Top Friends, Best Friends, Situational Friends, Lost Friends…..

Mrs Ong with her ex students

Today was one of those crazy days, I bumped into Doreen (church fren), Lee Yan (ex colleague from Christ Church Sec – whom I’ve not seen in 7yrs), my Art students (from PL) and Andrea (my gym buddy – I’ve not seen in a yr)…

So aside from bumping into old friends in the ‘real’ world, this Facebook has allowed me to rekindle friendships from as way back as 20yrs!!!!!! It’s just amazing… Fancy reuniting with primary school buds, highschool buds or old workmates from those part-time jobs at the ease of a simple search or spotting them on existing friends lists…

To be able to peek into your lost friends past, present… their pics, their family life, their worklife, to make contact with them, to be able to chat with them via the ‘wall’ or via ‘messaging.’ Amazzzzzzzing…..

Of course, there’s always skeptics who may question the ‘authenticity’ of the friendships added to Facebook (FB), Friendster or any online community for that matter. I recently posed this question to my students, “Those of you with 555 ‘friends’ on your Friendster – are you inviting all 555 of them to your wedding when the time comes?” Obviously they sniggered and retorted no!!! And if you thought the Friend ‘counter’ is already a farce, how about the FB applications – ‘Top Friends’ or ‘Circles’ and ‘Fave Peeps’ ?? Initially, I added the ‘Top Friends’ – clicking friends who I ‘deem’ my best friends, close friends, basically ’select’ people whom I see very very regularly or whom I can talk about anything under the sun. However, the problem arises though when this ‘title’ is not reciprocated, haha – what does it infer? And then what happens when you have newly-added-FB-friends and you forget to update the ‘Top Friends’ list – mannnnn… the ‘innuendos’!!!! Sigh…

So here are a few thoughts from the so-called ‘Friend of the World’ (coined by Ands):

1. Sometimes friendships takes effort to nurture ie. a few meals/outings here and there… and through the compounded dates viola – you guys become super close!!!
2. As much as you may value friendships, sometimes they are ‘merely‘ situational. For instance – for that period of time that you schooled or worked together you may have been super close, but then somehow you may move on…. and keep that once-valued-friendship as a ‘mere’ memory.
3. Instant chemistry = besties for life. Rare tho!
4. Some friendships are ‘golden’ no matter where you are, how looooooong ago you last spoke or met up, you switch to ‘auto-pilot’ mode and take off from where you last left. Natalie Armstrong and Jenmie are classic examples!
5. Msn can fuel friendships! Yep, think about the acquaintances who have been promoted to close friends!!! My gym friends come to mind haha!!
6. Quash those ‘bitchy-judgemental-first-impressions’ you have of people!!! Count the number of best friends you swore you’d never befriend!!!
7. Ensure you have a few circles, it’s healthy! Dun stick to just one circle of friends – we all need a bit of variety. I’m ever grateful for my church buds, gym buds, ex-colleagues and of course the miscallaneous!
8. Friction? Leave em? We all face a bit of friction in our friendships mainly due to miscom. (me thinks!) so do we jus call it quits? Well, ask yourself is it worth keeping/quitting? Will you regret it either way?
9. Friendships can be likened to clothes (I recently shared this concept with Ols) you have some clothes you wear occasionally, you have some clothes you rarely wear, then you have some clothes you wear to death! Go figure
10. Lastly, love em hate em, we just cant live with out em – we all do need our friends/buds/mates whatever you wish to call em’! They spur us on, they correct us, they laugh and tear with us, they basically help to define us!!!

Switching careers, the risks, the gains….

Siya has been bugging me to update, Ands remarked that I dun update no more, hehehe, its facebook I tell ya – I’m almost convinced it will supersede my need to blog…

Today marks about a year since I made a decision that would steer a new chapter of my life hee hee… Yup, 2007 has been a really good year…. January/February – I took the opportunity to chill in Sg – gym, meet frens – lead the dream tai-tai life, as well as spend a good month back in Perth/Melbourne. March did a few Lit/Art workshops and in April started part-time lecturing at SP.

So let’s just pause here…. I was asking myself after I quit teaching, shall I try something different? Shall I dabble with marketing/PR do the career switch thingy? The hubs been the gd shrink he is to me, asked me whether I was willing to start ground zero again.. salary wise and competing with all the fresh graduates…. I did ponder actually and as much as I was tempted to try something completely new and challenging – it seemed to make sense to capitalise on my teaching experience and perhaps work part-time and get paid decently So yea… it was a good move.. I do enjoy teaching co-ed again, and tertiary level – it’s more relaxed, less marking and I enjoy the maturer students and the great variety of backgrounds, interestingly though – i’ve bumped into several exPLites and even taught one last semester – fancy that yea teaching your student both in Secondary school, then Tertiary!! haha…

May I add, part-time work status allows for more free time! Hee hee, yups plenty of time to step-rpm-pump-af-balance annnd meet with frens, try new eats… and even do some housecleaning…

Whilst it all sounds rosy and ideal… I gotta tell you there were moments where I did feel insecure, especially at the beginning of the year, when the sec school term started, I felt a bit lost… and depressed when my bank funds decreased rapidly instead of increase every 12th of the month… then the harmless yet harmful concerns of friends, relatives – so when do you start work? or what will you do? I tell you the stress imposed!!! Then the actual job hunting… circling your dream jobs in the classifieds, narrowing the options, preparing the resume, gearing yourself for the interview… oh man… then the rejections, then the jubilations when you get an offer!

So moral of the story… hmmm… I think being 30 something gives one good reason to seriously think about career switching.. I’ve read countless articles in magazines/newspapers with testimonies of happy 30 somethings who went with their gut feeling and took the risk/pay cut and discovered time/life

Will I go back to fulltime work? At this stage, I reckon this part-time worklife suits me fine – the pay is good, I get to gym, socialise more, smile more, I still get to travel here and there. Yuppers, no looking back!!!!!