the first thing that came to my mind was "there must be a reason why the bible is still in my drawer."

i believe that things happen for a reason.

today mama helped me call a cab and happened to chat with this cab driver. he shared with me some christian stories and a little abt his life. he told me a story about his baby daughter and it kinda touched me. and no, he wasnt pushy and he didnt even start talking to me until i asked him the title of the song that he was playing then.

he answered me in a very educated manner and i always love to ask why they are driving a cab. not bcos i despise cab drivers, but rather it is interesting to understand abt the lives of people from all walks of life. my ex regular cab driver used to be a property agent who earned more than 5k per month, but he gave it up because he didnt like the life then. he had to meet clients who requested to meet in the middle of the night cos those clients were usually high flyers and they could only afford time to view houses at the end of the day say 1am? gosh.

today this cab driver used to be a marketing manager who earned $8k/mth. (whether he is boasting or not is another issue but i could easily tell that he is a very educated man) he was retrenched and he couldnt find a job. not because he was unwillingly to accept a lower pay, but because noone dared to hire him in case he may swtich jobs anytime due to the meagre pay that they could offer. he is a cab driver now because of his religion. long story to share.

but well, to talk about myself now. i have been working for more than 9 years. retail, f&b, customer service, admin etc, you name it and i have been thru it. and i realised i cant stand office politics. i am an exact copy of my mum. she never bothers to boot lick and/or compliment people just because she has to. she does her duties and complete them as instructed. and at the end of the day, she goes home. call her a no-lifer, but im proud to have a mum like that. that could be the possible reason why she never gets prompted, but hey, her constant yearly pay raise says everything about her performance and work attitude.

whenever i talk about office politics, i think back about the choice that i made when i completed my As. with the results that i had obtained, i could enter ANY faculty of my choice. (perhaps except law cos i didnt do well for my GP) but well, my results were almost the perfect results that everyone would die for. but i ended up choosing chemistry as my major.

at times when im doubtful about my future, i asked myself why the hell i chose this major when im not going to end up in that career path later on. but hey, now i realise alot of things. yes, tonight i realise some things that i should.

i used to think im not cut out for chemistry when i first entered nus because i couldnt stand the lab work which is a big part of a scientist. then when i got my results for the first sem, it further confirmed that i am not good in chemistry at all.

BUT WAIT, NOONE SAYS ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE IS THE WAY TO GAUGE INTEREST.

when i was back in jc, there was this little career room. they put up this poster that says "do you like the subject because u can score well?" now if i were to ask myself this question, i must say i am dumbfounded.

my chemistry results was a constant A all the time. my percentile in the whole cohort never fell below 95%. top 5% of the entire cohort. chemicals name were at the tip of my fingers and their properties were at the back of my mind. it seemed a natural thing for me to do chemistry when i first got admitted into nus.

i never never bothered to consider business at all. at that point of time, i thot business grads were everywhere and a business degree seemed so easy to obtain. plus the fact that i thot business modules were common sense modules.

but now i realised something else. i wanted to avoid the politics altogether.

call me a coward, but if there is a way for me to avoid, why not?

i've long heard abt politics from my parents when i was very very young. and i promised myself that i dont wanna end up like them. since young, i didnt like the idea of reporting work at 8.30am and then rush out for lunch at 12 like it is recess, and end work at 6pm only to be squeezed in the bus/train or get trapped in the horrendous traffic jam. im sorry to those who are leading such life, but this is my own opinion. of course i know such life pays high. i do know the market rate. but SO? pp who know me know that im not ridiculing at them, but this has been my own opinion since young.

i tend to choose the more unconventional routes compared to my peers though most of the time i am following conventional trends like going to a jc and then to a uni. well, such trends are inevitable, hence i chose to vary some other things in the course of such bo bian route.

i chose chemistry because of the relatively less-politics-kinda life. i mean LIKE HELLO, what kinda politics can there be when it comes to chemicals? perhaps i havent really stepped into the science working field yet, but the furthest i can imagine, perhaps contamination of your chemicals while u are trying to do ur R&D, stealing ur newly invented compund, lowering the quality of the products which u had just done a quality check. these sound really bad, but these are the things that can happen in this field. lord knows what can happen in the business field. gosh.

now im deviating further from the first sentence of this post. the point is, i believe i had done what i did and there must be a reason and someone must be walking with me.

i dunno, but i have the urge to read the bible that my fren had given me 3 years ago. the first thing that i must do it is to remove the plastic wrapper. it symbolises a start, at least.

"the one who holds anger is a fool."

this has been my attitude in life most of the time. unhappy things happened at work again and i made up my mind to tender the resignation this coming tuesday. i was angry initially until the cab driver told me this sentence today. i guess time to withdraw from the office politics. i had my share of fun for the past 1.5 year. time to restore some forms of simplicity in life. whether im wrong or right or being too wildful, it does not matter anymore.

my ahma always tell me it is always more important to be happy and have lesser money than the other way round. she told me to quit if i really dont wanna work there anymore. nice to have my grandmother listening to my problem even though my hokkien cant make it most of the time. it is the joy and comfort i get when my grandmother says "wo eh liao kai" (i can understand)

it is also a joy when people close to me give me the support that i need as well.

"the word support comes together in the friend package. w/o that, hard to even classify as friends."

i like that sentence.

i like it when my friend support me even though im wrong and then later point out my mistakes to me when the issue is over. because i learn more and i simply like it because it proves that they truly understand me.