The "Big" Day

Today is my “big” day so to speak. Mainly, that consists of me giving a presentation to the rest of the department to tell them what I’ve been doing over the past month. Thank your gods people, I shall not go into the nitty gritty detail of what I’ve been doing (which has a glorified title of “Air Traffic Analysis”) Now, I’m just hoping that the stuff is actually relevant and not like old news or something. Most of the time, I’m torn between thinking that the presentation is good and that it is merely stating the obvious. Much like the debate within that tells me that I can do *insert random task* and then suddenly thinking that maybe I’m like those self-deluding worms who are actually pretty worthless. That is perhaps my life. Self-doubt, self-doubt and more self-doubt.

I guess you could say I have a low self-esteem. I’ve always thought of myself as incapable of anything remotely athletic; I’ve resigned myself to being second best in everything but perhaps personality. Though I’m constantly pleasantly surprised at what I actually can achieve, I don’t think it’s a good way to live. Darling is like my esteem coach. I trust him to tell me the truth about myself yet I wonder how much of his views are tinted by the fact that he loves me. In his eyes, I have grown more attractive over the years; I vacillate between wanting to believe and disbelief. I guess it doesn’t matter how I look as long as he believes I’m beautiful. But I guess deep down, I want to feel beautiful as well.

Back to my presentation where my self-doubt still lurks and I sometimes tell myself that I seriously don’t really care about it anymore. Perhaps nobody else really cares about it anyway.
There has been some huge debates about speaking good English and singlish in Singapore in the past. Some claim that singlish is a sign of their culture and should not be looked down upon. It is kind of sad when people will claim that broken English accented in all the wrong places is a critical part of their culture. When I talk to most Singaporeans, I switch over to Singlish mode much like the way I make the switch from English to Hokkien when I’m speaking to my mother. It’s pretty much a different language for me. I’m comfortable with it. However, when it comes to presentations, I am back to my formal voice. Proper Queen’s English, every syllable of it. Now I feel weird because most people don’t have such a formal tone. I can’t help myself really. The very prospect of giving a presentation in Singlish sounds too bizarre. I can imagine myself rolling on the floor, tears in eyes as I laugh at myself. Now, wouldn’t that be truly pretentious?