Despair and New Life

We’re done with the summary of my life in the previous post, but it’s time for me to share my life in the past 3 years!

So, the older readers of my novel might know by now. I was posted to Singapore Police Force for my mandatory/conscripted service to my nation shortly after joining Wuxiaworld.

Today, I’ll like to talk and share about it! Personally, I considered it my journey as a boy to a man.

Somewhere around April 2017, I received a letter that left me dazed for minutes. It was a letter requesting me to fulfill my national service as I graduated from college about 5 months ago.

Despair ransacked my mind. I wanted to keep translating, and I don’t want to stop doing what I love. But there were over 100+ chapters before catching up to the latest chapter at that time. In Singapore, you are required to undergo training before you’re posted out as an officer, that goes the same for the Army & Civil Defense. That means that I will be spending my weekday in the camp and less than 48 hours out on the weekend.

At the same time, that means that it will have a significant impact on my career/hobby as a translator!

For the next 2 weeks, I spent all my time in my room translating. I slept only 4-5 hours a day and never left my computer desk. I even ate before my computer, and only left my computer for the bathroom… I want to translate as much as possible, even at the cost of cutting down my resting and eating time. At that period, I was translating under sheer despair because I don’t want to quit translating!

Fortunately, my hard work paid off. I translated over 100+ chapters before I got enlisted. I was translating at an unprecedented speed, a feat impossible for me to repeat now. Mind you, that was translating under pure despair itself, and you can say that I was draining myself out.

PS: I take about 1.5-2 hours for a chapter now.

Call me the Prince of Despair! Yes, I was translating under despair. Perhaps you might think that it’s insignificant to feel despair, but do keep in mind that I came from a low-medium income family. I stopped asking for money from my parents for years, and was self-sustaining myself with what I earn through translating while contributing the extras to my parents to help them out with the household bills.

So just imagine that I have to lose all my income for $500/month, which was my allowance for national service.

National service was inevitable for every healthy and able male citizen in Singapore. So, I soon welcome my new life in the training camp. For the first time in my life, I had to shave off all my hair. How did being bald felt? I could feel the wind blowing against my scalp.

I resigned myself to fate and reported to camp on 17 May 2017. Walking into the camp with my parents, the first thing I felt was depression. The depression of losing my freedom for the next 6 months. We had a tour around the camp with my parents as the instructors introduced the various facilities to us. Shortly after, I was separated from my parents. While they’re attending a talk, we were instructed to form up and register ourselves before going through all the procedures.

Roughly two hours of hassle later, I arrived in the auditorium that our parents were at. Standing before the audience, we took the pledge to serve our nation. At that moment, the depression I felt was swept with pride surging my chest, for I knew that it would be a transforming journey.

Instead of welcoming a new life with depression, why not embrace it with joy instead? What an optimistic fellow? xD

And thus, I welcomed a new journey of my life. A journey that I taught me so much; it was still engraved in my very soul even after a year later.