Mid-semester crisis...

Once the votes are read, THE DECISION IS FINAL, the person voted out is asked to leave the tribal council area immediately. 

It's about time a decision is made, a decision that is actually long due.

I have finally, actually, really quit my job. My job as a student assistant at the International Admissions office that I love so much.

The semester's been crazy enough with me taking 6 science classes and the dreaded Economics class. What with school applications, attending interviews, volunteering, doing research, writing my honors thesis, and preparing for the Experimental Biology annual meeting in April...I just cannot take the pressure anymore. I decided to quit. And focus on my classes and research project, ultimately, to take care of that GPA which has been falling and falling and falling...

I've never described what my job scope was so I shall summarize my duties here. As an undergraduate student assistant in the office, my main tasks were to answer application questions from our prospective international students - by email or phone calls. When the students have been admitted, I am the one who sends out admit letters (under the Director's name, of course). When the I-20s for admitted students are ready, I am also the one who sends them out to the students. Being an international student myself, it is so gratifying to be able to help others because I used to be in their shoes, confused with so many application procedures and documentation requirements. Now that I am familiar with the international admission process, it's actually helping me with my application to other schools as well, and even if I don't understand certain things, I would now take the initiative to call/email the school to clarify.

I think most importantly, this job experience has helped trained my speaking skills. When I first started out at this job, I hated answering phone calls and replying voice messages! I absolutely dreaded picking up the phone because I couldn't speak good English especially when I'm under stress - I tend to spout Manglish/Singlish when I'm nervous or when I try to speak fast in order to show that I'm professionally qualified to answer questions. Besides that, I didn't even know too much about everything when I first began to work. Then came a turning point when my mindset began to change, I couldn't pinpoint an exact time though. Thank God for changing my heart because it suddenly dawned upon me very clearly that I need to overcome this challenge, this fear of speaking to people, this problem of lack of confidence in handling people and counseling people. I then began to take the initiative to answer voice mails, practiced the answers in my head before I call up the students, and sometimes even write down what I needed to tell the students before I dialed their number. All these may sound trivial to some but to me, it was definitely a hurdle that I had to work hard before I could leap over. Now, I am much more at ease at talking to people on the phone, and even face-to-face. I have more confidence when I counsel the students who come from different backgrounds and situations. These experiences had undoubtedly helped me in my recent round of interviews as I was able to put in action my built-up confidence and speaking skills when I speak these strangers who were interviewing me.

It has been almost a year since I joined the office, 10 months to be exact. My supervisors and colleagues are such amazing people who have been tolerating patiently my increasingly frequent leaves from work this semester. Even though I felt very bad initially for even thinking of leaving the office before I graduate when it was earlier in the semester, I am more comfortable to make this decision now since they have recently taken in another undergraduate student assistant to take up the workload which has been piling up due to my absence. I have been praying hard with regards to this issue, and if I'm not mistaken (which I hope not), I think God is trying to tell me to quit my job already (through various means - advice from family and friends and the bible). I have thus officially informed my direct supervisor this past Monday that I will work until the end of March, which technically, was also Monday for me because I'm not scheduled to work until this Friday which is already April. Despite the short notice, she took it pretty well because I think she saw this coming anyway, and only requested me to come in for one more day to train the new student assistant and make that my last day. I agreed since that's the last thing I can do for her. Somehow I felt sad because she didn't even try to offer me alternate ways, such as taking leave for the month of April, but like what mom said, they wouldn't want to waste anymore time on you, they would rather move on to train that new assistant. True.

THE DECISION IS FINAL. I will stop lingering on the tinge of regret that keeps surfacing inside me. On a brighter note, I have more time to study for my exams and to do experiments now! So it's actually a cause for celebration! Yeay!

I shall leave the "tribe" with a light heart. No more turning back. Move on.