biabia (:

Over the holidays, I had this urge to transfer to SMU. All these time, I strongly believed that NBS was more superior, it was better for me and I made the right choice. I wanted a campus feel, not a city campus where many strangers pass by my school. I didn’t want to face the reality of the ugly truths of the world out there – realistic and competitive people, ruthless and unforgiving environment. I heard of how fake people can turn into under rigorous and competitive academic requirements, and thought I don’t want to face that for the next 3 to 4 years of university education. I hope to study at a more friendly and heartwarming place.

After a year, it turned out rather startling. Besides Endor, I haven’t seen other groups in NBS being so close as a class or group together. I thought like such close bonding and strong friendships could only be forged in our early school days when we were in secondary schools or JCs. To make things worse, my gloomy experience in a committee, I totally lost faith in finding true, close and passionate friends in college. Perhaps, I have been too lucky that all my life, I keep meeting with nice friends from RV, Hwa Chong and volunteering, that I find reality so hard to accept. Other than the social aspects, I begin to be less resentful about having tough training that simulates the real world setting. I recognise that I don’t seem to have enough time to prepare for the war after convocation and that SMU training is perhaps accelerated for better good. I feel ultra inadequate at my communication and marketing skills.

For the past 20 years, although many things went my way, there were many significant turning points that caught me by surprise. I would say the chance to study at RV was totally life changing. That’s where I met great teachers, awesome nice friends, learn erhu, know about volunteering, conducive studying environment, then the ticket to Hwa Chong. If not for that impossible 259, don’t think I am doing as well as I am currently. A friend from primary school once shared with me this famous Forest Grump quote: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. – until you try it”. Singaporeans have been trained to be highly resource and time efficient. We like to plan ahead and feel insecure about future incertainties. But I guess from this I learned that it is always too early to make a judgement. Even when I hear from many reliable sources about a certain view. Things might just happen and you never know how the universe will respond to it.

Similarly, I just witness how outrageous I can turn into. Evil breeds evil. The temptation from the devil is seriously an awfully tough test. I used to be a sensible child but even I get lured by such temptations. Thank god, I was stopped. Early enough to realise too, how unexpected I can be.