A Story of Myself (Part 5):
My Early Teenage Life
By the year of 1979, in my wildest dream, I got news that makes the whole community in my quiet village to jump at their feet. I was selected to pursue my studies to other side of my country sponsored fully by the state foundation because of the excellent result that I have for my primary school exam. Why did I say the other side of my country? Malaysia is a nation where three of the state is situated at the Borneo Island, while another 10 state is situated at the Malay Peninsula. So the movement of the people between the three state to the Malay Peninsula or vice versa is only by air or by sea.
This memory is the sweetest memories that I have when my age of childhood turn to a teenager. My parents, as any other parents are so proud of my achievement that they decided to make a party before I go to my new school. One week before my departure, my father and me startsearly from our village to report myself to the state foundation which is in the state capital city, that is about 3 hours journey by bus.
This is my second time to the state capital. My first was whenI'm in primary five, in a program of the army when all the boys in primary five student of my school spend a week in an armycamp in the state capital.
After all the procedure of reporting at the state foundation hostel, my father bid farewell to me. He gave me RM10.00 note for my pocket money. To me, RM10.00 is a lot, although I later found out it's not, and I also found out that some new friends I met have more than RM300.00 as their pocket money.
When I think back of this sweet memory, it made me smile to myself. On the day of my first ever using a plane, the feeling of excitement is so great that I don't mind what attire or how my appearance look like, the most important to me is I can fly in a plane, and of course this is the wildest dream I ever thinkof at that time. On that wonderful morning, I dress myself as smart as I could. I wear a nice new colorful shirt which my mother had bought for me, a new short too, and a nice adidas look a like rubber shoes, which happen nowadays people use it to go to the farm. All the new friends that fly with me that morning, smile when they look at me, and of course I will gave them the widest smile I can give, not knowing that the attire I wear that morning look awkward to them. I was so naïve to know.
This memory has really given me an impact of how I see people and how I gave judgment when people gossip or provoke me. It really hard to try to erase this memory because it has the good and bad effect in terms of my mental strength to face the challenges of trying to dress myself in any formal function that I need to attain.
