My name is Jina Wickmann, I am half Korean and half Danish. I have lived in Singapore for the past 10 years, 5 of them spent at UWC East. I have been studying at international schools my whole life, so I have been able to develop with multicultural people like me. Through early years of school, I found that I never took it too seriously, and enjoyed the small moments every day. Moving into my first year of high school, I have begun to realize the importance of those small moments I have gone through in the past, and not taking them for granted. As well as making more of them as I continue my schooling. The unrealistic plans I made for myself when I was younger are beginning to fade, and now I try to see my future from a more practical viewpoint.
I find myself not being set on a particular area of expertise. I feel as though I am able to do many things well, but not to the point of it being the only thing I focus on in my day to day life. For example, I have enjoyed drawing and painting my whole life, being surrounded by it from my family, and I still continue to draw and paint now. I find that it is something I am ‘good’ at, although it is a subjective topic, but never to the point of it having to be framed or shown to many people. The same goes for my running ability, I have always been a fast runner, but never to the gold medal or first place, and the same for academics. This has led me to have a very open mind about my future, I have no idea of what I will be doing in 10 years time, just hopefully doing something I enjoy while challenging me.
A very large part of me is also the fact that I am not very outspoken, nor have I ever been. Being an introvert is not something I wish to change, because I enjoy the close circle of friends that I trust and value alone time. I consider myself a very closed person, which makes it hard for me to trust other people. I like doing things that require my knowledge, although I understand that group work is also important. That said, even though I am an introvert, I often do have strong opinions, and will often try and persuade the person disagreeing. In the 5 years spent as UWC, I have found myself being able to call myself an ambivert, being able to get out of my comfort zone and make new friends. One of the important things that I hope to take on with me in the future for as long as possible, is to make sure that I am challenging myself, even though I may be uncomfortable with it. I think there is a line that separates ‘too much’ and a healthy amount of challenge. I need to be able to push my personality to live up to its full potential while staying true to the person I want to be.
My approach to the future and whatever I become is a very relaxed path. I have always been too much of a perfectionist and worrying in situations where I just need to loosen up. I would rather approach life as a learning journey than an obstacle, no matter how much it may frustrate or anger me.
“The conception of perfection exists only so that we have something to strive toward: Impossibility is built into it, which it why we call it perfect instead of extremely good”
- Jennifer Egan, from the book “Manhattan Beach”
Nice one! You included your own perspective which was the point, and you presented yourself as an ambivert which was very interesting. Really cool. – Margaud