It was only two or three days at first, but I would feel my heart tightening at every mention of it. It was unbearable, sending messages to a familiar number in an unfamiliar place. I checked my phone every few minutes even though I knew he couldn't reply. I finally felt okay again when he came back.
Then in the middle, it grew to be three to five days. He got entrusted with more responsibilities and every new sail cemented his renewed importance to his ship. And I liked that. I started to check my phone less. I kept myself busy. I meet friends, I leave work later, I spend more time with my family, I rock climb.
My guiltiest pleasure is Sims 2. I have a little family of us and my peak game periods are always when he's not here. My character will fawn over his and I'll imagine that's how I'll love him when he comes back.
Now, the sailing has intensified. He is at a week-long sailing and will be back for a weekend before he goes on another week-long sail again. And when I heard it, my heart didn't clench anymore. I felt empty yes, but I was operational.
'Curiosity killed the cat,' we all know. But its complement is that 'satisfaction brought it back'. And I believe the complement to 'absence makes the heart fonder' is 'or forgetful'.
But I trust him.
And I trust us.
And so that leaves me with a single mission: to be as busy as I can while he's not here.
And I've done it!
I have three driving lessons lined up for this week, I have visits to my grandma, I have dinner with my friends, I have l4d2 sessions, I have the books he bought me to finish, I have stock replenishing, I have tons I can do.
But the happiest decision: I have decided to go back to school.
For a long time I didn't know what I wanted to do in life.
Since young, I've been told I could write.
In primary school, I was the face of model essays. My teachers would photocopy six top compos for our fellow classmates to emulate and I have never missed a single stack. The whole level would get it.
My ex-boyfriend then, who I didn't know was in my primary school, heard of me even before he met me because his class would read my essays, go blahhh, and make planes out of it to throw at each other. Such is life. But least it's not just my essays he defaced, it's the whole stack heh.
But anyway, even when I didn't feel like writing and vomited the blandest story I could conjure, I'd nail an easy 25/30. I think they were mostly impressed by the vocabulary. I remember being all proud because at Primary 5, I was using "enthusiastic" and "ominous" in my essays.
In fact, I just remembered: I gave English lessons during recess!
I had a clique of friends and one of them offered to print notes for 'class'. So I prepared a teacher's set of notes and four students notes for each of them. I remembered she printed only mine in (rainbow) color. Everyone else's was in black and white. I would teach them under the pavilion in my school garden. I remember being bitterly jealous when my student and best friend, Angeline, scored higher than me. But my god did I swell with pride too.
Anyway I graduated, but my legacy was forever printed in a book that everyone had to purchase for self-reading. Every class could only contribute one story. I was in the second top class in the level and I had many tough competitors. But mine was selected.
In fact I think it's Concord's favourite because later on, they condensed my story and used it as a cloze passage for homework. They removed some of the words and students were required to fill in the most appropriate vocabulary. My baby brother excitedly brought it home and waved it at me and I smiled my widest that day. I also did his homework that day. CAN YOU BLAME ME REALLY?
In secondary school, I started reading more Sidney Sheldon and Stuart Kaminsky, so my writings took a turn for the strange. I had the longest essays in class, so much so that my teacher enforced a 500 word cap for me. But it wasn't my fault hahah I had to present a story with a twist and I couldn't do it succinctly. Okay yeah it's my fault fuck I digress too much.
It was also the year I met Candice and together we wrote the stupidest stories with the oddest plots. She was such an English powerhouse. Even in our daily chats, she'd say something in passing that I wouldn't understand. And so I got motivated to surpass her. But I never did. Till today I think she still reigns over me.
But anyway, our essays would always get picked out by our teachers. Even though we had the stupidest story arc. One of my characters died and came back to life but STILL my teacher showed it on the projector. One of her characters was a cat I believe. For both of us, our teacher insisted on showing it on the projector anyway because, 'the vocabulary is fantastic'.
And I never realized it, but English became my saving grace.
In secondary three, I failed 5/7 subjects, which subjected me to being considered for retaining. But I had such a high English grade that they couldn't justify it. They needed a lower English grade before they could retain someone. And I had an A1 so I scraped through by the skin of my teeth. I went on to aced my O' levels English. It was my one and only A.
In poly, it all went downhill. I was stuck in engineering and I was so bad at it that everyone convinced me I was useless. In fact, I remember once scoring 75/100 for EM3A (engineering maths) and the lecturer pulled me aside to ask me accusingly if I cheated. I said no and the cunt attributed my new high grade to her passionate teaching. Fuck you and your mother, it was all my sister's teaching YOU DID JACK. But moving on.
And after three years of failing everything I touched, I believed it. My only happiest salvation was the additional modules, where I'd have to write essays. But that was too far and few in between. I continued believing I wasn't worth jack. I stopped writing. I stopped giving a shit. I drifted.
Around the period when I dropped out, my friends started entering year three. All of them had this writing module, I forgot what it's called. They needed their final essay to pop and suddenly, the idiots who didn't think much of me before came back asking me for help with their essays. And adorably, as they grew, my writing portfolio grew too.
To date I've written poly discussion essays, POP speeches, NUS observational essays and NTU case study essays for my friends. The list will go on hahah. I hope it does.
In between poly and SIM, I had a lot of spare time. I decided to look for writing jobs. I found one on GumTree. It was a simple ad. It paid little at that time but I didn't mind. I started doing it. I could go up to twelve entries a night. My entries were snarky, fun-to-read, sarcastic at points and raw honesty. I minced nothing and held nothing back. And eventually, I became TheSmartLocal's first star writer.
I was the writer of the month one time and my editor interviewed me briefly. I didn't think much of it till I read his words. And the way he described my words, the immovable faith he has in my writing, the way he spoke of how much he enjoyed reading, it made me feel renewed again. Like finally, I knew my calling.
Till today I love re-reading what I wrote for them. I have this a dry sense of writing humor that ONLY came out 2012 - 2014. I wonder where it is today. Probably reclining on a beach in the Bahamas refusing to come back and be my funny again. I hope you choke on sand, baby.
In SIM, I did considerably well. We started with one English module and we had to give a speech. I was so nervous the whole time. My group-mates, who are now my lifelong friends heh heh, were equally wrecks. We wanted a ballot to decide who should start and end the presentation, because those two parts are always the hardest. They pushed me to take the start. And I was so comforted by their faith in me (or their laziness to do it I AM ONTO YOU) that I really strived for it.
I recorded myself speaking and would redo it whenever I get a mistake. Once the first mistake-free version was done, I would record it again but this time with different accented tones at important keywords. And once that was done, I would record it again but this time without looking at the script. And once that was done, I would record it again while planning my cues. In total I recorded 18 recordings. 18 recordings that I played on my earpiece day in, day out right till minutes before my presentation.
But that wasn't enough for me -- I wanted to ace visual too.
So I planned it. Here is the unofficial guide to really nailing presentation by the way.
1) Start your presentation by stepping forward and in the center.
Before I spoke, I divided the audience into three equal parts. I stood squarely in the center and stared at a point beyond my lecturer's face. I turned my face side to side to address each one-third of audience every 3-5 seconds, or at a turning point of my opening address. Once it ended, I lifted an arm to gesture to the screen. At this point, the few sets of bored eyes that were boring into you would be directed to the screen, and now you should move to the right. But first;
2) Step back. Your presentation is now more important than you.
Abuse your hands. Point three loose fingers at your point, then reel it back in. Do a half-twirl a little below your chin when you have a strong point to illustrate. Your hands must be the face of your confidence. Always look at your slide when you have a new point to discuss. Immediately after, look back and keep your face at each one-third of your audience for 3-5 seconds. Never stop talking and never falter.
At one point, I forgot a word and my lecturer, a really fun teacher, called out and volunteered a few words for my taking. I smiled and waved them off, and said aloud that 'I got it I got it I got it wait let me think' and kept pretending to massage my temple. The class immediately relaxed and once I saw their shoulders droop, I carried on with the rest of my speech.
This move truly wasn't intended but it achieved something I always found hard about public speaker - putting the audience at ease. I think the audience, in the end, wants to know you are as human as they are and hence, errors in your speech helps them connect to you on a very base, scratching-the-surface level.
But anyway, so we come to the last point and I was about to handover to my classmate, but before I do that, I:
3) Step forward. You are now the presentation and you are now to end it.
I walk back to the center while never catching a breath. I keep talking and towards the crescendo of my ending address, I raise an open arm and relaxed arm towards my next presenter and introduce them lightly. I thank the audience graciously for their time and nod my head half-way as a bow. I walk to the left and smile as the lazy applause start and end. And finally I CAN BREATHE AGAIN.
Imagine the planning I took for this. I traded in almost 15 hours of script writing, cue planning, matching words to hand actions, rehearsing in front of a mirror, for 5 minutes of speech time.
But I didn't regret it.
My English lecturer was announcing the results. She said she passed the bulk of the class and failed some. My group mates started panicking that they may have failed. She then mentioned she was really impressed by some speakers and I prayed I was one of them. And then she said the words I will remember forever,
"But there is a fantastic speaker I have to highlight. She is the best speaker in this class. Her speech was a joy to sit through. So, where is Nicole Lee?"
I almost cried dammit.
My group-mates then started making fun of my nervousness on that day and my classmate texted me, 'BEST SPEAKER SEHHHH' and I was so shy I wanted to melt into the ground but I couldn't because the lecturer was holding my graded paper and I had to go get it.
Fast forward, I am in my final presentation for SIM. I did not do much prep work for this because it was an area I was very familiar with (e-commerce) and I thought I'd repeat the success above, as I usually do, and it would work out.
And it did. My presentation was succinct and precise. I don't remember much of it. This time, it was the after-presentation questionnaire that embedded itself into my memory. The lecturer took a minute to digest our presentation. And the questions came.
My group-mates are chatty by nature but were intensely nervous for this presentation. And so I took all the questions quickly and answered them easily and confidently.
Most of his questions were exactly the problems I faced when I first tried to start a viable business outlet in Carousell. And I answered them honestly, with the experience I had. And my lecturer was so impressed by how unfazed I was with every new situation he came up with, that he ended the questionnaire with:
"You are a very good speaker, you probably know that. In fact, your presentation is the best I've sit through today. Good job on the questions handling"
And I beamed with pride and my group-mates fawned over me outside the class and I wanted to melt into the ground in happiness.
I AM DIGRESSING AGAIN.
My point is, I found a new love from my numbered days in SIM -- public speaking. I like the idea of people listening to me and I love being thrown a challenge and being forced to weave my way out of it. And I fucking love the triumphant high I get when I succeed.
But I can't combine any of that.
The things I like, writing and public speaking and e-commerce managing, were things that I couldn't put together without external help. But before I go seek this help, I can attempt to hone those skills. I can attempt to upgrade myself and make Nicole Lee a worthy investment. Which comes back to topic.
I have decided to go back to school.
To finally take a degree in the only thing I ever cared about: BA in Communications with Business
Gabriel's sailings are only going to take longer, and I will finish my car license before the school January term starts. I'm going to have nothing less besides my work and relations (family and friends) etc, so why not take on something that will improve me drastically?
And best of all -- I can study as I work full time, earning enough to pay for my own studies without taking a loan from anyone.
I am still paying for my poly fees and my unisim fees but hey, in three months hopefully I would have finally learnt money management and be able to properly sort all these out. This and hopefully an increment at my current workplace. Fingers crossed!
The days ahead are looking mighty hopeful but beyond all things, I hope I rediscover my business acumen soon. Really, really soon.
And Amnig will be the perfect teacher.
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