Wrapping up 26 years

My pre-Columbia part of the year was dominated by the huge hangover from 2007, mainly because I was moving into my final semester as an undergraduate, and was battling the same demons that have come back to haunt with me a vengeance. I spent much of December 2007 locking myself up at home, preparing my application to Columbia and just basically being anti-social, feeling sorry for myself.

It was not until the combination of the deaths of the 5 national dragonboaters at the end of 2007 and Heath Ledger's accidental death from an overdose on Jan. 24, 2008 that I emerged from the malaise. Like Heath, I was having sleepless nights. Like him, I took a combination of sleeping pills and drank more than I usually did. Unlike him, I didn't take them in amounts he did. Unlike him, I didn't die.


STILL, even though I stopped, I lacked an impetus to live purposefully - until I went on my first USP Global Program trip to Boston and Tufts University in Feb. 2008, where I was the first international delegations to the annual EPIIC Symposium. Last year's Global Poverty and Inequality theme reinvigorated me and gave me my second wind. It was the perfect antidote to senioritis and all the combination of afflictions I was subjected to back then.

More crucially, being at EPIIC helped me recapture my sense of idealism about wanting to save the world from itself. It recaptured for me, those moments that led to my founding of Campus Observer in 2006. 2 solid friendships emerged from that trip to Tufts. Strangely enough, I barely talked to both DM and DG when I was there. Such is the power of facebook and furious g-chatting.

Tufts also precipitated the chance to go on my first photojournalism expedition to Cambodia in June, which was a precious first overseas reporting experience that showed up my journalistic deficiencies for all its worth. I am grateful for the opportunity because all the mistakes I made, helped set the stage for my time in Columbia. Those mistakes and questions I didn't get answered in Siem Reap guided my class options in a very tangible way.

That visit to Tufts also confirmed my growing interest in International Relations, and cemented my regret at not following my instincts as a freshman, and going with a political science major. This also guided my decision to go on my second, and last USP Global Program trip with the EU-ASEAN Summer Program in May. That was a 2-week trip covering Jakarta, Bangkok and Brussels and was a comparative study of the two international organizations. Needless to say, that also being my first time in Europe, I learnt heaps.


BUT THAT trip to Tufts also came on the heels of a very important chance meeting with Will, then a top editor with a niche foreign policy magazine. This happened at a special dialogue session in late January between NUS Arts Faculty students and a bunch of visiting American journalists. To think I almost didn't make the session. I was a last minute addition after my friends who were the original picks threw my name into the hat when they needed replacements.

Over lunch, I happened to sit beside Will, not knowing who he was. But once we started talking, I realized I was speaking to somebody whose career path I want to possibly emulate. It also helped I really enjoyed talking to him, and the advice he gave me about J-School and all, resonated deeply with me.

We met twice subsequently, once in DC on the second leg of that Tufts trip and another time in Singapore, when we met at The Fullerton in late April as I agonized about taking up the Columbia offer, because of the debt burden I would incur. He told me I was going to regret it in future if I realized how turning down Columbia compromised my career. Besides, he added, the amount of debt is more than manageable.


WITH THAT decision to come to J-School, it also meant I gave up, perhaps forever, the idea of pursuing a Phd and the life of an academic researcher. Three practical occurrences made it easier for me to decide - my bombed out GRE scores, the lack of a plausible research area/topic and my desire to be read by a wider audience.

My honours thesis experience also contributed to the decision. As I realized towards the end how my thesis was going nowhere but I still had to persist and follow through, I realized the parochiality of my thesis topic was simply the result of my restless energy within me, a desire for political action, in the widest sense of the world.

At the end, I felt my thesis read like my personal indictment of LKY and how he systematically got rid of his political opponents, rather than an objective piece of academic work that seeks to explore how that empirical reality can lead to an extension of a pre-existing body of work or theory.

My supervisor would insist there were other reasons, like how I interrupted my work schedule with my trip to Tufts, but that trip helped nurture a vision of what I wanted to do with my life, after I graduate. Besides, I wouldn't have known that FS interview would not have gotten me anything new until I actually conducted it, as I did in Cambridge, MA over the course of my time in Boston as well.

I was a little upset at the eventual B grade I got for the thesis, but after a while, I decided that it wasn't important. I had accurately predicted all my grades for my final semester, but thankfully, I got the most important part wrong - I thought I would lose my second-upper if I got those litany of B's, but for the first time, I am thankful I suck in math. I retained my second-upper class honours by a whisker.

I ended my undergraduate life badly academically, but I decided it was more important to move on. Closing the NUS chapter of my life felt vaguely strange. It was almost a non-event for me, commencement and all. Maybe I was so tired I couldn't wait for it to finish. But without Joyce and Abs, my final year angst would have been unbearable in the clinical confines of Central Library and the Writing Centre as we wrote our thesis. Reviewing my life in NUS deserves an entry on its own at some point later.


PREPARING to leave for Columbia was an intensely emotional process. I didn't know how long I would be gone for, but a big part of the preparation had to do with my Mom and the family. I have written a lot about this, but I felt I needed to wrap things up before I go. I wanted to "sort" a lot of things out before I left, but I quickly realized I merely wanted to resolve things for myself - when it is definitely not the time yet for others. Forcing the issue made life would merely make life miserable for me. I decided to just at least bring things to a close.

The church cell group, led by my mentors, P and G, remains something that is simply irreplaceable. Their support is something that was so lacking in my time in NYC and something I miss. They prayed for me excessively in the run up to my departure, and once again, I am indebted to P and G for every single thing.


BUT BEFORE leaving for NYC, I decided at the last minute, changing my mind again and again, that I should finally pay KM and JO a visit Down Under. These two were old friends from the previous season of my life, but I thought it would be important to see them and hang out with them for a bit again. I think it was 3-4 years ago that I last did that with them, and it was important I have some form of a closure with them since with this move, I didn't know when I would even see them again.

My one-week holiday in Brisbane was also the only time I travelled without my laptop in 3 years. JO drove me from Brisbane to the Gold Coast and Bryon's Bay at the northern tip of NSW. I had a wonderful time as I was introduced at long last, to the Hope Brisbane church community they have been a part of since moving over to study at UQ a few years ago. My first trip Down Under, but definitely, hopefully, not my last.

On hindsight, I may have travelled too much during the 3-month summer break because I barely spent anytime at home. I went to Jakarta, Bangkok and Brussels for two weeks right after examinations ended, and left for Siem Reap for a week after 3 weeks in between those trips. I went to Brisbane 3 weeks after Siem Reap, and came back a full week before I were to have left for New York. And any time in Singapore was spent meeting friends.


THE ONLY blemish was how I was so tired that I lost my wallet and my cell phone in that final week, after I left both things in the toilet at Breko's Holland Village while waiting to meet my upteenth friend. It was a harrowing rush to get everything replaced before flying off. My parents and sisters castigated me for not spending enough time with the family.

They were right, but at the same time, that was a reflection of how I depended on my friends more when I was growing up, and not my current priorities. Little did I expect the gravity of the situation when I had neither in the Big Apple...