Why I am still here

I am seriously burnt out. But putting more of my faith to God day after day makes me think maybe I was destined to do something else. I don't like to use the word 'destiny' loosely, as I'm not one to believe so much on that kind of stuff. But what if it's true, what if this is God's way of showing me that this is not the right direction for me. What if this is a sign that my life will benefit from doing something else? But that thought may just be me trying to deny the fact that I am a failure.

I would like to start over, start fresh, but at 22 years old? All these years of free, unpaid education, how has is benefited me? How have I taken advantage of the free education and put it to good use?

An online friend came across blog owned by an expatriate working in Brunei as an English language teacher, and I found his insights quite real. Hard-hitting, appalling and some a tad far-fetched, but I for the most part agreed the harsh reality of his opinions. Bruneians who are easily offended may not like it, but for me, having lived overseas for almost 4 years, a fair amount of racist taunts directed towards me, and only then I understand how a foreigner would feel in our country. Out of place and stereotyped. To live in a foreign country you have to tolerate with the culture, both good and bad. Eventually you do get sucked in and just learn to survive in it.

Anyway, back to the teacher's blog. I could see why he felt the way he did. He may have come off a little negative in his writing, but that may have been the result of years of serving Brunei's education regime. I quote from his recent posts on what he thought of Brunei after having lived there for 9 years:

All of us became unsettled. Although the children were getting a very good academic schooling at the International school, we could see that the ‘easy’ lifestyle of Brunei was not giving the children the life skills they needed to survive in the real world-that is, how to be independent. Moreover, I was becoming ‘deskilled’ in a dysfunctional professional culture.

R____’s demise from Cornell was a very good example of the lack of preparation for the real world which Brunei did not provide.

We were all spoiled.

I guess what he's trying to say is that the educational workforce is so unprofessional and underdeveloped that he became 'deskilled' and tired and complacent. Eventually everyone does once they are sucked into the system. There is lack of hands-on and real-world skills. If you compared the opportunities that are available in other countries, what Brunei offers lacks in challenges. In other countries, people would sacrifice their time and strength to be granted a scholarship, whereas in Brunei they give out scholarships like consolation prizes. You show up for a couple of interviews, have a few questions thrown at you, if you have good enough grades, you can go. But the system may have changed since I had to go through it, I'm not sure.

Just look at how the government salary scale is structured. It is based on qualifications, which kind of shows how Brunei really values what education its citizens get, so much that it affects the salary scale, regardless of how demanding or less-demanding the type of job is. If you have the same qualifications, you are going to get the same salary. Regardless of the talent you have or whether you are a lazy prick.

Being a 'recruited' scholar myself, I certainly do not feel there is anything special about me, as I belong to the hundreds of other students who are 'employed' to study and come back to Brunei as 'labourers' of the government. There is no special feeling, as the status of the scholarship is not what I would call prestigious. No selective choosing, really analysing the nitty-gritty, and gruelling interview after interview and test after test. I am just a student like everybody else in Brunei, difference is I am studying in a foreign country.

So can I blame the government and Brunei's 'laid-back', spoonfeeding educational bureaucracy for my failure? How can I, you say, for if not for them who would have provided me with free education and an overseas undergraduate scholarship?

This is why I find it difficult to blame others. There are also my parents, who also played a significantly large educating role in my life. There are definitely things that they I wished they did or didn't do differently. But as I grew older and seen how other people's parents compared to mine, I saw that my parents are way better than what some other parents can be. They have their pros and cons, but they've got the basics down for me. When push comes to shove, I have no one to blame but myself. I am a young adult who is perfectly capable of making the right decisions. Despite this, I don't.

Even if I think hard about what I can possibly do now, I can't think of anything. I know I cannot work in an environment that I am not passionate about. I find that I get bored easily. The people around me affect my performance. And I am definitely not a good academic; I am glad to purge myself of all things dissertation, research or essay-related.

I feel a slight resentment towards the country, more so the government, and I think almost everyone shares the same sentiment. I don't want to be resentful, and I try not to, because of the same reasons as most of the other people in the country. We are given so much benefits - subsidised living costs, free education and healthcare, no taxes. There is hardly anything we can do as we are fed with so much benefits from the government that any complaint we make will come off as ungrateful. These benefits that are everywhere constantly remind us that we are under the watchful eye of the higher-ups.


I know sound like an idiot saying these things as I obviously have never stepped foot in the working world. I am not entirely sure how it is actually like, thus making me unqualified to say these things. One of my fears of working in the government is that I will eventually get sucked into the system and become one of the office drones.

I would like so much to blame my failures on others, but doing that only makes me feel guilty, because I know that there if I had the willpower, I could make that change. I could be strong enough to overcome the procrastination, the fear, the laziness.

The next entry is already drafted and is a follow up to this entry, and it includes a more personal story. Till then.