+ TrAns|t|0n Per|0d +

Finally, I've spoken.
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People always say, to cherish your school life as much as possible, because when you start working, you'll start missing your school life.

Hmm... How true is that? We will ask.

Then they will say, you will know once you start working.
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And so, seven weeks after I signed my name onto that Letter of Appointment, six weeks after I started working, one month and a half after i declared that place as my second home, perhaps I am a little fit enough to comment a bit on the above statement.

Seriously speaking, I do enjoy working.

True, I enjoyed schooling. I enjoyed taking my own sweet time to lessons, and then barging into the class feeling stupid and then straining my neck attentively for any tips on the upcoming quizzes. I enjoyed dozing off during lectures and then suddenly came wide awake when the lecturer announced this big portion of the notes is not included in exams. I enjoyed snuggling up to my friends in my warm pink huge winter coat which i call "Pinkie" and whispering my previous encounters with some cuties and chong chong and dong dong to them while they were furiously taking down notes in lectures. I enjoyed the bazaars and events and free lunches held occasionally in school. I enjoyed eating hot steamy deep-fried fish thin beehoon soup and jiao zi with my buddy during cold rainy days. I enjoyed rushing reports and rushing frantically from one end of the school to another to settle whatever issue that came up.

And I miss it all. But in a way, I do not wish to stay that way forever. Life consists of many stages, and the schooling stage is one of them. I enjoyed it fully, at least for the past six years, during which a large part of my character was developed. A way which i can call is Me. Of course there is still a LOT for me to learn and grow into, but at least Me took a bit of shape during these past few years. I guess the main reason why I totally loved the past six years and find it so memorable, is due to the thing that i most enjoyed doing, just being Me. I was glad I was given a chance to find Me, develop, and eventually given the chance to be a proper Me. I don't know if anyone can understand this whole chunk, but being myself is a simple thing that i didn't have the privilege of doing long time ago.

But as it is, the schooling stage has ended for me. Perhaps in future I might still go back to the books again, but the whole experience will be entirely different. I had cherished and will always love my school days.

Yes, Life moves on. The next stage shall be the working stage i presume. I've moved on, but there will always be a transitional period in between every stage to adapt to the new environment. For the first two weeks into working, I had nightmares almost every night, all of the same ending: I would wake up flustered, and then trying to remember whether my convocation had been all a dream, or am i really in the working world now? Am I waking up to go to school or go to work? I was so afraid to wake up and find myself having to go to school in the morning. I was so afraid I would wake up and find myself still a student and that I still have to go for exams; that would really be horrifying, because i havent touched the notes since a long time ago. I felt i had lost touched with books.

It would be contradicting to say i enjoyed my schoollife, and yet still be terrified at the thought of going back to school as a student. Indeed, this is not unusual at all, considering the immense stress I was under especially for the final year in Uni. I love the rushing for deadlines, I love the the cramming of information in a foot thick of notes into my brain during the night just before the exams. But I was afraid of the end results. I was afraid I could not get the required grades to pass, I was afraid I could not achieve the goals i had set for myself. I have to say, a lot had to be accredited to Luck. And therefore, having been lucky thus far, I hope not to go through it again. Once is enough. Twice is too much. Because my motto in Uni was "Luck never come twice", and true it was.

Perhaps that was another reason why till now, i enjoyed working. I am freed from that kind of stress, and I am more recovered to myself again. Of course, another contradiction. I said I had been Me for the past few years, so how can I be more recovered? Well, to be more precise, the very STRESSED Me showed up for the final year. I frowned more and stayed away from socializing because I prefer to spend more of my time on notes and my close friends rather than spending the time to get to know more friends all over again.

And now, being freed from that, I am more Me again. And to my own surprise, I'm totally alright with dining with five persons, one of whom I had only known for one month, and the rest totally strangers. This is something which I had not done/experienced since 2 years ago. This is like, SOooo ME lo! hahaha.... Eh, but still, please don't go around dragging me to meet new friends. Remember, once is enough, twice is too much! Hahaha... Aww.. Whatever.


Anyway, the comparison between schooling and working shall be done in due course, not now. But it is now time to sit down and address a question properly. A question which everyone will ask themselves at some point of time, and a question which i would always ask myself everytime I enter a new environment.

Do I remain Myself, and show everyone who I am?
Or do I hold back a bit of myself, and let the droning of the environment conform me?

Something struck me suddenly yesterday, and I felt I had to address this question, and solve it fast. I enjoyed schooling, and I enjoyed working. But there is something very different between both that is very disturbing. And I finally came to this conclusion.
In school, i can be choose my friends, and show my true self. At work, i observed that it seems wrong to show your Self. To say it simply, in school, everyone is free to show their true selves to each other and anyone they want. At work, everyone seems to be holding back a lot of themselves. How do I justify my words? I don't know. This is just a feeling and intuition that I got.

Of course, one may say I'm rushing, that it takes time for people to warm up to others, that because i only know them for six weeks, there's no need to be close friends too fast. But what I observed is not how their attitude towards me, but more of their attitude towards each other in general, me excluded. I can understand if people hold back themselves from me, but from each other? Who have worked together for at least half a year or one? Is this really their character or not?

To put it even simplier, it feels as if everyone is just Colleagues to each other. Nothing more.

Is that really how it should be? That there is no thing such as Friends in a working place? To spend ten hours each day together and still not reaching to a stage called Friends? Isn't it something pathetic?

Then it goes down to that question. Do I still insist being myself, and then increase the risk of being 'harmed' in the future? Or do I start my defense now?

That's pretty silly, because my policy has always been that, that more you defend, the more people want to attack you. That's probably one reason why till now, I havent really been attacked, because everyone already knows how stupid I am, whyfore should they attack me? Waste resources only. Muahaha....

But then, now this concerns my livelihood. What to do? What should I do?

Hmm...

I think by the end of this entry, I would have come up with a solution. And perhaps I already did. But I shan't say. Anyone who is patient enough to read every word till this point, would have guessed my solution.

But whatever, I think I will still bid my time to Grow Up, in the sense of behaving n thinking like what most working people do.

After all old habits die hard.

For example, I can never learn to process my thoughts before shooting them outta my mouth and end up getting into trouble.
Even if i do process my thoughts, I can never learn to sift what to say and what not to say, and end up saying the wrong things at the wrong time to the wrong person.

And I can never learn to make a right decision within a time as short as finish writing one blog entry.
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Munchie! ^^