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.