just popping by to announce that ya girl has gotten herself formally employed! yes, yes, thank you for the applause
sometime last month i finally got my CLP results and i passed. the moment of cognisance was a peculiar one – i was watching Terrace House with Oli through discord when Janice suddenly texted me a “CONGRATS!!!!!!” and my anxiety spiked instantly. the first thought that came to mind was this can’t be right because once midnight struck that night, i was already refreshing the E-LPQB website but all that showed up was a blank page. the second thought was, well, it wasn’t really a thought anymore because i was hurriedly trying to find out the source of Janice’s knowledge to verify for certain what felt like a sliver of hope blooming within my ribcage.
five days later i was back in KL, having accepted an offer to commence my pupillage at Tommy Thomas.
at the time of writing, i am one week into my first full-time job. it’s been all three things at once: intimidating, exciting and tiring. everything is absolutely brand new to me; the environment, people, and workload. i am still very much trying to get used to a 早睡早起 (lit. early sleep early wake) daily routine which i have admittedly not had for a few years already, and most importantly, i am trying my best to adapt to my new working environment, in terms of doing work and also interacting with my colleagues and bosses.
funnily enough, what prompted me to write this was a Shower Thought™ (you know those Shower Thoughts™): i’m running out of shower gel – time to buy a new one – what brand should i get – this is a decision entirely up to me – wow – THIS IS A DECISION ENTIRELY UP TO ME
i think since young, there were a lot of things in my life that i didn’t really have autonomy over, and its effects carried over to my current phase of adulthood. to this day, freedom is still such a precious and treasured concept to me. even the tiniest of freedoms, like choosing which brand of shower gel to get.
but ultimately, entering adulthood literally translates to freedom, both in a good and bad way. endless possibilities under the sun sound like a dream come true, but having no limitations also poses a fright. luckily, my carried over effects from childhood mean that i already have plenty of self-imposed limitations; too much, in fact, that it has mostly become a major hindrance in living an anxiety-free life, but being thrown into the whirlpool of adulthood also means that for once, it is entirely up to me to decide how i wish to steer through the currents of said whirlpool. from something as tiny as selecting a shower gel brand, to something as significant as choosing a job that i want.
in life, there comes a time when there are no longer instruction manuals issued out to tell you what your class timetables are, or there are decisions that you have to make by yourself without consulting other adults (because you are the adult now). it’s both scary and exciting at the same time. and that’s what freedom will always feel like to me.
michelle teoh 