looking at some weird paradox of my life? One moment everything is alright and the next everything seems like it's falling apart.

I'm so tired, so tired.