Top 10 Moments of 2005: Number 4

My 2-month internship stint with the Sports Desk at The Straits Times makes number 4 on this year's list. I went into this stint strictly an utter journalistic novice, but left so much wiser about the tricks of the trade.

Nailing this internship was in itself quite a story. I missed a call from the HR people at SPH while I was in Bogor. It turned out that call was to arrange for an interview, which meant that I had passed the writing test - which I was fretting over as I went into EARC.

I came back, checked my email literally the moment I dumped my bags down, realised they called and called them to beg them for another interview time slot.

To their credit, the SPH HR people there were the first HR people I ever encountered who were actually nice and efficient. Because the very next day, when I woke up to go for VCF leaders planning camp, they actually asked me to go down later that day for an interview.

After that, when I got the confirmation of the job offer after the interview that day, I felt so dumb. Fretting, worrying about the whole thing excessively so soon after EARC, where God gave me an insight into the possible things He would have me doing in future.

But the 2 months in the newsroom did me a world of good. I was put in a situation where work prevented me from serving in church or VCF. And then I kind of found myself counting the cost when I chose to compromise on my work performance when I decided I will not take on jobs that will prevent me from being in church on Sundays.

This was especially pronounced since the IOC session was in town in July 2005. There were plenty of opportunities to "prove my worth" to the editor through it all, but while I suspect he thought rather highly of me in the beginning, I think I lost that high regard when I left.

Along the way, I also shot myself in the foot many times with factual errors committed when I am writing the story at the end of a long day reporting. I also had to come to terms with the unique dynamics of boss-subordinate relations in the newsroom. Crucially, I learnt first-hand how not to commit career suicide in the newsroom.

At the end of everything, my 2-month stinct not only helped me decide that journalism remains something I wanted to pursue, but also more importantly, got me to "practise" reconciling my faith with my profession.

In order not to be swept away by the sheer busy-ness of the newsroom, I realised that it is very important to be very clear about why God called me to this field in the first place.

But I guess you could say it came at a cost. It was just one heck of a 2-month period, which ensured that I had to give VCF FOC a miss in July and it made me so tired that it set me up for my melt down later.