Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Distant Responsibility


Questions and more questions - How are you getting on with your life? Did you manage to catch ~~~? What's happening in your life right now?

Hmm. Makes me feel like I'm responsible for all the answers that these questions posed. Truth is - I don't. Rather I should not be responsible for answers to all these questions. Just how often does someone really step into your life and change it? And makes it change it for the better? Or will you go one big circle and at the supposed "ending" realise we have never really moved much at all?

Met up with an old friend last Sunday. It was a weird feeling because we've known each other for almost.. 6 years? Yet we have never met each other before. We chatted each other up on the IRC which was pretty much the rage back in year 2000 and even before that. What followed was emails, Yahoo Messengers and only more recently Hotmail Messenger. Recent months was the proposed meet-up but met with quite a few clashes in timings due to other committments like her work and my own activity schedules. So when we met up last sunday there was some slight apprehension on whether we would face each other with horrible silences. Thankfully, we chatted just like we normally do on MSN though the first time we gazed at each other there was this slight pause.

"Hi" She said
"Hey, you're right on time." I replied.

She laughed, ice broken and the conversation started flowing shortly.

Just like so many MSN conversations.

Had a short chat with my SA Junior last nite, spoke of family backgrounds and of what we prefer to do in our leisure times. Spoke of some sad moments and of friends. It was short though not too short but nevertheless, it did feel good. Warmth was the feeling I could describe and so was the temperature of my body which subsequently broke out into a small sweat. DAMN. NYP should really look into their infrastructure and build more cooling places for leisure chats. Or perhaps it was just the stillness of the air which did not make the best conditions for small chats.


The feeling of responsibility becomes distant
Should we simply commit because it is morally right
Or we simply follow the heart
Even though it might not make the best decision

When the strands of attachments loosen
and paths diverge
When we are no longer able to stand still
and simply look at each other

Obligated Obligations Obligatory
Not the most heartening decision
but perhaps the most accepted choice
ignorance of the feelings


I can't. I can't. I just can't.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Choices


15 days since the 1st of July and it feels like I have not exactly remembered how those 14 days past have flown by. Like the strong gale of wind that thrusts the torrent of ventilations whizzing past your face, the speed of events have whizzed by me giving me akin references to Lightning McQueen in the Movie "Cars" - Speed.

Now the last recollection would probably be linked to the enjoyable night I had with Valerie and her Blast Peepz @ Butter Factory. After the offers I mentioned with AppleOrchard and the "supposed" interview at Fuji Xerox Towers, I attended a couple more interviews mainly with Educational Centres like Integrative Learning Corporation Pte Ltd and Guilford Training Centre Pte Ltd. Integrative's situated at Clarke Quay area while Guilford's located at Anson Road [Tanjong Pagar]. Both have offered me relatively attractive career prospects though they are a shadow of what Pathfinder Alliance [Fuji Xerox] have offered me. Can you imagine earning an income bracket of $100K per annum? Not exactly achievable for most people in their lifetime.

That brings us to a little question which the Director Mr Raymond Tan posed to me during our final interview - How hungry are you? Reflections back to his question made me realise I'm hungry but not for money but for satisfaction. For success. Success to me is being able to fixate a stable income which can feed a family of four maximum. Having struggled through these years earning money to support my own living expenses and my University Fees have made me realise indeed the omniportance of financial freedom. It also made me realise the joy of a balanced worklife. Given a choice I would have wanted to travel back in time and correct a wrongs, I do carry a few regrets in my life but looking forward. I am also glad I have travelled this path for it brought me a whole new perspective which strengthened my communication skills tremendously. To be empathetic with most people because I can understand their difficulties in life yet at the same time understand myself well enough to know when I can help and when I need to push them to stand on their own.

Success to me perhaps is being able to achieve financial freedom with an ease of mind.

In theory it sounds absolutely tempting. In reality, we struggle like dogs for the bread and butter issues. Unless you are the talented few who have chartered your path well and focused on it from a young age then, when you have reached the dreaded 30, you will already have the next 30 years of your journey spread out on a red carpet. You might say we pay the price in our working years for the deviance of the years we spent during our education years be it University, Polytechnic, Junior Colleges or even Secondary School years. Is it any wonder why parents thus push their kids so hard to make them achieve the desired grades? Not for fear of loss of respect from other parents but simply from the fear that their children will spend the rest of their working years paying the price for their deviance of the education years as well.

StageArts NYP have recently completed their assessment for the Juniors. Overall Peter seemed pretty pleased with their progress though there were misgivings about some juniors in particular. From the feedback I gathered I believed attitude plays an important factor. Well, its a general theory which applies everywhere. But there were a few who surprised me with their progress indeed. To name a few - Mei Xian, Paulin, Wei Lin and the "senior" juniors Joscelyn. Have gotten a lot closer to them since the assessment and the test of their chereography skills. No doubt they are still not able to show the chereography that can be put forth on competitions but they are at least showing the dance sense of it. Did stress them out slightly when on hiphop assessment I gave them the remark "I trained much more with you guys so I expect much more from you all than the new juniors" haha.

Time to train myself to a new level. I should start going back to Dance Studios to learn new chereographies so I can have new ideas. Argh, with the new tuition jobs I have taken up the time is limited though. A little breakdown of the schedules -

Monday ~ free day
Tuesday ~ SA Hiphop Training [May soon juggle between DreamWerkz as well]
Wednesday ~ Tuition at Edgefield Plains till 9:30pm
Thursday ~ SA Jazz Trainings
Friday ~ Tuition at Potong Pasir till 8:30pm
Saturday ~ Perhaps practise in Mornings
Sunday ~ Tuition at 4pm and 7pm with the dance classes slotted in mornings.

Hurray. When I start work. I will become the master of jugglers. Not to mention I have yet to register for my driving lessons.