Jieyang passing time

And so it comes to pass that our time in Chung Ling High School is coming to an end. The many friends i’ve made will soon be going their own ways. Somewhere down the line i do hope that their paths will meet with mine. But hope as i might, the fact is that it is impossible that all my friends will remain as friends as the years pass. And the fact is that i may not ever meet any of them ever again.

At the beginning of high school, i thought that five years was a long time to have to spend in that school. I wished that it would all be over in a month or two. Looking back, i was naive and ignorant. Now with only a few days to our high school graduation, all the memories - the fond ones, the touching ones, even the sad and painful ones - float through my mind. And i can’t stop them. Surprisingly i don’t feel and anger at what happed before. I’m no longer angry at having my one week’s pocket money stolen when i was in the first form. And the happy memories only make me sad. It’s sad to think that in a few days, none of those can happen ever again.

It’s not only the memories of Chung Ling that run through my head. All the friends i’ve made from tuitions, gatherings, and parties will no longer be the same. They’ll have grown up. They’ll have gone away. They’ll be too busy to spend time with an old friend. They’ll be different. And so will I.
My classmates will be working or studying somewhere. My school mates will be off gallivanting. Some may have joined certain gangs or triads in Malaysia. I will no longer meet my tuition classmates on a weekly basis. No more teasing Soon Tian about going to the library. No more talking about Lee Ryan’s black kids. No more going to the night market for supper after tuition. No more. No more going to school to chat with Tai Lou about chinese idioms that he adopted as names for his special moves. No more "that’s a tactic" during PE. No more "xiang kar chin gao aneh wor" (as if you’re very smart). No more "Jarrod’s face". No more ghost stories. No more going to the back of the classroom to talk when the teachers teaching something boring. No more playing with Uno cards in school. No more bowing to total strangers. No more having Poh Fern ask about what i’m gonna do after SPM. No more having May Chin turn around to ask strange questions that i don’t see the signifance of until they explain it to me. No more peeking at Xing Yee’s handphone.

No more eating in the school canteen. No more going to school and listening to the songs with altered lyrics that i dislike so much. No more torturing classmates with the horrible singing of Soon Khen and Jieyang. No more cutting up bottle corks. No more celebrating Kee Wai’s birthday with grape wine. No more chin-ups on the classroom doorframe. No more helping Ghee Oon retrieve his comic book which he threw out of the classroom window onto the ledge just before spot checks.

A whole part of my life will soon be gone. Only a matter of days, and i’ll close a chapter of my life. Some call it starting a new chapter. I believe these are the people who choose to blind themselves with fake optimisticism. The way i see it, a part of my life has ended. The times i had can never be revisited ever again save in my mind. And my mind will someday fail. Even at my age people forget things. A lot of the 5 years of high school no longer reside in my memory. And even more of it shall fade in time. I shall miss these years. I finally understand what people feel when they say that if they can, they’d do something all over again. If I could, I’d live these five years all over again. And i would have no regrets.

Also in these five years was my short-lived career in fencing. After this year i shall no longer be with my fencing mates. The people i’ve grown so close to. The people i trained with for 2-3 hours a day 4 times a week. And now that my coach’s contract has been terminated, there is nothing to hold the team together anymore. Fencing was my life for 4 years. Now, thar part of my life is lost to me forever as well.

After this year, if i were to converse with my friends it will no longer be of the simple, unimportant matters that we talk about now. These light-hearted times shall be closed to me forever.

One of the saddest things of it all is that one of my best friends shall be leaving for a student exchange programme in Italy for two months right after our SPM exams. We were looking forward to hanging out with him after the exams. Now he’ll be away from Malaysia for 2 months. And it’ll be much longer than that till i get to see everyone again. I’ll be gone at the end of the year and will only be back in september next year. Too long. Way too long.

And so my friends, i know that most of you will not have the time to read my blog after this week as you’ll all be too busy studying. A lot of you have probably stopped using computers for a long time in preparation for the exams. And a lot of you will be too excited at your freedom after the exam to come online. And many of you will be too busy hanging out with buddies day in and day out. So I’d like to say now that whether we’ve had any disagreements, whether we’ve had and arguments, and conflicts, and misunderstandings, you are all dear to me. You have made my life what it was for the past 5 years and i will always think fondly of all of you. If ever you see me in the times to come, please do walk up to me and say "hello". And if there is any dislike between us, let it be forgotten. Let us not keep such feelings with us. And please keep in touch.

Thank you for making my life interesting. Thank you for all the wonderful times.

Chong Jieyang

(   now just for consistency:   )
Copyrighted 2005 Chong Jieyang
Hak Milik Terpelihara 2005 Chong Jieyang

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 15th, 2005 at 9:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.