The visit itself wasn't much to write about; I arrived at 9 with JJ, spent an hour touring the mostly empty and desolate school, and then spent one and a half hours in the library listening to the new principal run his mouth, because all principals have to, apparently. But, for very personal reasons, that trip was simply... astounding (sorry I'm really tired and I've procrastinated too much to wait till I'm feeling better to write this and I don't want to forget any more).
It's... a very weird feeling I get when I set foot in the school. Perhaps "weird" isn't the best description, simply because the word "weird" clashes with how at ease and "at home" I feel in the school, so much so to a weird extent. It's been nearly seven whole years since I last donned that familiar looking uniform and been in those locked classrooms with actual business in there, and yet the sense of familiarity was so strong, everything in the school looked and felt exactly the same as I would've pictured it in my head. I'd still instinctively arc my spine backwards on those cheap, bendy plastic chairs to rest my upper back on the protruding back rest, and the stair railings have that same rusted off, painted over rust, then flaked off, wrinkled feel when I run my fingers over them; sensations I'd have long forgotten about had I not experienced them again, which will remind me of how far away from forgetting them I am. It's small, little details like that I never thought I paid any attention to, but were shockingly clear in my memory when I experienced those little things again after seven long years. I don't think people in their day to day lives gave a damn about their surroundings more than the task at hand, so it surprises me that these little things, I remember so vividly. There is a very surreal sense of tranquility, watching, being in, experiencing the stage where all my demons spawned and personal hell began, yet completely devoid of life or anything going on. All that was left to feel were the standout works of the teenagers that have replaced me hanging off the walls, or in little nuances like a handmade, gaily painted recycling box with ants all over it.
Something that was asked of us by the principal really shocked me into a mind blank state. We were asked to write on two pieces of paper what were our best memories of SKSS, and what we want for it in the future. It's only when I was asked for my best/ favourite memories of SKSS do I realise, holy fuck, what good memories do I have? Every damn day in those four years of my life, it's one type of hell or another, sometimes even multiple hells merging together. It was either bullying, love problems, grades, betrayals, self denial, endless angst... And my mind going blank at that point ironically raised more questions: why the hell am I even here? Why am I among the, what, ten or so graduates of class 2010 that were even there? Why do I love that place so much? Why do I not love my Primary School, Poly, or even slavery places that much? What made this so special?
I still can't answer any of that. My best guess right now is that it carried a lot of conflicting traits and emotions that simply wasn't possible at any other stage in my life: where I was starting to develop an adult's way of thinking, but still had the waning innocence to enjoy life and make lifelong friends with. It was a time when, no matter how bleak the future might've looked, and how hard we were always told to work to minimise the suckage of said future, we never really did worry about it. It felt to me like a time when I could "be happy just for being alive". Or perhaps it's where I lost something very, very important to me, and I still am looking for it, not knowing what it is.
I almost feel as if this is the distilled version of the teenage life I should've gotten, in that quietly enthusiastic, cold and deserted school. Yet somehow, just being there, I so naturally and instinctively put on my angry, bad boy mask that I didn't even realise it until I met some people near the library who smiled at me out of courtesy. Only when attempting to smile back to them did I realise I have my nastiest scowls on my face as per my 2010 self, and it took a hell of a lot of effort just to unscrew that scowl off and return a smile back. I was brisk walking, scowl on face, and earphones in just to complete that wholly unapproachable, "don't fuck with me, I will ruin your life" look I felt I needed back then. It felt as natural as breathing to me, to the point where I don't even realise I was actively doing it.
Just being there, while I enjoyed it, I instinctively put on my angry, fighting face to protect myself and to prevent myself from showing my true emotions. Just being there makes me feel angry, and somehow that anger settles and calms down something else inside me, I don't know what. I was angry, I was cold, I was a hardass, yet I was more than willing to help if a student were to approach me to ask for help. I was just a conflicted mess back then, and, evidently, even now. You ever get that feeling when you don't even know enough to start asking questions about the things you don't know about? That was how I felt back in school.
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Had a bit of free time near NP. After that sentimental yesterday I thought it'd be cute if I came back here to eat at discounted student prices as a 25 year old van driver going nowhere in life. Spent about half an hour circling this hellspawn on a place, couldn't find parking. Like, Jesus, since when were students and lecturers that rich? What the hell did I do with my time here if there is such wealth (and rooftop sex!) to be had?
Driving a van and all, I decided to pass off as a delivery driver and park in a loading/ unloading bay. Walked over to the Poolside canteen to find that Mos Burger is no longer there! The hell did I spend half an hour and fifty cents in parking for?! I remember there was a time I was very bitter about losing Cypy as well back then, and I remember going to dine at Poolside's Mos Burger in reminisce of the times we had together.
But, wouldn't you know it, Mos was replaced by some type of economic rice stall. I then sighed in resignation as I drove my van to the School of Business and Accountancy to have Pepper Lunch, knowing I'll probably oogle at underage girls in tight formal bandage skirts, leggings and klop klop shoes, while envisioning them growing up to be a callous, angry, entitled, spoiled, spiteful gold digger like Cypy (HOO BOY I am just a bitter can of worms aren't I?).
But, wouldn't you know it, Pepper Lunch was gone as well! In fact, it seemed like every major food chain that was ever in NP sought the mental help they needed and once they recovered from their insanity, collectively decided to pull out of the school. I remember buying Jolli Bean drinks and then trekking all the way to the School of Engineering with it, only to suffer from my own lactose intolerance (worth it tho), but that was gone as well.
Being somewhere around 1130 when I placed my order due to half an hour of meandering around the hills of NP, the canteen for the rich and fabulous (I forgot its actual name) was rather desolate. So desolate in fact, that the store I ordered from didn't even have a cashier attending to customers... unless I'm to believe that the young Malay sitting one leg up on a stool playing games on his phone and doesn't know that greeting people is part of the job to be the attendant. Hard to believe, given that he's cocky enough to tell me "好了 (it's ready)" in Mandarin, but dumb enough to screw up my order. I ordered spaghetti with sausages and an add on of fries, and, I must say, NP has the shortest and least flexible spaghetti in existence. So much so they could rival rice in their length!
Oh, NP, don't ever change. Why is it so hard to find anything that works properly in that hellhole?
Blah, whatever, I'm on a job schedule and I've already wasted most of my free time Takahashi Keisukeing up and down the hills, so I'll take it. Meal in hand, I went about looking for tables to sit at, as you do when you have a meal on a tray. A habit I've formed from always eating alone is that I like to find a table for two, since taking up a whole table for four or eight just seems like a jackass move, don't you think? Besides, if a group is desperate enough, they'd just sit at the table you've already sat at, and then you have to deal with the awkward situation of being in the vicinity to hear every word of the conversation and see half the people talking, as if you're part of the group conversation, yet you're not part of it, making you feel like a roadblock or an inconvenience, like the transmission tunnel in the rear seats of a car. It's always going to get stared at. People will always wish it wasn't there. It might even get stepped on and kick- okay maybe that's going a bit too far for the lunch table thing. You get the point though, right?
Once seated and eating, everything just sort of fell into place: The cheap plastic tables and flimsy chairs that could feasibly bounce if you threw them right, eating cheap, dubiously cooked, plasticky food alone, watching the guy next to me stare at his laptop alone... every set piece sort of fell into place, or rather, I settled down into a live set piece and watched the show from within the show, almost. A very nostalgic loneliness began to wash over me. It was as of I had somehow reconnected to my old self. A sense of loneliness, a bitter taste of misery, and an insufferable sense of lacking, from having a dream way too big, having no earthly idea of how to achieve them, and expecting way too much. I was a student fresh from Secondary School. I was 17 to 19. So was almost everybody else around me. Yet I have always felt so alone. I have always felt like the oddity. I don't say this in blame of my classmates; they were wonderful people who made every reasonable effort and sometimes beyond to connect with me; it was entirely my fault that I wasn't ready at the time for making new friends. I think I knew something was wrong. Everyone around me could see that something was wrong. I was failing tests and exams, I frequently had temper tantrums and tearful breakdowns. I always pushed people away and had a holier-than-thou attitude while having nothing to show for it. But no one knew what the hell was going on. No one could put a finger on what exactly was wrong with me; not even myself, which made it hard for me to see and know I needed some type of help back then, let alone know which kind of help. Regardless, I wish I had sought SOME type of help back then. Just having someone you trust enough to talk to can be all the difference in the world sometimes. Maybe I wouldn't feel so alone and odd. Maybe I could've taken something positive away from those three years here.
Perhaps it wouldn't be fair to say that I didn't gain anything from my time here, because being where I didn't belong for three years taught me the value of loneliness. It taught me how alone we all are as adults. It taught me how fleeting and aesthetic friendships can be. How friendships can be rather unfeeling stepping stones and symbiotic in nature, easily dropped when the need expired, in contrast to the warmer, truer to the heart, more naïve type I had a few of in Secondary School. It taught me that no one but yourself would be invested in your own interests and well being. It taught me that dreams, goals, are all just advertisement fodder, and unless you can achieve something news worthy to market themselves with, schools really don't give a shit what you want, even if you're paying organ amounts of money for what they call an "education". It was a hell of a shock to me back then. It makes sense to me as a grown ass adult - a grown ass adult that has learned painful lessons from NP, but a grown ass adult nonetheless - but a part of me still wishes things were different. A part of me wonders still if I could've done anything differently. A part of me still wonders if it was just bad luck in a bad place, or if it's entirely my fault that I'm still no closer to achieving what I want so badly it bleeds well into need territory, now that I'm a grown ass 25 year old adult. A part of me now wonders how I'd fair if I were to return to schooling now that I'm actually getting some professional mental help.
Pfft, who am I kidding. It's fucking NP's SOE. Most of the lecturers there can hardly speak English coherently. The school wherein lecturers walk out of a 2 hour lecture after twenty minutes of saying, "this one must learn by heart, this one confirm will come out one, this one twenty marks". The school that alternates between two sets of test papers every year, complete with the same questions and even grammar errors, just with changed numbers to wring through the same steps and formulae. The hell am I going to get out of there (OTHER THAN HOT ROOFTOP SECKS [I mean even then I don't even think I touched a girl in my time there {please help me I'm so lonely and going through a mid life crisis at 25}]).
After the visit, I could feel my heart split into two. I need to stop doing this to myself. I feel an inexplicable pain wash over me. I feel a sudden reversion to that crying and screaming me. Why do I keep doing this to myself? Do I miss you so much I'd settle for the pain of when I had you to call a friend?
