This is Me: Take 1

Today, I set up my stall at the intersection of Reminisce Road and Appraise Avenue. For some unknown reasons, I walked past my usual haunt right in the middle of Reminisce.

All this time, I regaled my friends with stories of school, of childhood, and a little on what growing up was like at home. Whilst experience shapes a person, I couldn’t attribute everything about me directly to it. So, what am I like, really – with or without experience in the equation?

Peaches playing in the background.

Let’s start with music. Something I appreciate (composition and talents) yet deaf when it comes to making music. I guess I’m more inclined to studying the words and meaning of a song together with the mood set by the melodies. Preference-wise, I’m nearly an all-inclusive but it very much depends on my ears. If I say I’m into slower, relaxing ones, I have many power ballads scattered among my playlists. Heck, I even enjoy Green Day!

I remembered being called “old” for my choice of music and the radio station I tune in to every time I drive. So I suppose you get what I meant. This leads nicely to my first persona. Note: I didn’t just grab these adjectives out of the hat. It’s what I’ve been told and affirmed time and again. I’m quite the sensitive type. Sentimental too. I don’t call every person I meet as friends (they are in a non-hostile manner), and my circle of friends are important to me. They’re people I cherish, care deeply for, and the same whom I’d go two miles with, and back. I’d think for them and take into consideration their feelings before springing to action. Farfetched you say?

Math isn’t my favourite subject in school. And I take great joy in writing, both for English and Malay subject. It's an avenue where I'd be able to put down my thoughts, on a piece of paper I may add, but usually in an indirect manner. I'd use a different settings and situations to represent the subject matter. Other times, I'd just put them in a poem. And one thing I've found out about conveying my thoughts this way is that I don't have to see the reader's expressions. I wonder to myself, what causes this cowardice?

Naturally (?), writing also means that I’d bury myself in books to explore the different styles people employ in their work; which was exactly what I did. To digress a little, the flair for writing comes with the willingness to write and some hard work thrown into it too. Over time, I realized I enjoyed history very much; particularly war histories. I’ve always known that history favours the victors and I’ve made it my aim to always turn the coin both sides. As an undergraduate when my peers registered for Management courses, something realistic I may add, I find myself drawn to Archaeology and spent so much time for a semester writing about life in the Angkorian era of Cambodia. It’s a wonder why I studied Entomology (to fill up credit hour requirements) instead of something that’d complement my major, Microbiology. Peculiar?

Speaking of peers, they’re a source of encouragement and other times the bane of my youth. *laughs* Growing up, we’re an impressionable bunch, no? I remember the time when I was brooding over the fact that I couldn’t own a football (or soccer, whichever you prefer) boot (or again, cleat, if you prefer) to play with the bunch of kids in school. So, I settled for street soccer and in the process wearing out my school shoes quicker than my parents would say “Ronaldo”. That’s one of many things that I couldn’t have dreamt of given the circumstances. Not that we’re living below the poverty line but let’s just say that my parents aren’t like the blue guy who lives in a lamp.