Thought Of The Day: that's the funny thing about romance. if you had to ask for it, it takes away all the romance.

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Sunday, August 22, 2004

settling for less

i'm back again by popular demand. seems like i'm coming home every week. there's always something to do. if it's not meeting up with friends who just came back or are about to leave...it's family matters...then there's birthdays and special occassions (somehow i don't think i spelt that right and if i did...i never realized that it looked so weird). anyway...i was actually planning to get a haircut and to buy a pair of loafers. the haircut plan is still going to be executed but i'm thinking twice about the shoes. when i came back today i realized that my brand new pair of tevas were not where they were supposed to be. so i searched the whole house and found it in the 'unused shoe' cabinet....it's the cabinet where my mom keeps all the shoes that i've never...and i mean never worn before. there were a pair of marks n spencers loafers...a pair of hush puppies slip on loafers...2 pairs of black heels...one pair of mary janes...2 pairs of black sandals and a couple of other shoes that i don't even remember buying. so i guess i can save up the 150 bucks and skip the whole shoe plan. in any case...i'm heading down to 1 utama for a haircut and since i'm there i'll head down to hush puppies to check out the black pair of loafers i saw the other day.

on the journey home today i was sitting next to this 21 year old guy from penang who speaks very broken english. he introduced himself as richard...i think...not very good with names. anyway..he was telling me about how he is now organises motivational seminars and how he hopes to be a speaker one day. throughout the whole conversation i was just trying my best to refrain from nit-picking at his inability to grasp the english language which is something i do all the time. so he's talking and talking away and telling me how he chose this path in life because he wants to inspire people and to help them make a better life for themselves. then he asked me what i was doing and i explained how i moved to singapore to teach and have been there for 4 months. he then asked me the ultimate question....why? i sort of know why i went there...i wanted to experience something new...to be independent and to just find out what it's like to work in a foreign country and not have to rely on anyone else but myself. those are the reasons that should've driven to singapore in the first place but it's not. i think stupidity drove me to moving to singapore.

anyway...he was telling me how we should all figure out what it is we want to do in life and not just settle for something mediocre. then i thought for awhile...i always wanted to be a psychologist or a journalist...or maybe even a photographer. but there was always one thing that i lacked...the patience...determination and discipline to study and get through the 4 years of torture before i obtain a degree and without a degree...i probably won't be able to pursue any of those above mentioned line of work. so i did the next best thing...or should i say the logical thing...i did what i am capable of doing...i decided to teach music. it's something that i can do...it's not exactly something that i pictured myself doing and it's not something that i strived all my life to become. my mother did though...she was hoping to have a little britney...one who can hardly dance and sing or even look remotely good on stage or anywhere else for that matter. but that's beside the point. not only did i lack all the qualities that would get me through college and university...i also lacked the funds. but does it make me any less happy? i don't know...and i will never know until i decide to go back to college and study and hopefully become a psychologist or journalist. do i like my job? yes i do...but it doesn't mean that it's what i wanted to be. i'm just settling for what is logical and what i'm capable of doing. do i still want to be anything other than a teacher? given the opportunity i probably would jump at the chance to go back to college and study something that i'm really interested in. but in the meantime...i'll stick to what i can do. so to answer his question of what do i want to be and what do i want in life? i just want to be happy.