Closing of Blog

I'll be closing this blog from today onwards. Thanks for all the comments and visits.

Dreams Come True

Finally, today my dreams came true. I was so shocked when I got the news. I still couldn't believe it. I was glad that I took that huge gamble and risk. It worked out in the end. I'm really very grateful of everyone who has helped and supported me in this in one way or another.

I will leave behind those unhappy experiences and lead a new life. I look forward to the new challenges that come with this endeavour. God bless!

Pursue or Abandon?

Finally, it's going to conclude next week. I don't know what will be the result, but sth else is bothering me.

If it's successful, some of my dreams will come true, my life and perception will change dramatically and very probable that my die-hard personality will change too. My family and friends will be very happy for me, as I finally will have a chance to experience the life experiences of others which I've always been envious of.

But as usual, huge gains is accompanied by huge losses. I realised this immediately and know what else may be changed. I don't know if I have made the right decision to pursue this endeavour in the 1st place, because the impact of this change on me is large. I don't know how this progresses with time, but I really hope it won't turn out to be the worst case scenario which I imagined it to be, as they usually happen on me.

I hope I'm strong enough to overcome these challenges as time passes by. God bless!

In Solitude... Again

The time has finally come. It seems like a cycle. Solitude has come to haunt me again.

This blog started off happily and getting more and more sad along the journey. It has been filled with much memories. Nowadays, everytime I look at my blog, I feel it has become a stranger to me. No aim, no motivation, no excitement. The very motivation which started this blog has disappeared. I feel like closing this blog, since I don't know what else for me to write about.

Meaningless Life

I've been getting moodier by the day. Many things going through my mind. So stressed. I don't know what to do.

Yesterday's interview proved that I'm really not suitable to be a process engineer or engineer in general. I just don't have an engineer's mindset and ability. I spent many years pursuing my interest, only to realise that I'm not cut out for it. I'm truly stupid.

Got a lecture from an old friend of mine in MSN yesterday night. What he said is true. If I continue studying science/engineering, I'll continue to stay in my comfort zone. Because we most likely won't take risk and always attempt to predict risk. We won't take bold steps to change life, so will never be able to change it significantly. Unfortunately, that's only part of the reasons why I'm so miserable now. I'm still bogged down by other stupid stuffs.

I have no achievements, be it academic, materials or life. Disliked by people because of my character, my stupidity and my inability to like/do things normally people would like/do. Because I'm unable to connect with others, I messed up my life. Can't find any jobs. It's such a torture...

How?

I realised I’ve become more and more like her recently, often recalling the past and thinking what will happen in the future. Luckily for her, with the combined effort of me and them, she managed to snap out of it and was prevented from getting herself into more agony. She is now happier, though still as lonely as ever. But she knows that, she still have her children staying by her side when she is old.

But for me, what to do? Knowing how to help others doesn’t mean I know how to help myself. No one else can really understand. God bless me, I hope I can find a solution soon.

Should I Switch?

For the past 2 weeks, I've been feeling sick & tired. After taking Taka temp job, I hardly had time and energy to look for jobs. After being seriously unwell, I decided to quit 2 days ago, to give myself time to rest & plan for the future.

It has been 2 long months, didn't even get one interview. What's the problem? Resume, cover letter, expected salary or others? I really don't know. I've tried what I can do to modify them. I've even prepared to go the extent of lowering my expected salary to S$2K, although I seriously think I shouldn't have done that. It's sad. Chemical engineers, being among the highest paid, have to suffer a salary which is way below what they're worth for during recession. Based on the NTU Graduate Employment Survey in 2008, the mean gross starting salary (during good times) for fresh chemical engineering graduate is an astounding S$3.2K, even higher than our NUS counterparts! Does it make sense? What jobs did they do actually? I seriously don't know how this recession impacts the starting salary of fresh graduates. But I think reasonably speaking, the reduction should be at most S$500. If reduced by S$1K, I think the companies really go too far. Seriously speaking, do you want to accept a basic pay of S$2K, which after CPF reduces to pathetically little S$1.6K? Then what's the point of spending another 4 years studying so hard for a degree? A poly grad can seriously earn more than that.

It's really discouraging, it's not just about pay. I've spent so much time and effort to prepare myself to be a process/chemical engineer. In the end, although there are quite a few companies hiring process engineers, I didn't even get 1 interview, despite having 2 years of relevant experience as a production technician. Do the companies only want to hire "experienced engineers" during this bad times, because they want to save training costs? I've seen many identical advertisements for process engineers repeatedly advertised during these 2 months & I also applied a few times for it. Does that mean all applicants for that job are not qualified at all? If recruitment agencies are the ones helping to do 1st screening, then do they really understand what is chemical engineering? Can they translate the experience we gained from our internships/jobs to job requirements matches, although it doesn't match the exact words described by actual employers? If the 1st screening is done by employer directly, why they set such stringent requirements? What's the point of insisting on getting people with such a specific experience? It's almost impossible to find an (almost) exact match to fill the vacancy. Why are they so stubborn?

Ok, maybe process engineer jobs are inherently extremely difficult to get during recession. Then what about chemist, technologist, QA/QC engineers, environmental officer, lab officer, research officer, etc.? Also so difficult to get, even for an interview? So what the companies want us to do? Sell insurance, become financial consultant or the headhunter themselves? It sounds so stupid lar.

In these bad times, we're forced to switch fields. Even if we want to switch back again after the economy recovers, the interest may not be there already. So why should we still want to be a process engineer? For what reason, please tell me...

Past, Present and Future

People always say time flies. It's true. Boom! 28 years have passed. By this time, I should have reached a phase in life whereby I have a clear plans or directions I want to take in long term. Or at least achieved something financially or in life. But have I? Not yet, really. I'm still naive in my thinking and penniless.

Since young, I have always lived in a very restricted environment, where I couldn't really do things that I should have done myself, i.e. many things were done or thought out for me nicely without me having to lift a finger on it. Yah, it's kinda like "The Life of a Young Master". But I realised I seriously dislike this kinda treatment even when I'm still a kid. At school and at home, I didn't feel really happy at all.

When I reached my teenage years, bigger problems set in, causing much unhappiness in entire family. That time I was experiencing the biggest change in my life. To avoid those unhappy family problems, I drowned myself in electronic games everyday. I was so addicted to it to the extent that I become a rather violent, a huge contrary to my "meek nature". Thanks to my mum and grandparents who are constantly on my side, I managed to wake up and turn over a new leaf. I studied very hard to improve my academic performance, until I did it in my high school years.

Coming to Singapore to study was never on my thought before, despite the fact that I grew up with Singapore TV dramas and news. But I didn't regret the decision to leave my family then after almost 10 years here. I slowly learnt to be independent, learnt to think, plan and solve problems for myself and my family. What about friends? The fact is that I don't really have many friends since young. Even until high school, I only have few friends. I'm rather well-known for my anti-socialness. It's not I'm proud or what. I simply don't know how to socialize!

The poly days were one of my most memorable period in my life. I met many good friends who are sincere, friendly and helpful. But I still chose to isolate myself, in order to do well in my studies to get into NUS Chemical Engineering. At that time, NTU has no CBE department yet. After graduating, NTU suddenly setup a CBE division! I got into NUS Chemistry and NTU CBE. I was so confused that time that I went to Guan Yin Temple at Waterloo Street to ask Goddess Guan Yin which course I should take. I interpreted the "qian" at the temple myself with the help of a book. Essentially it just said "If you choose to do something you like to do, you'll encounter a lot of hardships and obstacles. However, if you choose something you don't really like, your life would be much easier and happier." In the end, I chose the difficult path and here I am, in NTU.

Entering NTU to do such a rigorous course after 2 years of working without seriously using my brain was indeed a very difficult transition for me. But thankfully I met a group of friends who really changed my life. I learnt to socialize more with people, learn to joke or I should say learnt to live like a normal person of my age. I'm grateful to them for dissolving some of my hard-to-get-rid anti-socialness to oblivion. I gradually spend more time with friends than thinking about my family. But the old problems still refused to budge. There's a period of time where I was so overwhelmed by the problems from friends and family until relationships with some of these friends cracked. It has been a year more or less. I'm still very upset when I thought of this every now and then. I gave it a serious thought. Is it really my problem or theirs? Now I finally can conclude. The problem lies more on my side than the other party. Perhaps people just cannot figure out how I think or why I behave in a certain way and they started to misunderstand me more and more. Probably it's the 1st wrong step that led to eventual failure. I didn't give good impression and others' thoughts simply went flying around easily.

Realising this mistake, it was too late. Maybe I'm too perfectionist, a crack will always remain a crack. I cannot tolerate a friend whom I regarded as "One of the best friends in my whole life" to have collaborated with others to actually cause grievous hurt on me & my other best friends who were completely not involved in this matter. It's a serious blow to my faith on that person. Until now, I realised the whole matter arose because I'm still naive at heart.

So what should I do in future? Doing too little makes others think I'm arrogant. But doing too much will only cause more harm to myself and others eventually. What Goddess Guan Yin "qian" said is true, my life is really at a low point now. Did I make a mistake in entering NTU? I still think it's a good decision. I'll learn to be more mature from now onwards.