Grown-ups

Hi.

I feel like I want to vomit out words, but strangely can't construct my thoughts as my fingers lightly brush the keyboard, awaiting orders.

Part of me wants to join the mad rush for the job search. Go to information sessions! Find out who's hiring international students! Do I need PR? Hurry up, Ayang, it's time to grow up. It's time to be a grown-up. It's time to know what to do.

Part of me sneaks glances at the faces around me in the theater, all attentive and ambitious, go-getter faces, asking questions, reassuringly confident with their abilities. I feel like a kid attending a grown-up event.At a friend's place I watch as my newly-made acquaintances talk about future plans and career paths, job options and bonds with sponsors, a million and one abbreviations and acronyms. These are people my age, and yet I feel infinitely childish compared to them, I don't know where I'm going, I don't know what I'm doing.

Part me just sits back and watches. I know it would be effective to start scouting around now, but this part of me is defiant. I have played it by the textbook so far-got decent grades, got into uni, not flunk anything, did the internship. Can I buck convention this time? I imagine my relatives asking me what I plan to do after this and me stubbornly sticking out my chin and saying "I haven't thought about it yet". And when they start giving me advice, what company I should join, what accreditation I should get, I'll cut in and say "Actually kan, I want to be a go-go dancer. Accounting is no longer my calling".

Some part of me has conceded that I am not terribly smart, not as smart as I thought I was anyway(oh, the perasan-ness), and part of me is fully aware that I am still a social retard. Another part of me has maintained a sense of vanity or conviction, I'm not sure, that I have something to offer employers, that I CAN do a good job, even if I don't know what that job is yet.

All this talk of jobs and future options. Tutors and lecturers and information session coordinators are encouraging us to ask them things we want to know about their profession or field of lecture, each time they extend this offer I want to go up and ask them "Are you happy?". And I don't mean this cynically at all, I genuinely want to know. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with the happiness factor, why I am so scared or certain work means being unhappy. Is it because my dad seemed so unhappy with his? I was talking with an acquaintance I met while I was in Canberra doing my passport, and somehow I actually blurted out the question, I asked him if he was happy with his job at the bank. He considered my question carefully before answering, that was nice of him.

I know I'm making everything sound like a downer, but it's all good, in a way. Having to think about this fork in the road, it brings up questions and it makes me second-guess myself, but not necessarily negatively. Maybe thinking about growing up is in itself part of growing up?

Confession. That scene in Fight Club where Marla says the reason why she goes to support group meetings is because when people think you're dying, they actually listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak, remember that? I'm pretty sure I do this sometimes, I don't listen. Sometimes I'm in a conversation,saying something, and I realize I haven't been attentive of my companion, that I keep drawing the conversation back to myself. I realize that, and then feel obnoxious as the words come out of my mouth.

Second confession. Sometimes, when I'm out and don't have my journal on me but suddenly have the urge to write things down, I end up scribbling on the back of receipts. I have this daydream of accidentally leaving one of the receipts in some public area(usually the library) and have someone find it and read it and not think it's stupid. And anytime I find folded up paper left on the tables in the library, I open it up hoping it would be something similar, written by someone else. It's a very Postsecret fantasy, I admit.

Oklah, nak kena pergi siapkan kerja rumah. I managed to vomit out quite a few words after all.