vendredi, avril 29, 2005
Le travail n'est pas la vie
Work is not life.
A couple of weeks ago, my Common Tests results came out. They weren't the most fantastic grades and I wasn't expecting much considering how dance practices for the upcoming Singapore Youth Festival had completely ripped my cute little study schedule into so much confetti. But it was a reminder that I had indeed sacrificed something important for the opportunity to join the other dancers in fighting for the gold with honors. That was when I fully felt the pressure of the expectations we had placed on ourselves.
With no one around I could talk to without feeling more pressure, I started calling people from back home, people I hadn't spoken to in a long time, to take my mind off that little piece of ballet called the Graduation Night.
I rang up Arveen. In case you don't know him, Arveen was one of my best friends from secondary school. We had a lot of good times together, especially during our debating days from our first match against Sabah College (with Wilson as third speaker!) to the Malaysian Nationals Semi-Finals where we lost to Perak and all the nights we spent in between at Coffee Bean and hotel rooms preparing our cases and generally just wasting money.
"So... how's life?" he asked.
I smiled. There's this joke Aaron and I about that line we used to laugh about. Whenever the conversation ran dry, Arveen would quip "So... how's life?" And it would almost certainly be the most unrelated and unexpected thing to say at those moments.
"Oh, I'm in dance now and there's a competition --"
He interrupted me. "Stop it. Don't talk about your cheerleading and all that nonsense. That is not your life. Tell me about your life."
I started to argue with him, a smart retort forming at the tip of my tongue. Then I stopped.
He was absolutely right.
Work is not life. Work is an economic activity that bears returns not necessarily limited to monetary and material rewards. If the labor we perform now to earn the opportunity to indulge in leisure later becomes the very definition of our lives instead of the moments that make us truly glad to be alive, then we're dead already.
I was dying. And I still am.
Every day I look at my schedule and I just sigh when I realize all my days are occupied with work, exactly just as they were during the Singapore Youth Festival mania. It's disturbing because after that phone call which actually ended quite shortly after that enlightening exchange when Arveen's side of the line decided to close the connection in some sudden burst of brilliance, I promised myself that I would have more time to rest after the competition. And right now I see that the madness hasn't really ended at all. It's just begun.
Some of you might have heard hints of how intriguingly busy I am. Guess what: they weren't hints at all but outpourings of frustration which I was only too glad to let you all interrupt to talk about your own problems. I know it's hard to find someone who'll shut up and listen to you talk without trying to get their piece in, so I won't start a simultaneous speech competition with you. I let you talk and I listen, even if you won't do the same to me. Because if I won't, who will?
Here in my blog, I write and you have to read all the way until I'm finished before you can post a comment or tag on my troubles. So if you want to talk about yourself, come look for me, entice me to sit down with you and I will listen to you empty your heart out without a word. But here, I empty my heart out in these words of frustration and you read.
It's kind of ironic because my most immediate concerns right now are writing assignments: words of frustration inspiring words of frustration. There's this United Nations essay competition which Andrew, Ben and I have teamed up to complete. The title? What the United Nations means to me, which is obviously incredible material for the most trite and clichéd suck-up job ever. I wanted our theme to be "the United Nations is an unworthy successor to a failed League of Nations." Andrew obviously didn't let that go very far. Damn you, Feeding Time, for being so rational. In any case, I'm supposed to complete my rewrites of the whole essay by Saturday night, which at the time of writing is tomorrow night.
After that essay is done, I have an economics essay from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Title? I'm pleasantly clueless at the moment, which I suspect won't be so pleasant when I approach the deadline of May 7th. And you know what the best part of this assignment is? The competition is already over; it's just compulsory work for all S-level Economics students.
Speaking of S-level Economics, my seminar paper to tackle the vaguely urgent economic issue "Are public subsidies to art galleries, theatres and museums economically justifiable?" is currently languishing in a state of non-existence. I've studied the concept of market failures and how Adam Smith's invisible hand fails to push production of goods and services that are beneficial to society higher to desired levels and I've gone through pages of statistics and costing estimates and accounts and government budgets but I still have not written a single word. And I don't even want to talk about the country economic analysis assignment we just got today. Very BAGUS.
Even more BAGUS is the insatiable maw of that leisure-devouring beast called homework. Of all the assignments and exercises I am having a jolly good time hating, my most vile and foul profanity is reserved for Biology homework, especially when Biology tutorials are the most useless lessons I have ever encountered in my fourteen years of formal education. They drag on forever and we learn nothing. Heck, what do I care about the rest of you? I learn nothing. In the end, I'm going to have to study Biology on my own from textbooks again just as I have since I started learning this damn fool subject. Thanks a lot. All you Biology teachers wasted my time well.
I'm particularly vexed at the homework exactly because it's wasting my time, time I should be spending on Math revisions. I need these desperately, desperate enough that I will not hesitate to miss a few Biology tutorials to practice on my differential equations and vectors. Sorry, but this is business. It's nothing personal. I just don't intend to commit harakiri in the balcony of my hostel hall out of shame for disappointing my parents again in the next Common Test.
Not to forget, we're erasing our shame from missing that Gold by performing our ballet item on College Day. Just when we thought we would never have to wear those tights again, there are going to be two full dress rehearsals and of course the actual celebrations for College Day: three fantastic opportunities for humiliation. So until May 14th, we'll be rehearsing the dance until we push ourselves higher than the Silver medal we got.
At the same time as all these rehearsals, Pre-U Seminar is pushing full on with the dry run of the oral presentation approaching. The writers are crafting our speeches but of course we'll all still need to sit down together and do readings to adjust for personal style and character traits and actually to just stare at each other the rest of the time. All this to achieve some cute concept called verisimilitude, a long word with lots of syllables which just means the quality of seeming to be true. And because we need to achieve verisimilitude, I will have to personally ensure that when I walk on stage as one of the four presenters from my Junior College on that day, dressed in a three-piece suit with leather suitcase and laptop acting as the sophisticated, professional terrorist, I will possess verisimilitude good enough for all those Singaporean government officials and cabinet ministers. In any case, our first dry run is on the morning of May 14th so I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to get the character right.
Wait. May 14th? Isn't that College Day?
YES. Next question, please.
What else? Dance practices for our Black Hip Hop busking performance at Orchard Road in the first weeks of June. We've got only one month to learn and perfect the whole dance, a feat already difficult enough without mentioning my lack of dance background except from clubbing at the Beach Club and Razzmatazz back home. All this while I juggle with my seminar paper, homework, revisions, College Day and Pre-U Seminar.
Wait a minute. When is Pre-U Seminar again? The first week of June, right?
Oh. Oh.
There can't be more, right?
Of course there is. I still have my cheerleading team, remember? I haven't given that up even with all the work that's piling up on me. Top priority now is to register us with Cairnhill Community Centre as a special interest group, then choreography a routine. And I have to settle recruitment issues and some intensive joint-training arrangements with the National University of Singapore cheerleading team during the whole month of June.
On top of all this, lest we forget, I'm supposed to study during the June holidays for the second Common Test in July. The same June holidays with the intensive cheerleading training.
How many items did I just list? I know you're in no mood to count after my ranting so I count ten, repeat again, ten emboldened items. That is exactly how loaded I am.
How did I accumulate so much work? It's all my fault of course. By accepting so many responsibilities early on, I let all that work creep up on me as the days passed, slowly depositing themselves behind me into a bloody mountain while I wasn't looking.
Well I'm looking now and I can only sigh in acceptance of that mountain for the next two months. I can't really complain, can I? It's all my doing after all. And truth be told I don't really regret how my schedule has become so devoid of days when I can just go back to my room after school and sit back to relax. On the contrary, I'm excited by the prospect of having all these things to do.
With the exception of homework and revisions of course. I'm no mugger. Damn it, I'm Malaysian!
Sorry. Couldn't help it. No offense, Singaporean readers. It's just that you don't spend enough time in mamak stalls like we do drinking teh tarik, the one and only national drink of Malaysia. Like, everytime you feel bored.
Anyway, like I was saying, I'm actually looking forward to all of this. Really, I wouldn't really call much of that list work at all. They're more passions than anything. I do things because I love them, not because I have to. Which would explain my poor attendance at school.
So I'm sorry, Arveen. This is my life. It's not that it's become a monotonous unending train of assignments and homework. My life is full of the passions I love, the reasons that make me wake up knowing it's not going to be just another boring day even if I'm going to end up completely exhausted at the end of it. I'm not ashamed of who I am. I'm a writer, economist, dancer, actor, public speaker, debator and cheerleader. And I'm proud because it's my damned life and I'm glad to be living it.
Notice I didn't say student. Please don't leak this blog to any of my tutors...
Commentaires: 1
A couple of weeks ago, my Common Tests results came out. They weren't the most fantastic grades and I wasn't expecting much considering how dance practices for the upcoming Singapore Youth Festival had completely ripped my cute little study schedule into so much confetti. But it was a reminder that I had indeed sacrificed something important for the opportunity to join the other dancers in fighting for the gold with honors. That was when I fully felt the pressure of the expectations we had placed on ourselves.
With no one around I could talk to without feeling more pressure, I started calling people from back home, people I hadn't spoken to in a long time, to take my mind off that little piece of ballet called the Graduation Night.
I rang up Arveen. In case you don't know him, Arveen was one of my best friends from secondary school. We had a lot of good times together, especially during our debating days from our first match against Sabah College (with Wilson as third speaker!) to the Malaysian Nationals Semi-Finals where we lost to Perak and all the nights we spent in between at Coffee Bean and hotel rooms preparing our cases and generally just wasting money.
"So... how's life?" he asked.
I smiled. There's this joke Aaron and I about that line we used to laugh about. Whenever the conversation ran dry, Arveen would quip "So... how's life?" And it would almost certainly be the most unrelated and unexpected thing to say at those moments.
"Oh, I'm in dance now and there's a competition --"
He interrupted me. "Stop it. Don't talk about your cheerleading and all that nonsense. That is not your life. Tell me about your life."
I started to argue with him, a smart retort forming at the tip of my tongue. Then I stopped.
He was absolutely right.
Work is not life. Work is an economic activity that bears returns not necessarily limited to monetary and material rewards. If the labor we perform now to earn the opportunity to indulge in leisure later becomes the very definition of our lives instead of the moments that make us truly glad to be alive, then we're dead already.
I was dying. And I still am.
Every day I look at my schedule and I just sigh when I realize all my days are occupied with work, exactly just as they were during the Singapore Youth Festival mania. It's disturbing because after that phone call which actually ended quite shortly after that enlightening exchange when Arveen's side of the line decided to close the connection in some sudden burst of brilliance, I promised myself that I would have more time to rest after the competition. And right now I see that the madness hasn't really ended at all. It's just begun.
Some of you might have heard hints of how intriguingly busy I am. Guess what: they weren't hints at all but outpourings of frustration which I was only too glad to let you all interrupt to talk about your own problems. I know it's hard to find someone who'll shut up and listen to you talk without trying to get their piece in, so I won't start a simultaneous speech competition with you. I let you talk and I listen, even if you won't do the same to me. Because if I won't, who will?
Here in my blog, I write and you have to read all the way until I'm finished before you can post a comment or tag on my troubles. So if you want to talk about yourself, come look for me, entice me to sit down with you and I will listen to you empty your heart out without a word. But here, I empty my heart out in these words of frustration and you read.
It's kind of ironic because my most immediate concerns right now are writing assignments: words of frustration inspiring words of frustration. There's this United Nations essay competition which Andrew, Ben and I have teamed up to complete. The title? What the United Nations means to me, which is obviously incredible material for the most trite and clichéd suck-up job ever. I wanted our theme to be "the United Nations is an unworthy successor to a failed League of Nations." Andrew obviously didn't let that go very far. Damn you, Feeding Time, for being so rational. In any case, I'm supposed to complete my rewrites of the whole essay by Saturday night, which at the time of writing is tomorrow night.
After that essay is done, I have an economics essay from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Title? I'm pleasantly clueless at the moment, which I suspect won't be so pleasant when I approach the deadline of May 7th. And you know what the best part of this assignment is? The competition is already over; it's just compulsory work for all S-level Economics students.
Speaking of S-level Economics, my seminar paper to tackle the vaguely urgent economic issue "Are public subsidies to art galleries, theatres and museums economically justifiable?" is currently languishing in a state of non-existence. I've studied the concept of market failures and how Adam Smith's invisible hand fails to push production of goods and services that are beneficial to society higher to desired levels and I've gone through pages of statistics and costing estimates and accounts and government budgets but I still have not written a single word. And I don't even want to talk about the country economic analysis assignment we just got today. Very BAGUS.
Even more BAGUS is the insatiable maw of that leisure-devouring beast called homework. Of all the assignments and exercises I am having a jolly good time hating, my most vile and foul profanity is reserved for Biology homework, especially when Biology tutorials are the most useless lessons I have ever encountered in my fourteen years of formal education. They drag on forever and we learn nothing. Heck, what do I care about the rest of you? I learn nothing. In the end, I'm going to have to study Biology on my own from textbooks again just as I have since I started learning this damn fool subject. Thanks a lot. All you Biology teachers wasted my time well.
I'm particularly vexed at the homework exactly because it's wasting my time, time I should be spending on Math revisions. I need these desperately, desperate enough that I will not hesitate to miss a few Biology tutorials to practice on my differential equations and vectors. Sorry, but this is business. It's nothing personal. I just don't intend to commit harakiri in the balcony of my hostel hall out of shame for disappointing my parents again in the next Common Test.
Not to forget, we're erasing our shame from missing that Gold by performing our ballet item on College Day. Just when we thought we would never have to wear those tights again, there are going to be two full dress rehearsals and of course the actual celebrations for College Day: three fantastic opportunities for humiliation. So until May 14th, we'll be rehearsing the dance until we push ourselves higher than the Silver medal we got.
At the same time as all these rehearsals, Pre-U Seminar is pushing full on with the dry run of the oral presentation approaching. The writers are crafting our speeches but of course we'll all still need to sit down together and do readings to adjust for personal style and character traits and actually to just stare at each other the rest of the time. All this to achieve some cute concept called verisimilitude, a long word with lots of syllables which just means the quality of seeming to be true. And because we need to achieve verisimilitude, I will have to personally ensure that when I walk on stage as one of the four presenters from my Junior College on that day, dressed in a three-piece suit with leather suitcase and laptop acting as the sophisticated, professional terrorist, I will possess verisimilitude good enough for all those Singaporean government officials and cabinet ministers. In any case, our first dry run is on the morning of May 14th so I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to get the character right.
Wait. May 14th? Isn't that College Day?
YES. Next question, please.
What else? Dance practices for our Black Hip Hop busking performance at Orchard Road in the first weeks of June. We've got only one month to learn and perfect the whole dance, a feat already difficult enough without mentioning my lack of dance background except from clubbing at the Beach Club and Razzmatazz back home. All this while I juggle with my seminar paper, homework, revisions, College Day and Pre-U Seminar.
Wait a minute. When is Pre-U Seminar again? The first week of June, right?
Oh. Oh.
There can't be more, right?
Of course there is. I still have my cheerleading team, remember? I haven't given that up even with all the work that's piling up on me. Top priority now is to register us with Cairnhill Community Centre as a special interest group, then choreography a routine. And I have to settle recruitment issues and some intensive joint-training arrangements with the National University of Singapore cheerleading team during the whole month of June.
On top of all this, lest we forget, I'm supposed to study during the June holidays for the second Common Test in July. The same June holidays with the intensive cheerleading training.
How many items did I just list? I know you're in no mood to count after my ranting so I count ten, repeat again, ten emboldened items. That is exactly how loaded I am.
How did I accumulate so much work? It's all my fault of course. By accepting so many responsibilities early on, I let all that work creep up on me as the days passed, slowly depositing themselves behind me into a bloody mountain while I wasn't looking.
Well I'm looking now and I can only sigh in acceptance of that mountain for the next two months. I can't really complain, can I? It's all my doing after all. And truth be told I don't really regret how my schedule has become so devoid of days when I can just go back to my room after school and sit back to relax. On the contrary, I'm excited by the prospect of having all these things to do.
With the exception of homework and revisions of course. I'm no mugger. Damn it, I'm Malaysian!
Sorry. Couldn't help it. No offense, Singaporean readers. It's just that you don't spend enough time in mamak stalls like we do drinking teh tarik, the one and only national drink of Malaysia. Like, everytime you feel bored.
Anyway, like I was saying, I'm actually looking forward to all of this. Really, I wouldn't really call much of that list work at all. They're more passions than anything. I do things because I love them, not because I have to. Which would explain my poor attendance at school.
So I'm sorry, Arveen. This is my life. It's not that it's become a monotonous unending train of assignments and homework. My life is full of the passions I love, the reasons that make me wake up knowing it's not going to be just another boring day even if I'm going to end up completely exhausted at the end of it. I'm not ashamed of who I am. I'm a writer, economist, dancer, actor, public speaker, debator and cheerleader. And I'm proud because it's my damned life and I'm glad to be living it.
Notice I didn't say student. Please don't leak this blog to any of my tutors...
Commentaires: 1
1 Comments:
Orion, @
11:32 AM, mai 07, 2005
hahaha...reading ur blogs sure take lots of time..hahaha...yeah I do miss those times in A-levels where we can just sit and talk.I know wat u mean...totally put my feelings into words..piled up with too much stuff. Cant believe Arveen can actually be so intellectual!!
