Well...so I nailed a scholarship to study landscape in NUS, and after that I'm bonded to a landscape company called Envirospace. I'm going to sign the Letter of Offer tomorrow morning (they actually called it "LOO" ...disgustingly uncreative....) and the more I think about it...the more it seems too good to be true...Not so much the scholarship itself though I'm really grateful for that, but the job I'll get after...
As part of the selection process I was interviewed by the boss of Envirospace, and some friends would testify that afterwards I couldn't stop gushing about it..hahaha...after all, this is a boss that made me open up so much about myself just on the first conversation, to the point that I blurted out: "My biggest ambition in life is just to lie down on grass...." and he actually said, "Wow I love it!" instead of "How weird!" or "How un-ambitious!" I can't really explain...but it's the feeling when you meet someone and after like, 2 minutes, you know you're going to have a great conversation. Well he started the conversation by asking me about Vietnam and travelling and building in small villages...how could I not get hooked...and the cool thing is that the firm actually does building work in small villages all over South East Asia...when he first mentioned it I went "Wow that's great! But can I ask you a question..would that be in my normal job scope or would that be just extra side work that the company is doing?" "No, that would be included in your job scope."
Couldn't be better. I later chatted with a senior and when she found out I'm going to this firm she said, "Oh yea the boss is a really nice man..ah but he will take you to other countries..to small villages..." Yay! Ok I must've sounded like I hit the jackpot...call me naive, call me over-enthusiastic, call me idealist..but for now I truly feel like I've found THE job though it's still 2 years away... Chill, Shiela, a lot can happen in 2 years...you might become so hooked on being a seamstress...or playing the ukulele...or becoming a game-tester for Squaresoft...
Awww..... but when I was so young still I heard that if you want to have a happy life, there are three things that you must get right: what you believe, who you marry, and what you do for a living.
Right now it feels that number three is totally taken care off...at least for a start.... That's two left to deal with =)
Anyway, when my parents heard I got the scholarship, among the first questions they asked me were:
1. will the scholarship bond allow you to get married?
2. what if you get sent to Africa?
Hmm....I know my parents are paranoid but still I was kinda surprised...I mean...hufh..the last time I checked, the Singapore government has not become a 1984 style Big Brother that meddles in people's marriages. (ok they do meddle...but not THAT MUCH...). If anything, the bond should actually force me to get married and hand over babies to the government...
As for the Africa question....I just went speechless for a while and said, 'Dad...I think we won't have landscape jobs in Africa soon...they've got way bigger problems than how to beautify the land..."
They followed up with , "Well yea ok...Africa was just for example..what if like, Thailand is in terrible unrest like now and your bos doesn't want to go and sends you instead and you have to go because you are bonded for 2 years?"
Hufh...actually I feel sad for my parents for having a daughter whose personality and interests are so incompatible with theirs... though I gotta say that from what I gather from my relatives, my parents actually were daredevils too when they were young... Would I turn paranoid for people I love too when I grow old? I guess it depends on how much I'm afraid to lose them...
But I digress. Well, in a way, actually I enjoy doing things just to freak my parents out...yeah, my bad... I do feel that I often have a good laugh on my parents' paranoia and sometimes do or say things just to bring that out....I should be grateful actually because my quirky paranoid parents are so far from boring with the questions they ask... ("Will you be going to Eastern Europe? They have human trafficking there you know!")
I wish they would be happier and relax more, though...lately they've been using the lines: "how could you do all these things to make your parents worry? do you want us to die of heart attack? and why do you want to travel so much and live in a far away land? Aren't you afraid something can happen to us when you are away?"
I hate it. I hate it because yes, it's right...I'll always regret not being around my grandma when she was dying..I don't want the same thing to happen in my parents' case.
And yet. And yet....what is Life for, if not for living? And what is living, if not taking risks?
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