The Post-dormant Blogpost

Dear fellow readers,

I regret much for not keeping you updated for nearly two months , especially during the June holidays, which I scarcely overlook my blog. A lot of things can happen in a day, what's more two whole months.

I would not be able to narrate what have been going on in my life in chronological order, but rather in a criss-crossed or disordered way.

Before the June holidays and returning to my home country , Malaysia, I took part in the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad. There were four categories------the lower secondary category, the upper secondary category, the college category and the open category. As I am only a secondary one participant and I do not excel in solving maths problems, I chose the lower secondary category. In the morning, the lower floor outside the Cheng Yi Auditorium was crowded with people . My friend Darryl contacted me to inquire the whereabouts of the competition but I was not able to give him clear directions thus told him to wait at the tables of the college section canteen while I walk there to meet up with him. He sat at the farthermost row of tables , playing the games he had in his phone. I nudged him and we return to where we were to assemble. Then, as I stood and gaze upwards I saw on the third storey glass panels decorated with nice stickers and , as I was always trying to locate the college library to have a look and compare with the huge library we have in the clock tower building, I invited Charles to accompany up a few flight of stairs up to the third floor and to my contentment I found it at last, the long-sought college library! Before daring to enter, we peep for a while.Ascertaining that we were eligible, we walked in. There were rows of metal shelves of books. Walking through the shelves and glancing through book covers, Charles then left the library to descend to the ground floor to await the commencement of the competition that our school recognised as one of the major events of the maths festival, which also included the annual hosting of the Asia-Pacific Singapore Mathematical Olympiad for Primary Schools through which I got the opportunity to study in Singapore. Approximately an hour later, we proceeded into the huge auditorium. Since there were hordes of participants and nearly every pathway was narrow that could , from my estimation, at most hold four skinny people in a row. As I had expected, the auditorium became increasingly colder. Ironically, my hands sweated, perhaps due to my nervousness in facing thirty perplexing questions out of which I could only manage to fill in about eight answers. Finally, two hours were over.

In the afternoon, I went for high jump training. At that moment, my father had reached Hwa Chong to pick me up for the flight back home. Since there was still sufficient time for training before the required check-in time and the time needed for transport to the airport, I decided to attend one training to make up for nearly a month of training that I would miss even though it was understandably just a tip of an iceberg. The track was still in use during that session of training but that was probably the last time I was going to be training with our school track as the land it covered shall be taken away for the use of the construction of the new MRT station. Finally, we went to the budget terminal airport by taking a shuttle bus from one of the main terminals of Changi Airport, the first time I learnt how to take a shuttle bus to and fro the Budget Airport. My father bought me a piece of scrumptious apple crumble and curry puffs and we dined in together in the tables available there. The apple crumble was magnificent! Coincidently, I met Leon , Ray Wen, Wei Sean , Jun Neng queuing up to check-in for their flight. There was no adult to accompany them therefore it arouse the doubt of my father on towards the possibility of gaining access to board the flight without parental company. Since my and my father's flight was earlier than theirs, we could not see if they manage board their flight.

We reached home at night and was welcomed back by my mother who picked us up outside the arrival hall of the Penang International Airport with the black car which was my mother's company-owned car. We reached home and I was heartily welcomed by the maid from Indonesia that we applied for to do the home chores and take good care of us the children before I came to Singapore. Once again, I got to sleep in a nice air-conditioned room without the presence of curfews or lights-outs and twenty-four hours of internet connectivity. It was nice to be home.

My piano exam is less than a month away so I had to buckle up and worked harder. My piano teacher who taught me before my leave for Singapore taught me many days with a lot of hardwork and patience. I learnt a lot of techniques to play the exam pieces and the dos and don'ts during the examination. That exam was very important as once I passed it, I would not have to worry about piano anymore as that was the exam of the eighth grade otherwise I would have to struggle for another year. On that day, about a week before leaving for Singapore again, I was quite anxious. Initially, everything was steady and full of confident. Gradually, mistakes accumulated as I got more and more nervous. I tried to calm myself down and motivate myself that that was the last grade and I could save my worries for other important things if I passed the examination which was only forty minutes long. This only aggravated matters as I was distracted from the piece that I was playing and did not end it well. I could not answer with firmness for most of the questions for the aural part and my sight-reading was out of tune------there were no melody at all! I walked out of the examination room, despaired and took slow steps towards my teachers. Quickly, I asked many questions regarding the mistakes that committed during the exam and how would it affect my score. My despondent did not recede when my teachers told the truth that , after hearing my narration of what occurred during the exam, that the only thing that I could rely on at that moment was luck and wait for the results to be announced some time in August.

At home, besides reading the four books on which my Language Arts Teacher Misses Anu required our class to review in our blogs , that I have not written even till the publishing of this post, I played games while my sister who is going to sit for the UPSR examination(similar to the PSLE examination in Singapore) in September watched intently. My former Tuition teacher's child was also attracted to my game. However, I symphatised him for not being able to witness me defeating the final boss of the game as he had to leave our house with his mother after the tuition with my sister. In one of the few weeks of my stay in Malaysia, the teacher even invited me and my sister to have a dine of steamboat in Queensbay mall , which was something popular in her family. It was not cheap but it was enjoyable and the food was delicious too. I was really grateful for having a teacher like her, not only in her offer of such nice and expensive lunch, but her guidance that aid me in achieving the target in my UPSR examination.

Besides, to conclude the final year of the last sibling of me in my family to be studying in that school , SJK(C)KwangHwa, from which all three of my sibling and I graduated and partially to once again thanked those teachers who have aided in enabling me to study in Singapore, my mother invited those teachers to have dinner at the famous Xiao Long Bao restaurant in Queensbay mall. I did not like the idea of inviting fifteen teachers that might crowd the restaurant and my sister too opposed of joining the dinner if teacher Lim, whom my sister claimed had a grudge towards her. But all these did not happen, eventually, I began to better accept this event and my sister too joined, even though to her horror, Teacher Lim came. Everything was nice. We ate good food and had good conversations amongst. Coincidently, it was Mr Ooi's birthday too. Coincidently again, it fell on the same day as the Agong's ( King's ) birthday. My mother and sister went out of the restaurant to return with a cake. Then, we sang birthday songs to Mr Ooi in public. That was his fiftieth birthday. However, when the bill came, an astronomical number was printed at the lower right corner of the receipt.It was four hundred dollars. What an expensive dinner!

Ta Hoong , one of my intimate friends , again heard news of the return of Yi Shun , my friend who also went to Singapore under the same circumstances as me, and me. He came to my house again and the first thing that appeared in his mind was computer. He had many things such as amusing songs, jokes, pranks to share with me. Even though I felt started feeling bored, he was quite nice to me, always willing to answer my questions about Chung Ling, the high school which I ought to enter if I were to remain in Malaysia. We went to the huge park nearby and he , together with his mother and cousin, took a stroll while I train according to the training programme that was planned manually by my coach before returning to my home country.

Besides, I met my former PISA swimming team coach at University Sains Malaysia and he was glad to see me. PISA swimming team had to train in the university as the water of the original pool in which they trained previously was drained away, leaving only a deep pit. It was really nice to talk with "Sir" , as that was how we addressed him, and he spoke in his usual hilarious way. He was a really committed and dedicated coach who cared a lot more about his team than any other things.

Finally, it was time to go back to Singapore. The last time I saw my sister before leaving for Singapore was taking her for her badminton training in Shih Chong Cawangan School. We were arguing in the car and she cried. Upon reaching the school, she asked me whether her tear stains were distinguishable and I replied that it was slightly visible. She tried to clear away her tear stains for fear of being noticed by her friends and deluged with questions which would further compel her tears to flow out.

I reacher the airport and ate an apple crumble at a coffee shop. Finally, it was boarding time and I walked into the immigration pass and waved frantically to my parents who stood visibly behind the windows, waving as high as they could so that I could see them. I boarded the flight, gave my parents a call and put my cellphone into flight mode. The airplane rumbled for a while and started moving slowly towards the take-off pathway which a few times wider than the normal traffic road. At the turn into the pathway, the plane charged for a while and bolted past trees , houses , cars which was all fenced far away and gradually began to hover in the air and propelled itself diagonally upwards into the night sky.