What Ifs

Recently, I have been thinking a alot of what if-s. Like what if I never met my previous clique, would I have been happier? But in my previous post, I talked about how I realised I don't actually want to change anything that happened to me in the past. Today, once again, I realised just how much my life would have changed if I had changed something in past (provided that I could lah).

So, Arts Rag 2017 needed us to publicise Rag to the next batch of freshman and required us to post a photo on insta sharing our experience or thoughts on our own rag experience. And suddenly, I started to reflect on my life if Rag never happened to me.

"If Rag never happened..."

I would not have continued to dancing. I think I mentioned it somewhere before. Right before rag, I actually wanted to give up on dance because I was really scared (one, I was afraid I may permanently injure my body and two, I was afraid to face the fact that I'm no longer as good in dance as I was before my injury). But I still joined it because I didn't want to join too many camps and I wanted to make friends before entering university through an event (my personal preference lah, I feel like friendships forged during a long term event usually last longer than those forged during camps). End up, rag reminded me of my passion for dance and my pure thirst for my personal development. I was reminded that my satisfaction stems from my personal improvement, regardless of where I start from. This then resulted in me continuing on to join the various dance auditions.

I would not have met Tianran and other close hall friends. I joined RHMP and Rhdance because they were dance related so if I didn't join rag and have given up on dance, I would not have joined these CCAs. Without these CCAs, I would not have met my circle of friends in hall. And I probably would not have enough points to actually stay on for the next year.

I would not have done my major dance events (aka DU, Chingay etc). If I had not joined dance CCAs, I would not have gone through these events and actually first-hand experience that wonderful sense of satisfaction of completing a performance. And I would have forgotten how it feels like to work hard and gain that sweet sense of achievement on stage.

I would not have tried choreographing. I think one of my major progress in my dance journey was being given an opportunity to choreograph. Choreographing is very different from just purely dancing. It forced me to grow in ways I never knew I could. Without my first opportunity of choreographing, I'm pretty sure I would not have felt confident enough to pursue other opportunities to choreograph.

I would not have gotten so much closer to Zile and Jianing. They are literally my closest friends in NUS and actually my entire social circle now. If I had not gotten into rag, I probably would have stayed in contact with Zile but we wouldn't be this close because we didn't go through a lot of the shit we went through together in rag. If I had not gotten into rag, I definitely would not have even stayed in contact with Jianing. After nydance, Jianing and I barely talked. But it's because of Arts Rag, I actually then got to know first hand that she moved into RH and then actually made the effort to make sure she you know settle smoothly.

If Rag didn't happen, I would not have a dance journey anymore and my life in NUS is probably going to be a boring one for uni is really a tough place to make friends. So thank God I chose to join rag.