today, i struggled and was quite deeply troubled. and when i feel like that, i write.
jason had an extra ticket to a conference that was held earlier today and so he invited me. and it so happened that i wasn't able to play football today because of my grandfather's birthday celebration, which incidentally was at somewhere convenient for me to head to the conference. so i went.
it was a conference solely for the guys, and the speaker was talking about father figures and how fathers have such a big impact on their sons.
i won't go into the details of what was said (not now, not when my thoughts are still all over the place), but it unsettled me and i was in a pensive mood as i left the auditorium.
i realised that for so long, i'd been so focused on what i DON'T want. yet have little idea about what i DO want, especially with regards to issue that was being discussed.
on the cab back home, jason was asking me about me thoughts. i wasn't ready to answer, not with my mind in a mess, so i instinctively went into defense mode and equivocated. i could probably have managed to get away with it with someone who knows me a little less well, but to this big brother of mine, he was having none of it.
he said that he thinks i'm mature enough to be thinking about what was being discussed and challenged me to reflect on some very difficult questions that were asked.
just a quick digression, a few have commented on my maturity and i have 2 things to say about that. first, having known many of my charges for the better part of the last 2 years and having witnessed them grow up, with the benefit of being away for sometime as well, just so that any change becomes just so much more conspicuous, i've concluded that girls are more mature then the boys. wait, make that MOST girls are more mature than boys and the contrast in sensibility could not be more distinguishable than in primary and secondary school i feel. even later, perhaps all the way till the guy completes ns. i looked back at the way i dealt with problems, the way i viewed many things and compared them to the way my female counterparts did, and i feel ashamed. i'm reminded of a video that i had seen recently where mark driscoll said that loving a women is not for little boys. shut up, grow up and man up.
second, i think that i'm messed-up myself. throughout all that happened, i've had a part to play for such an outcome. i'm the furthest thing from blameless and i screwed up. messed-up and screwed-up notwithstanding, i do think that i've grown-up considerably these past couple of years too, not least due to people like jason and mr koh and a few others too.
i've never had a big brother at home, and so i've also been very comfortable around those older than me. but i'm thankful for the big brothers that have been placed in my life, thankful for their friendship, their guidance, and their challenges. and this is something that i strive to be to my students. often, i find myself trying to be what my big brothers were to me, to these students that i now am an elder to. i remember how i was encouraged by my big brothers and now endeavour to continually affirm my students for what that did well, and i remember how i was spoken to instead of being chastised when i erred and now, i put my arms around my students and walk with them and reason with them. my supervisor recently praised me for my patience and care for the students, especially the boys, for being this 'big brother' (those were her exact words) to them and i thought, all that i'm doing is, all that i know, was what these people had invested in me.
and i just want to thank these people, jefferson, evan, bear, josh, jason and miakoon again.
i'd wanted to write about the mentor figures in my life since the time that i wrote about the best teachers that i've had, teachers who made an impact, but never really got down to it.
but today, after meeting jason at his spanking, newly renovated house, i thought it's be appropriate to ink those thoughts down, while linking the words that have been swirling in my head since forever into sentences. (ink and link. cool huh. it came spontaneously. really.) anyway, more about jason later.
i've always enjoyed the company of those slightly older, slightly being anything within 10 years, maybe it's because i'm the eldest child in the family and the idea of having an elder sibling who has got more mileage on his/her meter than i has always been attractive.
and i've been fortunate, having so many different mentor figures at varying stages of my 19 years.
the first person that comes to mind when i think of a brother figure is jeff, short for jefferson. jeff was a volunteer helper at my mum's office, often helping out there after school (i think), and he was like an elder brother, playing basketball with me during those oh-so-dull afternoons after school while my mum is at work, helping me out with my schoolwork, teaching me to play the guitar (which i lost interest in after a while), and in general, awing me with how much me knew, and how he was able to solve what seemed like complex- too complex- problems to a 12 year old child with ease, and style.
jeff when to university and i went to secondary school, and slowly we were more and more involved in the challenges of our own. he helped out less at my mum's office, and i too spent less time there. but then came along evan, or evangeline. evangeline chong to be specific, and bear (junwei).
the both of them were influential during my upper secondary years, and in evan's case, beyond that.
bear was the one who got me my 'o' levels score of 7. no doubts about that. none at all. i was just looking through my secondary report book and at the end of secondary 3, i was struggling. matters were not helped by my unwillingness to hit the books till the absolute last minute- even my sister, whom i'd always considered to be lazy, is studying so much more than i did 4 years ago now- (although i always made a point to understand what's going on in class, there are distractions. haha, i'll leave it at that.). anyway, i got bear to help me with my studies at the beginning of secondary 4, and much as i didn't like the amount of work that he gave me every week, i would still do them, because he is someone that i look up to, someone that i didn't want to let down. and it wasn't easy on him too, being in the army, and having to deal with me an my frequently slipshod work. he encouraged me, got me working, offered me objective and partial viewpoints in my then 'radical' preference for the polytechnics (radical to my parents and schoolmates, most of them at least). and i thank him for that.
evan, now evan is like an elder sister, even now, although i admittedly get to see her al ot less now. but what i'll always remember is that she taught me self-control. i hate to lose, and i hate it so much that i'd cry when i was little and when i was a bit older, do everything within my might to not lose, and then some. what i meant by 'and then some' was that i'd lose my temper, totally, utterly, even when i was playing something like chess. it gets worse when it comes to games. i'd scream at my teammates, and as for my opponents, well, let's just say that at the least, words will be exchanged. on on such occasion, when i was in secondary 4 i think, evan hauled me off the court where we were playing captain's ball (captain's ball! it's not even football, and i can hardly believe to myself as i reminisce this), told me to stay out of the game and left me fuming there by myself. my team lost, and afterwards, after i'd calmed down somewhat, she spoke to me in private. i can't recall what she said to me then, but i do remember that whatever it was that she said, it got me thinking. and it was the first of the many lessons that i would have to go through on keeping my frustrations in check. after all, as liangfa once said to me, with a glint in his eye, always smile at your opponents and keep your composure no matter what they do; it bugs the hell out of them.
joshua and jason, they're close friends since their singapore poly years and they were the one who brought me, as a secondary 2 boy into their sunday football team consisting mainly of older players (jc and beyond). i was way out of my league then, but they encouraged me, guided me, mentored me, taught me things, befriended me, and a year on, named me captain. captain of a team that i've relatively new to, and whose members are mostly older than me. i was overwhelmed. but they helped me through that too. now captaincy sounds better than it really is, because it just means that i'm in charged of the logistics and the likes, but still, it was something that i treasured. and i learned many things from the experience, including lessons on self-control (again). i still see the both of them quite a bit, though jason is busy with renovating his new house and his wedding in november, while josh, well, we made a pact to play ping pong and to run together after the exams, because his buldging belly is getting out of hand (that's his reason) and also because he said that he's got a female friend, who incidentally is from sp too, who's interested too (that's my- oh well nevermind).
and then there's miakoon, who apparently thinks that he's got the vision of fabregas, and that he only lacks the fitness to execute what he 'sees'. me, i just think that he's fat, and so i coined the term 'fat fab' for him. he started playing football with us while i was going through one of the toughest periods of my life: when i was in pj. and i was glad for him, a Godsend to me. i wasn't sure about what i should do next, but i sure as hell knew that i didn't want to stay in jc. and with all the madness, hysteria and tears from my parents, my teachers, my peers, his words of wise council was soothing. soothing sounds euphemistic, and not all that great, i know, but go through what i did and you'll realise that soothing is, underrated.
there really are so many people that i should be thankful for, not least nelson, who like a wise old sage helped me through my jc years, but i'm struggling to recall them all offhandedly.
but i just want to end with a big thank you these people who invested part of the lives in me. and that i'm fortunate to have known them.