It's true that there's a lot going through my mind now, just that I haven't gotten the opportunity to sit down, sort them out and most important of all, to scribble them down on paper. It feels so refreshing to be writing again. Maybe writing does in fact give me a kind of indescribable joy and the existent of an audience to read what I write is irrelevant. Okay, that isn't really true because the satisfaction I get from knowing that people bother to read about what goes on in my life and how I write about it. With an audience comes the drive to improve my writing but also forces me to cater my writings to attract the attention of the audience and pique their curiousity.
One of the things that have been going through my head is Xiaxue's blog (http://www.xiaxue.blogspot.com/). I've returned to read after I saw her on the talkshow on TV. I took a lot of last Sunday to read her blog. Not all of it, but still the way she writes and stuff manages to reach out to a lot of Singaporeans. She's a media student from SP now getting 15 000 or so hits a day. In the past I used to think that she thrived on controversy, rude words and probably puttin her face all over the blog. However, no amount of the above can now distract me from the fact that she is a person of substance and her writing is certainly impressive. It is simple, yet engaging and hilarious at times. It is so uniquely unpretentious - damn I'm beginning to sound like I'm promoting her blog, but that's just my way of writing.
It does help of course that we share a common past of being in RV. With it, I can understand some of the angst she was expressing when she mentioned that she might've screwed up her life. She described the life in RV, which had a unique culture of its own. Being the 2nd rank co-ed secondary school in the nation, the school's students had a lot to live up to. It was a school that accepted no mistakes from its pupils and there was something that caused many to come out of its walls rfeeling that their individualism was oppressed and they ended up avoiding entering JC because they were searching for a learning environment which allowed more creativity and less route learning.
I don't know where all these thoughts come from but I've always viewed (as my mother does) that my past in RV was something to move on from, not to be looked back at and essentially a waste of 2 years of my life. Of course, that couldn't be farther away from the truth. My most awkward adolescence was spent in that school, not totally unaccepted but it was a point of time in my life where I had no idea who or what I was going to be. I was 'popular' for being the guy with the most magazines in class, the first to remember the titles, artist and lyrics of new songs ie The Real Slim Shady and the latest on all gossip and news about singers et al. Of course I've not changed completely from there but I suppose I've grown into a more balanced individual and explored other things in life. I always thought at that point of time that I would be growing as a teenager but little did I know that my transformation was still in its infancy. I've learnt and grown so much since then.
Leaving the school left me bruised, down but not out. It didn't leave me with scars that's for sure because I've put it at the back of my mind for so long now that I CAN pretend that it never happened to me. Maybe at that point of time it was difficult for me so I did try hard to forget about it. I could still remember that it was the freaking eve of the new year that I had to stay at home and study for my 'entry examinations' into Sembawang Sec. However, that isn't quite the piont.
I've failoed to see that there were many things that came out of being an Rvians, even if it was only for 2 bloody years. Even though I was forcibly removed from the school, it still made me a proud/arrogant bastard to know that I've rubbed shoulders with the best and I had a PSLE score of 255 to get my ass in there. To date, my peers moved on to HCJC or NJC and although I'm 'only' in NYJC, there's never beena moment when I'd feel intimidated when faced with competing against those people in 'A' level results, getting a course which I wanted to get into Uni, or even if it was going up against their entry for SYF with my HO juniors. The hype or name they have built up for themselves do not scare me. To say that I am completely unafraid would have been bullshit but I'm ready to look at any of them straight in the eye and say 'Bring it on.', I don't care if they become the people of 'high society' in the future. All I know for now is that when I'm willing to push myself to the extent that I must get what I want, they don't have that kind of advantage over me and we'd fight for a place in this society on 'equal' footing in spite of all back ground and external influences.
TBC.
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