It's being years since I last blogged. The reason why I want to blog again is because I want to do my reflections. I realised that throughout my 19+ years of my life, I only reflect superficially about my life. Now I am currently a year one student in National University of Singapore, Faculty of Arts and Social Science. Though I am a science stream student in Anderson Junior College, I know that maths and science are not my passion. I have more passion in the social sciences and Japanese culture. Thus, I want to major in Japanese Studies (going to declare soon) and this time round, I really feel that my heart is telling me that I should choose this path.
So, now first semester of year one has ended, and now I am having vacation until mid-January. Last month, I completed my first final year exam, I took 4 exposure modules, sadly, this was a very big mistake, as they are very content-heavy and thus I do not have enough time for my revision, so I am not sad if I do really very badly for this time round. I just have to learn from my mistakes and move on. It's the attitude that counts after all in life.
During this vacation, I really reflect about my passion and life. Questions like, " What do I want to do in future? " "Who I want to be?" "How can I improve myself?" "Why am I doing this or that?" started to pop up in my mind. I feel that I am too concerned about my achievements that I neglected about what life I want to lead, my spiritual life, what kind of character I want to adopt. This is a crisis... I can feel a sense of hollowness whenever I have a long vacation because I just feel that there is nothing once exams (achievements) are over (take away). Now, I finally realised that achievements are only temporary, the skills, values and character are permanent. Besides, when I think of achievements, I will start to learn ineffectively (rote learning), self-doubt, and try to escape at times. Sometimes, I just feel that achievements and results have no sense of attachment to me as I just do not get my own understanding.
Mentioning this, I recently read a book 'The Happy Student' by Daniel Wong. I feel that I and he are in the same plight. Some major takeaways from this book include running your own race, why we are doing these besides how, how to set goals effectively, keep running despite fears and how to stay motivated. The 'why' really struck me real hard. I feel that most of the time, I just do things when being told and never ask myself why and thus this leads me into rote learning, which is a big big crisis. I really have to think why why why why. Besides, he also mentioned that who I want to become also struck me as I want to grow as a person and improve myself. So when choosing modules for next semester, I will ask myself why I want to choose this module and the reason relates to values and skills rather than just knowledge.
I am a bit too tired to write this post, so whenever I want to reflect about my life again, I will post again.
