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yesterday i met up with XY, sister of a friend i used to go to school with in singapore, who's in her final year in psychology here... she needed someone's opinions on her proposed statistical analyses for her thesis project on contextual-influenced expressions of one's emotions... and someone to chat about things etc. we headed to Native State cafe/bar which was just around the corner from the department. there, you get 35% off the bill as a member of the psychology society (something i didn't know of... society-memberships are more common amongst undergrads and so this little tidbit is quite intriguing!), which is great.

chatting to her inevitably set me off thinking about how it was when i was in her shoes... i.e. when i was in my final year, living on my own in the 1-person uni-flat i was terribly lucky to have secured (since such options are truly rare), stressed about what lay beyond graduation -- if i might graduate?! and would my results be good enough? would it satisfy everyone's expectations, including mine?!... etc. where i would be if i didn't want to go back so soon... growing up is a terribly stressful time; the various circumstances and options which one ends up and the path one chooses are often the outcome of great deliberation... what's worse is that sometimes these choices don't necessarily match up to other's expectations of what you ought to be etc. ultimately, it's a matter of knowing what we ourselves want out of our lives... and sometimes (perhaps more often than not?!), this knowing may take ages before it arrives... i, too, was and still am worried about it... but what i've come away from my brief spell of life adventures is that perhaps for those who don't yet seem to know what they want to do in life might learn, with each experience, what they do and don't enjoy, tolerate, appreciate, or want. and that's okay... few people are born with the knowledge that they will someday become a particular someone, or what they want to or hope to be... this is what i shared with her... and what i hope, would be of solace to myself in days when i feel crap about my silly nomadic circumstance and feeling slightly lost as to what my future holds.

posted by ~overacuppa~ on Saturday, 8 January, 2005 at 20:13 hrs