Managing Change – My 1st day at YJC

I’ve been wanting to write a post on coping with change and transitions especially for our new JC1 students but somehow I’m only getting round to it now and orientation is well and over. So I’m hopeful that this could still be helpful to some of you.

 

I remember very well my first day of work at Yishun JC. A few days before I knew I was going to start work, I asked my best friend to drive with me to Yishun so I can check out the school from the outside. I don’t live near Yishun so when we drove into ’Yishun New Town’ it was a very unfamiliar feeling for me. To be honest, I remember my first impression of the facade of Yishun JC was not that good. haha. I thought the roof looked quite old from the outside and the whole place seemed very ‘kampong’. My friend, being the eternal optimist, tried to encourage me by saying ’maybe things will be better inside?’ The couple of days before I was going to officially start work at Yishun, I did what I could to prepare myself psychologically for the change. I did what most women would do – buy a new bag. So on my 1st day, I stood at the general office with my new bag, waiting anxiously to see the Principal. Everything was so foreign, I suddenly don’t have a sense of direction, I didn’t even know where the toilet was or where I could get some food so I didn’t eat anything the first day. I couldn’t remember half the names of the people who were introduced to me and I was so conscious that people could tell I was feeling very awkward.

 

I’m not sure how many of you can connect with my experience when you first came to YJ. The feeling that everything was so foreign and you felt so ’out of place’. Managing change is not easy. It involves being able to say goodbye to what you liked about the past (secondary school buddies, the familiar school grounds), being okay with the temporary discomfort of the new, and then realizing that things have permanently changed and being able to accept and adapt to that change.

 

Most of us are able to navigate the changes that come our way with the help of friends and family and some patience and perseverance. For me, I knew it was important for me to talk to my friends and also keep up my daily exercise routine so I don’t feel that everything has changed.  3 years down the road and I”m glad to say that I now know where everything is (almost everything…sometimes I still don’t know where S02 is), the daily commute is less of a chore and I’m happy here at YJ.

 

Some of us have a harder time with managing change and that’s when it’s important to have your coping strategies in place and know the available resources that you can turn to.  Perhaps what you need is also more time and more patience. If it will be helpful to you, you can also talk to your form teacher and come and look for me to find out more about coping strategies.