Denise's College Archive

  “There’s something wrong with her back..." Sometime around the latter half of 2012 when I was just 10 years old, my life changed with that one line coming out of my mum’s mouth. A visit to the nearest clinic further confirmed her assumption was right. There’s something wrong with my back. I was later diagnosed with an S-shaped Scoliosis . In conjunction with Scoliosis Awareness Month , I’m here to share my scoliosis story. We’ve all done it — Googling our symptoms when we don’t feel well. And we know how Google gives us the worst-case scenario when we look up what’s wrong with us — in fact, any symptom will somehow be related to some sort of cancer. So imagine an innocent kid searching for a disease she’s never heard of before in her 10 years of life. Back then, I seriously thought I was going to die, especially after seeing disturbing surgery images my brother showed to scare me. But, thanks to my sister’s explanation I understood what scoliosis is. Image Source: Scoliosis SOS...

Father, I love him. My father is a hardworking man. I rarely saw him until dinner on weekdays. But he made sure to spend his time with us on weekends, bringing us out on day trips, buying us good food, and making sure we slept well in a comfortable house that I could call home. Mother told me he cut off cigarettes when she was pregnant with their first child —  that’s also something I love about him. Father said he used to fight when he was younger, I’m still not sure if that’s true or not. He seems proud and confident but Mother always says he’s over-exaggerating. He carried me to bed when I fell asleep on the couch; he let me sit on his shoulder when I couldn’t see the stage performance in a crowd; he rushed me to the hospital when I broke my wrist; he taught me how to ride a bike; he bought me a year pass to an amusement park; he said it’s okay to get a bad grade as long as I have improvements; he gave me more than I asked when it comes to pocket money. I’ve always been happy gr...

Ahh… College, a chapter in life that not all are privileged to have. You get to learn so many new things — be it academic, self , or life . After a year of my foundation studies , I’m officially done with college! As someone who has been around the block, I felt the need to share some things that I wished I had known before starting college. Time flies really fast, I’d say a little too fast When I turned in my final exam paper, it felt like a year just vanished in a split second, I realised, “Wow, it just, ended… poof, gone.” Maybe it’s because of the pandemic, or maybe I was wrapped in assignment deadlines but one thing’s for sure, procrastination leads to no good. Eliminate that from your mindset, it’s really not worth it. Start your assignments right when they are handed out. You don’t want to stay up all night stressing out about it. Pay attention and make notes in class because the “Exams are in a month” you keep telling yourself, is clearly just to make you feel better about pro...

  We’ve all encountered situations that made us feel different emotions in our life, just like the movie ‘Inside Out’, we have feelings such as joy, sadness, disgust, fear, anger, and many more. While we remind ourselves about the happy moments we’ve had, there are some of us that can’t seem to forget what has hurt us, allowing negativity to slowly eat us. Self-trust and confidence are important, the question is, how? Comparing myself to when I was going through puberty and coming of age to who I am today, I’m very sure I’ve grown a lot in my attitude and thinking. It’s all more… matured and I owe all my thanks to these 5 quotes. “Sit with winners. The conversation is different.” To sit with winners is to surround yourself with people that radiates positivity. Those who lift you up when you’re in a slump, people who can celebrate your success like a fan hyping their idol’s new song, and those who want the best for everyone including themselves. These are great people to be with as ...

As we enter the end of 2020, I spent some time thinking about my life goals and my New Year’s resolution. This year wasn’t as smooth as I thought it would be. With the global pandemic going on, I realised I’ve taken so many things for granted . While there are things that I‘ve achieved despite being indoors such as making new friends and becoming an executive committee in an academic club, I still have some things in my bucket list I want to cross out and wishes I hope will come true. So join me as I lay out 5 hopes I have for 2021, and I would appreciate it if you can pray for these dreams of mine to realise, I’ll gladly do the same for you! First and foremost, I’m sure this goes the same for everyone, I would like to see the end of COVID-19. Seeing how the vaccines are showing promise , I really hope the virus can be controlled, better yet just vanish, but we all know the latter is complicated. Frontliners have been working hard to help people, they risk themselves and give up spendi...

I believe we all know college is nothing like the movies. There’s no party every Friday night nor meeting the love of your life. And even though it’s not as tough as university yet, there are still a couple of assignments that’ll have you scratching your head as someone who’s still not used to them. The expectations vs reality of college was clear for me but what I didn’t expect was how the COVID-19 pandemic changed my whole college experience! Allow me to show you the unexpected reality of college life during this stay-at-home period. Let’s see how many of them you can relate to!   Campus Life You couldn’t wait to explore the Taylor’s Lakeside Campus — the library , the facilities , the restaurants… but the lockdown happened and you can only stay at home. No more studying in the library, playing sports in the campus multi-purpose courts, or eating with your friends. Even if there were a few weeks of physical classes when the number of cases were low, social distancing was still ...