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.

等待着

等，等，等。。。

工作，你在哪儿？

我等到花儿也谢了。。。

期待着。。。

生活真的是单调, 感觉上好像缺少了什么东西。

像当初，几乎每一天都有期待着一些东西。

开心的事，真的是短暂。

不开心的事，也是短暂。

但是，往往人就只是记住这些事情。

付出的，我不指望能够收回来。

没付出的，我也不敢盼望能够得到。

命运就是这么爱作弄人。

人活在这个世上，有什么是值得留恋 ?

家人？朋友？陌生人？大自然？或这是根本看不到的东西？

不管是什么，最重要的是。。。

接下来得每一天, 希望有多一些开心，少一些悲伤.

不多不少的人生，才是最幸福的。

FYP Presentation

It's an long overdue post. Anyway, still wish to post it as a memory.

Last time really look forward to ending the FYP poster presentation, as it marks the end of my 4-year studies in NTU. On the day itself, Prof Aman was injured and has to walk on a crutch. I was a bit worried as he may feel uncomfy for standing still for 10-15 mins on a crutch while listening to my probably-naggy presentation. But he cut it short & all my nervousness disappeared quickly. He asked some unexpected-and-non-FYP-related questions and I was stunned for a while. And finally it's over. Then shortly after, Prof Arvind came to our booths. Hmm I told him I didn't even present it properly, as the flow was disrupted. But he said maybe Prof Aman is convinced of my work, so he didn't ask too many questions. But I seriously don't think so. Although I think my FYP is a real mess, but I really appreciate the result. Despite my many complaints, I was touched by what he told me during 1 of the consultation sessions and also after photo-taking sessions. I'll remember his advices.

Ok, it's photo time!

Liming & Lenard + Kit Bun behind

Me & Prof Arvind

Kit Bun, Yahui, me, Prof Arvind, Lenard, Gui Jin & Qiwei

(Haha, it's so symmetrical, even though we just anyhow stand next to each other)

Design Project mates (Haha, all smiles, esp Lenard)

Almost Done!

FYP report submitted! Design project completed! Exams done! Left with FYP Poster Presentation. Don't know why, I don't feel excited at all.

This FYP made me realised how little I know about CSTR and batch reactor. Although it's nothing near impressive, but at least I've learnt sth new. But he's not convinced about my arguments, despite I've already made it very simple to grasp. He also heck care about what I write in my report and only care about formatting. So what if you have the best-formatted report in the world? If there's something wrong with the basics, no amount of formatting can make up for that. My report was the last one to be read, somemore read during design lecture. That goes to show how insignificant my work is to him. I tried to put in a lot of effort into getting the basics right. But did he know? I'm totally disappointed with him. Although I've really learnt a lot from him, in terms of how to approach & solve problems, but humans are still humans. Projects which are not related to own research tend to be neglected. Never mind, I'm not bothered with my FYP grade, only what I can learn from it by myself, since I cannot get 1st class anyway.

As for design project, it also has its fair share of joy & frustration. At the start, everything seems ok. I felt very excited, since I've been waiting for 3 years for this and finally I can apply what I've learnt. But along the way, problems gradually set in. I'm really frustrated when there are non-technical problems spoiling my "design project experience", as I have very high expectations on it. I know in real life these kind of situations will occur anyway, so I'll treat it as a learning point. In the end, didn't produce a really fantastic report, still far from what the profs wanted... Creative design ideas, we still lack on this.

Job hunting hasn't had any results so far. Expected, since I didn't really put in much effort into getting lots of interviews. Will focus on job search after grad trip. Frankly speaking, many companies are very short-sighted in their recruitment drives. They mainly look at your grades. If you're not 1st class, then your resume is of lower priority. I know it's a fact, but it's such a stupid mentality. It doesn't mean that 2nd class people have no drive or have much inferior quality of work than the 1st class ones. I know theoretically speaking, there is a higher probability of success if you hire a 1st class graduate. But in real life, things don't obey this "prediction" strictly.

Next, I got a tuition student! Thanks old friend Peifen, who comes to my rescue when I'm in need of money. At least it offsets part of my expenses before I found a permanent job. So excited about tutoring JC Chemistry. I still remember vividly I fell in love with chemistry instantly during my high school years, culminating in my choice of chemical engineering as a career. It's fun to do what you like, but it's a great responsibility, as I've to gradually build up her excitement and confidence in chemistry and also need to ensure I teach the concepts correctly and the tutee really understand what I said. Although she told me she'll be taking psychology in NUS, nonetheless, I still look forward to tutoring her.

Finally comes the graduation trip! So excited about it. Never thought of going to Vietnam or Cambodia, somemore on a backpacking trip. Maybe the influence of HRM lecturer Richard was too great, as he frequently mentioned "Vietnam" as an example of overseas job posting destination. From itinerary planning to preparing stuff for the trip, a lot of things to consider & do. It's really difficult for a person like me who seldom travels. But most important is the travel experience. I hope I can be more travel-savvy after this. I dream of travelling to different parts of the world whenever I have the time & resources to do so. This shall be the starting point!

Then comes the Influenza A(H1N1) flu virus. Haiz, it really comes at a bad time. Even my student asked me "Har, you are still travelling? You are not afraid of swine flu?". I told her I'll monitor the situation closely, but I think should be ok. Just make sure I maintain personal hygiene & avoid overly crowded areas. In short, I won't let this swine flu spoil my trip!

Ok, enough of words!