Archive for October, 2004
Woe is I
s t a r m | s t October 5th, 2004
So.
The last of my classes ended two Wednesdays ago. Nothing special actually. No ending with a big bang. No ‘let’s take photographs for memories’ sake’. No cakes. No celebration. No ‘let’s keep in touch’. No tears. No nothing. Just like that, yes, like that.
But did it really matter?
No, not really. I didn’t need big bangs, I didn’t want any cakes, and I certainly did not have to have any celebration of sorts.
The reason why I took 2 weeks’ hiatus is because I needed some time to think and reflect. That Wednesday impacted on me much more that I thought it would. I didn’t know it then, but now I do. I was confused for a while. I was restless, easily irritated, easily angered, had little tolerance for people who didn’t do their work, and did not feel like dealing with anything or anyone at all. Everything was boring. Projects were a pain in the you-know-where. Messages were left unanswered. Tirades were thrown at innocent parties. Procrastination was in full force. I couldn’t understand what I was feeling then, but now I do.
Enlightenment came to me today in a halo of brilliant white light that shimmered and then exploded into a million tiny sparks, pricking my skin. After having spent five hours thinking of the future, and him, and my future, and back to the future again (which was all that I have been thinking of these days anyway) when what I should have been doing was my school work, I suddenly found me understanding myself a little better.
To me, the last of the classes signified the closure of an important chapter of my life, and from now until the time when I step into the working world, I am in limbo. Not here, nor there. Not anywhere. Yet still somewhere, lost in greyness and fog.
And from the moment I stepped out of my lecture room when class ended, something inside me changed. I don’t know what it is, I cannot identify it. But the knowledge of me not being a student anymore, it just changed something deep inside me. Perhaps this is called ‘growing up’.
And I hate it.
Or maybe I should say I have a love-hate relationship with it.
Many friends I know are impatient for school to finally end so that they can enter the working world. Me? I’m not that keen to embrace it. Probably cos I had a taste of what/how it is like and I really, really dislike it. All the politics, the back-stabbing, the ‘B&B’ of the offices, the constraints, the never-ending chase for ’success’, the uncertainties, the stress, the list just go on and on. Yes, welcome to the real world, yes.
Perhaps I’m too cynical about this whole going-out-to-work situation (I shouldn’t generalize the working environment, isn’t it?), or perhaps I sound childish, unwilling to embrace the inevitable, but see, things are never that simple. I have reasons for all this negativity, but I just don’t wish to pour them out online for all and sundry to see and judge.
An important chapter of my life is ending soon, and I have to turn the pages as days pass by. What will await me in the future? How drastic will the changes in life be? Will friendships be lost? Will things affect me and him? How much will the dog-eat-dog world change me? Will I get a fulfilling job? Will I even get a job? Will I get crushed in the vicious working world? All these I wonder, and all these I worry over.
This uncertainty, I want to end it. Yet I’m not all ready to accept the new chapter. So where does that leave me? Neither here, nor there, yet still somewhere, lost in greyness and fog. For now until then, I am in limbo.
