pencil shavings

Sarah Gaw, 25, one of the lucky ones who managed to get an overseas education without being straddled with a bond or debt, finds herself home free, but ironically directionless. "What would I do for a career," she thinks, even as her friends scheme about getting out of their bonds.

Gaw, the older of two sisters in a traditional family, was a regular, run of the mill student who did resonably well in the usual good schools. Perhaps one of the best things in her educational path was getting into the Gifted Education Programme which gave her the tools to think. She had her university education in a small liberal arts college and graduated with a major in English and Religion and Philosophy. The year was 1999.

2000, she spent in the United States cleaning toilets, cutting grass and helping a youth and international ministry in a small town interdenominational church. Today she is presently employed by a large Protestant church as a Researcher cum Powerpointer cum Sitter downer in front of a computer.

She knows she cannot complain. She has fish, friends, family and a salary to count on. Her friend, Tan Ah Lian, also 25 and in the same directionless state, reminds her about the people who do not have degrees in these tough times. Apoova Ali, another peer, though a doctor, slogs many a night on call and corned beef sandwiches. This is the lot of life, perhaps what a book aptly calls the "Quarterlife Crises".

Yet what bothers her most is not the job or the money or the direction, but the pause in her life of faith. She reasons that with faith, one can see flowers in dunghills; without, there are cracks in the mansion. It is not the lack of a career but the loss of the belief in God's destiny for her life that rattles her cage.

But it isn't the end of the story, at least not yet. And as long as the story isn't over, there is hope yet.