Feeling EMO today.
Actually, it's more like DEPRESSION.

The No.1 cause of my depression: I failed my Spec Math Common Test 3 paper.
If I don't get an A or a B for the mid-year, I'm so doomed T.T

In times of EMO-ness I tend to reflect on my past. Yesterday, Bryan put up a prom nite class picture on his blog. Because of that, I started to think about my school life in the past.

I remember being a small girl in primary school. I remember excelling in my studies, having lots of friends. I remember playing tag and chase and masak-masak with my classmates. I remember making friends with the school's rabbits and feeding them half of my food. I still remember spending the evenings (Std 1 and 3) playing hopscotch.

I remember hating Std 3. Having gotten good grades I managed to become a PTS candidate. I remember spending my holidays doing a whole pile of workbooks while crying and with my mother holding a cane behind me, making sure I study enough to pass the PTS. I remember getting my first confession (in the form of a card) from my classmate, also my competitor in math and in abacus. I remember the day I got my PTS results (pass).

And then came Std 5. Days of staying back in schools just so that I could catch up on my Std 4 work. Feeling tired all the time. Scolded because I flunked my Science, because I could not be first in class. Having to make new friends all over again.

Std 6 was hell. I was probably the class delinquent. I regularly flunked BM and Science while getting good Math scores. I never did my homework, and was tortured and humiliated for it by my class teacher in so many different ways. I remember the pressure to get straight A's in UPSR, "because you're a PTS student".

When I started secondary school I vowed to start over. I never want to repeat my sad days like in Std 6. I had to make new friends, as I was one of the few students in my primary school who came to Seafield. I remember fighting like cats-and-dogs with Sze Luan (and Devastry immortalised us in a poem :P). I remember blur days of reading books and more books.

In Form 2 I had an ambition. A very silly ambition; nonetheless it meant alot to me. I wanted to win a prize. Any prize. So I wrote and wrote and wrote in my Buku Nilam. It meant alot to me that I won the first prize that year. Nobody else may want it, nobody else cared, but it meant something to me who is always compared to her genius elder cousin brother (always have, always will). It was then I found that by trying, I could win prizes for various English related competitions. Just as long as I tried. That same year I made a vow: never to be too dependent on my friends. I had to tamp down my shyness, to do things on my own without my friends' support. And so I joined the school choir (then one of the unpopular clubs around) as the youngest and only junior, until Yvonne, Shahira, Melissa and the rest joined.

Form 3 and Form 4 passed by so fast. Form 3 was dedicated PMR year: I had to do well again because of the "you are a PTS student" shit. In Form 4 I was stuck in a class I never really liked. I found myself liking and pitying the teachers, who had to put up with the "noisiest class". This is the year I made new friends: Jen Chong and Ken Hon (while playing Maths Magic), and a whole lot of other students, especially the young librarians at the library. I remember the joy of being a crew member in the drama production, "A Daughter's Hero" and the experience gained from it.

Form 5 was a lonely year. I had never got on well with my class; my grades were shit; and I felt alienated. I mostly spent my time in the library, away from class. It wasn't the class I hated; it was the presence of a few classmates whom I could not tolerate. I spent recesses with Wei Vern, who was in 5E (I was in 5B). Recently I got to know from Wei Vern that my classmates (read: those annoying ones) thought I was some introverted girl. Haha. This was the same year I became anime and manga crazy. I also managed to learn some ballroom dances that year in school, which then fired my interest.

Being my last year, we Form Fivers had the MPT5 - our prom night. It could be summed in four words: boring, lonely and stupid. I just went because I paid for it and to watch my friends and schoolmates in their finery :P

Now I'm in college. I find myself thinking "what-ifs". What if I never skipped a grade? I could have been less stressed, less pressured. But then I'd never have met such great people like Wei Vern, Stephanie, Mei Kim, Susan, Ken Hon, Jen Chong, Kein Yip and all those people I owe my laughter and my memories to. They made my life brighter. I'd never might have done all the things I've done. On some days I thought of what life would've been if I had been more carefree, more friendly to my classmates and schoolmates. I regret having been in a shell all this time. Now I try to make friends, to know my ex-schoolmates better, to treasure my current classmates. I will try not to make the same mistakes again. Better late than never, and never regret anything; just look forward.