This is it.

Education Fair (2012)

UCSI University (2013)

Logged into fb to find out a fellow coursemate was kind enough to take this photo and tag me, showing my work on display at our university. It's the same one that was displayed at our university's booth during the education fair last year; another coursemate was also kind enough to text me the good news when she saw it. And just like last year, when I saw this, I was pleasantly surprised and seriously-so-happy-I-don't-really-know-how-to-describe-it.

I had been entertaining the idea of quitting my job for quite a while now. I know I've only worked for about a year, and people are giving me talks on how it's too soon to quit my job. While I do understand it wouldn't look good on my resume, I just hate that I feel so... unproductive. Sure, pay's good and benefits are good and being in a totally new industry is a fun experience but there are times when I find that I do not feel any sense of achievement doing the things I do. Especially when airline sales and marketing is not commission-based, there really isn't anything to measure our efforts by. At the end of the day, I don't see where my efforts are going to and I didn't like that. I am on a wheel going round and round and I don't see anything except the 4 walls of the box I am in. I want to get off and go on another ride instead.

Seeing this photo further cemented my decision to quit. No, it's not narcissism, it's not the fact that my work is being displayed, but rather a sense of satisfaction, of knowing that everything I put myself through for the past 4 years, all the effort.. is recognized through this piece of work.

Is that why I am drawn to design? Because in design, our efforts and hard work are tangible. Because I want, need to see the end product of my efforts, no not to prove my self-worth, but to feel that 'sense of self-fulfillment'. Am I making sense?

For the past year, there has been many times when I would open that folder containing quite literally 4 years of my life and slowly go through all my works. I cringe at some, particularly my works during the first year, and now that I'm not blinded by the panic of looming deadlines and not being able to live up to lecturers' expectations, my works weren't as bad as I used to think they were. Some could have been better but then again, so could everything else if we were given unlimited time and resources. But then nothing would ever be finished because it could always be better than what it is right now. Just like how there's a full stop at the end of every sentence, there needs to be a stopping point when we realise this is it. This is my work and it's ready to go. Anyway!! I developed a sort of appreciation for my works, because they were proof of my effort. And I really need that feeling again. I took this job because I needed a break from design. I think I'm ready to go back.

I can't go through years of doing a job blindly, not knowing where I am going, if I'm even headed anywhere. And right now, I just don't see it.