So What If?

So what if all my life I've been working very hard to top the pecking order if what others are only willing to see are my flaws?

So what if I've been spending most of my time all cooped up in my room doing just the most unexciting thing ever if others are only able to see how uneventful my life has been?

So what if I've tried so relentlessly comforting myself when all others fail to notice how much I want this?

So what if I really want something so badly when none of them are willing to give me a chance?

So what if I've never surrendered to my viciousness and my jealousy when people around me have never failed to live better, attain more and excel further than me?

To God, to my peers, my educators and potential employers - they who have the power to give and enable, whom I have never been visible to.

I apologise for being so ordinary.

I apologise for taking my life too seriously.

I apologise for not trying to be entertaining.

I apologise that my achievements fall off the radar so quickly.

I apologise for not being better than the others.

I apologise for my monotony.

I apologise I couldn't do any better.

I apologise for not being memorable.

I apologise for not knowing what's so incorrect and ill-fitting about me.

Now... can You start giving me what I want?

Best Thing In This Galaxie

I needed the whole thing to set in before I can present a proper and impartial evaluation on my whole experience interning with Galaxie mag's editorial team.

Nah that was a lie. I was just plain lazy. That's one and two, there are some things I needed to figure out since the results got out. Note on that - still figuring it out. And so haven't really got the time to feel nostalgic about the interning days which should have been able to compel me to write something about it. A write up at five in the morning after a good hair wash sounds like one of those typical moments to feel nostalgic eh? Possible.

Interning with Galaxie was perhaps the luckiest thing that has ever hit on me. It all began with a random email. The same email which I believe Seventeen mag, The Star and NSTP would have received. You know, the same introductory line I lifted from the very email I sent to SLB cause I thought hey if I scored that with this line, the theory is that this should work for any other employer too right? Guess bosses from those other mags have different taste. Wouldn't be bothered though cause Gordon gave me that break I was relentlessly praying for. The break from law. I mean it was my final months before I graduate (gotta admit I had doubts whether that will happen this year), it was a either-you-do-now-or-you'll-never-know crossroad. I know if I didn't click 'send' to that email, I would regret for the rest of my life knowing I didn't have the balls to get my hands on the thing I've been preaching that I will do someday.

When Gordon replied me, my eyes froze, staring at that subject headline for more than five seconds before clicking on it. Not even an ounce of belief was invested in the possibility for a reply from the I-once-used-to-read magazine. An appointment was arranged and even when he put it clearly it was going to be a chat, I took it that it's an interview. I arrived darn early for fear of a negative impression and I sat in the lobby quietly without making any large movement. Too cautious you may think but you would never know, he might be watching. So turns out he wasn't watching. The interview, as in the chat with Gordon was a laid back one. It was in the lobby and pretty warm, no not from my constant flushing. The sun was harsh to me that day okay. But just when I started warming up to him to the point that I shared with him my exclusive dream, a dream that no one has any knowledge of except for a certain someone, he asked me to write - on the spot! Inside I was thinking oh come on, like a pop quiz when I was in Standard 3 to see who gets to be dismissed first? No, this is worse than a pop quiz. This is an essay exam. I wrote a movie review on The Avengers and a short write up on TVXQ, my self-proclaimed-favourite-but-actually-I-was-no-longer-interested-in-Kpop K-Pop boy band. But when he told me that he appreciates it that a law student like yours truly would take some time off for a detour in journalism, my sixth sense told me I may have found the right person to work with.

My dad wasn't too happy with the news when I told him I got the confirmation from The Star's HR (Galaxie is owned by The Star by the way). He expressed his qualms by blaming it on the forty-minute long drive to the workplace for such a meagre allowance but I know deep down it's cause he's always thought his daughter is going to be a lawyer. He must have thought that journalism dream of mine has long been forgotten, devoured by this new-found hunger for a niche in the corporate world. It's not his fault though. He gloats on the fact that I'm a lawyer on my way and I've been more than happy to pave the way for that presumption. He gritted his teeth and gave his blessing anyway and I know I've said that it annoys me but there's a tinge of awkward poignant sentiment aroused in me looking back at the times when he called during working hours to remind me to drive with extra caution when it rained cats and dogs outside. Oh and also the fact that the monthly allowance wasn't discontinued despite my paid internship. I swear, I did say NO when he handed me the money. I even pushed the money away with full force, short from stuffing it back into his grip. But he insisted. *grin*

To be continued...

Sucker = Me

I can never truly be happy for someone else, can't I? What a loser I am!

Truly Amazing

I was wrong all along. Miracles do happen - to me...

Gray.

Spread my wings and fly. That's a resolution I made prior to the finals which I had now gone through and bid farewell to. But wait a minute, where are the wings? And it certainly doesn't look like I'm flying at the moment. College life is a phase I initially was very thrilled to embark upon and when it didn't look like it's ever going to come to an end, I began dreading to continue and had been very anxious to make that giant sprint into something else. But now when the finishing line is within the sight, I dread leaving the path and am uncertain whether to make that turning into working life or that something else discreetly ingrained in my flickering heart.

Fascinating visuals brimming into my vision is one of the very few personal qualities I take a lot of pride of. When I go through a torrid time in real, the surreal life of mine takes it further and mortified the life I tricked myself into believing for an easier flow of sympathy I wage on myself. When it's the other way round, the illusion takes a turn and paints it all bright and sunny with me living a blissful life perhaps even companion-ed for my own gratification. But I cannot at the moment, picture myself in a life post-result day not for the obvious reason. Yes, it can go either way. The outcome may be very bad, or moderately good. I may be crying in tears for either of the two very polarised reasons. But no, that's not the source to my limping fantasising ability. Truth is, my life after college (or my degree course, to be precise) has it's very beautiful plan. But it's a plan sounding dubious if it's presented to the realists and overtly ambitious if it's fallen to the knowledge of my parents. Curiosity is endless on the plans of my friends because they always sound so do-able. I'm always hesitant in revealing mine. Even if I do end up saying something about it, it appears to be direction-less, heading nowhere. 

Which is why a lot of stake is weighed onto the three months I am supposed to savour to its limits. I dreamt miles and miles about it. I want to do this, I want to go here and there, I want to take up classes, I want to work here and I want to create a legion of stories to share with my to be colleagues or postgraduate mates. Yet nowhere near I am currently to that requisite first step to make all those take its place. I have done nothing to save it from being 'just another school break'.

Now that I think about it, the 3 months spent on being an awkward receptionist doesn't sound so futile anymore. At least my pocket gets deeper by each day I spent on daydreaming. 

Old and New.

I will be lying if I'd said I didn't miss those days. I do, all the time. I'm a grown up (I convinced myself that I am so) and so, I understand that it is an era I needed to leave behind in order to move on. For a better life? - I don't know about that though. But it will always be a strand of memory which I know was a life-changing one. There, I discovered friendship stripped of chivalry, my curiosity for the life out of comfort zone was ignited and I learnt that ambitions are like unbankable blank cheques until you fight your way through to get it signed and filled up. I learnt many things which I often dreamt about when I was younger are unreal, and the things I could only see on TV are actually kinda real, they do occur in a run-of-the-mill fashion.

When I'm down, either because the current life isn't treating me too well or because I couldn't get things moving, I choose to dwell on those moments. Then the remorse that I didn't do more, learn more and know more back then would overwhelm me. Because if I did, I wouldn't end up being like this today. Sometimes I just wish someone cared - about me. Sometimes I just wish I could end it so that a new life awaits me in the next cycle. Maybe I just need to get a new life.

Daydream saves my life from getting drowned by the brutal reality. I've always dreamt nice things happening to me. Flashes of me getting a man whom I love and who cherishes me more than his mother, me writing by the lake for my next New York Times' best seller, me in a dark blue pair of converse strolling around the office in search of ingenious pointers to help free my client from law suits and of course me, paying for a Louis Vuitton handbag with my platinum card for my mom's birthday. But I've never imagined how life would be like if I were to graduate with a degree classification no firm would spare a glance at. Well, I would most probably be mourning for the rest of my life about that and continue to yearn for the impossibles.