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Life is what we humans all have. Everyone only has one life and everyone’s life is unique. There will not be one person who will live life exactly how you have lived it. And that is what makes life special. Life experiences can be shared, but every individual lives life in their own way.

Let me introduce to you my life, in hope that this can be an inspiration to others. I began life’s journey in 1995. I was born in Singapore, not to a rich family but, we did okay for ourselves. I went through the typical Singaporean education system, from nursery, kindergarten, primary school and then secondary school. Now, here’s where life got tricky for me. For the unaware, Singapore has two traditional routes for our post-secondary studies. Some may opt to go to a Junior College, where you study for two more years in either an Arts or Science focused class before taking the Cambridge A-levels examinations. The others would opt to go to a polytechnic where you get to pick a field in which you can choose to specialise in, for example media, engineering or information technology etc. I chose the Junior College route and so there I was, studying for another two more years of my life.

Junior college was tough, but I guess it was completely my fault. I though it was going to be a walk in the park but boy, was I mistaken. The subjects were maybe two times harder than they were in secondary school and honestly, I think I lost interest. Times when I would spend studying soon became time hanging out with friends and it was no surprise that my grades took a sharp turn for the worse. I was barely passing on the education scale but scoring on the social scale. Lessons became secondary and all I would look forward to would be spending time with friends after school. When I came to the end of the first year, I was offered a chance to retain and to repeat it again seeing how I barely scrape through. But I thought to myself, I can do better this year. Mistake number two. Looking back, I probably should have repeated Year one but well we can’t turn back time. Entering Year 2, I thought to my idiot self maybe I’ll be an orientation group leader. I must say it was some genius thinking on my part, seeing my already subpar grades (Sarcasm included). But there I was leading cheers and forgoing lessons. I did keep my promise to myself and study hard afterwards. I went from borderline to slightly above borderline but the damage is already done. There was no way to cram two years into one and well I am pleased to say I passed my A-levels.

Getting a pass in Singapore is not sufficient for admission into a local university. Getting a pass is in fact, rare, most people actually performed well enough to get a spot in university. I applied for a total of five universities and was rejected by every single one of them. Seeing how bleak my future was, I made the decision to enlist into the Army and became a regular. For those out of Singapore, I enlisted into the Army as a soldier. And that’s where the next chapter of my life began.

Some people may ask so what good came out of Junior College and the answer is my wife. But that’s a story for another time.