In 8 Days this week, Jason Hahn and his friends, Amanda and Saffy write letters to themselves. They were inspired by a book called Letter to My 16-Year-Old Self.

Here’s mine.

Dear Me,

You are a genius! You were so right when you told yourself at Sec. 2, that you do not have to take triple science at ‘O’ Levels to earn a living. You see, by the time, you grow up, the Americans and the rest of the world would have come up with something called the Internet. 90% of the population does not have to understand velocity and magnitude. Unless one becomes a scientist or a hawker, one does not need to know how a frog should be dissected either. And if they ever need to find out what the elements listed on the periodic table are, all they have to do would be to google it. Stop pointing out people’s spelling and grammatical errors like you always do! Google, in the 21st century, would first be known as a noun, and later a verb.

Forget about the sciences and humanities, but you ought to pay more attention in Mathematics. Understand the meaning of compound interest. Do not squander your earnings away. $ave money! $traighten your finger$ and hold them tight. You see the gap$ in between? It means that you’re a crazy $pender. You need to be more prudent in your finance$ hor.

And you really should do more sports. Stop feigning diarrhoea during PE. Run, lift weights, whatever. You’ll then be spared snide remarks about your weight. It’s a good thing you’re not short, else you’ll look like a giant meatball. Trust me, shed some flab, and you’ll look fab. And you’ll find yourself at the top of each and every eligible bachelor list, and not at the bottom of some lousy drain. Make that TWO lousy drains. Be on red alert mode every single time you approach a drain. Especially when you’re on Pulau Tekong or at Jurong.

A couple of years from now, an army mate will introduce you to someone. Ignore that invite. Do not go. I repeat, do not go. Stay at home and tidy up your room. (You’ll take three weeks before you’re done.) However if you do go out, and get your heart broken, do not ever try to write a song. You’ll regret it deeply once that awful memory is etched forever in history.

Some of your friends are attending career counselling sessions, and spending a whole lot of time deciding which post secondary institution to go to. You don’t waste time. Just pack your room. Everything will fall in place. Really.

Do not waste time in filling up the application form for a course in Mass Comms. You’re such a lazy ass, you won’t be able to complete all the tedious projects. You’ll find yourself in Business, one of the easiest courses ever. And because you probably accumulated enough karma in your previous lives, poly life will be a breeze. You won’t fail because you’ll have such an awesome bunch of classmates helping you at different stages. And don’t sweat over the occasional Cs and Ds. Your diploma isn’t going to help in your work later on. Not much lah.

Now, about work. You must remain ever grateful to the Universe. Just before you complete your National Service, someone will liberalise the media industry. That will turn out to be a bloody mistake. (Yes, someone will utter the words, “Both companies are bleeding.”) A vacuum will be created before they realize the error, and you’ll land yourself a dream job in a dream environment.

Astrologists have concluded that people born on 18 Sep are fiercely private people who have very public occupations. Kinda weird. And it gets weirder when people come to you for photographs. Those poor dears don’t have dimples as deep as yours, so do entertain every pic request unless you’re having a bad hair day.

You will talk for a living, but you must learn to shut up at appropriate intervals. There will be people scrutinizing your every sentence, and every movement. Do not give anyone the chance to sabotage you. And because you should not sabotage yourself, you must delete the Hokkien phrase Lim Beh from your vocabulary immediately. Just use I, me, myself, etc when referring to yourself. Either that, or you should have the Ministry of Education tell everyone that the phrase is crude at most, but certainly not vulgar.

While you’ll be really happy at your first job, you can always do with a contingency plan.

I want you to place bets for the following Toto draws.

28 Jan 08 – 2, 7, 11, 25, 29, 30

31 Jan 08 – 7, 12, 13, 17, 29, 38

04 Feb 08 – 3, 9, 19, 27, 43, 44

07 Feb 08 – 1, 3, 18, 27, 36, 37

Once you have millions of SGD in your pocket, I want you to donate a sum to charity. Then give some to your family. And buy a house at Sentosa Cove once the area is ready. It’s not because I want you to be neighbors with some wax figures or marine creatures. You’ll know why when the time comes.

Woohoo,

Me