Saturday, May 01, 2004
I have a funny feeling I'm only seventeen this year.
I have a funny feeling I disappeared behind my darned cool sunshades one 2001 morning and never came back till Form Four.
I have a funny feeling 2001 I simply ceased to exist.
I have a funny feeling I lost my personality in Form 3. In short, I moved school in Form 3, to All Saints, where if you're a novice, try blending in. Or, try watching pigs fly.
That year I know I pissed an absolute majority, if not two-thirds, of people off. By...doing nothing. By allowing myself to grate on everyone else's nerves on the way to bengkel, after PMR, during class painting, and on International Understanding Day, which FYI I didn't EVEN participate in.
That year I lost the bubbly me I had painstakingly developed throughout 2000, Form 2, the best year of my life, one that will always remind me how I used to trust the male sex and how the male sex used to trust me and how I used to terrorize the back alleys of Tshung Tsin with a formidable male clique and how I used not to be afraid of speaking my mind out loud and lawan cakap cikgu in class and leading the back-row-alpha-male rebellion every History, Geography and Art class and singing jiwang boyband music at the top of our voices throughout said classes and not giving a shit about it and saying shit whenever shit needed to be said and watching it all disintegrate before my very eyes as life dealt me a cruel blow emotionally and screaming soundlessly.
That year I had my pick of personalities - one day I was cerebral Nicholas Pang spouting names of digestive enzymes, the next I was Gan leading my pack of boys to the canteen, another I was Thong all responsible and grown-up, yet another I was Jaslyn all sweet and all smiles and all chatter and the life and blood of the birthday party, again I was Singh wacky and bubbling with misplaced sarcasm...
Tears cloud my eyes as I realise what I left behind.
And more tears trickle down my cheek as I realise that if I had not left all that, all the baggage of my childhood behind, I would not have grown up to be the focused young individual I am today, independent in spirit, always eager to do my best and beat the world, determined to beat the odds stacked against me and fight for what I love and cherish.
But it all pales as I realise that through it all, I learned to love. Through it all, I learned to care and to feel and to heal and to touch the hearts of others in ways beyond their imagination, to emphatize and connect and
Let's face it - I hated my Form 3. I HATED the whole concept of going to school and was insistent in dying a slow death of air pollution and heatstroke (two fans: 50 students).
Today, the paradoxes remain. I find it hard to convince the people who first knew me in Form 3 that I DO have a normal self and would like to stop being stuck-up and haughty and arrogant and a host of other nasty adjectives, thank you. I cannot keep up this act any more. My old self is winning, slowly, gradually, with the added advantage of maturity on my side. I wanna let go. I wanna be...good old me.
But there's a soft of mental barrier to breach, a little voice with a pseudonym in my head telling me at all times, you'd better shut up because no one the hell's listening to you anyway. Scream if you wanna go faster. No one's listening anyway. No one likes your crass and your genteel speech patterns and the way you put everyone else down. No one likes you dammit.
I dunno why I still feel like that after all these years. I dunno why.
But I'm happy now. I used to smile in photos when I was in Form 2. That TOTALLY ceased as events started picking and eroding and biting into my self-esteem and self-confidence, bit by bit, till all that was left was a misshapen plasticine blob naked on the terracotta tiles, waiting to be shaped and misshaped by anyone, anywhere at free will. But...for reasons best known to myself...by the end of Form 5, I was smiling in photos again. And I wasn't consciously smiling anymore. I wasn't flexing my face muscles to smile, smile, SMILE DAMMIT! I was SMILING because my innate nature was now to SMILE.
"So petty and emotional of him to see that as a major turning point in life," you may snigger. My say - To each man his own. I pick my own little route markers and milestones in life. You disagree, fine. It's your right, and I won't take your right to disagree with me away. I'm only accountable to myself and for my own actions. But I found that a
Maybe it's true that there's no moment like the present, but no lesson like the past. Maybe it's true that though the ghosts of your past may linger in the horizon, all they can do is haunt you silently as you take that brave baby step to live one day at a time, to savour one day at a time, to be happy, NOT with what you have, but DESPITE what you don't have.
I know my Form 3 did not go to waste. It was a little sacrifice in pursuit of the bigger picture. One that today has defined what I love and who I cherish. One that today reminds me that the world continues spinning slowly, time and tide waiting for no man, woman or child.
Time to...do my time and serve my sentence.
Aaron, I apologize for my refusal to talk to you in Form 3. Gan and gang, I know I was an arsehole back then. Please forgive me though it may be too late to salvage anything, first impressions being lasting impressions, I being expected to live up to my early stereotypes all my life. Adam, Chan, Khor, Lee, you guys were great guys. You guys kept me human that year. Gabriel, you rock.
I have a funny feeling I had no funny feelings throughout 2001.
Why do you ONLY start having funny feelings when the clock strikes twelve and everyone's sleeping and charging their phones and reproducing and you toss and turn and untoss and unturn and realise you have a funny feeling?
I have a funny feeling I disappeared behind my darned cool sunshades one 2001 morning and never came back till Form Four.
I have a funny feeling 2001 I simply ceased to exist.
I have a funny feeling I lost my personality in Form 3. In short, I moved school in Form 3, to All Saints, where if you're a novice, try blending in. Or, try watching pigs fly.
That year I know I pissed an absolute majority, if not two-thirds, of people off. By...doing nothing. By allowing myself to grate on everyone else's nerves on the way to bengkel, after PMR, during class painting, and on International Understanding Day, which FYI I didn't EVEN participate in.
That year I lost the bubbly me I had painstakingly developed throughout 2000, Form 2, the best year of my life, one that will always remind me how I used to trust the male sex and how the male sex used to trust me and how I used to terrorize the back alleys of Tshung Tsin with a formidable male clique and how I used not to be afraid of speaking my mind out loud and lawan cakap cikgu in class and leading the back-row-alpha-male rebellion every History, Geography and Art class and singing jiwang boyband music at the top of our voices throughout said classes and not giving a shit about it and saying shit whenever shit needed to be said and watching it all disintegrate before my very eyes as life dealt me a cruel blow emotionally and screaming soundlessly.
That year I had my pick of personalities - one day I was cerebral Nicholas Pang spouting names of digestive enzymes, the next I was Gan leading my pack of boys to the canteen, another I was Thong all responsible and grown-up, yet another I was Jaslyn all sweet and all smiles and all chatter and the life and blood of the birthday party, again I was Singh wacky and bubbling with misplaced sarcasm...
Tears cloud my eyes as I realise what I left behind.
And more tears trickle down my cheek as I realise that if I had not left all that, all the baggage of my childhood behind, I would not have grown up to be the focused young individual I am today, independent in spirit, always eager to do my best and beat the world, determined to beat the odds stacked against me and fight for what I love and cherish.
But it all pales as I realise that through it all, I learned to love. Through it all, I learned to care and to feel and to heal and to touch the hearts of others in ways beyond their imagination, to emphatize and connect and
Let's face it - I hated my Form 3. I HATED the whole concept of going to school and was insistent in dying a slow death of air pollution and heatstroke (two fans: 50 students).
Today, the paradoxes remain. I find it hard to convince the people who first knew me in Form 3 that I DO have a normal self and would like to stop being stuck-up and haughty and arrogant and a host of other nasty adjectives, thank you. I cannot keep up this act any more. My old self is winning, slowly, gradually, with the added advantage of maturity on my side. I wanna let go. I wanna be...good old me.
But there's a soft of mental barrier to breach, a little voice with a pseudonym in my head telling me at all times, you'd better shut up because no one the hell's listening to you anyway. Scream if you wanna go faster. No one's listening anyway. No one likes your crass and your genteel speech patterns and the way you put everyone else down. No one likes you dammit.
I dunno why I still feel like that after all these years. I dunno why.
But I'm happy now. I used to smile in photos when I was in Form 2. That TOTALLY ceased as events started picking and eroding and biting into my self-esteem and self-confidence, bit by bit, till all that was left was a misshapen plasticine blob naked on the terracotta tiles, waiting to be shaped and misshaped by anyone, anywhere at free will. But...for reasons best known to myself...by the end of Form 5, I was smiling in photos again. And I wasn't consciously smiling anymore. I wasn't flexing my face muscles to smile, smile, SMILE DAMMIT! I was SMILING because my innate nature was now to SMILE.
"So petty and emotional of him to see that as a major turning point in life," you may snigger. My say - To each man his own. I pick my own little route markers and milestones in life. You disagree, fine. It's your right, and I won't take your right to disagree with me away. I'm only accountable to myself and for my own actions. But I found that a
Maybe it's true that there's no moment like the present, but no lesson like the past. Maybe it's true that though the ghosts of your past may linger in the horizon, all they can do is haunt you silently as you take that brave baby step to live one day at a time, to savour one day at a time, to be happy, NOT with what you have, but DESPITE what you don't have.
I know my Form 3 did not go to waste. It was a little sacrifice in pursuit of the bigger picture. One that today has defined what I love and who I cherish. One that today reminds me that the world continues spinning slowly, time and tide waiting for no man, woman or child.
Time to...do my time and serve my sentence.
Aaron, I apologize for my refusal to talk to you in Form 3. Gan and gang, I know I was an arsehole back then. Please forgive me though it may be too late to salvage anything, first impressions being lasting impressions, I being expected to live up to my early stereotypes all my life. Adam, Chan, Khor, Lee, you guys were great guys. You guys kept me human that year. Gabriel, you rock.
I have a funny feeling I had no funny feelings throughout 2001.
Why do you ONLY start having funny feelings when the clock strikes twelve and everyone's sleeping and charging their phones and reproducing and you toss and turn and untoss and unturn and realise you have a funny feeling?
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