The real new chapter

It is very very brilliant and exciting to know that the very people around me for those 2 years of my life, are emerging as the champion of their circumstances in present times.

I can not describe the pride I felt when I heard of the amazing achievements each coffebean had achieved.
Congratulations to my dear friends!!
Congratulations not because of all the As attained,
Congratulations because all that 4 years of hard work has bore fruit for you!

All those time we met over golden buns and chinese tea,
I could only have guessed how hard you had to work,
imagine how it would be like to endure TOP test after TOP tests,
emphatise with the cacoon-like nature of existence.
Hard work, hard work and nothng else but hard work.
It must have been 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration like how Sir Thomas Edison would have put it.
Finally, finally, finally,
emerging from your cacoon of sweat,
you are a beautiful butterfly!

So go seize the day!
Better yet, go seize the world!
You've earned your rightful position in one of the premier college of the state, Hwa Chong!
A new realm of tantalising possibilities now lay at your feet, an adventure unfolds.

Sometime today two years ago, I embarked on a "new" chapter of my life.
Only 2 years later, today, however are the significance of my choices coming through to me.
This is the real new chapter!

Somehow, hearing about how my Cedarian friends did for the O's really woke up something in me.

I wonder, what I would have achieved myself had I chosen the conventional path.
Again, I can only allow imagination to lead me.
I am reasonably certain I would have done well enough to earn the liberty of choice too.
Then what next? Surely I would more likely have become a student of Hwa Chong than VJ.

This intrigues me to no end.
What does this mean for me? Where would I be now if I'd remained in Cedar?
What is it like to have never known VJ and all that's in it?
If only I can enter the other realms in the parallel universe.

If anything, the essential question here is really simple.
What have I missed out on?
What was the opportunity cost?
And yet, there's no question of better alternatives to the path I have chosen.
I am more certain of that than anything else.

I have given up the certificate.
I have given up a black-and-white certification of personal achievement.
And yet,
yet I have developed social confidences,
intellectual maturity, more competent leadership, precious friendships
and countless other things in areas I cannot even put a name to.
I am convinced
we have poached no less fish than we would have had.

We still live in a meritocratic country though.
A meritocratic state in an era where technology nor social science has found an alternative to prove competency other than figures on a certificate.
And so,
there will come a day, not too long from now, where we will have to demonstrate that competence. We will have to prove ourselves on the same scales.
In the A's
In the working world
In the greatest exam of all - Life!

I will be ready when that day comes.
Ready to prove that Victoria is something more



Take me to the place Lord
Where there's nothing else but me and You
Longing for Your presence
I know that You are calling me to You

Here I stand
And long for Your embrace
Nothing else
Could ever take Your place

Come Holy Spirit
Fall in this place
I need more and more of You
Fill me again with the power of Your Spirit
Lord I'm crying out for
More and more of You

Lord I'm crying out for
More and more of You



Yes.
I need more and more of you Lord.