transitioning

here i am, hovering on the cusp of youth's transition to adulthood in its purest sense - forging a career in the industry of my dreams with a glistening rock resting on my ring finger, about to buy and embark on building a home with the only man i can say i (romantically) love - will i able to do them all, and do them well? 

how is it that i still feel like a child inside, carrying with me arbitrary flashbacks of sneaking out to eat cup noodles at the playground with my coolest clique of friends in primary school; freezing up at math questions i couldn't answer for the life of me in my navy blue pinafore; sauntering into the rj canteen only to make a beeline for haws' kitchen as a tight-knit clique of four. in the blink of an eye those days are past but the present me is still here - slightly confused that years have flown by but nonetheless i am still the same "me" deep down. i have travelled in metropolitan cities across the globe alone but inside i still feel scared to graduate into the next stage of life - unadulterated adulthood. one that houses responsibilities, cash-strapped expenditures, meaningful debt and the search for optimal work-life integration. but somehow it seems like everyone figures it out eventually, and so will i. 

it is easy to drift through life as if one were traversing through a cloud. these days the weeks seem to bleed into one another, and decision-making doesn't stop even after work ends. but i also realise that these days will form the bedrock of nostalgia in time to come - i will look back at this moment and only remember the good moments of piecing together a new life at the threshold of my mid-twenties. i am where i had wanted to be a year ago, and god-willing, i will be where i want to be now in another year. i need to get my headspace out of this fog and start enjoying the process through and through. 

infinite moments that were fleeting yet immortalised in memory

 

circa 2016, taken by an acquaintance at a suite party in college

“with her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took minta's arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.”

 - to the lighthouse, virginia woolf

have you ever thought of the moments you'll time travel back to, if you had the gift of time-travel? 

i would go back to the little moments that had felt infinite even as they were passing, moments that had made me feel human at my core. moments of companionship and warmth - a quiet wine night, a grounding hug and the ineffable moment of a shared kiss. moments where the nights were chilly, the moon was bright and the expanse of the sky felt like it was huge enough to cover the dull ache of loneliness, my familiar friend. moments where i had crossed the bridge (i.e. clementi flyover), either en route back from night suppers at al-amaans with a close friend or a solitary walk from the neighbouring bus stop, and paused momentarily to take in the view of the partially lit saga towers - a temporary place i called home for the four most formative years of my life. moments of a raw, self-emanating vulnerability from feeling fearful of pushing personal boundaries juxtaposed against the sheer freedom of abandoning my sense of self to the ebb and flow of what had felt like a zhuangzi-esque world. or moments of self-empowerment where i felt my heart was brimming and bursting at the seams from having conquered something that had truly scared the shit out of me. moments where i had felt so infinitely beautiful and mulan-esque. 

i would traverse through the streets of spain and seoul, taking in the sunset of alicante's costa blanca or the sunrise of a post-halloween drinks morning en route to the hongje mcdonalds near my apartment, feeling (once again) the very human emotions of pining and lovesickness. i would go back to my last night in new york where i had just sat with myself in the light drizzle of a gray and cloudy sky, committing to memory my last live image of the gorgeous manhattan skyline. i would go back to a mundane weeknight spent churning essays in the college library where it had always felt like winter. i would go back to one of those college suite party nights with the knowledge of love and life i have now, to revisit the unbridled carefreeness of single hood and a passé party life with the greediness of enjoying the stability and steadfastness of love in the now. i would rewind to the nights spent in osaka walking back from the train station to our airbnb, our attempts straight "home" always getting sidelined by the most delicious takoyaki from tako tako king and sapporo beer from seven-eleven. or the moments at coastal kitchen on the royal carribean where our eyes would light up from how perfectly cooked a beef mignon steak was, or how satisfied we were with stuffing ourselves full. i would go back to have the yummiest kalbi-tang at the fast-food restaurant near yonsei in sinchon that lilith and i always frequented after north korean politics class - 

these moments were so fleeting, yet they have somehow immortalised themselves in the memory pockets of my brain. there is no bad - in my coloured memory vault, only the infinite good are left.

"as a collective" - how i'll remember my first year of work

it's been slightly more than a month since we have "graduated" from our year-long graduate program in the workforce. through and through, i am thankful for growth. growth that comes in spurts - some longer and more tangible than others. even sitting in ambiguity for a protracted period of time was in itself a growth journey - albeit a quieter one. to aptly summarise my journey thus far in the best way i can and know how:

this is the free-verse poem i had crafted on behalf of the eleven of us and verbalised to over fifty colleagues (including bosses from both my department and others) who had turned up for our virtual graduation ceremony last month. am still grateful to have had the opportunity to share a piece of what makes me "me", in what is normally perceived as the cold and hard corporate sector. i can be both - two selves co-existing in one body. i can have my cake and eat it. 

--  

the first of july, 2019. 

we gathered around the conference table of merlion two

as acquaintances, as new colleagues, 

sharing the camaraderie of emerging
from the competition that had annihilated everyone,

but us. 

us - twelve minus one. 

even from day one, we have been a collective. 

many of us had just laboured through college,

eyes fixated on the ultimate reward that was now in our grasp,

but still an obscure concept - this concept called "work".

the rest of us had jumped ship 

in hope of greener pastures - 

biting the bullet of adjusting to a new environment

despite emptier pockets. 

all of us - wide-eyed,

impressionable blank sheets of paper

eager to learn and absorb. 

youth is a currency to be spent 

while one is young. 

we are young. 

we were, and still are. 

and so, we learn. 

we quickly learn that we chafe at achieving for achievement's sake.

certifications are a means to the greater end of learning,

not the end in themselves. 

we learn that to go fast is to go alone

but to go far is to go together. 

we learn that there is value in pushing back,
in managing expectations
and finding the right time to say no.
we learn the onus of self-enablement
falls squarely on our own shoulders -
there is no longer going to be
periodic examinations or assignments keeping us in check.
along with that came the quiet realisation
that we are now in charge of determining our rest -
out with the academic calendar that determined our summer holidays,
in with the financial calendar that we use to plan around our holidays.
swept in the whirlwind of change as the new constant,
we were forced to adapt to changes quickly - some even
painful changes that hit home.
call us the walking personifications
of pro-sci's "change management" (just kidding).

we learn that we are eleven individuals
gifted with different skill-sets and personalities,
each unique in our own way.
how could we complement one another with our strengths,
to combat our individual weaknesses?
what could we each bring to the table and show up for?
find your niche, 
only then the reward will be proportional 
to your hard work. 
i hope you, the audience, would agree,
that we are all individually known for something.

this journey was not a bed of roses.
coming in without any prior experience was daunting,
and at times even demoralising.
we were building credibility from scratch -
every action we took either a vote towards building our brand
or against it.
and so we had to tread carefully.
how was it possible that we went through
so many hour-long enablement sessions in the beginning,
but the workings of the company still felt like a mystery
existing only in theory, in the fog of the unknown?
our services grad counterparts had it harder -
enablement came with their job,
on the job itself.
out of the blue they found themselves
waist-deep in projects
when they hadn't even learned how to swim yet.

what does good look like for the job,
and by extension, for a grad?
ambiguity, the big word
encapsulating the environment
we found ourselves mired in.
lacking defined expectations of us,
we found ourselves confused -
were we doing well?  
or just doing enough to get by? 
even when we were told we were doing well,
imposter syndrome always crept in
to steal the limelight of our victories.

our victories.
a year later as we look back we are able to say
with greater clarity:
we are proud of our victories.
gaining client facing experience early in our careers
particularly for many of us fresh out of college,
is a triumph in itself.
the piecemeal knowledge we've gained day by day,
over three hundred and sixty-five days,
empowers us with more confidence in work and customer interactions.
we even surprise ourselves sometimes
with knowledge that we didn't think we had (but do),
or when we're able to deliver on something
that no one expects us to.
but our greatest triumph as a cohort
is that we've stuck true to ourselves, together.
trouble-shooting, laughing, collaborating, eating
even crafting and dancing,
as a collective.

the first of july 2020. 

we gather around the virtual table 

about to say goodbye
to this year-long journey.

not as colleagues, but as friends -

sharing the camaraderie of journeying through
the highs, lows and everything in the in-between
from our first year of work at salesforce.

even from day one, we have been a collective. 

duality of feelings

why do we feel the feelings that we feel?

feelings, a double-edged sword.

the duality of feelings - 

in some instances they breathe life,

in others they take away,

coming and going like the tide that ebbs and flows

in tandem with the gravitational pull of the moon. 

the duality of feelings - 

both a dependable compass and a faulty one:

the uncanniness of feelings having more self-awareness

than i am conscious of. 

they are my trusted advisor - 

interpreting and making sense 

of things happening to me from a third person's perspective,

even before my head can wrap itself around them

and find the appropriate words for.

my feelings are my clearest articulation 

of what constitutes a right choice 

and conversely a wrong one.

and yet, the irrationality of feelings

also means that subjectivity 

becomes weighted on a much heavier scale.

once feelings are involved,

all things bow into the realm of subjectivity - 

i become the center of the universe

and the singular point of reference. 

a flawed compass guiding me on a terrain
only i can see. 

my thoughts on ge2020

i struggle to find words that aptly encapsulates how i feel - but i resonate so much with this article from rice media that articulates this complexity of emotions i feel, as well as its accompanying aspirations that make my heart swell with patriotic pride.

for so many years i had the personal impression that our government was synonymous with the incumbent party. in my head, it was difficult to tease the party and the government apart, and i admit sheepishly that for the longest time in junior college (the "feeder" of sg politicians - including sg's newest heart throb) i had thought "psc scholar" equated to "pap scholar". i too, had bought the rhetoric that we needed a competent government to rule and prosper, resigned to fate as i explained to any of my international friends interested in sg politics and willing to listen that we - singaporeans, valued economic progress and stability over peripheral matters i.e. having an unadulterated democracy and freedom of speech. i was a global affairs major in college and even based my final-year capstone thesis on investigating corruption's impact on electoral margins of victory in single-party dominant states like sg, but in terms of political engagement i had always looked outwards - big power politics, east asian politics, southeast asian politics - many places elsewhere but home. there was just so much political apathy in the state of sg politics that i accepted things as they were - as inevitable trade-offs for the comfort of a prosperous nation that most of us have the privilege of partaking in. perhaps it was also because until this election i was short of the legal voting age. without some skin in the game, it just felt easier to pass off the opposition scene as dismal and disengage on the pretext of sg lacking credible opposition.

on the 10th of july, i held both my identification card and polling card with my legal name imprinted on it and stood in line at my primary school i.e. my designated polling station - a place so vividly familiar yet distant all at once (so many years had passed, the context had changed but the environment remained strangely unchanged). i couldn't help but feel joyful yet solemn with the weight of this civic responsibility. joyful because it was my first time voting this election, and it was empowering to feel like i was part of a collective that got to decide on the future of singapore's leadership and governance. i was no longer a bystander! my vote was going to be part of the vote count during the announcement of the electoral results later that morning! joyful bc i recognised that the access to universal suffrage is in itself a privilege, and that having a public holiday on general election day to make the act of voting conducive is also a privilege that we should never take for granted. singapore is far from a western democracy and having some sort of political structure and process in place for periodic elections may seem like democratic tokenism, but i am still thankful for these guardrails that protect our universal suffrage. voting is such a sacred act bc it is the vested responsibility conferred from the constitution on a citizen to his/her/their nation: to do it justice, i had to make an informed choice and arrive at a conclusion that only i myself would be accountable for.

this election, i wrestled to come to a decision on which party to cast my vote for. i wrestled bc it was a fight between my values and guiding principles i hold close to my heart, and so arriving at that decision was a highly personal process: being the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves; giving credit where credit is due; valuing kindness above all, separation of the people from the party - like distinguishing between the sin and the sinner ("hate the sin but love the sinner") in the biblical sense; standing up against injustice and any forms of bullying (non-partisan bc values transcend party, creed etc.); rewarding earnestness, grit and intentionality over mere results, valuing substance and credibility in representation etc. but one thing i learnt was to remember that the world is far too complex to be classified into manichean handles. voting did not have to be a dichotomous process where i had to localise and pledge my vote based on the evaluative criteria of a person or the concrete results of any one party. i could desire for the incumbent to remain in power, acknowledge the efforts of their members with gratitude and still vote otherwise. and vice versa. at the end of the day, i voted based on my heart - as i always do in decision-making, and walked out of it feeling like my heart was singing.

i spent friday night and the wee hours of saturday morning shuffling between the living room (where my entire family was up) and the comfort of my ac room snuggled up with bae in bed, keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the keywords "east coast", "west coast", "sengkang", "aljunied", "bukit panjang" and "bukit batok". we eventually went to bed at 5am, my heart brimming with pride and love for my country and her people. watching the election results was cathartic, for lack of a better word. we really showed up as one, and in doing so sent a clear message to the incumbent that they should not rest on their laurels and assume buy-in. the logic is simple - they may be free to make choices on behalf of the nation, but they will have to be answerable at the polls, and a few may be sacrificed in the process. there is a new generation stepping up and that is none other than my generation. a generation that is increasingly educated and becoming more politically engaged. a generation that is unafraid to call a spade a spade and willing to stand up against any forms of bullying. a generation that may seem ungrateful but actually cares about those who fall through the cracks. a generation that can no longer be bought with money, especially in the face of what seems like moral barrenness. a generation that shows up when push comes to shove. a generation that believes in the weighted promises of our national pledge.

re-pivoting to the "why"

the realisation that work without an overarching perspective (and ~mood~) framing the context of why that work still matters to you on an individual level is mindless work that makes the process of toiling seem harder than the work per se.

when i was a sophomore in college i clearly remember chafing at having to do essays and readings bc i found the entire process pointless on an individual level - so much thought and effort culminating into a pile of essays that would land into the drive folder of one professor, subjected to the solitary judgement of an audience of one, who probably would only remember the brilliant pieces of writing that were not going to be mine. what made me feel alive was doing (what i thought at that point constituted) real work that dealt with the real world - crafting cold emails to people i had never met asking for sponsorship, filtering through the participant (or we called them "delegates") list to ensure all the right information were in place for the printing of delegate name tags meant for an upcoming model united nations conference (that students paid good money for to attend). in the context of college, i revelled in things of the "real world" because it gave me a sense of purpose that my toiling was going somewhere and value-adding to someone out there. 

ironically, it takes concerted effort to snap myself out of the monotony of the days folding into themselves after nearly a year of breathing in this "real world". virtual meetings after virtual meetings. google hangouts rage. piling to-do-lists. customer-facing decks to be drafted and presented. the inevitable administrative work that needs to be done to oil this machine. without conscious effort i find myself losing focus, losing purpose. 

and now, why do i work? 

i work to do the one thing that makes me feel alive - to create.

with my head, my heart and my hands. 

in hopes that that creation will be of value to my enterprise customers and colleagues. 

note to self:

put on some groovy music, enjoy the process of creating, irrespective of whether its office hours or not. irrespective of whether it feels wrong that you have to be working after working hours on some days to be responsible towards your stakeholders and personal work ethic; to be thankful that it is not the default expectation to do so. you need a serious mindset shift. 

as written in your v2mom vision: "to be always value-adding to my customers, lead SMs, account teams and the larger community by bringing to the table a can-do attitude, my point of view on solutions and product knowledge in pardot and marketing cloud."

sparking fires on the inside

the silver lining of being home for the most part has been the gift of time to sit with myself and just feel. am still learning the skill of being better at listening to my body and i think the difficulty comes from being accustomed to putting the business and personal work ethic before the self at work - most of the day is spent at work until the lines blur past-working hours, particularly in current times when the physical spaces remain unchanged from dawn till dusk. recently (thanks to a stay-home art kit that my colleagues sent to each of our houses using the company budget) i've started painting again - gradient sunset hues and random shapes in poorly blended colours passing off as "abstract art". i've been so inspired that i even ordered a set of watercolour pencils (the faber castelle ones - set of 36 that would have made tiny me green with envy) and paper so that i can revel in the act of creating. it brings me back to my childhood days where i used to spend all my leisure time on arts & crafts - my favourite books to borrow from the public library were children craft books on how to make a clay bracelet, or a book sleeve from outgrown pants and such. i used to spend so much time with my hands making things from scrap materials - ugly or not, they made me feel really happy as a kid.

being able to spend quality time on self-discovery is a gift because this period serves as a self-affirmation to what i've always known but never really coined into words - i feel alive when i am creating in the form of self-expression. with my head (professionally) - when i am able to create structure out of chaos and sieve ideas into handles, or organise haphazardly placed text into the right boxes or slides that together concisely contribute to a coherent, big-picture storyline. with my heart - when i am creating something out of nothing such as the articulation of an obscure thought or feeling in writing, reflected in the video snippets of life i painstakingly collect and piece together at the end of every year or significant journey, or even in the splash of colours on a page. with my hands and body - in moving my body and getting swept up in the pathos of a sad tune, in the instinctive rapper hands that have a life of their own when i'm in a good mood listening to a badass song, or even in the way i choose to dress and present myself to the world.

it's kind of strange how the traits i had as a kid that i thought i had long grown out of have in fact remained constant - albeit dormant but nevertheless unchanging, only to be amplified once i finally get the chance to sit, look back in retrospect and reflect. "what makes you tick?" is a question mentors in my company like to ask during our career/personal development coaching sessions. beyond the part of me that loves to create, there is also the part of me that loves to articulate - to stand in front of an audience and present with confidence on a prepared topic. i thoroughly enjoyed that moment where i presented in front of the panel of four directors/avps masquerading as customers (realise in retrospect that one of them is my current boss after feb's changes, how time reveals everything in a strange light) during the case presentation i had to go through to earn my current job. i also relished the moment i stood in front of GA faculty and peers to articulate the gist of my capstone which i had a love-hate relationship with - how alive i had felt when i knew i was doing my work justice and when my eyes met with the favourable smiles and nods from both my bae prof and eye-candy (intellectual candy?) prof - that moment still makes me smile and miss college alittle more than i felt it had deserved then. it all connects now: eight year old me stood in front of then-education minister teo chee hean (and distinguished guests consisting of teachers and parents) as one of the four emcees hosting the official opening ceremony of my neighbourhood primary school. twelve year old me stood in front of judges and students alike to articulate my piece of writing that eventually won the first-runners up prize at a national scrabble writing competition. in that same year, three of us impressed the judges with a presentation on climate change (i still remember one of enzo's lines opened with "professor stephen hawkings once said...") of the national sef oratory competition and walked away with gold, despite the fact that no one could remember what our school was called before and after we won. those moments were met with trepidation, yes, but also with fierce pride - the sense that i was living up to my potential, that i was pushing against boundaries and finding them broken by my own (or god's mighty) hand.

i recently bought a kindle and managed to get it reimbursed as part of the quarterly wellness allowance that we get as an employee perk. i've been reading literature books again - for the longest of time i stayed away because they weren't practical and i felt they were not going to get me where i wanted - the ideal job, mindset or growth etc. they are not practical, yes, but i have forgotten how much they make me feel like myself. i finished reading gilead today. i first fell in love with the prose of robinson's housekeeping, and to have experienced that warmth again today via the honey-like balm of words was both cathartic and nostalgic. somehow it brought me back to that particular night in mussoorie in 2015 - the night where my friend bohme and i were walking down the hill back to our himalayan dorm in almost pitch darkness and we were trailing behind the rest of our week 7 crew. i knew then that he used to be a poet before he chose the science track (and eventually computer science), and so i asked him if he wanted to hear my favourite quotes from my favourite book then. he said he would love to. in the darkness while watching our steps as we descended i read snippets of jeanette winterson's writing (from the book why be happy when you could be normal, or was it oranges are not the only fruit?). there was something about the stillness of the night that accentuated the weight of those words hanging midair, but there was so much beauty in that moment that i still vividly remember how that night felt like.

and so in robinson's words (from gilead) i close:

"memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was."

“i wish i could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that i hate to think they will be extinguished when i am. well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. and memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. it is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. a moment is such a slight thing. I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve.”

[and this is why i create videos]