I tried to put off writing this as long as I could by not getting out of bed, procrastinating by looking at old photos again…and right now I have a permanent nausea that’s probably caused by the flooding of gastric juices in my gut due to a lot of thinking when I barely slept last night.
Last day of college.
There was an agreement prior to Friday to dress up as formally as we could, kind of like the first formal Friday we did in sem 1 a year ago. I decided this was the best time (and the last time) to wear lipstick and eyeliner to college after 1+ semester of not doing so.
First class was Econs, and Miss Cherilyn brought a whole box of sandwiches to class so all of us had sandwiches as breakfast in class. No lessons were conducted because after that, we had a photo session with Miss Cherilyn. We also had a group photo at the stairs at the foyer like we did in sem 1, same positions and all. Maths class that followed started with Mr Lee covering the vectors topic a little bit and making a brief farewell speech before another round of photo session commenced. This time, it continued all the way throughout Physics class. Mr Ng was immediately roped into the session as soon as he stepped into class at NWG-3. It was basically like three consecutive meet and greet sessions with our lecturers as everyone lined up to take individual or group photos with Miss Cherilyn, Mr Lee and Mr Ng. After Mr Ng left, there was still time left before Chemistry class, so we dared Chok to do the gwiyomi in front of everyone. He did it, and he emerged from NWG-3 that day a victor of life.
Our last class, Chemistry, was at SW3-9. It wasn’t SW3-8, which was the very first classroom we had our very first class on the very first day of A Levels in Sunway College, but the arrangement of tables and chairs in the classroom was similar, so all of us collectively agreed to seat ourselves according to our seating arrangements on the first day of college, meaning I sat next to Zitian, behind Karu and Ken Fui. Miss MC entered and we continued discussing our Chem test paper 4 until the last 20 minutes, and then we took photos with Miss MC too. The day’s classes ended with a class group photo with Miss MC at the second floor balcony, after which many exclamations of “thank you!”s were exchanged.
After that, majority of the class (approx. 20 of us) set out for lunch at Seoul Garden at Paradigm Mall in several cars. Taliza and I followed in Bellyn’s car, and most of everyone were already there when we arrived except for those who went in Harris’ car because they were caught in the SS15 jam.
Halfway through barbecue lunch, I started to get a really intense headache and it had been going on for the entire week now so naturally, being the extremely paranoid person I am, my thoughts gradually started to drift towards really terrible outcomes and I got so scared that I had to leave the restaurant and call my mum and I started crying so I hid behind the lifts and after the sudden cry that strained all the blood vessels in my eyeballs that I had to wait in the toilet for the redness to subside, my headache felt a whole lot better, which led me to eventually believe that this headache might be purely psychological after all. Not being able to cry and repressing my emotions was manifesting itself physically and that was a really frightening thought. But still, I felt worlds better after that as I rejoined my friends at the restaurant.
After lunch, we had a generally very chill hangout session outside the restaurant where they had an outdoor stage and everything. My camera roll got progressively fuller after that. It was a very nice place with very nice people and the weather was also very nice (it was the drizzling before the rain) and I was very, very happy and contented, but just like the gloomy weather, there was an underlying tinge of sadness to all of it that I refused to acknowledge then and there, lest it cancelled out the laughs and the smiles on everyone’s face. It was kinda the end, but not really, either. It was like a transitioning period, more like. We were just sort of stuck in this in-between, and wasn’t that A Levels was all about? We, as A Levels students, not high school students, but not university students, either. Like a stairwell. And it wasn’t too bad, actually, being in this in-between. It’s the part where you have to move on to the next level of stairs that sucks, as all familiarity and comfort of the routines you’ve had at the stairwell are stripped off, just as you were getting accustomed to the clockworks of the system. And that, not being able to attend classes with all my classmates anymore, made me feel like I’d lost something valuable and precious that I had taken for granted all along and never really appreciated.
We left shortly after that, the three of us again in Bellyn’s car.
That night, Bellyn, Zitian and I had a mini foodventure as we set out in Belle’s silver Viva again, first to Standing Theory in SS2 where the hype over their waffles was justified -it was so good that between the three of us, it was finished in approximately only over a minute. Plus, the owner (we assume) of the cafe was like a carbon copy of a younger version of Taliza’s dad, appearance, dressing, voice and all. We had waffles for dessert first, so after that we headed to SS15 for a proper dinner at Little Fat Duck, which was basically just a black truck by the road that looked really cool and sold RM5 pasta. Bellyn and Zitian ordered pesto and I ordered aglio olio with iced lemon tea and we sat at the mini tables they provided next to the truck by the roadside. We also got bread at RT Pastry (again) (for the fourth time in two weeks).
It was a really, really nice night out with good friends and nice music playing in the car during the entire journey. I don’t want these nights to end, either.
Back at SMR, Zitian and I crashed at Rumin’s room until 2AM when we used the off-peak hour 4GB data quota on my broadband to watch Miss Cherilyn’s videos again. And then Harris’ birthday video. And then Shit A Level Students Say video. And then The 1975 music videos while I scrolled through old photos once again on my phone. It seemed like I wasn’t the only one from my class that was feeling the same way and doing the same thing. It was 4AM when I went back to my room and wrote the previous blogpost and 4.30AM when I finally slept. Or tried to sleep anyway. When I woke up this morning, it felt like I’d barely slept at all and my entire body ached from, I don’t know, emotions? Sadness? Because that’s all I remember feeling as I tossed and turned in the night.
I hate this. I hate this coming to an end. I hate it so very much. But one good thing I have to admit about things ending is that you tend to forget about the bad things and only remember the good things, which makes things more painful in general, of course, but they were good experiences and memories that happened to you, and they are a part of who you are today, contributing to the good life you’ve led.
I hate things ending, but “ending” is just a word, and as long as we are all still alive, there is no real end to what we have.
And now, to A2 we go.
michelle teoh 