Saturday, April 30, 2005
excuse me, am i s'porean?
joined a group of s'poreans for a wonderful authentic s'pore dinner. had a great time.
everyone there was 'somebody'. they have all 'made it' in the US. a young couple were formal scholars who bought themselves out before the bond ended, some of them are VC, half of them are expats from s'pore. even the younger ones are bright stanford students.
was i actually feeling inferior? i did once had a very respectable job, holding some pretty powerful positions too. those were the days when people had to listen to what i say because my evaluation of their products / systems determined their year end bonus etc. But now, i'm nobody. i dun even know what's going to happen to me 3 months from now.
then it dawned onto me that i am still soooo s'porean. not because of my accent, not because of my slang, but my mentality. if after pulling myself out of the country, i'm still soooo concerned with all these material stuff, then i shouldn't have come out at all. i suddenly hated myself for being so superficial.
i should be proud of my own decision. so wat if i'm a starving student now? so wat if i decide to continue working as a 'small' traffic engineer (and not go to vet school)? as long as i am contended with my own choice, i should feel good. so long as i love what i'm doing, i should be happy.
it is strange that i never felt like that when hanging out with the locals. i've always been wondering why Tap 'conveniently' doesn't hangout with S'poreans. he simply doesn't make an effort to seek out any s'porean group activities. i guess now i know.
everyone there was 'somebody'. they have all 'made it' in the US. a young couple were formal scholars who bought themselves out before the bond ended, some of them are VC, half of them are expats from s'pore. even the younger ones are bright stanford students.
was i actually feeling inferior? i did once had a very respectable job, holding some pretty powerful positions too. those were the days when people had to listen to what i say because my evaluation of their products / systems determined their year end bonus etc. But now, i'm nobody. i dun even know what's going to happen to me 3 months from now.
then it dawned onto me that i am still soooo s'porean. not because of my accent, not because of my slang, but my mentality. if after pulling myself out of the country, i'm still soooo concerned with all these material stuff, then i shouldn't have come out at all. i suddenly hated myself for being so superficial.
i should be proud of my own decision. so wat if i'm a starving student now? so wat if i decide to continue working as a 'small' traffic engineer (and not go to vet school)? as long as i am contended with my own choice, i should feel good. so long as i love what i'm doing, i should be happy.
it is strange that i never felt like that when hanging out with the locals. i've always been wondering why Tap 'conveniently' doesn't hangout with S'poreans. he simply doesn't make an effort to seek out any s'porean group activities. i guess now i know.
# posted by nic @ 1:46 AM 
