Disappointed

Today I'm quite disappointed with myself. I had the recruitment exam. Well, at the beginning I was quite confident in myself. I think I read the information, summarised it well, and wrote a detailed outline. However as I started writing for a while, I realise that things aren't on the right track. The whole thing is very academic, and I spent like nearly half a page making the introduction. This is what I'm used to writing 3000-word essays. I think I didn't hit the spot of what the question wanted from me.

Then I got more frustrated with the Chinese essay. My writing block came back again. My mind was a complete blank and I couldn't think of what to write or simply create a sentence. At that moment I thought I lost the ability to write Chinese compositions. As time was running short, I tried to write something, but everything looked so Anglo-Chinese. It's like English directly translated into Chinese, even worse than Google translate!

Later I realise how serious my situation is. With absolute English medium of instruction, my thinking styles, my languages all stem from English, and more precisely, academic English. On one way, it's not good enough to bring me good grades in school, and what's worse, on the other hand, it made me fail to apply my communication skills in real-life settings. When I start a discussion, I spent plenty of time defining things and wasted time to describe my approach to address the question. These are indeed unnecessary in real-life interactions.

It's even more horrible that I lost my originally good (at least I think so) Chinese ability. I used to think I have the literary talent, but with 3 years being detached from the use of Chinese, my sentences look so shit and awkward. Even my calligraphy turned so bad that I can't recognise my words...

So for some moments, I wonder what I really obtained from university. Of course I still believe in education, which serves as a social ladder for me to climb on. However, practically, I am those who can't apply and generalise. Yes, I'm a book worm, and I have been used to such a cramming education systems for years. I changed my language styles to meet the requirements in academia, and I gave up reading Chinese materials as there were plenty of English readings piling up. Eventually, what do I get? I can't quite clearly pinpoint any. But the above described some apparent losses.

I am really disappointed with the person I turned into now. Thanks to such an examination (I don't think I can proceed to the next stage). It's a big lesson for me, and I learnt that perhaps I should have studied something more practical, well, at least in the work settings.

I would like to end this post by quoting what I saw from my friend's facebook:

The study of the humanities and of some social sciences is becoming marginalised, because many think that they broaden the mind but not necessarily job opportunities. Philosophy once used to be cherished as the father of all knowledge, but is now becoming an ''endangered species''.