After being cocooned for a whole academic year in journalism classes where I was lavished with nothing but words of praise, I have quite simply forgotten the harsh realities of the journalistic profession that I first got acquainted with during my internship at the local paper last year.
Those hard words that came my way, as the bureau chief rejected my application after my writing test, came as a rude shock. But on hindsight, it was necessary as a form of checks and balances to my system. My head has gotten too big for my own good.
After all, as journalists, if we want to be able to ask difficult questions, then I guess we must also be able to take hard knocks and hard words as well.
But what continues to disturb me was how I apparently couldn't answer the most basic question -- why I wanted to be a journalist?
It triggered the start of an entire self-reflexive process where I examined for the first time what got me so into journalism in the first place. This process, by the way, is no way near its conclusion because it's something that is ongoing and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
I have, however, come to a point right now when I am quite disenchanted by having to be constantly be in the frontline as a journalist, chasing those stories. It is a very tiring job and one that consumes your entire being.
When I was at ST, the whole notion of a work-life balance was non existent. Senior journalists were remarking tongue-in-cheek how this accounts for the high number of singles, divorcees and affairs in the news room.
So I need to know for certain that this is something that is not only worth my while doing (which also probably means I might not be practising journalism in Singapore if the current situation does not change), but also more importantly, something that God wants me to be doing.
I made the choice not to compromise my church involvement during that internship and I think I paid the price for it because my colleagues ended up thinking I was skiving on the job and wasn't serious about my pursuit of journalism.
My Reuters rejection is number 6 on this year's list because it got me thinking more and thinking harder about my reasons for wanting to go into journalism.
While I have previously regarded it almost as a given, the May episode shook me out of my complacency. It got me considering for the first time that journalism might just be something I want to pursue, and might not be in line with what God wants me to be doing.
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This time round, I am going to break with the habit of posting my full results like I have done for the previous 4 semesters. I think after the breakthrough last semester, this change would also help me move on, in terms of my obsession with grades.
The lead-up to this year's result release was definitely more measured than previous semesters -- but if I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried at all.
However, I got reminded of my OCS commissioning parade a few years ago. Just moments before the parade was about to commence, the skies were still overcast and the winds were swirling. I was desperate for the parade to go ahead as planned after going through all the trouble to get to OCS in the first place and of course, the nonsense in my OCS term.
I said a prayer and I got reminded then of what Kelvin Mok told me before -- God didn't bring me this far just for me to go back to the old again. It was quite amazing that the winds started changing directions after that prayer and blew the clouds away for a while. The rains only started just when the parade ended!
It was those words that again brought me comfort when my mind started wondering if my CAP score would dip back to where it was at, prior to that semester.
In the end, everything went pretty all right. Except for that sociology of religion module, I did pretty much as I expected. Given how much I had on my plate in the past semester, it could have been much worse, so I am very thankful for what I got.
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