once upon a time

Weds, 22Nov - 38days

My coursemate told me this, "mayb tey tot u hav always been the brighter ones amongst us, so mayb tey were expecting somting glamorous fr u"..this sentence kept ringing in my ears since last night. This is going to be a loooong post.

On my first day at college in Kampar, Ipoh, i barely spoke any cantonese cos all along i've been speaking english with my classmates. Eversince Std 1, i've always landed in top 3 classes. I could still remember the names of my classes & also the my class teachers. My results have been excellent thru out the years until F5, where my attention was diverted during my F5 major exam and my life has changed since then. I was accepted into a semi-government college in May'99. A day before the college starts, parents & xiao yi went to Kampar with me, to clean my room & set up wardrobe. When they left, i was alone with 3 other strangers in the house. My room consisted of 3 persons, while the master rooms was occupied by 4 girls. There were 10persons in one double storeys semi-d house. That was the first time i ever slept together with strangers. The next morning, 3 of us walked to the college, all registered in different courses. One of the lecturers was calling out names & courses. I was separated from my housemates, scared but still calm. I sort of regretted that i went to the chinese-ed college, i couldn't find any familiar faces and worse, everybody spoke in either Cantonese/Mandarin. Where are all the hokkiens & convent girls?

We were then sent to the college hall, it was so small & yet so crowded. There, i met a group of samseng-like guys (whom then became my coursemates and friends till now - the Batu Gajah gang). Imagine, whole life i've never mix with guys ( tuitions are not counted cos i was always late on purpose and my tuition teacher would always keep a place right in front of the class for me, together with other girls :p ). Then we had our orientation and i was divided into the same group as my housemate, which made me so glad. I couldn't participate well in group work cos i can't speak cantonese properly & of cos i was extremely shy (that time only). The only person i ever talked to were a few girls & my housemate. People only noticed me during talent time, where i gave them idea for stage presentation. Group members accepted my idea & i wrote the whole story line (since need to perform using english...hehehe) & even wrote the scripts for them all. A play where all the 19 of us got to participate and i of cos got to stay off the stage as narrator. Our group got 1st prize, thanks to me as the director & producer & narrator ;) Since that day, i was more comfortable and kinda of got used to the environment and frens. Everybody knew me as the girl who spoke good english. I was like "one eye jack in the kingdom of the blinds". Started to mix with more friends. Orientation lasted for one week & i was also selected as one of the candidates for Ms. Freshies. Didn't go for the audition cos i couldn't sing or act :p Shy shy again.

Life became better and my studies was going smooth except programming subject. Each semester i scored straight A's but a stupid B for programming, all the time. Got cursed i think. I was not meant for this course in the first place. All group presentation was done by me. English classes were the most fun among all others. The lecturers were so clicked with me. AP was my class rep. We girls were quite annoyed with him at first cos he was such a joker. Always late & irresponsible until i started to mix with him in my diploma second year. We became good buddy in the end, till today. My landlady spotted me & requested me to be her only daughter's english tuition teacher. RM60 per person (2 kindergarten kids), 1hour, twice a week. Easy money.

During my diploma second year, i was elected as emcee for new intake. AP was supposed to be my partner in crime, manatau he didn't want to commit....iskh!! But i wanted to give it a try, wat izzit like to be an emcee in front of all the students in my college. It was indeed a very successful event where i got to dress up. After the event, i started to mix with new freshies from new intake, a bunch of crazy gang who sang in the middle of the night at the padang opposite my rented house. A bunch of people who would walk to waterfall, a bunch of people who partied in their house once a while. Life started to become interesting. And my results was well maintained and graduated in Diploma with distinction, only 3 of us...LL, another girl & myself :D

Little did my coursemates know that my results dropped tremendously in KL. Was having very hard time to adapt to the college life in KL. Bad condition in college, useless admin, arrogant lecturers, tasteless cafeteria food, low maintenance toilets, ugly buildings, chinese-ed students, kiasu Penang coursemates. Stayed in hostel on twin basis. No water heater, no place to hang clothes, dirty toilets to wash clothes, no place to cook maggi mee. Life was miserable. Lecture halls was so big & there were only benches & narrow tables!! My study went down the drain. No more straight A's, no more distinction student. I even got B's for language subjects, what a shame. Exams were tough, pressure was high, coursemates were not helpful enough. I just graduated like all the rest, no longer as top student. Bad relationship with family members was like adding salt to wounded wound.

Got a job in Pg, work was okay & i lost touch with my major subject. Burden was off my shoulder. Though my first job is nothing to shout about, but at least i'm happy. No more worries, no more course work, no more competition. Life was peaceful, as there was no more commitment too. Until i met someone new.

My life was on roller coaster again. My working attitude changed. Previously, i went to work to pass time & for online chatting only. Now, i had to advance myself :p Haih, wat to do. I can't be lazy for too long. Started to take up more tasks, learn more things & be more competitive. Increment was good but not for long. So far, life is still smooth. On and off there will be cold war, hot war, silent war, silly war, etc. And the rest is history......as you can read from the blog entries below.

Guess the moral of the story?