Change

How were my holidays?

Different. That’s the exact word that can conclude everything.

While I was treating myself away with homesickness at Mydin, the genius of DJs kept playing all sad raya songs that made me a helpless sentimental. (I believe they were only pouring their heart out)

Jihad untuk Allah, semua ni takkan rasa pedih sangat, a friend told me. The realization that I am actually a college student, who no longer wears uniform to school, and am currently staying far away from home in the pursuit of, ahem, my dreams - smacks me.

Back then, those 17-turning-18 people looked so mature and ready for the world ahead. I used to think that in time I would be like them, seasoned enough to tread the paths of this transition period. Guess what? I fail to consider myself as wise by now, and getting older makes me feel more naïve when confronted with new, err, trivialities.

Truth be told, the notion that someday I, Allah willing, would be a lawyer, still seems surreal to me. There’s always this part of me that drags my self-esteem down. I mean, I have the malu-tak-bertempat disease seemingly running through my veins, and oh please, I couldn’t deliver a decent impromptu speech to save my life. And my hand shivers five minutes after I stand in a public eye – even if the public only consists of my college mates. Whenever I converse there would surely be errors even five-year-olds would not even dream of doing, and there goes my flow.

Talking about five-year-olds.

You know how it is when you read a five year old’s composition and think that it is quite impressive for him, so you give him marks above the average? But the child thinks that he deserves more since he put his best effort into that particular thing, and he asks you what could be done in order to gain more next time?

Well, I am repeatedly having my stint at being his equivalent.

Imagine spending all night researching something and writing and re-writing something, and cutting and trimming the product and redoing the whole thing.

And you get only 15/20. Imaginably you want to know what you did wrong.

“Oh, it was impressive ~” and blah-blah-blah. So why didn’t I get a higher mark? Like I needed an answer. It was impressive for someone like me, a five-year old in the eyes of a foreign-experienced lecturer.

"So what can I do to make it better, Madam?"

"You need to put your points forward in a… different manner”

"Different as in…?" This, I am resigned to take as something I will never know for the near future. Picturing something is not my forte.

But come to think of it, what did I picture myself as? Maybe I am just a typical Malaysian who was too pampered to even realize the importance of thinking about my future. About, not of. That is why I feel so off-guard and confronted with things previously alien to my simple mind.

But for everything that has been pushing me, now that my eyes are widely open, I suddenly realize that my own self is in dire need of a change.

Actually, I quite enjoy law as it throws me into the compulsion of venturing outside the confines of the syllabus, you know, like really getting in touch with the real world and putting the grey matter between my ears to work.

Which could have been an irrelevant problem had I spent my last eleven years of education not being spoon-fed by my previous teachers who, I now realize, have been overworked by us, what’s the word for it, passive students.

I am a true-blue Malaysian third-class mentality after all, see?

Yes, my present life may be so unbelievably blargh at times but I suppose I took the right step. I don’t have regret any of my past decisions, my hiccups actually shoved me on my way here, and yes, although I do admit that Law is not easier than Science which I can never bring myself to love, but here I am and I’m not going back. I need to give all and accept all.

I should be an optimist, wholeheartedly submitting to the fact that come what may, I can handle it – no matter how disappointing the end point may be.

My sister labeled me an ultimate pessimist, what with my ways of complaining about the system, but is doing nothing against it, due to the belief of the ugly consequences that may surface.

And I thought I was different. An ultimate pessimist is just another sick hypocritical whiner.

I can see how it’s all planned out. I’m the one who needs to change. I’m the one who needs to be closer to Allah, and to work harder, and to look at the brighter side of things. And be content for what I had, and what I have, and work myself off to a point of being content of whatever I will have, regardless of it being satisfactory or not.

(Pergh. Another of my personal blabbering that should never have been published in the first place. I’ll give it three days before deleting it)