My mentor at work gave me a T-box T-shirt today for Christmas. For my birthday, she gave me a pair of earrings she bought in Cambodia. She knows where all the good eating places are and tends to bring me and her other mentees out for lunch every once in a while. She's a straight-talking hard-hitting woman and I really respect her.

Of course, if everything at work (or at least 70% of it) were hunky dory, I wouldn't want to leave. But they're not. And I do. I'm keeping my fingers crossed as I'm going to have get past some obstacles over the next few weeks in other to achieve my dream.

I had lunch with a friend I met through work and he asked me how come I didn't want to go into sales. I didn't see myself as the sharp and aggressive kind of person that you need to be in order to survive and advance in sales, I said. That's funny, he replied. Because I think you're bright, sharp and aggressive, and you're clearly fighting for what it is you want.

And - I'm not blowing my own horn here - it is true. While I've had a relatively sheltered life, I have always fought for something I really wanted, whether it was to do with my ECAs (which I always preferred over studies), an S-Paper in JC, a subject that Singaporeans generally didn't take in my university or my permanent posting at work. It's a quality my mother has always liked about me, because I tend to go for something harder than my brother does, to the point that he felt pressured when we both went to university together, as he never had to compete directly against before, given the three year age gap.

It doesn't always mean I get what I want though, but gosh and darn, I'm not going to sit here and take all this crap lying down. Even if I'm too afraid to do the ultimate step of venturing into unknown territory without a safety net, I will still find a way to get what I've been wanting ever since graduation. And God willing, I'll get it real soon.