Twenty-one. yep, as of today, 2 decades and a year have passed since I was brought into this mortal world. for most ppl, birthdays are fun because it’s the time for parties, birthday cakes and presents. although I do enjoy some of those stuff, for me, I consider my birthday as a time for me to take a look back and reflect upon the many things that have happened in the course of my life up to the present. the things I’ve done...the goals I’ve reached... the moment of realization of the many things I’m proud or ashamed of. so many memories... so fast how everything just went by...
as I sit before the computer, typing away endlessly on the keyboard, my mind suddenly wandered off to the memory lane. thoughts of the past filled my head. looking back at the many glimpses of the long-forgotten days, I then returned back to the real world and immediately asked myself: “what have I actually accomplished in these 21 years?”. is it any of the major exams (UPSR,PMR,SPM)? no...coming here to the United States maybe? no, that’s not it...perhaps... the greatest achievement in my whole life may just be the attaining of the level of English proficiency which I possess today. yeah, yeah...I know it may not be as high as some gifted/talented ppl, but hell... I personally never thought I’d be considerably adept at writing, let alone converse in the goddamn language. I still couldn’t believe it myself. here I am, sitting and typing in a language I truly hated to death 14 years ago. oh, the irony of life at its finest. so many years have passed and so many things have changed...
FLASHBACK(circa 1990: the primary school years) I hate her. period. she is such a bitch. I would love nothing more than to set up an appointment between my white Bata sneakers and my English teacher’s ass. she’s always humiliating me in front of the class, telling everyone how terrible my writing is and how lazy I am. damn you vile woman!!! every now and then, she just had to drag my second eldest sister, one of her star students, to my classroom to lecture me. everyday, I’d go back home crying… swearing and cursing her...hoping some maniac w/ a leather mask and a chainsaw would come to school and simply decapitate her to pieces. I always tell my mom how I much I loathed both my English class and the teacher. especially the teacher. school seemed like hell just by her presence. to me, English is the language/subject of the devil. THE DEVIL!!! and she’s the unholy advocate!! the sinister hag who is forever finding faults with me. I hope you burn in hell you damn witch!!!....
fast forward to the present... I never actually got to thank her. Puan Satilah Abdullah. better known to some as Ning Baizura’s mom. my very first English teacher. I never thought that she, a person whom I once despised with all my heart would become the very person responsible for grooming me into what I’ve become today. I never knew what really happened, but everything just changed...the one I thought to be the devil’s advocate ironically became my mentor, my guide. she made me realize my own potential, boosting my morale and praising my gradual, albeit slow improvements. by the end of the year, I was already participating in various English story-telling and poem-reading competitions. she even got me one of the major roles in our school drama. sadly, in the later years of my primary school days she had to leave to help propel her daughter’s then blossoming music career, but by then, I was already able to stand on my own. my level of proficiency had also drastically improved. from there onwards, it was simply an ongoing, never-ending journey of enhancing my mastery of the very language I once thought a bane to my existence and the rest is history…to this day, I am still amazed how all of this happened... thank you Puan Satilah…
some of the memorable moments of my life happen to be on my birthdays. the first had to be the big birthday bash I had in high school. it was back in Form 5, abt 5/6 months away before the SPM exams. there were seven of us, ‘Gemini Boys’, and we decided to host a big birthday party for the whole batch. days earlier invitation cards were sent out (they actually looked more like wedding invitations, complete with our names, flowers and even a map of the location) and on the day itself, sometime in mid-June, the seven of us forked out abt RM100 to get fried rice + chicken + egg + soft drinks and a goliath-sized birthday cake to serve a 110 or so ppl. it was great. I remember cutting the cake for everyone and since I couldn’t find any knife, I just used a long-ruler instead (ingenious no?). sure, some of the presents I got were just plain weird (I got a test tube containing some gel, obviously something from our biology class) but it’s not everyday a guy gets to celebrate his birthday with more than a 100 of his schoolmates. ahh...those were the days.....
the next was on was June 8th 1999. about a month earlier, the school’s English debate team (comprising of Hafidz, Nasri and myself) broke a decade-long record of reaching the semi-finals in the Prime Minister’s Cup Debate Competition (PPM). although we broke a record and made it far, we finally had to submit to the might of the STF girls. we lost and it was terrible. I had nightmares abt it. and just when things couldn’t get any worse, on the fated day of my 16th birthday, a friend told me that the Senior Assistant of Academic Affairs wanted to see me. I thought he was only joking, but a teacher later confirmed it. oh crap. I’m screwed, big time. what kind of offence did I do which required me to see one of the head honchos of the school? as far as I can remember, the only major offences I did in high school were skipping a sports event (I overslept and nobody woke me up) and wearing a dark blue socks instead of black (you read that right and yes, I actually got caned for it). I was already miserable abt the previous month’s loss and now I’m abt to face an bigger problem. ah hell...
it shocked me. still holding the piece of faxed paper from the Ministry of Education, the Senior Assistant just stood there and asked me what I thought abt it while I was still trying to comprehend the whole situation. I thought it was some bad joke, but it couldn’t be. sure some of the teachers loved to play pranks on the students, but not at this high level of administration. the words printed on the paper was clear. the name on it was unmistakably mine. I was chosen to represent the country to some world conference in Paris, France in the next 4 months. holy shit!! me?? what the hell??!! is that even possible??? has Hell frozen over?? were there platypuses flying out of my butt??? what were the guys at the Ministry of Ed. thinking?......... but that was it. the best ‘birthday present’ in my entire life.
and last but not least, the memorable birthday surprise I had last year. it was during the previous summer, while I was hanging out at jimmy & nublie’s place before I got my own apartment. it was midnight and I was surfing for porn or sth (can’t remember) when jimmy suddenly entered the room with a seemingly disturbed, stern face. he called me out to the living room and I thought he wanted to show me sth over the window. jimmy’s known for his pranks like telling ppl that there’s a naked police man outside the window and somehow we’d all eventually fall for it and actually peek out to see any copper in the buff, so naturally I was kinda skeptical. to my utter surprise, the guys then burst from the door carrying a birthday cake and my jaw just dropped as I was in complete disbelief. definitely one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.
yeah, birthdays are fun. another year gone and I’m already another year older. but more importantly, it also means I’m a year closer to winning my bet (to those in the agreement, you have 7 years left. I strongly suggest that you start saving your money because we all know who’s gonna win in the end). and since now I’m 21, I’m officially an adult and that means I can finally go to strip clubs!!! wohoo!! Vegas, here I come!!!
“Twenty-one years...only two words...but to live, it is a long time...”
