Saturday, June 15, 2013

Before vs. After - one year after commencement

The good thing about university life is you feel that you have 50 hours a day. Going to a choir practice at 9pm, followed by dance rehearsal at 11pm, doing homework till 1am, sleeping, waking up at 8am, running to class without brushing my teeth (oops! once only!) then going back to hall to sleep again at 10am, etc.
Fortunately, the working world doesn't work in this manner.

So...sometimes you just miss the things that you used to do.
Not that I LOVE running so much, but there's an envy that a friend can go to mountaineering training 3 times a week.
Not that I LOVE dancing that much, but there's a wish that I can still dance and perform.
Not that I LOVE climbing so much, but sometimes I wish I can still go back late because of rock climbing after office hour.
Not that I want to exchange what I have now with what my friends have, but sometimes I just miss things-that-I-used-to-do.


Well, Fr Mario still encouraged me to do exercise! He's quite true in the sense that I don't need to swim too long, but I need to swim a bit and I still can have time to rest at home (while I tend to omit swimming when I feel like going back home early). He even said my jogging last week was not enough, he said I need rest. He even asked when my next holiday is. Hahaha.

While on one hand I agree that graduation is called "commencement" because it's a start of something new, a start of good rhythm of my life (rather than those sleeping-at-3am-and-waking-up-at-10 'schedule'), on the other hand, I think that commencement is also an "end".

Again, Pilar said, "That's life!"

We move from one stage to another stage of life.
Sometimes I can't believe that I'm 23 this year. When Nic said in whatsapp group, "The kid who smoked in the class? He's still 21." Initially I thought, "21 is same age with us right?" Then I realized that 21 is my brother's age. Hahahahaha.

We move from one stage to another stage of life.
A friend of mine wished that she could have a "happy-go-lucky" life. I'm not sure about her definition, but I mentioned that what we see as "happy-go-lucky" life doesn't seem as happy as we thought. To be honest, I think I found connection with this friend because of our common thought: We are NOT happy-go-lucky people and I am happy not to be a happy-go-lucky person.

We move from one stage to another stage of life.
Please laugh at me.
Last year, I was so annoyed that Paul commented on my bad sense of fashion. I forgot that I've started working and I was still in the "as long as it's covered, the cloth is okay!" Now even though my work doesn't require me to wear formal attire, I think dressing well is truly important. It doesn't mean that someone needs to wear long-sleeve shirt and skirt to field work, but it means that we need to adjust what we wear according to the situation.

We try to make progress.
I used to think that a research assistant is a stagnant job. The only way to progress is only if you pursue postgraduate study. Nevertheless, when I mentioned to my mom how I become busier these days and many other new things that I need to learn in my job, my mom pointed it out to me that this is what you mean by "progress". Your title may remain to be "research assistant", but you learn new things, you must take more responsibilities, and you must work more efficiently because you handle more projects.


Thanks to my parents for reminding me about this. One year after commencement, even though my title remains as "research assistant", they have reminded me how meaningful my work is. And they understand how important these experiences are in my new working life.

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