cant always do what you want.........even if it's not wrong
i understand i cant always have things the way i want it to be... but...
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do you still remember your childhood ambitions? i think my very first ambition was to be a policeman. the second occupation that i wanted to be should be a fireman. it was all the heroic occupations, and maybe there's because that's about the only jobs we know at that age. we were only told that policemen were good, and firemen saves people's life, never really knew what other people are doing for a living when we were still very young. but some other kids might know the words 'lawyer' and 'doctor' because their parents want them to become one.
as we grow up, we start to learn the many cruel realities in life. as i grew i found out that actually in malaysia, it happens that most of the policemen were only policemen because they couldnt get a decent office job. the same goes to firemen, even though they are more efficient than policemen. policemen in singapore are better, less corrupted, but then again most of them only became policemen during their national service, and it's not a very proud thing to be posted to the police force for your national service. people might argue this, but when singapore guys say they are going to do national service, what do you think of first? army? i thought so. again, it's the same for firemen. it's not a very proud thing to be posted to a fire station because it's normally the people who arent good in studies that get posted to fire stations.
but before i got to learnt the truth about policemen and firemen, i started watching formula 1. and ya, it's actually also true that kids want to be whatever they saw on tv. and so i wanted to be a racer.
i forgot how, but i was told it was very dangerous and my father will never let me do it. they didnt need to explain to me in more details because i was just a kid. they just need to let me know that racing is dangerous. and that was kind of the end of my dream about becoming a racer. but i still continue to watch races and once in a while, i still wished that i had given racing a shot, even though throughout the years i realised it's not just because racing is dangerous, but also because i am the only son.
life goes on and when you study more and more, you started to follow the common path, especially so when you're educated in singapore around my time. you, or rather, your parents started to look ahead one step at a time, worrying if you'll end up in the EM3-normal techincal-ITE-work path or the EM1/2-special/express-jc/poly-uni-work path. i didn't care at first, i was still too young.
i was in em2 by the way. and i got into the express stream for my secondary studies.
during my teenage years i started to care less about what i wanted to be in the future, all i know is i want to make a lot of money and be a good person. i didnt have a plan on how i was going to do that though, because i know whatever plans i made during the age of 14 is most probably not going to be followed anyway.
but because i didnt have that plan, i started to be like most people, becoming more and more typical, starting to think about where my results will bring me to. but everything went well and i got in to the stream i wanted in secondary school. not the triple pure sciences one but i didnt want that anyway.
time past and it was time for O levels but before that it was the prelims. i did quite badly for it. my sister was in melb uni already at that time and my father was starting to worry that i might not even get into a poly. so once trinity college accepted me into their january programme, my father told me not to think about it anymore and go to melbourne.
and i did, due to other reasons too, of course.
coming to study in trinity college made all the students in trinity to start to think about their ambitions again, because we were asked what course do we want to study in uni. yes, we started thinking about our ambitions again, but in a slightly different context...
you see, some kids wanted to be a scientist when they were young too, even though i bet they dont know that all scientists do are research after research. and then again, science courses are relatively easy to get in compared to most other courses, for australian unis at least. and for that reason, most people didnt want to study science.
some of my trinity friends knew what they really wanted to do in life and really went with it. i remember there was this guy whose results was superb. but come end of the year when everyone was applying for their uni courses, he applied for science and education. reason? he wanted to be a science teacher.
he was a rare case though. for most of the other students, either they were entering the course their parents want them to, or they were just trying to get into the best course possible with their results, even if it does means that they are entering a law school without wanting to become a lawyer.
i was kind of the latter, but not excatly. at that time i wanted to study engineering but prefer to become a lawyer. i think my father liked the idea of me wanting to be a lawyer too, but him being him, he didnt really show it. but as you can see, my english is not very good, and so i didnt get into melbourne law school, even though monash did offer me a place in theirs.
i went ahead with mechanical engineering in the end because i thought since i cant be a race driver, maybe i can be the one who designs their cars. and it was only at the end of my first year did my father learnt more about the job scopes of mechanical engineers, through his friends, and started feeling satisfied about my choice. (i dont know how to rephrase it but just in case you get the wrong idea, my father had always been supportive of the courses i chose, from selecting which stream to go to in secondary school to the course in uni, because he believes i dont have to 'be what i studied' anyway.)
but once a person reached college life, his or her life is pretty much fixed. if you're studying medicine, you'll most probably go on and practice medicine. and since i'm studying engineering, i'll most probably go on and become an engineer too. but as i study more and more of engineering, i realise there's a lot of things about engineering that i do not like.
and so i started thinking again, what do i really want to be after i graduate? now i believe, in the second final exam period of my uni life, i found the answer.
i came up with two answers. both of them shared a similarity that i didnt realise until yesterday. but more about that later.
i think i want to do gigs. i know i'm not good enough to be a recording artist and i dont think i want to be one either. it's hard to be one anyway. i don't have the skills, the looks, and the body. and even if i have, the entertainment industry is just very realistic. if you're not good, you're out. i'm better off singing famous songs in pubs and cafes. and if right now you're thinking 'hey you're not even good enough to do gigs', don't worry, if i really going to do this, i'll go for vocal lessons first.
but even i myself know that is just for fun. it's not a very stable job. i'll most probably do gigs for a couple of years and when the lack of money starts to give me problems in my adult life, i might applying for engineering jobs. and in the end, i'll still end up being an engineer.
but this second one is different, and i really think it's not a bad occupation. i want to be a pilot. a pilot for a commercial airliner to be exact.
i like staying in hotels. partly because i do not have to clean up the room myself (haha!). but i just like the feeling of staying in a hotel because it's a home that is not a home. you settle in that room but you know soon you'll be moving out. i like the little changes, i dont like my life to be too 'fixed'.
i also like the idea of being in different cities, and i dont mean it by flying to many different cities. it can just be as simple as flying in between two cities. doing this will give me a chance to do that the things that i might not be able to do in malaysia/singapore, but at the same time, it can also make me appreciate all the things that i have back at home.
two days ago, i finally did the personality test my sister sent to me last week. my test result says that i'm a person who likes freedom, which pretty much explains why i want to do gigs or be a pilot.
never in my life had i wanted to do something so badly. i really think i want to be a pilot even though it will mean spending less time with my parents, which is something i'm starting to treasure a lot of. but think about this, during the off days when you have no flights and are able to stay at home because all of your other childhood friends are stuck with their weekday jobs, wouldn't it be nice to be at home spending weekdays with your parents too? i've grown up seeing my father coming home from work, opening the door for him, even though sometimes i pushed that task to my sisters. but i can feel that everytime when one of the five children is at home when he comes back, he is happy. it'll be nice to still be able to do that when i start to work.
=)
BUT!
when i told my second sister that i want to be a pilot a few days ago, she told me not to think about it, because papa will never agree to it. it's too dangerous, and...
i am the only son.
------------
do you still remember your childhood ambitions? i think my very first ambition was to be a policeman. the second occupation that i wanted to be should be a fireman. it was all the heroic occupations, and maybe there's because that's about the only jobs we know at that age. we were only told that policemen were good, and firemen saves people's life, never really knew what other people are doing for a living when we were still very young. but some other kids might know the words 'lawyer' and 'doctor' because their parents want them to become one.
as we grow up, we start to learn the many cruel realities in life. as i grew i found out that actually in malaysia, it happens that most of the policemen were only policemen because they couldnt get a decent office job. the same goes to firemen, even though they are more efficient than policemen. policemen in singapore are better, less corrupted, but then again most of them only became policemen during their national service, and it's not a very proud thing to be posted to the police force for your national service. people might argue this, but when singapore guys say they are going to do national service, what do you think of first? army? i thought so. again, it's the same for firemen. it's not a very proud thing to be posted to a fire station because it's normally the people who arent good in studies that get posted to fire stations.
but before i got to learnt the truth about policemen and firemen, i started watching formula 1. and ya, it's actually also true that kids want to be whatever they saw on tv. and so i wanted to be a racer.
i forgot how, but i was told it was very dangerous and my father will never let me do it. they didnt need to explain to me in more details because i was just a kid. they just need to let me know that racing is dangerous. and that was kind of the end of my dream about becoming a racer. but i still continue to watch races and once in a while, i still wished that i had given racing a shot, even though throughout the years i realised it's not just because racing is dangerous, but also because i am the only son.
life goes on and when you study more and more, you started to follow the common path, especially so when you're educated in singapore around my time. you, or rather, your parents started to look ahead one step at a time, worrying if you'll end up in the EM3-normal techincal-ITE-work path or the EM1/2-special/express-jc/poly-uni-work path. i didn't care at first, i was still too young.
i was in em2 by the way. and i got into the express stream for my secondary studies.
during my teenage years i started to care less about what i wanted to be in the future, all i know is i want to make a lot of money and be a good person. i didnt have a plan on how i was going to do that though, because i know whatever plans i made during the age of 14 is most probably not going to be followed anyway.
but because i didnt have that plan, i started to be like most people, becoming more and more typical, starting to think about where my results will bring me to. but everything went well and i got in to the stream i wanted in secondary school. not the triple pure sciences one but i didnt want that anyway.
time past and it was time for O levels but before that it was the prelims. i did quite badly for it. my sister was in melb uni already at that time and my father was starting to worry that i might not even get into a poly. so once trinity college accepted me into their january programme, my father told me not to think about it anymore and go to melbourne.
and i did, due to other reasons too, of course.
coming to study in trinity college made all the students in trinity to start to think about their ambitions again, because we were asked what course do we want to study in uni. yes, we started thinking about our ambitions again, but in a slightly different context...
you see, some kids wanted to be a scientist when they were young too, even though i bet they dont know that all scientists do are research after research. and then again, science courses are relatively easy to get in compared to most other courses, for australian unis at least. and for that reason, most people didnt want to study science.
some of my trinity friends knew what they really wanted to do in life and really went with it. i remember there was this guy whose results was superb. but come end of the year when everyone was applying for their uni courses, he applied for science and education. reason? he wanted to be a science teacher.
he was a rare case though. for most of the other students, either they were entering the course their parents want them to, or they were just trying to get into the best course possible with their results, even if it does means that they are entering a law school without wanting to become a lawyer.
i was kind of the latter, but not excatly. at that time i wanted to study engineering but prefer to become a lawyer. i think my father liked the idea of me wanting to be a lawyer too, but him being him, he didnt really show it. but as you can see, my english is not very good, and so i didnt get into melbourne law school, even though monash did offer me a place in theirs.
i went ahead with mechanical engineering in the end because i thought since i cant be a race driver, maybe i can be the one who designs their cars. and it was only at the end of my first year did my father learnt more about the job scopes of mechanical engineers, through his friends, and started feeling satisfied about my choice. (i dont know how to rephrase it but just in case you get the wrong idea, my father had always been supportive of the courses i chose, from selecting which stream to go to in secondary school to the course in uni, because he believes i dont have to 'be what i studied' anyway.)
but once a person reached college life, his or her life is pretty much fixed. if you're studying medicine, you'll most probably go on and practice medicine. and since i'm studying engineering, i'll most probably go on and become an engineer too. but as i study more and more of engineering, i realise there's a lot of things about engineering that i do not like.
and so i started thinking again, what do i really want to be after i graduate? now i believe, in the second final exam period of my uni life, i found the answer.
i came up with two answers. both of them shared a similarity that i didnt realise until yesterday. but more about that later.
i think i want to do gigs. i know i'm not good enough to be a recording artist and i dont think i want to be one either. it's hard to be one anyway. i don't have the skills, the looks, and the body. and even if i have, the entertainment industry is just very realistic. if you're not good, you're out. i'm better off singing famous songs in pubs and cafes. and if right now you're thinking 'hey you're not even good enough to do gigs', don't worry, if i really going to do this, i'll go for vocal lessons first.
but even i myself know that is just for fun. it's not a very stable job. i'll most probably do gigs for a couple of years and when the lack of money starts to give me problems in my adult life, i might applying for engineering jobs. and in the end, i'll still end up being an engineer.
but this second one is different, and i really think it's not a bad occupation. i want to be a pilot. a pilot for a commercial airliner to be exact.
i like staying in hotels. partly because i do not have to clean up the room myself (haha!). but i just like the feeling of staying in a hotel because it's a home that is not a home. you settle in that room but you know soon you'll be moving out. i like the little changes, i dont like my life to be too 'fixed'.
i also like the idea of being in different cities, and i dont mean it by flying to many different cities. it can just be as simple as flying in between two cities. doing this will give me a chance to do that the things that i might not be able to do in malaysia/singapore, but at the same time, it can also make me appreciate all the things that i have back at home.
two days ago, i finally did the personality test my sister sent to me last week. my test result says that i'm a person who likes freedom, which pretty much explains why i want to do gigs or be a pilot.
never in my life had i wanted to do something so badly. i really think i want to be a pilot even though it will mean spending less time with my parents, which is something i'm starting to treasure a lot of. but think about this, during the off days when you have no flights and are able to stay at home because all of your other childhood friends are stuck with their weekday jobs, wouldn't it be nice to be at home spending weekdays with your parents too? i've grown up seeing my father coming home from work, opening the door for him, even though sometimes i pushed that task to my sisters. but i can feel that everytime when one of the five children is at home when he comes back, he is happy. it'll be nice to still be able to do that when i start to work.
=)
BUT!
when i told my second sister that i want to be a pilot a few days ago, she told me not to think about it, because papa will never agree to it. it's too dangerous, and...
i am the only son.
