articulation of thoughts

I do believe that I'm the World's Worst Procrastinator. My summer plan was to start a blog and begin writing seriously. No random thoughts, no jumble of rabble, no mere articulation of the soliloquiys inside my head. I was going to be a Social Commentator. Of sorts. I was going to be articulate and poetic. So what happened? I turned reticent. Not out of a lack of things to say or comment on, issues are always abundant and there is never a quiet moment in my mind. Nope, I'm just an awful, awful procrastinator. But here I go, rambling on and on about nothing again.

"Nothing will come out of nothing, speak again/Lest you mar your fortune" - King Lear

If you've known me long enough, you'd know this is the my favourite line to quote. Simply because it embodies a lot of things, a lot of ideals. Tis a flawed statement. Indeed, later on in the play the Fool asks the King "Canst you make something out of nothing, nuncle?" People could argue that it's the job of social scientists to "make something out of nothing" and you could interpret it in so many ways.

A little more about what I've been doing with my time in a little bit... but these are the things that are in my mind. I should probably do away with my goal of coherence; I find my blogs most effective when I'm just articulating my thoughts. My blog are as random as I am. They're like my synecdoche. Or metonymy. I forget which.

My defence of the Arts has always been its focus on aesthetics. I'm in love with words the way some people are in love with music. I'm in love with expression. Self-expression in whatever form, and I think I've been a terrible hypocrite all these years. Perhaps it's the way things work in Singapore, perhaps it's the way I never seem to belong in any of the groups of people where I feel the happiest - somehow I thrive on being the outsider - or perhaps these are mere excuses to an intrinsic character flaw, I don't know. Singapore places a great deal of emphasis on technicality, on excelling in studies, in productivity and numbers. Things like Literature and poetry don't matter in school. People come to university to earn a piece of paper. People fear passion and are threatened by enthusiasm.

I'm a Sociology major, so you don't have to give me lectures about stereotypes. Unfortunately, I've had a long standing grudge against the Engineering and Science people. Hey, perhaps it's a deep rooted subconscious resentment because they're better at Math and Science and they're gonna make a truckload of money more than me. Or perhaps sometime in History, one of them pissed me off. Whatever, I don't know. All I know, is that perhaps I've been unfair. When I went to Queen's, it was the Engineering people who got out Golden Words, the funniest, wittiest and smartest publication I've ever come across. And this year, I met an Engineering student who's astute and really nice. Plus, the A&M studs have really made me realise a lot of things. Which brings me to my job description -

And incidentally, the most legitimate reason to my procrastination: I got a job. And I've really been learning a lot on the job, too. I'm a Student Associate at the International Relations Office at NUS. Currently, I'm helping out with a Summer Programme for Texas A&M. (The whole job story is pretty funny, I'll tell it another time perhaps.) Engineering students, the lot of them. For the past month or so, I've been making phonecalls, updating schedules, coming up with itineraries, making more phonecalls... I was really looking forward to their arrival and now that they're here, my job is a lot of fun.

Today, for instance, we got to go on our first fieldtrip to a company which dealt with Engineering stuff. Which was interesting for me in a very different sort of way. The most interesting speaker was an Indian man whose name I never got. And he spoke of Engineering as an Art, as a form of aesthetics. And while I don't fully understand how this was, I appreciated the sentiment and it tied in with what Dr Leon spoke with me about yesterday during his campus tour. I spoke with Dr Leon (one of their profs who was visiting) about one of my possible thesis topics of emotional management, and he mentioned about doing a job you love to do and how you'll never have to work. He also said something about believing in what you're doing. Passion is an interesting thing. I believe it's one of those things that you can't stake claim to: you can't say something like "oh, I'm passionate about *insert Source of Passion here*" well, you could. But I believe that passion is something that people can tell without you having to say it. Passion is self-evident. And alas, passion in Singapore faces a tough battle against practicality and rationalism. Alas, Passion doesn't always emerge victorious.

Passion is like fire. That's what I believe. It can energise you, it can drive you to great heights. But unbridled passion can also burn you and scar you. You just have to know how to wied it. And that's what life is, or should be about. Learning how to wield passion. Which can be ironic.

I'm very lucky in a lot of ways. I really like my job. I haven't had it for very long, but I've been learning a lot. I'm a terribly blur person who resides in my own world for a lot of the time and the job is exposing how much I don't know the things that I should. It's making me realise that I don't have all the answers, that my perceptions on a lot of things are based on the very flawed assumptions I claim to criticise. It's teaching me to be more confident, to take a chance. It's working experience. And while I'm a total spaz when it comes to dry and wet etching and deposition and plasma and tool processing and how "the only wafers I know come with ice cream", these field trips are relevant to what I study and my interests insofar as it challenges my perceptions, it makes me think and reconsider the things I take for granted. Which is the very essence of sociology.