Just a simple dinner with people who matter.

A few days ago, I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m no longer a child or a youth as dictated by society’s standards. It was my first step into adulthood, a period of life that’s full of possibilities and excitement, but also one that’s plagued with responsibilities and decisions.

Without any form of warning or hint, the reality of turning 21 has slowly crept in on me over the past few months and finally, it dawned on me that I’m finally 21 now and has already lived about 25% of my total lifespan. It definitely feels a bit scary if we think about it this way. Before we know it, we would have become parents and reach the halfway mark of our lives. Time really doesn’t show any mercy.

It’s really so funny how we wanted to grow up as soon as possible when we were young, and how we want to become children or youths once again when we’re now adults. When we were young, we had both time and energy but no money. Now that we’re adults, we’ve both money (not sure for everyone) and energy but no time. When we grow old and become parents or grandparents, we’ll have both time and money but no energy. How great will it be if we can possibly have all 3! The only chance for that to happen is during our adult stage, when we can actually earn as much money as we can in the early part of our career, so that we’ll be able to have more time and money to spend in the later part. Alternatively, we can also make time for ourselves and stop and smell the beautiful roses. We must never take our health for granted. It gives us a freedom so huge such that when it’s suddenly stolen from us, our lives will simply crumble and will never be the same again. While we’re still young and full of energy, we should take the time to explore the world around us and revel in its wondrous beauty. It’ll be too late for that once illness strikes us.

Over the past few weeks, my friends have been telling me constantly about the importance of one’s 21st birthday and how significant and grand it should be. However, I just couldn’t feel the need for a luxurious party since I’ve never really been a fan of birthday parties ever since young. Hence, I decided that on my 21st birthday, it’ll just be a simple dinner with some friends who have once played a memorable and significant role in my life. Most importantly, they’re friends whom have shared lots of crazy laughter with me.

It was indeed a pleasant evening with all of them and even though the weather wasn’t cooperative at all, I’m very glad that they still managed to come and spent the evening with me. For that, I’ll like to express my deepest thanks and gratitude. It was definitely nostalgic and great to see people whom I haven’t seen for the past 2 years, and to be able to have fun talking and joking with them made it even more amazing. Even though we’re all leading different lives now, the memories that we once shared will always be the same and remain within us.

4 years and counting.

It has been a wonderful 4 years with this bunch of ‘gentlemen’. Even though I do hope that we’ll forever stay the same way, I know that that’s just something that’s quite impossible to achieve. As we enter this new phase of our lives, we’ll meet different people and have different experiences. We’ll be with our new friends and will have less time for our old ones. Slowly but steadily, the new friends will take over the space that’s reserved for the old ones in our hearts. I know that I sound really very pessimistic here, but I just can’t help but feel that way after experiencing the many differences that’s beginning to surface among us.

And I guess that’s all for my 21st birthday! Recently, I’ve been reading a book that’s a compilation of emails written by a cancer patient during the period when she underwent radiotherapy and after that. The title of the book is ‘A Joyful Song’ and the thing that I admire most about the author is that she was able to remain so positive and cheerful amidst the most trying period of her life. After reading it, it makes all the troubles (if they can even be called troubles) in my life seem so trivial and small. One lesson which I’ve learnt from the book is that no matter what problems we may face, there’ll always be a way out of the dark and long tunnel.

We often hear people say that we should live our lives with no regrets. That sounds fairly simple enough, but how many of us can actually achieve that? Recently, I bought a book that’s written by Bronnie Ware, the author of this amazing article. It’s called ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying’. Hopefully, this book will enlighten me and allow me to see the world in a whole new different perspective, one that will truly allow me to live my life with no regrets.

Have we been neglecting the subtle beauties of life?

What is the point of crying? There is so much of life to celebrate and enjoy, so many people to love. No time to get sad and depressed. So go catch up with that friend whom you’ve been thinking of but never got down to calling. Go buy that dress you’ve been eyeing, put it on and feel good about yourself. Take that holiday with your family that you’ve been dreaming about. Stop and smell the roses. Go celebrate life, and live it well.

Carol Lim

Sometimes, we've no choice but to walk barefoot on this long and arduous road.

Today, I attended the first session of a three-day training programme that aims to prepare me well for my teaching internship which will begin next week.

It’s always an unpleasant feeling for me whenever I enter a place that’s filled with so many unfamiliar faces, some of whom are chatting away with one another and others who are just as lost as me. Luckily, a fellow school mate from National Junior College recognised me and came up to me. Coincidentally, he was from Catholic High School. I guess I do have a lot of affinity with students from that school.

Today, I also met a fellow acquaintance who was once in my orientation group. It’s really an amazing sight to see someone who’s younger than me and who was once my junior, being transformed into this confident and mature woman. I guess time really does change a person. I’ve already lost two years of my life. It’s time to start to pick myself up and earn back whatever precious time that I’ve lost.

What began as an interesting and informal sharing session by a principal and 2 ex-interns slowly became an uncomfortable and nerve-wrecking training session at the end. Throughout the whole session, me and my friends were just praying hard not to be chosen by the speaker. Instead of training us to be more confident with ourselves, I guess the programme really backfired.

The first day was definitely an uncomfortable one and I really do hope that tomorrow will be much better. Or maybe I should just hope that things will not get any more worse than today.

What an awesome way to herald the start of 2012!

This is my first post in 2012! I can’t believe that this blog has actually managed to survive for more than 2 years; that definitely is a first world miracle.

2012 will be the year when I’ll experience a lot of new and different things, and it’s also the year when I’ll bid goodbye to various experiences and habits. In a nutshell, it’ll definitely be a life-altering year for me.

For starters, let’s just say that I’ve finally regained my long-awaited freedom after 2 years with the Army. For the past 2 years, my life had been absolutely uneventful and dry. There was nothing special or significant about 2010 and 2011, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to take away the word ‘yet’ from the sentence, “Those were the worst 2 years of my life yet.”

I’m just so excited that I’m once again a civilian, but that also means that I’m no longer the kiddish and immature Alvin of the past. Whether I like it or not, I have to admit that Army does transform boys into men. I do feel more confident and sensible now as compared to the past. With this change of mindset, I’ve decided to do away with my usual style of fashion sense and go for a more mature and confident look. Hopefully, this will turn out well in the future.

For us men who just left the Army or will leave very soon, 2012 is also going to be one of the most exciting years of our lives. Why?

It’s because it’ll be the start of our university lives! That’s definitely an important chapter of our lives and I really do hope to enjoy it as much as possible. Staying in hall, meeting new friends, participating in new activities, there’s just so many things to experience in those 4 years! If possible, I do hope that I’ll be able to meet my soul mate during my time in university. Sometimes, I really wonder about that…

I know I’ve been saying this for years, but I’ll definitely reach my desired weight of 67kg. With this goal in mind, I’ve planned to run as much as I can before university starts. Hopefully, I’ll be fit enough to join a sports team and won’t become a laughingstock over there. So far, I’ve ran 44km over the past 2 weeks! I hope that’s a good start to 2012 and that I’ll continue to keep this up.

Recently, I’ve signed up for a basic French course at Alliance Française de Singapour and it’ll commence on 5 January. I know I’ve never been a language kind of person but I’ve always wanted to pick up a third language. Japanese and Korean seem way too common so I was thinking to myself, why not French? Since Europe is my number 1 travel destination, I might as well familiarise myself with their language and culture first before I go there. Besides that, I might even get a chance to work in France in the future. That’ll be totally awesome, being able to live and work in such a romantic country! Once university starts, I hope to take French electives as part of my modules. Hopefully by the end of university, I’ll be able to converse fluently in French.

2012 is also the year when I’ll turn 21. This officially means that I’m an adult now and should think and behave like one. I hate to admit it but time seems to go very fast when we’re at this age. Before we even know it, university would have ended and we’ll be facing issues such as careers, CPF, elections, bills, loans etc. Other than just ourselves, we’ll also have to start taking care of the people around us, such as our parents or our spouses. The life of an adult seems quite scary when we think of it this way, which is why we definitely must cherish whatever youth that’s left in us right now.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be a teaching intern at National Junior College. As anxious as I may be, I’m actually also looking forward to the experience. After all, it’s where I spent 2 years of my life at and for me, it has mostly been happy memories. Oh, the nostalgia…

We still don’t know what will happen in the future. Let’s just embrace ourselves for 2012 and hopefully, every day will be as dazzling and mesmerising as the fireworks that we’ve seen!

On this night. On this very Christmas night.

I wonder if this year’s Christmas will be the same as those in previous years, or will there be something different in store for me?

Nonetheless, let us all rejoice in this festive day of giving and receiving and I wish every one a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What do you think will await us as we walk down this autumn path?

Just a few days ago, I received a pleasant surprise after I woke up one morning.

I thought that the results will only be out in late December but on the morning of 12 December, I received an email from MOE saying that I’ve been accepted as a Teaching Intern! What came as a bigger surprise was that I was actually posted to my alma mater, National Junior College. I guess I can count myself very lucky to be given my first choice of school. Technically speaking though, that should be my second choice because I would have chosen Nan Hua High School if it was one of the possible choices. Hahaha!

Then on 14 December, a teacher from NJC called me and asked if I would like to extend my teaching stint until the end of May, meaning to say I’ll be teaching for one whole semester next year. Since I’ve no idea what I’ll be doing after the internship (most likely it’ll be some shitty admin job that pays $7.50/hour from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm), I decided to take up the offer. If I do get accepted, I’ll have a steady income for the next 5 months and that’ll end my job-hunting days!

Hopefully, this internship will increase my chances of fulfilling my dream of travelling around the world…

As for today, I visited the Balmoral and Bukit Timah estates this afternoon to conduct personal house visits as part of my job. Along the way, I’ve entered lots of expensive houses which I’ll never be able to afford in my life ever. One will definitely be awed when entering such houses for the first time, and I won’t deny that I hope to live in such a luxurious house in the future.

However, will one really gain true happiness by living in such a house?

After all, a house is simply a place for one to eat, sleep, work and relax. A luxurious house will simply allow one to relax more. Ultimately, I believe that it’s what one does in the house and who’s staying in it that matter the most. That said, I suppose I should change my definition of ‘dream house’:

It shouldn’t be a house at Marina Bay. It should be a house where I’m living with my loved ones and looking forward to every single day with them. Yup, that’s what my dream house will be in the future!

Alright! It’s time to sleep and look forward to the next day! (That’s a lie.) I still have 28.8% of my assignments left. I guess I’ll try to clear 7 cases tomorrow then. Let’s hope that it’ll be a success!

Let's all add colours to the sky and make this world a better place.

Over the past few days, I was carrying out my duties as a Field Interviewer by making calls and conducting personal house visits. During this period of time, various incidents along the way have made me think a lot.

In the early part of the job, I was only allowed to call the respondents as it was not the time yet for me to conduct personal house visits. In all the calls that I’ve made, some were very cooperative and nice, some were quite suspicious and sceptical but were still willing to participate in the survey, and some were just downright nasty.

One respondent scolded me for 16 minutes straight and demanded us to pay him back for the roaming charges that his phone’s incurred in the previous month. Apparently, the previous interviewer has called him while he was in Shanghai and he was very pissed over it. As much as I sympathised with him, there was nothing I could do and there was absolutely no need for him to raise his voice too.

There was another respondent who lives in a rich estate in Singapore. She sounded very irritated over the phone and was extremely uncooperative. At the end of the call, she told me that she had no interest in talking to me and told me not to call again, in a very unfriendly tone. She then hung up the phone.

I guess my supervisor was right in saying that most of the respondents who live in private apartments are the ones who are more unlikely to cooperate with us. Somehow, this made me think a lot over the past few days.

Is a world that’s filled with only kind and nice people ever possible?

I suppose not.

Since we’re already living in this imperfect world of ours, we’ve got no choice but to live through the dejected moments and make up for it by embracing and celebrating the fun and joyous ones.

Just like a setting that came from a beautiful fairy tale.

If you have no burdens or heavy baggages to carry behind you, what would you do differently in your life?

In this world that we’re living in, ‘survival’ is something that has been carved into our hearts and minds ever since we’ve been born. In schools, we were taught to study and achieve excellent grades in every examination. That is what most people will define as a good student. And what’s the point of being a good student? So that he can obtain better qualifications and secure a high-paying job in the future. That same student will then work solely for money and fail to appreciate the subtle beauties of life around him.

If you ask me about this a few years back, that would have been my outlook on life. To me, life was nothing more than a collection of actions with the sole aim of surviving in this cruel world. In order to survive, you’ll need money for shelter, food and transport etc. And in order to get money, you’ll need to work. In this way, one will acquire lots of baggages which will make moving on in life much harder.

The most common baggage is a never-ending thirst for more money. Face it, men are greedy. We’ll never be satisfied with whatever we have, but that may be a good or a bad thing depending on how we handle that greed. If only we can just settle for a simpler life, we’ll be able to have more time for other stuff which can make us happier than simply having more money. In fact, it’s pretty interesting to note that most of the dying really regret having spent so much time on their careers when they were young. Food for thought?

There’re of course many other baggages out there, such as having sick elderly parents to care for, having a whole family to feed, and the never-ending house loans. For me, I’m still pretty young so I’ll say the only baggage for me is financial burden. But what if one day in the future, all of these baggages and burdens will just disappear? How will my life change then?

Recently, I watched two movies called Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Before Sunset is actually the sequel to Before Sunrise, but I actually watched Before Sunset first about a month ago. Still, it didn’t change my perception of these two movies and I was still able to enjoy them as a whole. But I must admit, these aren’t the romance movies that you’ll usually get to see in cinemas. They might seem a little bit boring in the first few minutes with heavy dialogues and a minimalist plot, but these are what make the movies seem so real and leave us thinking beyond the endings.

If I ever do get the chance, I’ll want to explore the vastness of Europe, either alone or with my loved one, if I manage to even find one. Watching these movies make me feel that so many possibilities can happen should I just head out of my comfort zone and venture into the unknown. It just feels so magical and fairy tale-like. Having been confined within the boundaries of Singapore for the past 20 years, I feel that I really am a frog in the well – with a lid over the well.

That’s what I’ll do if all my baggages are gone. I know I’ve mentioned this in my previous posts for umpteen times, but I must still say it here again to constantly remind my future self that my biggest dream is to travel around the whole world and explore the wonders and beauties that life has to offer.

I’m not sure when that dream of mine will happen, but I sure will work towards it. After all, life is not just about wearing expensive and branded clothings, having the latest technology and IT gadgets, or having a high-paying career. What exactly is life to you, you’ll have to figure that out yourself.

Over there in the clear pink sky lies my long-awaited freedom.

The day that made me happy.
The day that I’ve anticipated for the past 2 years.
The day that I got back my freedom and my pink IC.
The day that I became an NSman.

02 December 2011: My ORD Day

Technically speaking, my official ORD is on 04 December 2011, but since that day falls on a Sunday, I was thus able to collect my pink IC on 02 December 2011. It definitely has been an extremely long journey for me. Even though people around me usually say that NS will be over in the blink of an eye, I still can’t help but feel dejected. That was what I thought in the past. Right now, it really ended, and yes, in the blink of an eye.

I’m having mixed feelings right now. It’s supposed to be an extremely joyous occasion today, where most people like me will party till midnight, parading their pink ICs to everyone they see along the way. However, I just wasn’t feeling it. Today seemed like just another normal day for me. In fact, the happiest moment for today was probably the time I spent in the arcade.

I suppose the euphoria that I was supposed to experience today has already been spread out over the month of November. After coming back from Australia, the ORD mood has already kicked in. The freedom in November was extremely sweet and wonderful, which brings us to the month of December when the same freedom has already lost its flavour.

Either way, I’m glad that I’ve finally completed my National Service, and I really should start contemplating on my future from now on. Just recently, I got a temporary job at the Ministry of Manpower. The designation of my job is Field Interviewer, and my role is to collect data from various households in Singapore. I’m pretty glad that it’s just a one-month job, because the pay is pretty low and it’s definitely not an easy job. Getting scolded for 16 minutes straight from time to time can definitely drive one crazy. I just hope that I’ll be able to complete at least 90% of my assignments at the end of the month. It’s not easy, but I’ll give my all. Beats doing nothing at home anyway.

Speaking about jobs, my group interview for the MOE Teaching Internship Programme will be on 08 December 2011. I really hope that I can get this internship, as that will mean that I’ll be employed from January to March in 2012, and also that it’ll be easier for me to get a Teaching Scholarship if I manage to perform well during the internship. I really should start doing some preparations for the interview though… 5 more days to go!

Last but not least, I REALLY NEED TO RUN.

Argh.

And one last thing…

ORD LO!

The freedom to explore the wonders of the world. Isn't it romantic?

There’s so many things in the world that I haven’t experienced yet, and to name it all will undoubtedly take forever. Given the already limited amount of time we have on earth, all the more it makes every single second of our lives even more precious.

Health should never be taken for granted. It grants us a freedom that not even an unlimited amount of money can buy.

Dare to dream. Dare to love. Dare to try.