Interpersonal Conflict.

Well, upon receiving Eric's comment (Thanks Eric!), I decided to do up another more appropriate post. Something more....interpersonal, I hope. Title sure makes a lot of difference!

To be more specific, I guess my previous post was just about a conflict. A conflict in general. I did know the stallholder for quite some time though. But I reckon our relationship wasn't strong enough for the conflict to be considered an interpersonal one.

I admit I'm spoilt for choice after accumulating so many interpersonal conflicts over the years. Yet, it just makes choosing one even tougher.

It was during the second year of my JC. The year before, I had joined Indian Dance as my CCA, despite having zilch dance background and the fact that I cannot dance for nuts. This meant double the effort from me as the other dancers had almost no problem picking up the steps. Effort inevitably meant time.

However, this was a huge problem for me. I had already flunked my first year very badly when I was struggling to balance my studies and CCA, especially since it was the year of our SYF (Singapore Youth Festival) competition. Being a professional procrastinator and slow learner certainly did not help.

Trainings got more intense and frequent. I'd be left with less than 6 hours at home everyday for having dinner, studying, sleeping and preparing for school. On top of that, because our batch saw too little new additions, I became part of the Exco. Apart from added responsibilities, higher commitment level was now expected of me.

My sleeping and studying routine was getting so drastically ridiculous that my aunts began voicing their concerns. Initially, I had assured them that after the competition ended, I would have plenty of time for that. Little did I expect another performance to pop up in the second year. Furthermore, being one of the Exco members, I had no valid reason to skip trainings. And honestly, I didn't want to.

But that ended up worsening the situation and straining our relationship. I'd practically go home every night utterly worn out. They'd add on with their brief nagging that would escalate into fierce exchanges which sometimes woke my grandparents up. We said tons of regretful and ugly things but I lost it when they demanded me to quit. I wasn't going to quit, not even when I was risking my place in school. I could see where they were coming from, and I knew it was my problem of poor time management, so I was forced to talk to my teacher about it.

Thankfully, I didn't have to quit eventually. I'm much more thankful that despite of all the horrible things we've hurled at one another in a fit of pique, the strain proved to be a strengthening bond ultimately.

Yet, looking back sometimes, I can't help but wonder, how could things have been different?