Assalamualaikum! And good day to all.
The post title is in Malay but maybe I'll write this post in English (or maybe rojak as usual)
On 15th July, I visited my former high school, Sekolah Menengah Sains Bagan Datoh or famously known as SABDA.
To be really honest, I was quite paranoid, because it will be my first time travelling alone since I got back from Korea. In Korea, travelling is too easy, but in Malaysia, well, without proper planning, one can get into a lot of trouble.
The day prior, I was worrying on how am I going to safely arrive at my school without my dad sending me. The last time I went to SABDA alone was during my INTEC days, where I could easily go to SABDA by bus from Shah Alam to Teluk Intan. But I was in Tg Malim, and there were two options:
1. Stay at someone's house in Shah Alam for the night and leave for Teluk Intan the next day.
2. Take a bus from Tg Malim to Bidor and then from Bidor to Teluk Intan.
So without anyone to pick me up so we could carpool, I went with choice no 2. The paranoia? That I would be mugged or worse during my solo trip. Anything could happen, and I was REALLY paranoid. Then I started thinking about "why didn't I take self defense lessons?" and then planned to strap a knife around my calf so I could do the catwoman thing just in case someone tries something funny on me. (stupid kan?)
Abah wasn't happy either. He didn't like the fact that I was going alone, because well, I'm a girl, who didn't know taekwondo (remind me to take taekwondo lessons in Korea)
Long story short, I arrived at SABDA after a strenuous 4 hour ride of air-con bus, bus 'melompat-lompat', and taxi.
To be brutally honest, I was scared, heck I was terrified by the idea of coming back to high school. High school wasn't a breeze for me, it was probably one of the toughest times for me, on so many different levels. High school was a place where my confidence was probably the lowest, but my arrogance was the highest. I was afraid that all those bad memories, the teasing, the rough jokes, the ridicule, would flood back and come to haunt me when I did so well on repressing them after I graduated high school.
I think it did. Subconsciously that is.
When I first stepped into school grounds, I am 3 years older than before, on my way to success, and happier than I ever was (as far as I remember). A rush of pride settled in me, and I was like "I made it through high school, I got good grades, I am paving great paths for myself, and I got nothing to be ashamed of."
So the first thing I did was go to the bilik guru. Hehehe.
Okay, actually I went to the school's office first, but no one was there so I went to the teacher's room (read: bilik guru) and in our school there are two bilik guru. The first one, is the one I ALWAYS ALWAYS used to visit when I was in high school. My mentor's desk was there, my favorite teachers were all in the first bilik guru and I remember I used to hang out in the teacher's room for very long periods of time, stirring up trouble, causing chaos, talking and laughing with the teachers, doing extra work for teachers just because I was there. Now looking back, one of my best memories were always with my teachers. I love and cherish them and they were all so inspiring and so young and energetic and just full of ideas. They really cared about the students and they really knew how to attract our attention, and I personally felt their sincerity when they teach me, even though I was THE student who always ALWAYS slept in their classes.
Anyways, so I melepak at the bilik guru again, and all the familiar teachers said "Suka sangat melepak bilik guru, dah tak jadi student pun nak melepak bilik guru lagi." ahaha. I'm guilty. Talked with them again, laughed with them again, like nothing changed. Then marriage questions pop up, hahaha okay, too lazy to answer about that. cikgu2 ni. :3
After that, I went to tour around the school, then met Syaza Salem, Kamar Arief, Nadia and Khadijah. Everyone was like hey you've gotten (chubbier), and hey your hair kalahkan perempuan! haha. Again, the doubts that I had earlier about the bad memories came but I brushed them away. We are no longer snotty kids, we came as adults and I believed that I had to trust myself and my friends to behave like one.
So we toured around school, mencapub and our juniors, who are going to take their SPM this year, the juniors that are the most closest to us were all really happy to meet us. They had classes and we had to give talks after that.
So while waiting for 2:30PM to arrive, we went to meet teachers, catch up on latest news, yada yada yada.
After Zohor, I met my mentor again, Ustaz Rohimi, and he invited me to meet his wife and his son. It was around 2PM that time but I knew the juniors were going to be late, so Nadia and I went to Ust Rohimi's house. When we were in high school, Ust Rohimi was still a bachelor, so I didn't get to meet his wife until now. I played with his son, who is like the cutest little thing ever UGHHH and I was so glad he warmed up to me really fast.
Bla bla bla, and then we had THE TALK.
okay, so basically, it meant a lot to us that we could give this talk to the SPM candidates because they were the juniors who came in the same time we came in to the school. We were both pioneers, my batch was at that time, form 4 and they were form 1. We built the school together, when the school lacked staffs and teachers, and we sometimes had to become part time staff. I remember being a 'kerani tak bertauliah' and worked in the office, and we had to get by without text books, without computers, without proper facility because the school kind of opened prematurely. But anyways, our batch and theirs felt that it was part of our duty to ensure that the school would be recognized as an SBP that is excellent in all aspects.
There was approximately 15 of us, not much since most of our batch mates had classes and couldn't attend the talk. There were only two guys. So we introduced ourselves, and then Nabil started talking and he went on and on (and there was a part about love) and after that we were divided into teams.
Fortunately, I got my old class, Al-Biruni. There were 7 classes all together: Al-Battani, Al-Biruni, Al-Farghani, Al-Haitam, Al-Jazari, Al-Khindi and Al-Zahrawi. Battani and Biruni class are elite classes, battani being all boys and biruni being all girls. They were your creme de la creme (did I spell that right? whatever)
So they asked me questions, mostly about my life in Korea, and how to get the JPA scholarship and there I was telling them these stories about my incredible journey and in my head I was like "I have no idea how I got here!" and they expected that I did something incredible to earn such an honor like going to Korea or getting JPA scholarship and truthfully, the privilege just fell on my lap.
I didn't want them to be like me. Not in the sense I don't want them to get the scholarship, but I didn't want them to take things for granted. I was one of the lucky ones, I didn't study much for my SPM, I slept in classes, I rarely did homework, and still then Allah blessed me with a really good SPM result that I don't think I deserve. Then I got a scholarship, and not just any scholarship, a JPA scholarship! and not just to any country, South Korea, a country that I didn't even imagine going until at the end of form 5 because I liked KPOP then (guilty as charged)
There was one junior, and she said she wanted to go to Korea, and then I asked her, is it because she liked KPOP? and then she said no, not really. She likes engineering, and she likes KPOP and why not have both right? I was like right. I genuinely want her to be my junior, if she gets the spot, I will be in my 3rd year when they enroll in Language.
After the talk, we went to wash up and we had iftar in front of the guest house. Then we went to terawih and we talked some more, and every step I took was a rush of nostalgia for me. After terawih I visited the girls dorm and we chatted some more until it was lights out. I went back to the guest house, and slept, feeling tired yet satisfied.
Day 2 rolled around and we met more teachers, I gave them souvenirs from Korea, and I met my favorite teacher of all. Sir Sharin. Again, we chatted like nothing changed, he still teased me a lot, and I was afraid I didn't get to meet him because he was with his wife who just gave birth. But he was there, and he gave me all sorts of advice (mostly on how to find a potential husband ==;) since I'm older, and when I was in high school, he never actually taught my class, he wasn't even a teacher for form 4 or 5 students, but the things he taught me during high school and until now, I really cherish them. He insisted that I stayed for another day but I had to reject.
After that, we said our goodbyes to the teachers, the students and went back to our lives, our homes, again with rocky bus rides. During the 2 days 1 night, they all dug up the events that happened, we were going down memory lane, things I did, things I said, things that happened to me. Thinking about it again, most of them were very clear evidence of my immaturity, how I was very impatient, how I was very reactive, how very sensitive and emotional and a bit dramatic and how very very stupid I was when I was in high school. I laughed but then I doubted inside me that I never actually changed. I am still the immature, impatient, reactive, sensitive, emotional and dramatic girl I was 3 years ago. Which was one of the reasons I hesitated on going back.
People said that all the bad memories, the teasing, the crying, the ridiculed, the isolation, we were going to laugh back at them in the future, but that doesn't seem to be the case for me. I can't seem to shake the things that happened in the past, I fear they will haunt me forever.
Before I went to sleep, I said to my friends
"Nanti masa aku kawen, jangan citer zaman sekolah aku kat husband aku, nanti aku tak jemput."
Haha.
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Assalamualaikum.
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