Evade

I don't understand what was so exciting and happiness-inducing about the whole damned thing; when I was a year-one student last year I certainly didn't care at all about the entire event. It was really quite pointless, and I remember trying with utmost determination to skip as much of the programme as I could, mainly because I thought it was boring and I really didn't feel like acting so chummy with my orientation group mates (hello, I'd only known them for less than a week then, I just couldn't bring myself to pretend that I was enthusiastic about the whole 'We-are-one-big-family-and-we-love-each-other-so-much-that-we-must-have-at-least-one-outing-every-two-days' thing, because I really wasn't. I thought it was damned superficial), partly because the way in which the dance was choreographed made me feel nauseous.

-- extracted from Miao's blog, on her school's orientation programme

Somehow I share her sentiments, to a certain extent that is.

By no means am I suggesting that the friendship that I've made over these two weeks is superficial. I love everyone for who they are. And I am glad that I am blessed with such opportunity to make so many (crazy) new friends who have once shared the joy and laughter with me during the orientation period.

All the fun's ended and here comes the lessons...sianz...actually I won't say "fun's ended" cause I don't really think that this orientation is that fun...though we had a lot of class interaction through practising for the performance, painting the banner and going out to eat together everyday....but the orientation programme itself is quite boring, which was made even worse by the bad weather...

-- extracted from Kay Siong's blog, on our school's orientation programme.

I love my school's orientation programme. And I really mean it.

But the thing is, each time when all the fun has ended, what is left within is a sense of emptiness.

A horrible, terrible and incorrigible feeling.

One moment you are cheering your hearts and screaming your lungs out, the next you see yourself walking home silently in the wee hours of the night.

One moment the school is bustling with enthusiastic freshmen with energy levels that never seem to dry up and graduated seniors who come back to their ex-school with nostalgia, the next you see the school compound empty.

I hate contrast. Sharp ones that play with your feelings, especially.

And the worst thing is that after all has ended, I realised that all the friendships that I've made may only be temporary. After all, things may/will change again when they receive their 'O' Level results a month later.

And then I regret putting in too much emotions.

This is where I begin to agree with Miao. Only that I won't deem that the friendships forged over the fortnight as superficial. They are for real, and I would say, too real.

Putting in too much emotions in forging new friendships, only to have them leaving you a month later, is just like you saving millions of dollars in a bank, only to have the bank announcing that they have went bankrupt when you least expect it.

All your efforts, all your hardwork, poof! Gone. Vapourised. Bermuda triangulated.

And you'll start feeling sad.

Crying doesn't help, by the way. After all, you are not in control of fate. And that makes the world-renowned quote "Your destiny lies in your own hands" bullshit.

I was telling this to my Xin Yu, a senior who happens to study in the same primary school as me. She says that I am evading reality. I won't deny that. I can't bear and I am not prepared to face the harsh world. She said that life's like that, and we'll have to learn to accept it, but I hate to give in to this cruel reality.

Pehraps I am still too naive. If only the world is ideal. A utopia. A Shangri-La.

P.S. On a lighter note, visit Kay SIong's blog,
Kai Herng's blog,
Yan Min's blog
Yun Zhou's blog for the details of my school's orientation programme. I can't bear to pen them down, lest I get sentimental. Sometimes it's better to be cold-blooded.