I enjoy the surreal. This is a particularly surreal time in my life. Let me tell you why.
For the first time ever, I’m actually less than two weeks away from something that might actually matter. What happens November 07 can change my life forever.
FOREVER!
The PSLE didn’t matter. Streaming didn’t matter. Pre-IB didn’t matter. Not even the Prelims really mattered. But this… Well, this matters. Life goes on regardless of your IB grades, but not doing well for the Finals can really screw a person up. Or at least, that’s what we have been told.
How strange it is that this is the end.
The past couple of days have been so dreamlike. I suppose I just can’t get my mind around the fact that ACS is finally over for us. This school, and the people I have met through it have shaped my life in ways that I never thought they would.They aren’t just some old school friends – after so long together, we’re almost like family now.I’ve known some of these people for twelve years of my life and I’ve known some for six. Some I’ve known for only two, but two years of IB is a long, crazy time.
I just hope that we don’t drift.
Interestingly, my uncle is coming down to Singapore for an ACS reunion thing. Apparently they’re trying to get money to pay for their teachers pensions. Its pretty cool that people still come back after 20 years.
We have a lot to be thankful for. I have ten times more opportunities available to me right now, than my father did when he was in school and a hundred times more opportunities and career paths than my grandfather.
Wikipedia allows people to edit articles without first getting accounts.This is an opportunity for much lulz.
However, after adding the word ‘carnivorous’ to the Gazebo entry, I was overwhelmed by guilt. Saddened and shamed, I furtively changed it back. Then I made an account, for no apparent reason. Perhaps it was an admission of guilt. Wikipedia is a good place, a useful place€. Who am I to deny some…architecture student of the proper definition of a freestanding, roofed, usually open-sided structure providing a shady resting place?
Grumble
Sometimes, when I can’t seem to concentrate on work, I surf university websites. It seems that I work better when I remind myself what I’m working for.
Funnily enough, the courses I usually end up spending my time reading up on aren’t related to what I tell people I want to do. For example, I just spent the afternoon reading about places that offer ‘Archaeology and Anthropology’ as well an an interesting course from Melbourne called ‘Media and Communications’. This is new for me because normally, when someone asks me what I’m going to study, I just say -
‘ Lawyering, on account of the money.’
I don’t really want money. Money is problematic and worrying.
What I want right now is job satisfaction. I do not know what that means, but I’m reasonably sure I know what it feels like. It’s what makes you get up in the morning and lets you sleep at night.
If I get a job that I enjoy – if I do something I’m happy about doing – I wouldn’t mind not having excessive amounts of stained paper under my mattress. HOWEVER, if I happen to end up doing something that I thought I would enjoy, but ACTUALLY DON’T, I feel I would need a great deal currency to find comfort , hopefully by defining myself with Scandinavian furniture.
So what do I want to do? What do I want to do!?!
Journalism sounds like fun – it sounds meaningful and exciting. It’s also pretty easy to study for. Just do something besides dentistry and then go and get an internship. But could I be a journalist? (Oh, you laugh. How sympathetic of you.)
A & A is also interesting. I don’t know what I can use it for, but something regarded as the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences, really should be worth something.
And Law also has its merits. People have assured me that being a lawyer doesn’t automatically make you rich and corrupt. They have presented detailed case studies with helpful diagrams. Lawyering is still an option.
So many choices, and so much time to decide. Why doesn’t it feel like enough?
But then again, maybe this whole discussion is moot. Money may be a terrible thing, but you really need a lot of it to actually get an education. And besides money, you also need grades. I’m a man who has never sat for an international exam EVER. I do not have any guarantees.
At all.
Really.
Wow.
I think I’m going to go sit in a corner and rock back and forth slowly.
Prelims over and returned. Not happy with grades, but thankful since I should have scored 9 points less, if the amount of work I put it is any indication. I’m very thankful to God for giving me grades that I don’t really deserve.
I don’t think I can say that I’m getting closer to God each day, in this stressful and formative period of my life. I’m very far from God, and every step forward I take, the distance is still there.
But I shouldn’t be talking about this here.
