The story thus far
The Beginnings
On a beautiful Thursday, I appeared as the latest and final addition to my family. I grew up in a typical Singaporean household. I lived in a humble abode (a.k.a HDB, Singapore’s public housing) together with the rest of my family. Most would call this a happy and complete family, and I completely agree. I had both my parents and my siblings, what else could I want coming into this world?
We were also what locals would call a low-income family. My dad was the sole breadwinner, and my mom stayed home to take care of us kids. He didn’t make much, largely due to his education status, but it was sufficient for us to get by.
The Education Journey
I had a very smooth and traditional education journey, by Singapore’s standards. At age 7 to 12, I was in primary school (elementary school in some cultures). I took the Primary School Leaving Examination, PSLE for short, which determines which schools and what types of courses we are eligible for in secondary school. I recall being really upset about my PSLE grades — I did worse than my friends.
I ended up in a secondary school far from my top choices, and spent four years there. The first few months in the school was miserable, largely because I didn’t want to be there, it simply wasn’t my top choice. In later years, surprisingly, the school did grow on me and I started loving it a lot more. At the end of my four years there, I took the Ordinary Levels (O-Levels) for short. This decided where we would spend the next 2 - 3 years of my education journey. I did pretty well for O-Levels, and got into a school of my choice, which was a junior college.
2 years in the junior college flew by. I had loads of fun. I did my Advanced Levels (A-Levels), and once again, I fared quite well in it — enough for me to go to almost any courses I wanted to in a local university.
I spent 2 years in National Service before going onto 4 years of university. I adored my time in university. I met many incredibly peers, and professors, although I do have some regrets about my university life which I’ll cover in a later post.
The Present
And fast-forward a few months post graduation, here I am in my first job. While the uncertainty of the future can be scary, I’m incredibly excited to see what the future holds for me.