It's is finished. ... Finally.

It's been 3 months since I last recorded my life...

So many things has changed since then, everything rushing to the closure of another chapter in my life.

I wonder, how many chapters would there be at the end of my book?

It's so hard to imagine the future now... it's pretty much a desolate landscape out there...

What do I truly want in life?

Today, Christmas day is the last day of my 15 month stint in Mediacorp.

Suffice to say, even for the last few weeks, I've woken up at night in cold sweat, thinking that there was something I have not done concerning work.

I want to be good... truly, really good at something...

Something which I can be proud of about myself...

But every corner I see, there is another mountain to climb, another river to cross...

... sigh...

May 11

I'm here to build my portfolio. To ensure my success for a future that seems so bleak.

Upcoming Projects

1) Lose To Win Season 2
2) The Winning Post
3) Badminton Opens
4) Commonwealth Games 2010
5) Youth Olympics, Singapore 2010
6) Aviv Swimming Meet
7) Formula One, Singapore
8) Asian Games, Guangzhou 2010

By the end of this year, I vow to have all 8 projects completed successfully on my portfolio...

This I've completed

1) Lose To Win Season 2
2) The Winning Post
3) Li-Ning Badminton Open 2010
4) Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010
5) The Inaugural Youth Olympics, Singapore 2010
6) Sports@SG - Asian Games Special
7) Formula One, Singapore Night Race 2010
8) Asian Games, Guangzhou 2010

It's quite good actually, and I amaze myself as to how I actually managed to do finish something like that.

It was seriously not easy... and I tried to give up countless times for a better life.

But, persevered I did....

I wonder will this portfolio be any good...

I made so many good friends in Mediacorp, so many people whom are genuinely good hearted and helpful... and of course, there are nasty people as well, but work is work and I always separate work from personal grudges as much as possible.

As of now, I have a full 2 years of experience working in the media.

Will it help?

Only the future will tell...

I try to think that what I'm doing is securing my life.. but really, I do know better...

I'm a monster trying to win another monster inside me..

Like an endless vicious cycle of perfection, nothing will ever prove to be enough for me...

Everything - perfect.

It'll probably destroy me one day... but I really feel that I won't be able to take it if I have to hand up a blank report to my Father one day.

A trillion billion human souls, what am I to offer?

... It's a cold, stormy Christmas evening....

... This year has proven to be far more stormy...

And, I've managed to pull through...

... haha.. can't believe it myself...

So happy I could cry...

It's over, Andrew... dispel your nightmares, rest your soul. Make peace with yourself.

You've done well.

I dedicate this year to Jesus, on His birthday... because He did answer my prayer after all.

2010.

This chapter closes,

and the next one opens.

AUSTRALIA.

I'm crying again.

I can't belive it. It's fucking wussy.

But I hate the feeling when I've tried my best and it still fails.

I think this job is not for me.

I'm going to throw in the letter very soon...

and I swear I'm never turning back to this line again.

No matter how much I try, how much I do, it always fails.

IT ALWAYS FAILS.

Everything will go on well in the beginning, then it all crashes to the floor when the stress hits.

It may sound damm weak;

but I seriously cannot take stress.

I can give an excellent piece of work, distinction even, if you don't stress me.

But the moment I feel stressed out, you can assure that everything is going to fly out of the window.

THIS IS ONE OF MY BIGGEST WEAKNESS.

And I've painstakingly, painfully, utterly agonizingly realized it over the past year.

I HATE stressful jobs.

I CANNOT TAKE stressful jobs.

Go ahead, mock me. Laugh...

I'm gone already.

I"ve lost all confidence in myself.

I've lost every last vestige and facet of confidence.

Everytime I do something correct, it only amounts up to a critical point in time when it will all fail again..

I"m sick and tired of this vicious cycle.

NO matter how much preperation I do, it fails.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH WORK AND EFFORT I PUT IN IT FAILS!!!!!!!

why the fuck do I even bother?

do you know how sick and tired I am?

*cries*

Hard Lessons

I felt like screaming, but nothing came out.

I can't post this on Facebook, so I'll do it here.

I know you think I'm useless.

I know you think that I'm a hardworking nutcase with no brains for anything.

Each time I see that exasperated look in your eyes I fall down another step.

Steps which I took so long to climb up.

I have no idea why you are so exasperated with me.

Is it because you've left your "mistakes" behind you, so far away that you forgot how much it hurts when people deride you for mistakes you don't even know you committed?

I'm sorry. If that is the case, I'll never be good enough for you.

Nor will anybody be.

Maybe except girls.

I've often wondered, when I first stepped into Mediacorp, why there are so many females and so, so little of their counterparts.

Over the months, I've come to understand why.

The reason is simple -

People think twice before kicking females around.

People think twice before shouting and scolding and throwing stuff at females.

People think twice before giving a female more work to do if there is a male around.

Maybe it's because I swing the other way thats why I realize that so blatantly in the organization.

I had to get this off my chest after swallowing so much SHIT today.

This is my FIRST time doing a live show.

I'm doing it WITHOUT an in-house AP by my side, unlike almost ALL the other Olympics, SEA Games, Asian Games and whatnot.

The "grandmaster" AP was around for 8 years in Mediacorp, until she quit last year. Subsequently followed by two very "shitty" APs.

... come to think of it, I wonder why.

I've been thinking, were they truly shitty? Or was it because they were simply thrown into a vast lake without a lifeline and just left to sink?

I've been scolded countless times from my boss when he/she asks me,

"Have you gotten this done yet?"

and I give *a blank look*

the reason why I give "the blank look" is because I simply didn't even know I was supposed to do it.

And their repl(ies) to that would be something like

1) Roll eyes and make you look like the biggest loser in the world

2) say, "Then why didn't you ask?" (IMHO, this is the stupidest question in the world because, you're asking me to ask something that I didn't know I'm even suppose to ask!)

3) Ask someone else to do the job, which ALSO makes you feel like shit because you CAN actually do it, but because NOBODY said anything, your job splatters on another unfortunate soul. (It makes you feel like you're accumulating bad karma.)

I'm the ONLY sports assistant producer in Mediacorp, and I learnt EVERYTHING from scratch.

I only see my "teacher" twice a week, and on special occasions, maybe more.

All I had to refer were scraps of notes handed down from previous generations of APs to me.

There was NO ONE to guide me.

NO ONE to teach me.

NO ONE to protect me.

NO ONE to tell me what to do next.

So each time I get scolded, slammed, derided, insulted, slandered, I swallowed it and took it as one of my learning lessons.

I bet for the past EIGHT years at least, no sports AP had to resort to learning in this fashion.

I felt like screaming, but nothing came out.

Because I know I have another four months to go.

I totally agree when one of the producers recalled what an assistant producer said before he left.

He turned around and screamed at the EP, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH MEDIACORP? IT'S PEOPLE LIKE YOU!"

Reflecting on that statement, Mediacorp is probably one of the worst places to work at in the world.

But it is my training ground.

That is why I stifled my scream.

I stifled till tears almost came out.

Yes.

Just walk away.

You may be better then me, for now, but I swear across my life that I'll surpass you by far one day.

And I will be a better person, compared to you.

I will learn.

I will learn everything I know.

Each emotional scar, each slam, each derogatory remark, each slander, I will remember, and I will learn from them.

They will remind me what I will not do in the future.

I will not become like you.

I miss being free.

I miss being able to plan my own time to do my own stuff.

I miss being able to do my own things without worrying about what tomorrow will bring.

Being an assistant producer is probably one of the most dedicated jobs in the world.

Dedicated as in: You can't be an AP if you don't dedicate your entire life to it.

I'VE LOST MY HANDPHONE.

IF ANYBODY FOUND IT, PLEASE CALL MY HOUSE @ 62241664

Why the fuck do I try so hard when everything eventually goes wrong?

When everything goes wrong, the person who did the most work GETS THE BLAME.

Why?

For obvious reasons. Because he did the most work.

FUCK.

FML.

How can so many wrong things happen in one day?

Masks

There is a mistake that everybody makes.

The presumption that they are always correct and everybody else is wrong.

It's hidden under a mask called "self-confidence".

....

Throughout my life I never had much. Slowly, in the recent years, I meet truly humble people and unparalleled boastful people. It's only now when I start to compare; where is my place in humanity?

The more I see the world, the more I feel smalled. Like a child that has always been swimming in a swimming pool, thrown to speculate the size of the ocean.

HOW MUCH AM I WILLING TO SACRIFICE TO ATTAIN MY GOALS?

In fact...

What is my goal?

I tell this to everybody who asks me this question:
First and foremost, to make sure that when I'm at the end of my life, I can look back, smile and tell myself that I have no regrets.

... that I can tell that I have impacted the world in some way...

... that I can touch my heart and say that I did everything conscionable...

... that I can close my eyes and know that when I open them again, I will be able to give a full and justifiable report; a report that would make my Father smile and say, 'well done'.

Yes.

It's vague. Seriously, it's so sweeping that it makes "goals" seem really out of context.



Some people say that I'm doing too much work.
Some people say that I'm doing too little work (compared to their time).

I feel that no work is too much for me if there is something inside it for me to learn.
(As quoted from my Shi Fu: Fu Ying)

An ex-good friend of mine told me this:
"You treat everybody as stepping stones, being close to them when you need them and discarding them like rubbish when you don't"."

It gave me pause to a scathing conversation that I was having with him.

It scared me.

Have I become such a monster?

Have I become so ruthless, have I become like the people that I hate in the first place?

Over the years, I've learnt never to trust anybody except myself. It's what gives me strength, knowing that as long as I don't delegate "trust" to anybody, I can never fail Me.



... Nobody really knows who is the real me.

Nobody knows because I don't want anybody to know.
For people who think they know me, they merely know what I want them to know about me.

Dig as they might, they will not find beyond what I want them to know about me.

I'm a person who has put on so many masks in my life that I've forgotten which is my real face anymore.

If you think you see Andrew as intelligent and hardworking - It's what I want you to think
If you think you see Andrew as slow and lazy - It's what I want you to think

If you think Andrew is pious and filial - It's what I want you to think
If you think Andrew is hedonistic and unfilial - It's what I want you to think

It's in this moments when I flash a mask over my face, so quickly that sometimes, I don't notice it myself.

... at this moment, when I look back at my self-defense mechanisms, I scare myself.
I scare myself because sometimes, when you put on mask, you cannot take it off without consequences.



Without consequences.



Even in the stifling office, with nobody around me, I'm still putting on a mask.

There are piles of tapes and papers around me, giving an illusion that I'm swamped.

I'll never really get out of this cycle.



If you really want to be close to me, you'll have to accept that you'll never really know the true me. You can tear off as many masks that I have, but there will always be one underneath to replace it.
... Because I've forgotten which one is my original face.