A Bit of Blue Sky in a Mouldy Old Matchbox

"There are sheeps in the field
Grazing on noonday's blues,
And a daisy in the middle
Wearing seven different hues.

There is a fence which stood around
The sheeps, the field, the daisy too,
And an angry, ancient shepherd
Who waved his crook at you."

His Name is Yesterday
by Jonah Kensington,
English poet and writer

If you do not already know me at the time these pictures are taken, you might be in for a bit of surprise.
I was a very different sort of guy back then.

I enrolled into the Taylor's College in Subang Jaya when I was 17 for reasons I have mentioned, and will not address again.

Before that, my life had plodded along in a pretty linear and monotonous fashion. The friends that surround me in my primary school years were pretty much the same ones that went with me to secondary school (some of which I even knew from pre-school). Had I chosen to go forth to the Sixth Form, I'd probably still be keeping the same set of friends and acquaintances now.

Maybe that's why friendship was not something I valued greatly in those years; the same faces had been sticking around for too long and I have taken them for granted. Whenever I lose a best friend, I would just shrug it off and make a new one. If I don't like hanging out with a particular clique of friends anymore, I would just change my seat in class and join a new clique. It was no biggie - there were plenty of buddies to go around. I was never suckered into any of those "Best Friends Forever" crap.

An incomplete class portrait. It's the last day of class, after all.

But I did not go to the Sixth Form. I chose college.

Though I did not expect it (and have never admitted that before this), it was 'unsettling' to suddenly be in a school where there was less than three people I know by sight - and not one from that three were from familiar ol' Malacca High. Gone was the monotony of the white and olive green uniform¹ - the diversity of colour people wore in college was almost obscene. The guys dressed to impress, and the chicks - well - dressed to 'express generously'? For the first time in my life, I have to learn to sleep in the same room with a stranger (James, you were tops!).

In toto, it was almost like I was shipwrecked and was stranded in a whole new freaking country.

When I found out that I was put in a different class from even the few people I do know, my heart sank like a cart-load of bricks². I actually marched up to see The Anaconda³ in his office to see if I could negotiate a class change and be with the girl I came to college for.

Looking back, I'm glad he said "No."

The class trip to Sunway Lagoon for Zue Wen's farewell get-together. I still have my "I'm Big" shirt back then. Coupled with my surname, I was a regular walking barrel of laugh, I tell ya.

The class of PM10 2004/05 is the best darn group of people I have ever owned the pleasure of belonging to. The loud, brash people *coughKLpeoplecough* I disliked initially ended up as my closest, tightest friends - and very soon I became as loud and brash as them.

Our Genting trip. I think it's my life's calling to ruin group photos (thanks for reminding me, Jen).

It surprised me how closely knit we were till the end.

During lunch, we were always the biggest, most obnoxious bunch of kids in whatever food place we chose to infest. We averaged a 15-head group most of the time - and we always have to take 15 to 30 minutes to vote for a place to go to since there were so many of us.

In our DOTA glory days, we would systematically challenge every class and beat them. Pretty soon, there wasn't a single team in Taylor's that could bring us down⁴. We even trashed that Kok Seng Wai's⁵ class team (haha, who's the bigger Kok now?).

Then there was our regular skating trips to Sunway Pyramid's rink where I discovered I was a natural (stop laughing, dammit!). We played tag, raced and challenged each other to do stupid stunts. Falling on my butt had never been more fun.

We had wacky poolside birthday parties, the occasional get-together dinners, protracted Lingo duels (when, as Yun put it, "we would not-listen-in-any-class for weeks") , really late movie nights (and really, really late night walks back from Sunway Pyramid after that), record-breaking carpools (and the dreaded run in with the cops)...

I wasn't a stuffed-shirt duffer back then. I actually had a life (and no blog).

Fishing with plastic bags and 'char sio peng' at Matang, Sarawak (check out the insane number of fishes in the water!). We were always dead serious when it comes to doing childish stuff.

What I really love about this wonderful, crazy set of people was how natural I can act back then. I was never a particularly cool kid, but somehow, it never mattered how goofy I act when I was with them. Hang tight to your pacemakers, I'm going to spout a cliché now;

They accepted me for who I am.

My personality mattered then. My words; my opinions; my dumbest, most idiotic antics - they all mattered. I wasn't "just another colleague" like I am now.

I was a friend. I had friends.



Damn, I fucking miss you guys right now.

This is one of my favourite pictures. I won the fishing competition, by the way, with one fluorescent blue and two orange double-inchers. John (behind me) continued fishing because he refused to accept reality.

If I must name one moment when I truly know I belonged, I'll name this one;

We were in a glass elevator in the indoor theme park of Genting Highlands. Suddenly, out of the blue, I said;

"Hey, let's sit on the floor of this elevator and ride it up and down a few times and see if people would come in!"

No one said "that's a dumb idea, man," or "you're so lame." Everyone promptly dropped on their butts (even the girls), and every time the elevator reached a new floor and the door slid open, we would stare blankly at the people who waited there. Then as soon as the elevator door closed again, we would laugh hysterically. The utterly baffled faces of those folks who didn't dare walk in when they find ten 18-year-old grinning, college kids sitting cross-legged on the floor of a posh-looking elevator; those faces were bloody priceless.

Like I said;

My words; my opinions; my dumbest, most idiotic, award-winning-lame antics

They all counted for something.

I got ruining group pictures down to an art-form. This was the first and only (and last) time I ever enjoyed seafood with so much gusto⁶. I did however acquire a taste for jellyfish ever since. Thanks, Yinn Khurn (top right), for shelling the crabs for me, man.


I ruined this one too, haha. It was the Rainforest Festival at the Cultural Village in Santubong, Sarawak.
It was also my first clubbing experience and I actually... err... boogied. Fire in the Forest Disco!


I managed to convince Keat Seong to pull a face with me in this one. We were in some crocodile farm an hour outside Kuching and John let me drive his car there. Now that's trust, considering that I only got my license less than a month ago at that time (Okay, I admit he didn't know that).

The all-dudes group-shot during our private prom. I looked away on purpose. Success!!!

We were a bunch apart - so apart that we even boycotted the Taylor's Prom and held one of our own in Prego's at Westin. There were no long speeches or dumb ceremonies or emcees. Just fun, good Italian food, lame games we enjoyed, jokes only we could understand... and most importantly; there are friends. All friends.

Just friends.

It was a thousand times a million times incomparably and immeasurably more meaningful than any fucking, pay-per-head, stick-in-butt affair the Taylor's student council could cook up.



I can't believe my eyes got wet writing this post. Guess I'm just sad that I would never again find another bunch of friends that meant as much to me as these crazy, insane, unforgettable people. We all went our own ways. Some of us may have found even crazier, more insane and unforgettable friends to hang out with - while some of us (or maybe just one of us) only have a bunch of old photographs to looks at while wondering where did all the great times go. That's how I feel. I felt that the best years I'm ever going to have in my life is left somewhere in the dust behind me.



And that lame, fun-loving, spontaneous version of me you see in these photographs;

I guess he died the day I said good bye.

Just isn't the same,
k0k s3n w4i

¹ No light blue, unfortunately. I was from an All-Dudes-School all my life before that ('cept pre-school but does that count? Kids that age are practically amorphous gender-wise).
² I was so distracted that I actually walked into the wrong class (a pre-engineering class to boot) and sat there for nearly an hour before I realised I was in the wrong place. It wasn't my fault really. There's a 'Kok Seng Wai' in that class. I assumed that they just misspelled my name in the list or something.
³ My personal moniker for Mr. Ananda. Is the old terror still reigning there?
⁴ We even had a match with the GAYA Clan once - the supposed champions of DOTA in the state at that time - but we were utterly and completely stomped to the ground. They got lucky.
⁵ Refer footnote 2.
⁶ "Land animals should eat land animals. It's the natural order of things," I always say.