8 Sept 2009
Quit: One of the worst words in the english language.
My father told me that if I wanted to do something, I had to be the best in it. He didn't care what it was. Even people who cook in hawker centres can achieve excellence. Or people who sweep the road. But if you want to do something, he said, be the best in it.
I don't think he is a practical person. He believes in passion and hard work and striving instead of settling for something comfortable. I don't know if I can live my life the way he does.
But I know what it is to love something. My love for children's fantasy and fairy tales. For thinking about names. For seeing a dress and loving it, wanting to live in that look, to live in the world the person who wears that dress comes from. For figuring something out and feeling smart - like physics or memorising all the types of forests and their characteristics in geography or understanding what it means to beat a blade. In explaining a torts question to a person, or continuing to discuss a legal theory question on autopoiesis in a study session when no one else is really interested in it. Or learning the lyrics to a beautiful korean song, or braiding my hair in a style that only I can do. Even welcoming someone with a smile and making them feel not-lost.
I think for very long I have feared wanting something and going after it. I don't know if this will be good or bad in the long run. Because my father, as excellent as he is in his work, does not spend a lot of time with his wife and family. He still has learnt to enjoy the things he loves, and he manages to steal away to climb mountains by using his off days in foreign countries. But you could say he has failed to intervene when he should have, to make life more balanced for us. And to show my mother that he loves her, although not quite in the same way he loves his work.
I quit fencing today. Officially. I thought about it a lot before I decided. But the decision was cemented today, when I went there and told my friends and acquaintances goodbye. I treated JiaoLian to an ice lemon tea before I told him. I think he wasn't disappointed because I never turned up more than once a week.
I've realised how much I will miss people. Starting from Jiaolian and the way he is very nice when he teaches, praising rather than discouraging, and not being impatient when people don't understand his chinese. Florence and Joanna of course, because really fencing was half my excuse to see them again. Meilin and Ivan (even him ee) and Khai and Alan and of course Freddy. Who is Joanna's brother. :) I guess you could even count in Weilun, not because I really miss him but just because I remember him and he was part of that.
If I had wanted, I could have stayed on like a ghost clinging to life.
But I did quit, and this is why.
I want to try, really try, to be good at the things I do do. I never desired to do fencing competitively. Although I was semi-good at it in my first Indivs, probably because I could follow instructions well, and try to act upon my thoughts instead of doubting them. Jingxun asked me to continue with it.
But fencing to me is that sport that I want to grow old with. I know one of my favourite authors is a fencer, although she's over fifty years old. I want to be like her in that way. One of the reasons I was enticed to go to RJ was because they had fencing, which I wanted to try since young. I insisted on joining sabre although epee tried to co-opt me so they could form 2 girls teams. Cause it was what I'd joined for.
Honestly, I don't like competitions. I can see why people do them, but for me the best part was when David Chan taught us a new move, then explained why it had to be done that way. The moment of revelation, of seeing why you're doing what you do. Not for rankings, not to try to best each other, not for any adrenaline rush you're supposed to get. I don't want to contest people I don't even know.
So I know that I do not want to continue my training at NUS. Even if I did continue at my usual rate, I wouldn't go often enough to remember how to do anything. Also, Jiaolian is very good at helping us train muscle memory in private exercises, but I don't get theoretically exactly when and why I should be doing something. Last of all because it is time now to decide what I want to do with my life.
I must put my energies into trying to understand legal concepts sufficiently to know if I love or hate the subject, rather than letting my unpreparedness for a class force me to fear speaking and asking the things I do not understand. I want to get my law degree. I know I want to, even if just to prove that I can get through it, that I can make myself determined enough to stay the course. Also because i haven't decided what I want to do for the rest of my life, and it might be this, just not litigation or criminal law or whatever part of it I hate.
Honestly, property law is interesting and company law is enlightening, though hard to study. Trial advocacy is very interesting, although some say the lectures are a waste of time. CLT (Comparative Legal Studies) talks about all sorts of cultures.
I want to give the modules a chance, and give myself a chance to love law as a profession. And I want to continue being responsible in LSIRC, to decide things and influence the course of the club through being in the Exco. I want to continue exploring what I want to do, to continue going to church and VCF and actually learning enough about the Bible to answer more than one bible trivia question in CG, to perhaps join dance@btc again to explore that area I gave up when I was halfway through primary one.
So although now I feel very disheartened, I must remember the things I resolved to do well. And I want to one day join fencing again, to be proficient at it.
Hopefully led by God,
Alaris
My father told me that if I wanted to do something, I had to be the best in it. He didn't care what it was. Even people who cook in hawker centres can achieve excellence. Or people who sweep the road. But if you want to do something, he said, be the best in it.
I don't think he is a practical person. He believes in passion and hard work and striving instead of settling for something comfortable. I don't know if I can live my life the way he does.
But I know what it is to love something. My love for children's fantasy and fairy tales. For thinking about names. For seeing a dress and loving it, wanting to live in that look, to live in the world the person who wears that dress comes from. For figuring something out and feeling smart - like physics or memorising all the types of forests and their characteristics in geography or understanding what it means to beat a blade. In explaining a torts question to a person, or continuing to discuss a legal theory question on autopoiesis in a study session when no one else is really interested in it. Or learning the lyrics to a beautiful korean song, or braiding my hair in a style that only I can do. Even welcoming someone with a smile and making them feel not-lost.
I think for very long I have feared wanting something and going after it. I don't know if this will be good or bad in the long run. Because my father, as excellent as he is in his work, does not spend a lot of time with his wife and family. He still has learnt to enjoy the things he loves, and he manages to steal away to climb mountains by using his off days in foreign countries. But you could say he has failed to intervene when he should have, to make life more balanced for us. And to show my mother that he loves her, although not quite in the same way he loves his work.
I quit fencing today. Officially. I thought about it a lot before I decided. But the decision was cemented today, when I went there and told my friends and acquaintances goodbye. I treated JiaoLian to an ice lemon tea before I told him. I think he wasn't disappointed because I never turned up more than once a week.
I've realised how much I will miss people. Starting from Jiaolian and the way he is very nice when he teaches, praising rather than discouraging, and not being impatient when people don't understand his chinese. Florence and Joanna of course, because really fencing was half my excuse to see them again. Meilin and Ivan (even him ee) and Khai and Alan and of course Freddy. Who is Joanna's brother. :) I guess you could even count in Weilun, not because I really miss him but just because I remember him and he was part of that.
If I had wanted, I could have stayed on like a ghost clinging to life.
But I did quit, and this is why.
I want to try, really try, to be good at the things I do do. I never desired to do fencing competitively. Although I was semi-good at it in my first Indivs, probably because I could follow instructions well, and try to act upon my thoughts instead of doubting them. Jingxun asked me to continue with it.
But fencing to me is that sport that I want to grow old with. I know one of my favourite authors is a fencer, although she's over fifty years old. I want to be like her in that way. One of the reasons I was enticed to go to RJ was because they had fencing, which I wanted to try since young. I insisted on joining sabre although epee tried to co-opt me so they could form 2 girls teams. Cause it was what I'd joined for.
Honestly, I don't like competitions. I can see why people do them, but for me the best part was when David Chan taught us a new move, then explained why it had to be done that way. The moment of revelation, of seeing why you're doing what you do. Not for rankings, not to try to best each other, not for any adrenaline rush you're supposed to get. I don't want to contest people I don't even know.
So I know that I do not want to continue my training at NUS. Even if I did continue at my usual rate, I wouldn't go often enough to remember how to do anything. Also, Jiaolian is very good at helping us train muscle memory in private exercises, but I don't get theoretically exactly when and why I should be doing something. Last of all because it is time now to decide what I want to do with my life.
I must put my energies into trying to understand legal concepts sufficiently to know if I love or hate the subject, rather than letting my unpreparedness for a class force me to fear speaking and asking the things I do not understand. I want to get my law degree. I know I want to, even if just to prove that I can get through it, that I can make myself determined enough to stay the course. Also because i haven't decided what I want to do for the rest of my life, and it might be this, just not litigation or criminal law or whatever part of it I hate.
Honestly, property law is interesting and company law is enlightening, though hard to study. Trial advocacy is very interesting, although some say the lectures are a waste of time. CLT (Comparative Legal Studies) talks about all sorts of cultures.
I want to give the modules a chance, and give myself a chance to love law as a profession. And I want to continue being responsible in LSIRC, to decide things and influence the course of the club through being in the Exco. I want to continue exploring what I want to do, to continue going to church and VCF and actually learning enough about the Bible to answer more than one bible trivia question in CG, to perhaps join dance@btc again to explore that area I gave up when I was halfway through primary one.
So although now I feel very disheartened, I must remember the things I resolved to do well. And I want to one day join fencing again, to be proficient at it.
Hopefully led by God,
Alaris
Labels: fencing, reflections
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