Waiting for the bus that never came
Lot of things happened during the past five years. Looking back, only fragments of memories remain. I have come this far. Yet, I feel though as if I stayed on the starting line and had really gotten nowhere……like the first time I attempted to catch the bus back home. It never came, because I was not even waiting on the right stop. Did I stop on the wrong spot again?
Memories of the completely, the incompleted, happiness, sadness……are all so fulfilling, yet so scary.
December 2004, Fish arrived in Australia, completely oblivious to the challenges he was about to face. He was only glad that he left the hellish junior high of Taiwan behind him.
January 2005, Sunnybank State Primary welcomed the arrival of two international students, as the school accepted, unprecedented, the enrolment of its first two junior international students. Those two Hwang kids went on the newspaper the following week. Grade seven marked the beginning of a new chapter.
July 2005, Fish entered Mt Gravatt State High school. He was cautioned for “shiny” school shoes and did not expect to become a legend. He got a C for Study of Society and Environment, one of his all time lows in terms of academic performance. It had happened in grade eight, and once only.
November 2005, Fish went back to Taiwan for the first time since his departure. He fell in love for the first time with someone he never expected he would. She kept him going on the phone for the next two years. Until he finally decided if this was to proceed, she will be hurt. So he stopped making those international calls.
January 2006, Mt Gravatt State High has proven more hospitable than hostile. He really fitted in well, and met some of his best friends ever in grade nine. “The Year of His Gangsterness”, he would now like to call it.
October 2006, presentation night, he had seven As. Everyone was congratulating him, but he was unsatisfied. He wanted to chase a higher dream.
December 2006, Fish met with the first girl he has ever cared too much about for the last time. He knew he would be on his own for the next year. But he was ready for it.
January 2007, with OP1 and Junior Dux in mind, he entered this year with renewed determination. However, he only later found out the goals he set were perhaps a little too high for him to grasp.
Unknown 2007, he entered the Queensland Junior Badminton Tournament and got absolutely flogged. But he realized that he could never beat everyone at everything, but he could beat most people at most things.
October 2007, he had achieved what he had come here to do. Although eight As and two subject awards were not enough to grant him the junior dux, he was not disappointed because he lost the competition with others, but himself. He was two subject awards down from last year. Arrogance had gotten the better of him and he wanted to change. He knew grade ten was only but a major obstacle. But he was also upset enough to want to do even better.
November 2007, unwillingly, he went to an interview with the deputy headmaster of Brisbane Grammar School, forcefully set up by his mother. However, this unwillingness was perhaps the only reason he got in. Fish’s reluctance to go to this prestigious institution was due almost entirely to fear alone, like everything else he had hated. But no more, his parents one time decision might just proven to be his one turning point in life.
February 2008, grade eleven at BGS marks the start of a tragic success. He was bullied, mentally tortured, marginalized, cornered…… He was at some stage upset, disappointed, furious and even wanted to give up. But Fish had the fight in him, he tighten up the knot and fuck through adversity. “Fuck them rich boys, if they can do it, I can do it too, if not better.”
June 2008, mid way through the year, he was missing his old friends, his old schools and his old self. But he has also evolved. He was now more cunning, tougher, stronger and more of a fucker, which are exactly some of the essentials to surviving BGS education and socialization.
October 2008, speech day at BGS for the first time, and he has snatched away one subject dux. Although everyone despised earthscience, but it was considered rare for a completely new ASIAN boy to owned the stage. He was regarded a threat in biology. But arrogance never gotten to him again, nothing he did would ever satisfy him again. He just wanted to fly higher, if a fish could one day grow wings.
November 2008, he met a second girl at the movies, who he fell for with renewed craze. He never thought he could ever like, if not love someone this much. It was the start of a beautiful tragedy.
February 2009, last year of high school, he just could never seem to get enough sleep right from the first day of school. So he learnt to studied in the school libraries until five pm every day, so as soon as he went home, he could sleep. The truth was, that might not be the reason of his vigorous studying technique. There were just too much temptations at home, including a girl on the other side of the computer, connected to him by msn.
March 2009, everything started going downwards, because the girl started ignoring him. Arrogance was no longer his weakness, but sensitivity and idiocy towards affection.
June 2009, he started playing tennis at school. Pounding of the balls calmed him down. Humiliating his opponents on the court released his anger. He was no longer the simple boy that shivered in the corner of a classroom back in 05. He was more messed up than ever.
July 2009, Fish got his first taste of betrayal, after the girl he was crazy for kissed the guy he had always regarded as the lowest human being possible, and then called to cry to him. His heart was broken into a thousand pieces. Fish lost his orientation for a while. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. His academic grade dropped three folds, and he was a walking zombie everyday for the next three weeks.
September 2009, he took the girl who he thought he had everything with to the Senior Formal, only to realize it was all in his own head. “Just because a girl went out alone with you doesn’t mean she likes you. Just because a girl texted in the middle of the night saying ‘I missed you’ doesn’t mean she likes you. ‘I love you’ for her is just her way of greeting everyone. Hugs were given out for free. You are not special.” He finally figured it all out and shaved his head the next day. Salvation of school grades could begin next term without hair and the girl in his heart.
November 2009, he graduated from Brisbane Grammar School as the top 25 General Merits. He duxed earthscience again, but the OP1 was not given to him. Fish thought perhaps he just did not try hard enough. However, it could also be possible that maybe he just was not talented enough.
December 2009, Fish visited Canada with his family. It was going to be his new home. The frozen statistic where all the scores were zeroed, and he could reboot his life.
April 2010, Fish finished writing this article, feeling empty and lost.
Memories, is simply something you could stored on a semi-conductor. Whether they are good or bad no longer matter, what matters is that you learn from it.
So here I am, still sitting in the same bus stop, waiting for the same bus that I hope would one day come. I have gotten fitter, smarter, more cunning and more mature. Tennis has served me well, but it has also hurt my elbow, badly. Maybe life is exactly like that, if there is an upside, there must be a down side. I should probably stop waiting for the bus and start walking. The destination would never be reached unless I reach for it. Maybe it was never the right bus stop in the first place. Maybe the bus I had been waiting for is no longer in service. Maybe I should just commence on foot and find my own route, to a new beginning…… and purpose.
事情就是這樣
1樓
1樓搶頭香
我哭了....
呵呵不會啦
人生海海
總有海闊天青的一天
好好等八
2樓
2樓頸推
人生才走了一小段 未來還很長
新的開始 新的一頁
你一定可以適應的很好
你一直都可以:D
謝拉
向老媽說的一樣
我才過了人生的第一個十八年
運氣好的話還有另外五個呵呵
新的開始阿....
ps 歹勢寫英文的,中文要打那麼多我會死掉
3樓
3樓坐沙發
hey this is the year of 2010 i/o
2009. check the years listed in
the bottom half part. don't get
confused.
4樓
福樓
life isn't all bad. look into
the bright side more.