Gone Are The Days

Gone are those days where i've got to wake up early to catch the school bus.
Gone are the days when i had to stand in an assembly every Monday morning.
Gone are those days that i dreaded; the two important exams.
Gone are the days where i enjoyed the canteen Makcik nasi lemak sambal cair and her keropok.

I must admit that i hated my schooling days so much so i sympathised with those school going kids. Not like i would discourage my offspring to think like me but it's just my personal feeling towards school.
The worst was during the early primary years.
I was very timid, shy and skinny girl.
I still remember damn well, how i didn't wanna stepped down from the school bus when it reaches the school compound. The pakcik driver got to go for the second and final round thus he let me sit in.
Finally, when it reached the school for the final drop-off, i saw my father jumped at the bus door.
He didn't get a day off (unlike many children enjoy nowadays), so he rushed during his lunch break to see me at school. I came down heavy heartedly.

You know, during those late 70's, going to pre-school is a luxury.
With seven siblings and single breadwinner to feed the family, im not granted those luxury in life. Thus making school a very alien place for me.

I remember within few weeks after school started, i found a friend.
Because of my personality, i stick to her and she sticks to me and we became good friends. However, it ended in Primary 2 when her dad got to be transfered to another state due to work.
From then on until now, i didn't make any good friends. Just friends.

Despite being what i am at that time, i was also a bit of a bully.
I remember we got this girl in our classroom(she is skinnier than me) and she'd be my 'assistant' to buy air batu or keropok at the canteen during recess time. And there are times that i made her tie my shoe lace too... it is bad, but it never failed me laugh and after 20 years, in fact i can still recall how she looks like.

Being brought up and schooling in Petaling Jaya where majority of my peers are of different race and mostly came from well to do background, i was however being cornered with emotional disposition particularly low self-esteem most of the time.

I must say that primary school and teachers are the start of one person's cultivation in life.
It has direct and indirectly impact to one's outlook at life; at least for the first half of the 12 years. It thought me the meaning racial competitions at a very tender age, striving for betterment between the better, besides keeping up with my social surrounding.

Most of the time until i finished my secondary, i always have this 'quiet battle' within myself.
It made me a very moody person while in secondary, like to be alone and only feel comfortable within small circle of friends.
I must say that although in all girl's school, a lot of people wanted to be my friends. One of the reason might be my a bit of 'comel' look, and i was a bit of the soft spoken type, ladylike, they'd call it (then....).
Nevertheless, I always questions myself on why things are like this or like that.

Why cant it be like this or that. Its always why, why and why....i never found the answer until when i am in my mid 20s.

But those incidences in school are the base of me and those early life at work that thought me most in life; and what you'd be if you're weak and follow the norm.
A rebellion i was until im late in my 20s, but those are the composites of me and made me what i am today.