Lost and Found: My work has just begun.

As I wrap up the chamber reading performance, there is a sense of loss amongst my participants. Some asked me if there's a "Social Instalment 2", and others articulate a sense of dread to go back into school. I can't explain, or give an answer. I feel this sense of loss as well =(

Given the chance, I would want to take this somewhere. Yet I sit back here to write about the experience to disinterested people who will never know or feel the magic and dynamic when working with a group of passionate and gifted teenagers. I hesitate to use the word students/kids/teenagers, because  their attitudes have a sense of unique maturity, that one cannot help but come to respect.

I am lucky to have worked with this group of young people, and have grown to call some of them my friends, drinking buddies...and half the time I wonder why some of them cannot be born 5-6 years earlier, we would make such good partners - in all sort of ways. I regret that age is both a gap and an obstacle, one that inhibits our social roles on what we can and cannot do. I regret, that age makes me hold positions that require a certain authority, and that I have to put up a facade of duty and responsibility, when half the time I feel like "cutting lose" and run wild. But, I am a supposed "adult" and like I said to them, "you are only ____ once." We all wear multiple hats, and must act in our prescribed roles in life. Does anyone realise, that the researcher/facilitator/producer of the show is actually the one acting the most? I act all the time, every time and have to put up a front in front of my instructors, students/participants and colleagues. There are varying interests and I am glad, in the middle of it all, there is one person there to hear me out - subtly understanding my position and the various ways I have to juggle, allowing me that cathartic release I desperately need in the whirlwind of it all. I am grateful for the assistance and most definitely this person's warm and implicit presence. My (overly intellectual) mind then wonders the possibilities....

YOLO. You Only Live Once.

Indeed, what does it meant to only live once, and be 15/16/17/18/19 once in your life? I am now 24, and I feel my life has just started. I am grateful to be doing work that I love, that is also meaningful. I hope to also work meaningfully, and put everything I have into it so it will bring light and change in society in ways that even I do not know yet.

As the chamber reading closes, my work begins. Now it's time to make it right by everyone who has put so much into this, and I hope that my aptitude is good enough to bring this to the next critical level.

I cannot express how deeply I feel about this project, and how much it saddens me that this long journey has come to a close. This is the reason why I love research, and reaffirms my conviction that research with young people needs to be radically rethought. I have learnt so much more than we have taught them. Finally, my conscience is clear, and finally I have found a way to minimise exploitation of our research subjects (even that name is derogatory). Onward to a longer and much more arduous journey of writing. Gosh, I hope I do right by them.