Random Musings

-----Grades-----

As I walked out of the classroom, I could feel the wave of depression overcoming me like a tidal wave. The Bio paper was tricky. I had lots of answers to which I didn't have confidence in.

Then, visions of the other subjects came in. I started to believe that I would get ABBB for my A levels. Oh no! How could that happen to me? I've always wanted AAAA! It seemed like my days for university would be miserable with this big blow behind me.

Suddenly, I wisened up. I thought, this is just a stage. It's nothing but a stage. It isn't what Kai Liang once mentioned, that the A levels is the mother of all exams. There is no mother of all exams. Maybe to Singaporeans, yes, the A levels is the mother of all exams, but not to me.

I'm going back to Canada. I won't need the A levels that much. Granted, they're gonna use it to determine my eligibility for admission into the Faculty of Science. But then again, it's just another cert in my life. Perhaps one blemish will spur me on.

MIT? Seems like a faraway goal.
Caltech? Seems like I'm never gonna get in there too.
UBC? Amanda tells me it's a cakewalk. But with ABBB? Seems tough...
UToronto? Ranked better than UBC. Seems like I ain't gonna go nowhere...

-----Depression-----

Gee. Depression? Perhaps. Maybe I shouldn't talk so much about it anymore. Perhaps if I work hard enough and get triple 800s for my subject tests, things may turn out better. Oh, I don't know. Right now, the future seems so distant, yet so near.

The future seems distant? Yeah, because there's tons of unknowns. I'm returning to a home that I've not seen clearly for 10 years now. I'm returning to a place outside of my comfort zone. (Yes, it sounds weird, but Singapore has effectively become my comfort zone. Then again, I'm a young adult know. I should be challenging myself.) I'm going to face Canada, a vast land of crossroads between prosperity and poverty, all on my own. Will I end up poor and desolate? Or will I end up leading a comfortable lifestyle?

But the future is, in reality, near. 5 December, I will be a free man. I will return home, permanently, to the ordinary lifestyle of an ordinary citizen living in an ordinary home in an ordinary city in the spectacular Canada. 5 December. That's less than two weeks away. How far, yet so near.

-----Random Musings-----

Just as I stepped out of the Immigration and Checkpoint Authority of Singapore today, I could feel a wave of relief. I'm gonna be a free man, in say, two hours. Yeah. No longer a Permanent Resident (PR = Peace Renounced), but a true and pure Canadian citizen.

The lady at the counter tried to "warn" me about the consequences of renouncing my PR status, such as difficulty in re-applying for a permit. For every warning she gave, I told her, "It's okay. I'm fine with that." Everything went surprisingly smooth. Two hours later, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna get my social visit permit, and I'm gonna be a free man.

-----Identity-----

I am a Canadian citizen. I was a student of Hwa Chong Institution and The Chinese High School. I attended Catholic High School, and graduated from St. Andrew's Junior School. Before that, I was studying in St. Michael's University School, and Montessori Kindergarten.

I am fat. I am dense. I am athletic. I am smart.

I am a joker. I am a worrier. I am a thinker. I am a doer.

What am I? Who am I? I'm in the search of an identity. I have a family, which I'm going to leave behind in Singapore. I have a special friend, whom I may have to leave behind for another four years. I have a class, who will be dispersed for many decades to come.

-----Wants, Don't Wants-----

Yet, I have a future, I have dreams, I have things I want to do, but I also have major responsibilities.

1. I want to make sure my brother can attend university too. Or at least, I want him to be able to have the chance to do so. If he wants to, he may go. If he doesn't want to, he may not go. But I'm gonna earn money to make sure I can relieve the strain on my mom, so I can help him pay for his university tuition if he wants to go there.

2. I want to do something meaningful and significant. I want to go out there, and achieve a major accomplishment. I want to have a profession that will allow me to explore my interest in Physics and Astronomy fully. Yet again, I have this dying urge to do cell biology and, especially, genetics. Will I get to pursue both of my interests?

3. I know what I probably won't want to do professionally. I probably won't want to be a lawyer. I probably won't want to be a doctor. I probably won't want to study psychology, music, arts, or social services. You get the point. I want to do sciences.

4. Yet, there are two fields in the arts that can stir up my interest. I have a love for philosophy and literature. I love to think and think and think, and question my own assumptions about life, and I love to express them beautifully, succintly, and yet incisively in a language that can convey my ideas in an exact manner. I will want to do these in university.

5. Ben Jones of the MIT Admissions Office told me something in an e-mail that I won't forget. "To me, university life represented the only 4 years in which my only responsibility was to learn - and that is a wonderful and powerful thing." I accept what he says, and I believe in that statement too. Imagine 4 years of learning, absorbing, and preparing yourself for the working life. Not bothering too much about crappy grades, pressures from parents and so on. Being carefree, to responsibly choose the path that I want to lead in life. That's college, Ben? If it is, thank you for letting me know.

Enough rattling. The ideas are all poured out; the container's dry.

Time to eat lunch.