My two years in the Alternative Reality of the Missing Years have ended.

I wouldn’t be like those people who (a) spent all their time whining about IB on their blog/wall, and then (b) whine about how their life feels aimless and meaningless after IB exams. I will inevitably be sentimental, but I plan to do neither (a) nor (b). In fact, I’ll elaborate on how awesome I am, a bit of what I learnt, and the general feeling of parting.

I was never in a rush, surprisingly. It was mundane at times, but I never really did feel the strong urge to finish –  apart from a few times. Either I was in a genuinely comfortable situation (which I probably was), or I have the talent of contentment (which is probably also true). But it finally has ended. And as usual, it still has not exactly completely hit me that something has just finished.

Maybe it’s because the end was a bit too gradual. By now, I’ve already been idling for the past month. Today may have officially been my last day, but effectively, everything just stopped when I took a break to go for pro cup, and went for my ‘extended korean holiday’. I haven’t had a full work day since I came back from my three week break. In fact, nothing has really happened since. On balance, more time was spent living as though I was already free. Uhhh hence, the excitement of liberation has already been diluted over the past one month plus — but nonetheless I feel this great glee in being free.

But today was a point of no return. I know it would be a long while before I even set foot in that place I spent so much of my time of. From the rewarding times to the humbling ones, fragments of my time there just kept resurfacing in my mind. I have done a lot of things that I would not have otherwise done, met people I would not have met, and even got a tan.  Its hard to precisely explain what exactly I have gained from my two years – but the fact is I have.

On a few occasions, it brought out the worst in me. It taught me the uses and abuses of power. Yet, at the same time, it taught me the limits and costs of it. For most of it, I felt that it made me more aware of what I could and could not do.  In a paradoxical fashion, the nature of my job made me more humble, yet at the same time have a greater sense of pride. Many a times, I was pushed to tight corners of decision-making and weighing priorities under time constraints. It wasn’t easy, and I probably will never know if I made the right choice sometimes — there probably isn’t a right choice.

(Paragraph about how good my life was – removed. No, really -_-)

I would most certainly miss my swimming pool – the place where I picked up swimming again, because I had to organize some swim event. But more importantly, I will miss the people I spent my time with. All the way to the very last moment, I didn’t feel a need to leave early. I could have, but I didn’t because of my friends. It was my last few moments with them. As I left the place at the end of the day, there was this lingering bittersweet feeling. In a sentiment of self-indulgence, I perhaps left a gap in each of the various social groups — which I attribute to having lunch/tea with them in small groups of no more than three people. Nothing really makes me tremble a bit inside than the parting — especially long term partings. I’ll probably see a few of them again, but for most of them – the sad reality is that it probably wouldn’t be the case, much as I enjoyed their company.

But that’s that. I will gladly be moving on – I have to. There are better things to do with my life. And like most years I would probably forget most of it once the new year proper begins.

So now I’m free — what’s next?

…….a lot of stuff, my god. I think it’s called Life. I think it’s called the Real World :O

***

Here’s a short less-than-800-characters write-up about my community that I did a few months ago (and I almost, but fortunately didn’t, wrote about the debate community instead. How insipid would that have been!) Censors added.

A hacker who sued Inland Revenue, a drummer who renounced his faith, a chef who made a flamethrower, and a multilingual scam artist, have lunch with me regularly. As we casually discuss Wikileaks, and whether lunatics go to heaven, it almost sounds like __. But it’s just my __ friends.

Our homogeneous uniform masks our diversity. There’s even an international flavor of Burmese, Filipinos and Canadians (Yes, this is the __ __). Two years in this community made me think beyond the sanitized bubble of school. How often would I have otherwise hung out with ex-convicts, the dropout moonlighting to pay for his mother’s surgery, and a farmer who knows Kung Fu? There is so much of the world that school did not reveal to me. 

WIN.

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