Today there had been a seven hour break in school. Technically there was supposed to be a one-hour lecture in between this long stretch of time, however we had decided to forgo it after being stuck in the Bukit Timah Campus (for prata) for more than half an hour. So the last three hours was spent at the arts canteen, talking, and trying to pass time by.
I guess many questions were asked along the way, most of them from my other friends. The proceeding of questions were extremely peculiar. The issue of love came out first, from there we moved on to the mistakes done before, to the ugly things seen in life, and finally proceeding to the courses we took and the future careers we wish to have. Everyone had a story to tell: some sections were convulsed, some gloriously expanded, others shyly summarized, and the rest speculative. It was not a conversation I would will for, but I guess all things happen for a reason.
On retrospect, there had been a subtle link between the things we talked today with the things that had been on my mind for quite a while. Where are we coming from, where are we now, and where are we going? I recited my part, droning on in a tone that neither glorifies the past excessively, nor treat it as some unspeakable taboo. Yet it was in the looking back I realized that there was actually a flow- a continuity from one story to another. How did I arrive in NUS, why did I choose civil engineering, why my uncanny interest in psychology, and what do I wish to do.
Civil engineering was like this long-lost heritage I've recently regained. Early records and testimonies of my life had shown that I had been 'practicing' civil engineering since I was three. The first A5 'picture' I drew was not a person or an object, but actually a map of a untitled city complete with expressways, interchanges (that followed traffic flow theory) and arterial roads. Much to my parent's horror, I redid the 1988 edition of the road directory at home with a crayon; changed the orientation of the streets, and notably added a MRT line to the system (then red, yellow, green and blue) which closely resembles the proposed Downtown line fifteen years later. Hotel and building layout plans came out in primary school, and the CTE viaduct system (which became an academic project 5 years later) was touched. Where was I 'destined' to go then? An MRT driver, a taxi cabbie, a failed architect, a rock picker and a garbage collector. Civil engineering studied them all, and today I am technically fulfilling my childhood ambitions once more altogether.
How did psychology come about then? I could not carry on my doodlings come secondary four and college, so I kinda stopped them and tried to live a social life like everyone else. Yet it was precisely on past failings in life and love (being) back in college all these excerpts came about to introspect them. Maybe it was the will not to recommit mistakes and live a better life, or is it just the will to excel in the general paper to impress the hard-to-impress tutor. I had moved to philosophy and critical inquiry at first, and found that they do not solve the problems of being, but merely turns it into a never-ending problem subjective to debate and opinion. Yet it was psychology that had captured my attention. It was in effect a study of the human soul- something that I had always desired to understand, and it had provided quite an academic understanding on love I had failed to understand back then. Why to every attitude I had possessed, to every unique person I meet then (some of them certified mentally ill) along the way to NUS, and how to each relationship in light of the perfect love my religion advocates. They were innately a question everybody asks, and it was heartening to know that we have a discipline dedicated to help us work our away around it.
So technically life had been always a question in the two courses that I take today.
What do I wish to do from here? In light of a steadily increasing cap, one cannot help but be optimistic in the courses he is about to take. Somehow the original ideal of having a second major (by promoting a minor after graduation) sounds extremely convincing. And by now I guess there are no prizes in guessing what these majors are and why. Yes, if time permits I may opt to convert my minor in psych into a major after my 4th year. I'll probably spend a couple more semesters in school. But the implications are quite heartening.
I get to do the two things I had been unknowingly doing all my life.
I get a double major (as I hoped initially before I entered NUS).
There is a nice balance between being pragmatic, and doing something for personal discovery
Learning about empathy, love and people works well with solving problems and our world.
And ultimately, I can be a better person either way.
Combined with spiritual developments and communal support, I guess this duality of aspirations does not seem to be a very bad idea yeah?
What lies beyond the recognition of these issues, via a simple conversation with my course mates over a long boring day in school, is the perseverance to see through them and realize it. I know this sounds very much like a self help book now, but definitely I am still a work in progress. Till then, or till my cap speaks otherwise- this current mind-map of minds and maps shall hold.
=D
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