PLKN: To Go or Not To Go?

I checked up on my PLKN status for the sheer of it since everyone is doing it and thought "Oh, hell, seriously, out of thousands of candidates, surely with a stroke of pure luck I wouldn't be chosen."
      The next thing I knew, the word 'Tahniah' is practically blinking and getting bigger on the screen. My first thought was "No! No! This couldn't be true! I couldn't be going through another of a hell-like experience in the middle of nowhere doing God-knows-what things."
     I cranked up the volume of T-ara's 'Don't Leave' and listen to it again and again as I wallow in my sadness and shock of being forced to go through such ordeal soon. Though many people said that PLKN is so great blah-di-blah-di, it doesn't sound GREAT to me but I conclude that's because I have a natural aversion for hard physical activities.
     Anyway, I was terrified and excited at the same time. Next to my worry of being drenched in dirty water and having to go to the toilet in the dead of night, I worry about making new friends since it has been such a long time since I had made any new friends.
     But thinking back about how everybody only get one chance at life, and that I can't turn back the time to experience my youth AGAIN, I might as well face it head-on. I am quite adventurous and if I can swallow a whole duck or even chuck a few grasshoppers (which I want to do in the FUTURE and that is if I haven't changed my mind), why can't I do this little thing?
     I know, it seems big in the beginning but I truly believe that God wouldn't send you there without a reason. So to my friends who cried in class today, who feel like your live have practically ended with that one 'Tahniah' word, WAKE UP, GET UP and BE STRONG.
     This is not the end, babe and you'll only going to do this for 3 months. Before you know it, those three months would feel like 3 days and you'll probably end up missing those irretrievable days. :)

Just because you're not good in a particular subject...

I don’t know what I’d do with 48 hours a day but I somehow sense that I need more than 24 hours a day.

            SPM (yes, SPM… you know, that thing – the worst nightmare for every 17-year-old Malaysian) is hovering near, fluttering its wings above my head, reminding me of its arrival with every breeze that tickled my face.

            I have many notes to finish (though I don’t think it does me any good when there are countless reference books and every single detail needed for examination was already printed out neat and clear in the textbooks), I have many weakness to get over so that I can pass through its high gates, I have many wrongs to right and I’m struggling with so many things I feel like running to the top of a mountain, let the fog surround me, conceal me so that I’d stay hidden in the cold forever and never have to come down.

            But that’s plain ridiculous, of course.

            I want to get over this stage and sleep peacefully without anxiety attacking my heart with every beat, without worry bouncing around in my head, without dreams that would make me restless in the days. I want to bury myself among the things I love to do, I want to be surrounded with people I love, and I want to be free again.

            I don’t know what life in college is like but I am quite sure that it’d be harder than this. But I figure out that life in college might just be a little bit pleasant since you get to learn things you’re really interested in as oppose to learning stuff you don’t like.

            What’s pressing on me is my struggle with subjects that I deem unworthy of my attention, subjects which I fought so forcefully but am still unable to get out of the system. You see, I was forced to take this into the folds of my brain and this isn’t something I’d like to do. It disappeared as soon as it appears inside my head. The teacher doesn’t help either. I think she herself doesn’t even know half the things she’s supposed to teach and she teaches in such a boring and drab way that I slink further in my seat, my energy evaporated.

            I have no way to pique my interest anymore. Besides the subjects involved, the other thing that depresses me is people’s perception of clever. If I am to tell you that I get A+ for Mathematics or Additional Mathematics, you would certainly say ‘Wow!’ with your mouth wide open and you would surely think ‘Man, this girl is really clever to have scored A+!’. If I tell you I get 10A in SPM, what would you think of me? The same thing, I’m sure of that. What if I tell you I flunk Mathematics and I got only a couple of As in SPM? I’ve no doubt you’d view me as ‘dumb’.

            To be honest, I have the same perception too but I try to change that. This perception had often made me see myself as dumb, as someone who ‘just couldn’t do it no matter what’. Getting As doesn’t promise you a place in this world. Get all the As you can but lack of attitude would bring you down in the end. I remind myself all the time that when someone gets straight As, it doesn’t mean she’s very clever and if a student flunk a few subjects, it doesn’t mean that she’s dumb. It merely means that her talent, the gift from God was somewhere else besides the fold of her brain. Look at the brush strokes she made, the colour that mixed in harmony when painted on a canvas by her very own hands. Look at the beautiful picture she painted and see her ‘cleverness’ hidden deep in her hands.

            For all you know, that one person you labeled as ‘dumb’ might just rise higher than you. They’d probably start up a business, paint the most glorious picture the eyes had ever seen, play the most beautiful melody the ears had ever heard, write the words that yield the power to snake its way to your mind and your heart.

            Some people are just gifted while others have to try twice as hard to reach the level where the gifted so easily climb. I don’t blame them.

            The reason I’m ranting about this is because I feel that everyone thinks low of me because of this one single thing. Just because I’m not ‘clever enough’ in Mathematics, people think of me as someone who is useless, who has nothing to offer, who has limited chances to succeed. I’m not speaking high of myself, but I’m quite the writer with a talent that I try to enhance every chance I get. When I say this NOW, people might just bat their lashes at me and walk away but see how many people view Dato’ A.Samad Said as someone knowledgeable, clever, worthy of their attention and respect? I have no idea how good his Math is but he’s a writer. He writes. He contributes to the world by writing. He doesn’t do Math. He doesn’t give out formulas to solve questions. He makes you think a lot by his writing and he’s practically on top of the world as he is SOMEONE, a man people often look up to.

            So just because you’re not good enough in Math, just because you’re not taking the Science stream in high school, it doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You’re clever in your own way. As long as you don’t give up and keep moving on, then you can succeed someday, Insha-Allah.

            And don’t forget, when you succeed, you’ve proven not only to yourself but also the rest of the world that you’re not dumb after all.

I'm Looking Forward

Have you ever feel so frustrated and scared in life that you just want to look – or even glimpse – at the future so that you can be assured that everything will be okay in the end?

Have you?

I have.

As I look at the pictures of the planes and clouds I have taken when I was on the plane to Bandung, a cold fear wash over me.

What if THIS is the place that I can never be at? What if I have to forget this dream? What if this all would be taken away from me? What would I do then?

Because right now, without THAT dream, I don’t think I’ll be able to LIVE.

By live, I don’t mean just waking up in the morning, have breakfast and walk around. I mean that my soul seems to have faded away along with the pieces of my crushed dream. If I am a car, then that one dream is the petrol for me to keep moving on. Without it, I feel useless, like there’s nothing I can do with my life.

My description is overdramatic, perhaps, but that’s what I feel. At least I’m being honest.

And honestly, I’m tired. I’m tired of being where I have been all my life. I’m tired of being in my ‘comfort zone’.

If you ask me to describe my life, I would say this:

I have fallen and I am now bleeding. I am walking under the hot desert sun and I can feel the sand burning under my feet. Sweat runs down my face and clings to my clothes. I am hurting because it seems like the bleeding wouldn’t stop. I am lost. I have to find my way back. I look ahead but there is nothing. Sometimes I see something that would shade me from the heat, but it gets farther away when I try to reach it. I feel hopeless. I don’t know where life is.

I am constantly missing my mother, even if it’s mostly unconsciously. My mother is my life, she was my world. It hurts to use the past tenses whenever I talk about her. If other people say My mother has long hair, I would have to say My mother had walked on earth before. Now, not anymore.

Usually, this feeling would surface whenever I’m under a great deal of stress. Again, I would cry.

Dear reader, do you see where this is coming to? Do you see how I start to write about my fears to missing my mother? She’s always there, in the back of my mind.

I LIVE WITHOUT HER BUT I STILL NEED HER.

Enough talking about that.

I’m looking forward to my dreams; I’m looking forward to the time where I will eventually start to live. I’m looking forward to heal the wound inside me and walk under big trees with branches full of leaves to shade me from the harsh sun and cool me down.

I’m looking forward. 

Lucky You!

There was this one time in live when I have felt that I’m moving forward and maybe moving toward success. I was in primary school – perhaps eleven or twelve years old – and I felt that way simply because I was hugging a few books to my chest the way I see the big kids do. Big kids a.k.a high school kids and college students.

I vaguely remember wanting to grow up, to get this over with even though I couldn’t really say where I would be heading then.

But now that I’m in my senior year – the last year of high school for me – I can say that I feel more lost than when I was twelve. Because when you were twelve, you took an UPSR (examination) which will get you nowhere special except maybe good, expensive schools that claimed to have the best teachers and education system in the country. Then life went on and you moved forward. You took the PMR (examination) and then you started to think ‘Which stream should I take on next year?’ because this is when all the going-to-be lawyers and doctors and economists and etc. come up. And because in a couple of years, you’d sit for SPM (a very crucial examination!) which will bring you everywhere – depending on your results.

Which is why SPM has never been less than important in every Malaysians’ lives.

And what good timing! I feel lost in my last crucial year of high school, wondering where to go next and feeling ‘I-want-to-get-this-over-with’ and ‘God-how-am-I-supposed-to-do-this?’ mixing inside me, hurting me and driving me crazy because the uncertainty and anxiety are just too much to bear.

THAT and coupled with personal problems – a fight with family members, a failing relationship with an assshole of a boyfriend or losing someone you think of as your best friend ever – that is if you have any of the above.

Not that I have none of them. Err, but for the second problem I mentioned. That one is totally out of my book.

For now.

If you don’t, then you are extremely, extremely, extremely lucky!

Crushed Dreams

There is this place where I want to be at someday.
This place is not on the ground - and no, it's not heaven I'm talking about.
I want to be at the front, at that special place with lots of buttons to push.


BUT I CAN'T.
I CAN'T BE WHAT I WANT TO.
I CAN'T BE A PILOT.

Using the simplest word possible, MY DREAM IS NOW CRUSHED.


I feel like laughing as I write these. WHY IS MY DREAM NOW CRUSHED?


Why is it crushed? BECAUSE I DON'T MAJOR IN PHYSICS. BECAUSE I HAVE SUCH A TERRIBLE EYESIGHT. BUT WHO AM I TO COMPLAIN TO ALLAH FOR THIS GREATNESS HE HAS GIVEN ME?


Well, yeah, it hurts a lot that I can't be a pilot. My father told me that I can be a stewardess instead since I have a good command of Malay and English... but that's not where I want to be. I might give it a shot, though - just so I can fly and get cooped up in a plane for hours.


My original dream was to be a journalist and I think you can see why from my writing.
I love words. Hell. I love to chew on them.
WORDS CAN BREAK SOMEONE'S HEART BUT WORDS CAN ALSO PUT IT BACK TOGETHER.


Being around words was what I've dreamed of but as the thought and excitement of being a pilot came, I realized that the dream had gotten dull. 
I began to despise it. So much.


But words has always been there for me. And now that the hurt of my dreams being crushed has gone, I found myself turning to embrace my passion for words once again. I love words for being a wall I can lean against at any time, and I love it for being a hero that I can fall back on at any time.


I've worked for it since forever. Now I'm halfway there. Tell me, WHY SHOULD I STOP?
There's no reason for me to stop, so NO I WON'T STOP. AND YES, I'LL GO ON.


I won't let go of my dreams. I may fail in so many things now, but I'm gonna make sure the failures I make now will be the steps to my success!

I am Me

Who am I lying to?
I cannot do this!


Oh, hi! Hello!
You're reading this? Are you?
Oh, yeah you are.
Right?


Whatever happens. I'm not gonna lie.
I know who I am. I am an almost 17 year old Malay girl. 
And I like to speak English. I like to write in English. 
And no, I have never forgotten who I am.
I know I was born in Malaysia, and that I should speak Malay but there's nothing wrong in this, yeah? Speaking English, I mean.


By the way, my name is Nur Shahira. Nice to meet you. ^_^


I really have no idea what to tell about my life except that it's no different than anyone else's. I experience the same pain, the same hurt, the same happiness, etc. No biggie.
I work hard in life - or at least I try to - and I really want to make my parents proud.
THAT'S THE LEAST I CAN DO.


There'll be more to come from my blog in the future.
Do visit and follow :D