About possibly a month or two ago, Van Hansis (my beloved Luciano Eduardo Grimaldi Synder of As The World Turns) posted a few questions on his FB wall which were something along the lines of "What was one of the most important decision you have made? Did you regret it? Why?" At that point of time, I couldn't come up with an answer since I've thought about many decisions I've made but never thought them to be very important. But now, I have an answer to that question.

That answer would be quitting my job as a sales promoter for Philips monitors. Did I regret it? Honestly? Not at all. But I did feel guilty. When I went for the interview for that job, I was posed a question regarding my stay on the job when uni sem started. I said I could manage it. It was somewhat an unofficial promise. But then, not even 3 months of doing the job, I decided to resign and even did the resignation via text. Thankfully, no face to face encounter was needed once the resignation went down.

As to why I resigned the job, there were various reasons. 1) I wasn't cut out for selling things. 2) The pay was bad. $5 per hour, 8 hours per day. Imagine doing it every weekend. By the end of a month, you'll get $320++ (depending if you managed to get some commission money and before it gets cut for your CPF) 3) I couldn't fit in with the co-workers there. Some are about my age but they know each other for so long that they're all familiar with each other except me. 4) And this was the main factor that affected my decision: Better job offer.

It wasn't exactly a job offer. It was kinda an unofficial deal between me and Gary, the boss of Rec Productions who taught my internship boss camerawork, etc. He managed to get a hold of me and wanted me to work on an event with him as a cameraman and paid me for a 2-days job that I've worked for him a few months ago. He missed a few jobs earlier due to the lack of manpower and he couldn't get me since my internship boss refused to disclose my number and I had changed my number. He only managed to find me when I was working at Broadcast Asia 2010 and he was patronising the area.

For that 2 days job alone, I was paid $300. 2 days. It surprised me. And that was the lowest pay for a cameraman who's a beginner. When Gary heard about the sales promoter job I got and the pay I did, he asked why I'm doing such work where it's not my area of specialty and suggested I should just quit and work for him. I took his words seriously and pondered over.

He had a point. I was paid better for lesser days. I get to learn new things and it's related to my course of studies. I get to go to events, though some are boring 'cos they are conferences but they're all not a tad bad. Meals are provided. I get to meet and listen to co-workers talk about how the industry is like last time and they also help me out when I don't understand how to work some things like how to do a figure 8 on those long cables. The people are friendly and joking and once I worked with them for 2 or 3 times, I'm able to just comfortably talk with them and joke, though it seems to me they like to tease me quite a lot, probably 'cos I'm quite a fair bit younger than them. And, 'cos they like to speak Hokkien conversationally sometimes, I'm starting to understand a bit of what they're talking about at times.

Right now, I can say I'm a freelancer. Gary has mentioned that when school starts, if there's events on weekends and I'm free, he can give the job to me. And he also said that if I was free during my school holidays, I could text him my free days and he'd see if there's any job where he requires a cameraman and pass it to me. It probably helps him if he has a pool of standby cameramen. 2 weeks from now, I would be working non-stop as a cameraman for YOG at the YOV in NTU until 2 days before my school term officially start. I pulled in Cheng Yi into the YOG camerajob too since Gary needed another camerman and asked if I had any friends who could do it. I'm hoping Gary is satisfied with Cheng Yi's skills and he becomes a regular cameraman for him. That way, camerajobs that fall on weekdays, Cheng Yi can take it while I take those that fall on weekends and this also allows me to make sure my skills don't get rusty while I study arts without touching anything technical for the entire first year of my studies. Plus Cheng Yi hasn't gotten a permanent job yet and this could become a source of income for him. Event videography is quite different from what we study but rather refreshing and exciting. Plus we get to go to places like hotels and occasionally eat the good food provided there when it's opened to technical crew along with the guests. Just yesterday, I even had my picture taken with Bryan Robson, English legend in Football, who came down to Singapore to speak at Soccerex Asian Forum at Swissotel.

I'm happy to say I'm quite content with what I'm doing now. That decision may have been a small one in other people's eyes but to me, it's important. I hated disappointing people, giving a bad impression but then while I was deciding, I thought about the Luke Synder in slash fics. I thought about what a strong proactive Luke would do and took control, made a decision, hoped hard it's done with asap. Not sure why I thought about Luke Synder while I was deciding but it helped me a lot. Maybe it was 'cos I wanted Luke in ATWT to be like that and I projected that personality on myself. And I'm glad to have done that.

I hope to keep up this roll of work-hard-play-hard routine that I've got myself into. I do get out and have fun with my newly acquainted friends from my camp, my SP Yr 1 friends and LuRe fan-friend, Ain who's majoring in Eng Lit in NTU. I suddenly find my handphone calendar marked with 3-5 days worth of events/outings.

I'd say, life's quite peachy for me now and I hope it continues to be like this