What are we going to do now?

Eight years ago, I showed up for my first day at the National Institute of Education (the putative teachers' college in Singapore). Jetlagged, grumpy and filled with a general animus towards towards everyone and everything Singaporean, I spent most of the first six months frantically calculating how much I could save of each month's salary towards paying off the scholarship bond. The answer, given my profligate tendencies and the demands of filial piety (i.e. the distinctly Asian expectation that children give money to their parents after they start working): not much. Eventually, after a lot of adolescent soul-wringing and drama, I tossed out the scheme as completely impracticable.

My mother always says that it wasn't till after I took a trip to the US at the end of that first six months, to see the then-boyfriend and college friends, that I settled down. To me, it wasn't a farewell trip, it wasn't a breakup trip, but maybe what I needed was to see that the people I'd known and loved in college were moving on with their lives, for me to realise that I should do the same. Quit whining, accept the period of indenture, and get on with it. Besides, eight years is a bloody long time to be grumpy.

I made friends, settled down, got married, bought a place to live and a car, worked reasonably hard at my job, got over all the things Singapore doesn't have, appreciated anew the things it does (chief among them: being able to get good food at all hours, especially Teochew moi (porridge) with pigs' intestines and salted eggs), let my accent go and gave up on the government.

What didn't change: I kept my eyes fixed on the date in 2005 when the scholarship bond would expire and talked about plans for life thereafter. Every now and then, someone would ask me how much longer I had to go, and the precise answer (okay, rounded to the nearest month) was never difficult to give. Once I hit my late twenties, I knew the countdown more readily than I knew my age. Year by year, it ticked off --- slowly, but surely. Meanwhile, I laughed in the face of people who asked me why I wasn't applying for a government postgraduate scholarship. Sign another five years of my life away to another scholarship bond? As if eight years hasn't been enough.

I can't say I didn't get anything out of it. If nothing else, it paid for four years in the US, not a moment of which I regret in the least. (Okay, there were the weird boyfriends sophomore year, but I blame that on my own ineptitude. And I'm embarrassed, but not regretful.) And no one held a gun to my head and made me sign away these eight years on the dotted line. For the money and the opportunities, I'm grateful. And I've paid in kind for every damn cent of it.

Hardly anyone ever asks me why I took the scholarship in the first place. Perhaps, to most Singaporeans, the rationale is self-evident: prestige, glorious career, secure employment, serving the nation.

Yadda yadda.

Yadda.

No one asks whether nineteen-year-olds are in the right state of mind to make a legally binding decision about the next twelve years of their lives. No one tells you about the opportunities that wait just around the corner, or that are even right there before you, if you'd only open your eyes and see, open your heart and let yourself find what you really want to do with your life.

For the few that ask, I tell them that taking the scholarship and its concomitant bond "seemed like a good idea at the time." I'm not being glib; it was a good idea at the time. It paid for school, teaching was something I thought I could do, way better than an office job anyway. Who'd've thought so much would change in four years?

Of course, things have changed in these eight years too. When I looked ahead to this day, I used to imagine the triumphant flourish of a resignation letter, the packing up for graduate school, the exit into sunshiney liberation. Today, it turns out to be a day like any other: I woke up, got to work on time, did some work, went to class, and will meet friends for dinner tonight. I'm not resigning. Grad school seems an increasing impossibility given my inability to find anything that interests me enough to justify putting down huge wads of cash for it.

But hey, the sun is out.

It's been such a long day in coming, that a person can't help but get a little choked up over it. And it's oddly invigorating to know that from today, I can quit my job, just like any other salaried employee. I may not choose to exercise that right for months or even years to come, but the possibility is there --- just as other possibilities for work, dreams, passion, life are suddenly a lot more within reach than they were yesterday.

My mother's a funny lady. She asked me last week if the scholarship board would give me a letter or something, to certify that I had completed my bond. I chuckled and said I didn't think so; from what I'd heard, the bond lapses without fanfare and they don't care how long you "stay in service", as long as you don't owe them anything when you decide to quit.

So I guess this is me certifying myself bond-free. From here on out, it's all up to me.

This last bit is just for those Buffy fans that read my blog. I don't usually quote the villains, but this one from Season Three seems particularly apt:

"Sunnydale owes you a debt. It will be repaid. Yessir, we'll mark that invoice paid in full."

--- The Mayor, "Graduation Day Part 1", Buffy the Vampire Slayer

PAID IN FULL.

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