Dear Fellow O-Level Graduands:

The dust has settled. the hoo-ha is over. we have each gotten what we’ve gotten, and hopefully your tears (of joy? disappointment?) have dried by now. If not, it’s high time that you grab some tissue to dry your tears, to set yourself straight again, because you’ve gotta purchase tickets for the next train out.

I know of some people who are happy with what they have, who know exactly where to go next, cos they’ve got their route all planned out. then there are some travellers stranded at the station, staring at the train schedules but not really reading them. they’re in a mess, they’ve got their unexpected results in one hand, and lots of confusion in the other. they’ve got lots of excess baggage filled with fear and anxiety too.

maybe you’re like one of those stranded travellers, stuck in transit. given, you need some time to think about which direction you’re headed. but days have passed and you’re still pacing back and forth the station. my dear friend, you have to move on. sooner or later, everyone would have boarded their chosen trains to go their own destinations. what about yourself? you’re going nowhere.

but you forget that you’re a traveller, just like me, just like the rest of us. we carry our own luggage, no one carries it for us. we buy our own tickets. at each stop along the way, we meet other travellers and we make friends. and at each stop too, we lose friends. they have to go their own destination, somewhere where we cannot follow. does that mean we run out of the train to be with them? no. we stay seated until we alight at our own destination, wherever that may be.

right now, all of us have just alighted at the crossroads, including myself. I was with my travelling companion for 4 years, Serena Kuang, and we were standing in front of the train schedule, jostling, deciding. Where should we go? It would be nice if I could be in the same train as her, but I knew that at the end of the day, I was alone. I was a traveller seeking my own home, and hers was at the opposite end of the constellation.

I took the risk. I went up to the ticket booth, uncertain and afraid, clutching my little bag of things. I bought a ticket to Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Mass Communications Course. a quick check at the passenger list confirmed that Serena was not seated in the same train as me, nor was any one else I knew. Of course, I reacted with fear. Who wouldn’t? there I was, back to square one, stuck with a carriage full of strangers, some smelly and some sinister, rolling off together with them into unknown territory.

But that’s the way things are, my friends. some of us may still travel together. But inevitably, we’ll part ways. While on different trains, the journey may not always be smooth: we’ll lose our luggage, our seats will get snatched, we’ll get molested (gasp!), and there’ll always be an irritating passenger who plays his Mp3 at top volume. 

BUT.

We’ll see places we’ve never seen before. Out with the old, in with the new. We’ll make friends with travellers sitting around us and in no time, we’ll be playing strip poker. erm ok, maybe just poker. we’ll become older, but wiser, and life takes a new, uncertain, but exciting route.

I’m packing my bags now, waiting to board my train, and all I see are unfamiliar faces around me at the platform. I see Serena in the distance, walking off to hers, and I wave. I’m alone again, but I’m beginning to like it. I can smell it coming: A new adventure, full of crap and shitheads (as always), and even more problems than before. But also with what will be (i hope) the best moments of my life.

Adieu, my friends. I hope you’ve got your tickets, because I’ve gotten mine, and I heard that they are selling out quick. It’s time to dump your old boarding pass into your luggage and get a new one. Go ahead. Buy the ticket, hop on the ride. Life moves on.

Bon Voyage.