If anyone still cares about this site at all, the lowdown is I graduated from university three months ago. And how things have changed. If I knew before university what I know now, I would say: screw this education, the one I received in particular. I haven’t collected my transcripts, I’m not sure I’m going to, and I’m quite possibly skipping my own graduation. I’ll just go take photos of myself in a robe and a hat in a studio somewhere. That’s how much it did for me: nothing. I’m glad for the good friends I met along the way, but beyond that I probably wasted my time in institutionalized learning. The ivory towers of Nothing. My proudest moment in there was when I traded my letter grades for the things I really love and care about, things I will continue to love and care about. If I knew what I know now I would say to you — if you have a passion you can’t shake off, take it and run as fast as you can. And if you have a bad feeling about your education, don’t ever think “if I stop now I’ll have to start over”, or “I’ll be behind my peers when I finish this”. Nobody cares. When you get there, nobody will care that you are only starting work at 24, or 27, or whatever it is. You don’t need to move up the ‘ladder’ with everyone else. It used to matter when it was moving up to J2 from J1, and not moving meant you got retained. Nobody cares unless you’re intending to be a civil servant (and why would you?). Start over. If it sucks in your first year, it’s going to continue to suck. Or get worse. I often wish I had the courage to leave SMU and start anew somewhere else, like some of my peers did. But all that is over.
In that time between my last exam and now, there’s been admittedly very little blogging, but it feels like a lifetime. It used to be that after you hopped over one obstacle, the next big thing around the corner was the next big exam you were going to sit for (PSLE, O Levels, A Levels). Life was this 3000m steeplechase. Now where I’m at is the part of the steeplechase that doesn’t make any sense, the part where you have to leap into the sloping pit with water, the one that might change the entire game. It’s wonderful that it’s all so open-ended right now, but when it comes down to it — it’s all quite scary, because everything changes, sometimes without you in it. In the time between my last exam and now, I was in Taipei, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Langkawi, Koh Lipe, and shuttling back and forth from Kuala Lumpur; I parted ways far too eventfully with the person I’d been seeing for the past three years, who has since moved to a new country, the one that’s partly in Europe and partly in Asia.
Then spent the rest of it trying to figure out The Plan for the year to come.
The Plan. It was simple once. The Plan, for a while, was to spend several months with the tribes in Nagaland, hit the Middle East, then Spain (El Bulli), come home to wrap things up, and prepare for a new life in New York City at Columbia.
Nagaland didn’t happen, the Middle East isn’t going to happen either, and I’m now of the opinion that since New York City will always be there it can wait, while my seats at El Bulli won’t. There are now things I need to work on, and everything I’m currently doing is being done towards the ultimate goal of living and breathing my work in the field. In China. Pakistan. Laos. Wherever, really. It isn’t time yet, but it soon will. I think that’s what my mentor spent weeks trying to tell me when we were in Bombay last, but I was too distracted by the life-changing Chicken Shimla at Bagdadi to pay any attention to someone else’s plan for my career. Recent days have brought about tremendous amounts of self-belief, one which, if you’re not looking, tends to slip away when you most need it.
Things have kinda changed in ways I didn’t really expect them to, but surprises like that are always the most pleasant. Opportunities, career and otherwise, have come up when I least expected them to. Amazing opportunities, if I may say so myself, amazing opportunities I want to see through. I was told quite recently I do a great job in starting things but not in keeping them running or in finishing them. I feel like all that’s about to change, or already has.
I’m so goddamn excited all over again.
*The real Phantom Punch:* Sondre Lerche & The Faces Down play in Singapore on 14 March! Broken Social Scene on the 9th! Raul Midon on the 11th! Múm on the 13th! the bird and the bee on the 12th! Fujiya and Miyagi on the 14th, and The Roots too! Hooray for MOSAIC for bringing bands we actually want to watch every year, and for making me voluntarily broke for the entire month.
possibly related
The Universe and Us /
Procrastinators: Tomorrow’s Leaders /
What A Fortune Teller Told Me /
Business Proposition /
Twitter Updates for 2007-11-27 /
Phantom Punch
If anyone still cares about this site at all, the lowdown is I graduated from university three months ago. And how things have changed. If I knew before university what I know now, I would say: screw this education, the one I received in particular. I haven’t collected my transcripts, I’m not sure I’m going to, and I’m quite possibly skipping my own graduation. I’ll just go take photos of myself in a robe and a hat in a studio somewhere. That’s how much it did for me: nothing. I’m glad for the good friends I met along the way, but beyond that I probably wasted my time in institutionalized learning. The ivory towers of Nothing. My proudest moment in there was when I traded my letter grades for the things I really love and care about, things I will continue to love and care about. If I knew what I know now I would say to you — if you have a passion you can’t shake off, take it and run as fast as you can. And if you have a bad feeling about your education, don’t ever think “if I stop now I’ll have to start over”, or “I’ll be behind my peers when I finish this”. Nobody cares. When you get there, nobody will care that you are only starting work at 24, or 27, or whatever it is. You don’t need to move up the ‘ladder’ with everyone else. It used to matter when it was moving up to J2 from J1, and not moving meant you got retained. Nobody cares unless you’re intending to be a civil servant (and why would you?). Start over. If it sucks in your first year, it’s going to continue to suck. Or get worse. I often wish I had the courage to leave SMU and start anew somewhere else, like some of my peers did. But all that is over.
In that time between my last exam and now, there’s been admittedly very little blogging, but it feels like a lifetime. It used to be that after you hopped over one obstacle, the next big thing around the corner was the next big exam you were going to sit for (PSLE, O Levels, A Levels). Life was this 3000m steeplechase. Now where I’m at is the part of the steeplechase that doesn’t make any sense, the part where you have to leap into the sloping pit with water, the one that might change the entire game. It’s wonderful that it’s all so open-ended right now, but when it comes down to it — it’s all quite scary, because everything changes, sometimes without you in it. In the time between my last exam and now, I was in Taipei, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Langkawi, Koh Lipe, and shuttling back and forth from Kuala Lumpur; I parted ways far too eventfully with the person I’d been seeing for the past three years, who has since moved to a new country, the one that’s partly in Europe and partly in Asia.
Then spent the rest of it trying to figure out The Plan for the year to come.
The Plan. It was simple once. The Plan, for a while, was to spend several months with the tribes in Nagaland, hit the Middle East, then Spain (El Bulli), come home to wrap things up, and prepare for a new life in New York City at Columbia.
Nagaland didn’t happen, the Middle East isn’t going to happen either, and I’m now of the opinion that since New York City will always be there it can wait, while my seats at El Bulli won’t. There are now things I need to work on, and everything I’m currently doing is being done towards the ultimate goal of living and breathing my work in the field. In China. Pakistan. Laos. Wherever, really. It isn’t time yet, but it soon will. I think that’s what my mentor spent weeks trying to tell me when we were in Bombay last, but I was too distracted by the life-changing Chicken Shimla at Bagdadi to pay any attention to someone else’s plan for my career. Recent days have brought about tremendous amounts of self-belief, one which, if you’re not looking, tends to slip away when you most need it.
Things have kinda changed in ways I didn’t really expect them to, but surprises like that are always the most pleasant. Opportunities, career and otherwise, have come up when I least expected them to. Amazing opportunities, if I may say so myself, amazing opportunities I want to see through. I was told quite recently I do a great job in starting things but not in keeping them running or in finishing them. I feel like all that’s about to change, or already has.
I’m so goddamn excited all over again.
*The real Phantom Punch:* Sondre Lerche & The Faces Down play in Singapore on 14 March! Broken Social Scene on the 9th! Raul Midon on the 11th! Múm on the 13th! the bird and the bee on the 12th! Fujiya and Miyagi on the 14th, and The Roots too! Hooray for MOSAIC for bringing bands we actually want to watch every year, and for making me voluntarily broke for the entire month.
possibly related
The Universe and Us / Procrastinators: Tomorrow’s Leaders / What A Fortune Teller Told Me / Business Proposition / Twitter Updates for 2007-11-27 /