Adaptation

My fourth week into my first job, I am beginning to slowly get used to a new life.

I remember how I bravely declared just a few months ago that I would never bring work home even if it meant finishing at late everyday. Reality has its way of making one mince his own words. Working in policy office and dealing with a whole range of international issues means there is never really a dull moment and consequently a lull.

Having a laptop means work can find its way to you at odd hours. The long weekend was my first taste of working on a public holiday when my mates were out chilling. Finally I understood a colleague's lament that he cried when he got his lap top. Nonetheless I aint complaining about the quality and nature of the job. I am doing what I dreamt of.

Despite being distinctly short of the yardstick planted by my current colleagues, I hope to make the grade as soon as possible. Not to mention the almost hectic movement within the civil service I once wasn't a fan of, I find myself sent for leadership courses, psychological courses and a whole range of 'extra curricular' activities designed to bring out the best in a person.

I really should not be complaining because there is nothing to complain about. Perhaps I just need time to take in all that has happened to me in the past few months and convince myself I am worth salt people think me capable of. Time to prove myself wrong, for the umpteen time in my life.

Memories

Since I am to begin work on Monday, I was clearing my personal cupboard when I stumbled upon the old cards and letters I used to exchange with friends.

I can be a sentimental person, and looking through the thick stack of Christmas, New Year and other miscellaneous cards for birthdays left me reminiscing of a time long gone.
Sentences like "Happy 14th Birthday", or "Have a wondrous year in 1999" invoked memories from the past. I even went to the extent of smsing an old secondary school classmate whom I hadn't contacted in ages to confirm his address! I guess it's not so easy to forget someone who helped me get into Anderson Junior College some nine years ago.

I recall myself being really active in my local church choir from 1997 to 2000. I was then singing in what is now known as Christus Laudatur Voce Choir (CLVS) at the Parish of Risen Christ. Together with my good buddies Victor, Dominic and Benjamin, we strolled into choir practice at a time when CLVS were recruiting. For all those who didn't know, I even sang solo once or twice in church for selected songs, which I would really put as one of the higher points of my singing career. But all good things come to an end and while CLVS was a fantastic place with wonderful people like Mark, Edwin, Gerard, Kelvin, Mona and Stephen just to name a few, one could not possibly continue singing when his faith is exhausted. This felt especially true for me in late 2000, and I quit, much to the disappointment of many.

Several years passed and eventually I did return to church, although I was no longer as pious and staunch a Catholic I was before. Bumping into these old choir mates gave both a tinge of joy and sadness. On one hand, I was happy to see them and catch up a little and the other, I knew I was never going to join them again. Weekly Saturday practices, together with intensive choral practice before major events such as the Shine Jesus Shine Rally, or the annual Christmas midnight mass medley would mean dedication beyond what I was prepared to give.
Of course I did it for a full three and a half years but by then I had grown to love my freedom on weekends, and turning back was simply something I never considered.

And then there was junior college, where I began a journey of self-discovery. I was eager to impress and quite frankly, I lost count of the number of times I overdid it just to make my point.
It never really struck me how obnoxious I was because I was proud of my bi-lingualism in a college where Chinese was more or less the main medium of exchange. Perhaps this is why I never bonded well with my own classmates, but ended up hanging out with the people from 07/01, which is now better known as 14US.
Even in my CCA, I was known to be overzealous and loud-mouthed when the situation called for calmness. I probably had a much easier time dealing with our CCA teacher in charge, because I knew when to talk to him and how. EQ - it turns out- was something I picked up quickly when dealing with him. Till today I would credit him for many of the traits you see in me. He brought out a side of me I never I possessed. I bonded better with some better than others in ODAC, maybe because this bunch of people I hung out with had the same work-values and attitude.

I poured so much into ODAC that I neglected my studies and the fool in me believed that I could turn things around within the last six months of Year Two, when I suffered a slipped disc and that put an end to my dreams of scoring for my A levels. Discipline and an almost crazy iron will, now that I look back at it, has its limitations. Afterall, it is no laughing matter continuing to revise and do your tutorials when your disc was pressing into your spinal colomn irritating nerves in your leg.

The slipped disc put an end to the possibility of me serving Singapore as a foot soldier. Instead God has other plans and placed me in a unit where I think I learnt a great deal and matured greatly. In a department with a supportive boss and equally helpful seniors, I was left independently to deal with the administrative work . I would like to think I did my best while serving my National Service, and it seems that was indeed the case for the day I left, one of my section heads came up to me and thanked me for doing a good job handling matters in my department. Looking back, I really was blessed to enter into a unit and department where work done by NSFs did not go unappreciated. How many NS bosses actually remember their subordinates birthday and even bought them cakes and gifts? Well mine did.

That's life, isn't it? Many a times we are thrusted into situations where we wish we picked a different path but life has other ideas and we move on. I wondered how my life would have turned out differently if I had more faith during the more troubling years of my adolescence. Perhaps it was a test, and whether I passed or failed is not up to me to decide, but for God to judge the day I move on.

Now that almost ten years have passed, I look back over my shoulder and reflect on events from the past. If there is anything I wish for the future, that would be to listen more and to talk less. Humility is something that I preach all too often but fail to practise.

I haven't written a post of such genre in sometime, and I hope I didn't bore you to death with what is almost half my life's story.

Moving on

The next step of my life beckons: Work.

Life can truly be amazing, when one looks back at the things that happen to oneself.

Perhaps the most surprising was the job offer from the civil service.
I cannot remember for how long I have been critical of how scholars tend to have a blessed life in their ministries.
Well irony has its unique way of presenting itself.

Now that I have been posted to Mindef, I will doing something completely unrelated to my choice of study throughout the past four years: Try equating Defence Policy work to Aerospace Engineering.

The path ahead of me right now is very clear, those in the civil service would know exactly what I mean.

Time to start reading again.

Decision.

There is no room for hesitancy here.

Whatever I have believed in for a long time, may have to be thrown out of the window.

I have no choice.

How apt.

Amd bringing to you the latest updates from the Straits Times:

50 cent settles lawsuit

Wah, if only a real lawsuit only cost 50 cents.

Retro

I was clearing up my cupboard yesterday morning and came across several items that reminded of a past long gone.

The Sega Gamegear: Imagine holding this and playing this on the MRT today. I bet you'll make all the people with the Nintendo DS Lite and Sony PSP drop their jaw in admiration.

The 5.25 floppy, what an amazing device, capable holding up to, 360kb = 0.36mb per disk.
Hahaha, what 1 TB hard drives now going for 150SGD, it can be hard to believe that each of these disk cost 4 to 5 SGD once.

What a reminder of how much time has passed.

Quote of the League

"Arsenal's big advantage is that they can play Pat Rice at right-back and Arsene himself at centre-forward on Saturday" - Sir Alex Ferguson, Manager, Manchester United