It is not often that you meet someone who reminds you of yourself, but a few years younger. It was really strange because I saw snatches of myself in her really strongly, and yet I also saw the person that I'd become. And I wasn't sure if I'd rather be what I am now, or her. Not saying that I could be her, because I'm obviously a guy, but I wondered if I would be happier being back where she was, despite the fact that maybe, neither of us are really happy where we are.
It started as a gathering of friends and friends' friends, and after dinner, it ended with all of us going our separate ways. Funnily enough, it turned out that she stayed rather near me, so the two of us spent most of the bus ride home along the same way.
And as she talked, I learnt that she was a recently graduated diploma student, having difficulties finding good internship opportunities because as she described it, having a diploma is like a "chip on the shoulder" in the job market. The A-level grads are prioritised in job positions, and degree holders even more so. And she felt really strongly that her only way out was having a degree, even if it was difficult trying to get accepted into one of the local universities with her diploma. And it is a fact that only 1 out of 6 of students who graduate from junior colleges or polytechnics here eventually make it to local universities. Most of her friends had already taken off for Australia, the lucky rich ones with a way out.
Talking to her further, I found out that she was actually a former JC student who had quit after her first year, and moved to polytechnic. And now she was regretting this very decision. She hadn't done badly in polytechnic, although she could have done better in JC. But she had hated JC every step of the way.
I know what that feels like, because to actually decide to leave, you must have really hated it. I was close to that, having been forced into a stream I didn't like, but I stayed, even if I spent most of my first year outside of class playing truant or getting in trouble. It was so bad, my GP teacher gave me a special "pass". It was called "stay out of my class, I don't care, just don't let me see you around." It was a year-long privilege that I spent in various Starbucks outlets and places around town, or simply taking a nap in a students' lounge. And yet I didn't leave. Which says a lot.
I guess it was an experience to talk to someone who was at the other end of the educational spectrum, because I guess in a sense, all of us are always looking up, and not down. Here was someone who was finding it difficult to even get a degree, and here I was, with a degree, and possibly the best kind Singapore has to offer. And similarly, I found myself in the same position. Finding it hard to find employment, only that maybe, it's because I'm a little pickier.
And I didn't know if it was right to tell her that the degree hardly matters that much, because it did. Although not as much as she thought it did. I mean, being a few years ahead, you see some things clearer. But you also want to hide other things. About how maybe, life isn't really fair. But everyone knows that. And how certain degrees aren't very useful either. But again, everyone knows that too. But it was really hard to tell someone who had problems getting into a course, that the course she wants so much might not get her where she wants to be, if she doesn't do well enough in it. Being a journalist is very different from studying journalism. I'm lucky that I'm good at both, but some people only do one part of it well.
Inevitably, she asked me why I didn't want to do journalism. And as much as I'm sick of explaining, it is sometimes true in life that what you're good at isn't what you enjoy. And that doesn't change even if you happen to be really good at it. Maybe arguably the best in your year, whatever.
I use the excuse that it doesn't pay well to hide the fact that actually, I don't enjoy it, because I'm not that much of a people person, although I'm lucky to have gifts at writing, asking questions and generally knowing my way around things that allow me to get away with it.
Because it just doesn't seem right somehow that being good at it, you don't want to do it, even if you don't like it. Throwing away your talent, that's what they call it. Then I meet this girl, who wants it so much more than I do, and she can't even get in because people cannot even see past the fact that she doesn't have the right paper qualifications.
And I realise that life is such a bitch. She had the initiative to get an internship, something I couldn't even be bothered to do. She wants to get into my course, the course which I chose as a last resort, and she's having difficulty even getting her application approved.
And I wonder sometimes. Why is it that people who have everything don't really appreciate what they have, and people who don't, won't even get a sniff at it. Then I realise its because we don't need everything, we just need what we really want. And if we don't get that, everything else doesn't count.
And I wondered who I'd rather be. The person with time but no choices, or the person without time who had choices, and didn't make the best one. I guess in a few years I'll know the answer.