deja vu

when i should be writing stories for berita JeTS, i'm sitting in the office talking to you. the classroom sessions have ended, we're all on attachments now and dearly missing each other.

it's been a week now, and that deep sense of deja vu i felt upon entering this place has shown no signs of letting up. its like being back in boarding school, only they're more mature, which makes things slightly more bearable.

nonetheless, scars like that never really go away and it is absolutely tugging at my heartstrings that i am feeling this again.

my two years at boarding school were not much fun as i struggled with the 'malay'-ness of the place. in all honesty, how i managed to stomach those two years still astounds me. it wasn't, by any means, a bad place. but i found it very difficult to fit in.

cliche as this may sound, i am very used to an english speaking environment where i mix with all sorts of people, not ONLY malays. throw me into a melting pot of malay people with the majority of them not sharing the same capacity to mix with other kinds of people, i stick out like a sore thumb because i don't get along with them at the level that i'm comfortable with. this isn't about a lower or higher level, but rather it's a clash of worlds.

this place gives me strong feelings like what i felt all those years ago. i sorely want to be back at the other place, not because i think the feelings will be different, but because i will automatically be more at ease simply because things are conducted in english.

you can tell me to my face that i have no malay pride. i assure you that i can't be bothered to acknowledge what you think. i am half chinese! the chinese can accuse me of the exact same thing and i will tell them the same! im more interested in MALAYSIAN pride, which i have by the bucket loads. because, my DNA isn't malay, it isn't chinese. it's purely MALAYSIAN. that's exactly what i am.

and i intend to write as a MALAYSIAN, in English, as that is what i am most comfortable doing.