The Roads Taken

The Petronas Twin Tower glammed up for the Merdeka Celebration

I finished my primary school with a decent UPSR( equivalent to junior cert) result, 3As and 2 Bs out of 5 compulsory subject taken. Dad wasn’t too impressed comparing my brain to prawn’s. The turning point probably when I was in form 2 , I wanted a change wanted to do very well in exam. I started putting the hard work and I prayed daily hoping I will be as smart as the other students. Every single nights I asked god to make me clever. I read all the textbooks and even the dictionary page by page and memorised all of them.

The efforts paid off , from the nobody to one of the top scorers in the class and in form 3 I was the best student , I scored perfect 8As with 2 other students in our lower high school exam . Nobody in my family expected that, we were so used to not doing well in school , pass fail was the norm but I proved to myself am the living example,I fought and am winning.

My joy unfortunately was short ended. All turned into nightmare after I accepted the offer to a boarding school .A good distance away from home up in the northern state of the country. If you did well in the exam you get the opportunity to study in these highly sought after prestigious schools . They are well known for academic excellence but they do have dark sides too , the bullying.

Bullying was common back then but not to the extreme of causing serious harms or death to others like what have happened nowadays in Malaysia.

Bullying was incredibly hard for me and unfortunately I had no way out but to put up with it. That was one of the hardest time in my life ever, that 16 year old of me was heavily bullied . As the poor ,socially awkward new gay student I was the easy target, the bullseyes! The bullying was mainly verbal but it affected me just as much or even harder than the physical one. Before Rihanna , there was me, I was ‘ the forehead ‘ the flower horn fish because of my larger than life forehead . My receding hair and oily complexion made me even more irresistible to those haters. Come bully me! In the very hot tropical weather,I was shinning bright like the sun . They screamed and closed their eyes as if I blinded them. I wished I did. Some calling me ‘ Amon Ra’ or the sun god but of course in dogarotory manner.

I failed adapting to the new life in the boarding school miserably, life was intense revolving around the non stop academic classes and the prayer hall.

There were a lots of compulsory religious activities as well which include group prayers and Quran recitations.

Ironically, the bad students remained problematic despite the many religious teaching given.

The stern wardens will honked and chased us early for morning prayer.

One evening I got good smack on my back because I had fallen asleep in the prayer hall.

Wasn't painful but pretty embarrassing.

Life surely full of surprises, many years down the line I become sceptical to religions - all of them.

I was very stressed and even considered myself depressed. Every single day, I imagined myself bombing the whole school, all of them. Shocking I know but the dark thoughts lingered for sometime . I was the Fukujima and Chernobyl combined. When I asked my dad I wanted to leave , he gave me the cold shoulders saying my sister already spent too much money on me and leaving the school was a big no. They honestly let me down, money over my well being. I only had a diary to confide to and to some degree it did the job. There was a drawing inside , a caged sad little bird.

I avoided the bullies whenever possible, I studied in the library and in the class I will just put on the deaf ears , I painted a smile if I could now and then . Over time , the bullying started to fade , and eventually they just banters to me. That young version of me did so very well and I owed him so much, whatever comes my way now or in the future , I forbid myself from letting him down.

If I could go back in time I will hug him tight and tell him how amazing his life will be.

Years later am proudly wearing the sol

I remained excellent in academic. Memorising tons of facts were easy and our education system built on this heavily. When I started working as intern/junior doctor, I had to learn again mostly on the job, and those many facts that kept me up late all night were pretty much gone the moment the final exam over.

Poor my brain for having to memorise those junks for years just for the sake of exam. Education system which emphasise on critical thinking should be the way forward ,to think smarter to question and to reason everything again and again.

I finished the high school very well enough to secure government scholarship worth over a million ringgit( roughly 200k euros) to study medicine in Ireland. That was the first time I ever been on the plane to London from KL and then to Dublin. That was beyond my wildest dream.The impossible now seems possible.

Looking back, I must say life at boarding school was painfully tough but at the same time it was priceless, a very good learning pot.

I just wished that I had been more supported by my family but I acknowledged our circumstances. They done as much as they could.

What do I do if I met those bullies?

We probably just laugh it off as I have no resentment or bad feeling left.

I will ask them to call me those names again so I can laugh my ass off.

Am healed.

The alma mater- Trinity College Dublin