revaluation: a special post by Nazurah Badrul Zaman and Nadiah Jamaludin

How time flashes by. That is what often comes through my mind when i think back about my journey in life. It seems only yesterday that i stepped into 1 Jaya for the first time. I was just a young girl, nervous yet excited to begin this new chapter in life. Excited to put on the new uniform and those white shoes, proud to be carrying a new bag with wheels on, proud to be a 'big little girl' as my mum would say. I am sure all of us felt the same way as i did. Primary school was something new to us. Different than playschool and kindergarten. It was a new world, waiting to be discovered. New friends to make,new things to learn.We would be eager to learn new things. Constantly paying full attention to the teacher when he or she was teaching in front. We would race to finish our homeworks in time just to please the teachers. We would fight with each other just to get the chance to help a teacher carry her or his books. As if six years passed in a blink of an eye, we were all in Standard Six. We were all starting to feel the pressure of major exams. The first of many yet to come. UPSR came and went in an instant. We got through our results , be it good or bad with a sense of pride.We have finished primary school. We're leaving those tween years and entering the turbulent years of 'teenagehood' as i'd like to term it.

Some of us went to boarding school while most of us stayed behind in our hometown and began high school at SMK Taman Melawati. After years of primary education, we find ourselves starting back at the bottom of the food chain. Turning 13 was a big deal for all of us. We're no longer kids who would hold hands with mommy and daddy while walking to class. We no longer listen to our parents as we used to. We longer treat our teachers with the respect that we gave to our old teachers. No, things have changed. Old friendships that stood the test of time in primary school were broken and new ones were forged. Some of us even experienced puppy love. Sadly, i was not one of those people. hehehhe... Hormones were ranging and being in a relationship was the 'in' thing. We thought the love would last forever. Oh how we were naive.( Forever to a teenager would probably mean a month or two)

We rebelled more than we did before. It felt good, to defy someone. We stopped following the rules,question everything that we used to follow loyally. Gone were the school ties. Say hello to the large belt buckles, the outrages hairstyles and the messy appearances that we thought we cool. To be honest, I always thought that the boys were trying to outdo each other's hairstyle. Hair were becoming higher and higher. It's amazing how gel can make hair defy the laws of gravity. Fights were the norm in school. Gangs, girls and silly misunderstandings can lead to fights. Cops were regular visitors to our school. We made it through PMR with results ranging from 8A's to all fails. With our results, some of us moved out to boarding schools and some of us chose to finish school in Taman Melawati. We were segregated to different streams. Science, Accounts and Arts. What stream we were in will shape our future or so we were told. We paid more attention in class and started to study harder. SPM was just a year away. Then again, some of us treated form four as a honeymoon year(me included). Form five finally came. We were all a bit nervous yet still playful. Teachers began to pressure us to study harder. Homeworks were piling up, tests were so frequent it nearly drove me insane. The counselors began to have sessions to discuss future universities, colleges and even employments. Yes, we were being backed against a corner.

It finally came. D-DAY. SPM. Years of blood( ok a bit dramatic), sweat and tears preparing for this final exam of your high school life. This exam will be decider of everything we have learned. The very thing that will settle and end every single comparison made by parents regarding your grades. The ultimate indicator for teachers. The measuring stick to the success of their hardwork. Will it pay off? Will it be worth the patience, the numerous lectures and nagging that they have to endure in order to make students understand? Months of waiting finally, thankfully ended. The results were released. We jumped in joy,cried in joy and sorrow. A whirlwind of emotions compressed in a compact hall. We finally made it. High school is over. A new chapter begins. The battle to fill in scholarship applications, forms for colleges and Unis begins. We are now legal adults. We can drive legally. We can watch R rated movies without trying to sneak into one.

As I look back to my high school years, i wished i could change things. I wished we were more respectful to our teachers. Less fighting and more listening. Maybe we would have understand why things we as they were. Why what we did was wrong. Why were the rules created in the first place. It was for our benefit. Oh how i wished i had realised that before.

As all of us prepare to enter the next phase of our lives, we need to look back to our past. Reevaluate the perspectives that you have now. Learn from the mistakes that you have made in the past. It is never too late to change your future for the better. We need to be prepared for the next battle. It will not be a bed of roses. Hopefully, with the experiences of the past, we can get past this phase with our limbs intact. Ok, i need to stop typing as i have to start packing for Uni. UiTM here i come!

untitled

Hey, its been a while since my last post. The truth is that i just don't have time to think of anything to write about. CAL just takes the life out of you. On weekends, you only have time to catch up on your sleep. A goodnight sleep is something that is really rare. On average, I sleep for about 5 to 6 hours. Coffee is the only thing that keeps me going. That and the fact that my mum paid RM 12,000 for the fees. HAHAHAHHAHA...Money really puts things in perspective doesn't it?

Anyway, i have been offered a place in UiTM to do foundation in science. UiTM was not my first choice, nor was it my second. It was my third. It was quite a shocker for me to get UiTM to be honest. Of course, i spent the whole day moping around the house, contemplating on my awful string of bad lucks. First the SPM result, then the JPA rejection and now this. Not to mention that my best friend achieved everything that i didn't. Then it dawned on me( about time too), that these are all lessons and experiences that not only made me humble but also stronger in a way. I know what it is like to be rejected(believe me, that is something that i will never forget. What can break you makes you stronger as they say. 'Sticks and stones can't break our bones' really makes sense now.

Being in Uni is going to be a new experience for me. Well, for one i'm going to stay in a dorm. Call me spoilt, but i have never been in a dorm before. I don't know what it looks like. The list of complaints is never ending; there's no air-cond, we have to share the tv and the toilets, we can't drive....Being a person who is adventerous and keen on challenges, i can only say one thing..BRING IT ON!

As i am typing this while my classmates of PM13 are studying Mathematics( hush...i'm playing hooky) i can't help but think about the memories that i had in Taylors(be it bad or good) and the friends i've made. To them i say thank you for bearing with me all this while and making the college experience worthwhile. To the dedicated lecturers, a big THANK YOU to you for teaching me without losing your temper. Yeah, i can be a bit slow but i have learned so much from you. Thank you so much. I will be lying if i tell you that I don't want to leave Taylor's( i really do want to leave.hehehe) but i wouldn't trade my experiences i had in at Taylor's or the numerous string of um...bad lucks for anything else in the world.