Of course, now and then I do regret doing that, but when I think of what it has brought me, I don't know what to think. It's the conscience vs selfishness talk once again. But since I have chosen selfishness at that time, I'll have to accept it. Hmm, maybe it's just that I have not reached the stage of maturity that would make me a selfless, principled person who wouldn't do anything against what's right.
Okay, now I'm deviating. Back to APMOPS. I found the emceeing experience fun enough. Thanks to 邱老师, 张老师, Mrs Cheryl Wong and Ms Tan Yew Hui for their support. Although APMOPS this year is really just a competition between the Malaysians and Singaporeans (thanks to H1N1 flu, contestants from other regions did not come to Singapore), which made the competition a lot more small scale this year, it felt nice to have gone through such an event from the perspective of an emcee. As 邱老师 told me shortly after the prize presentation ended “台上一分钟，台下十年功”. True words indeed, same thing for theatre.
1st June was not so fun though, it was three and half hours of pure mathematics. Mrs Teng had pointed out my weakness in mathematics and had scheduled for a one-to-one class. I hadn't expect 3.5 hours though. I went to school at 8am, and to my surprise, Mrs Teng told me that she'll just continue to give me stuff to do until my saturation point.
But I'll be very fair, I can't say I got nothing out of the lesson. It turned out that Mrs Teng's twenty years of teaching made her so good at whatever she does. She started by giving me some Secondary 2 questions to test the strength of my foundation. It was sort of like a diagnosis, to find out what's wrong. Very professional indeed. I was impressed. Soon after, she concluded that my methods took too long to complete those questions, and taught me some techniques. Later on, we just did past year compilations of questions. A 15 minute break in which I just walked around the school aimlessly followed. After that, I reentered the classroom, where Mrs Teng had scheduled a math test for her Beijing students, or retest for those who had failed her previous test. She gave me their paper and told me to do it as well. After the test, as with the situation after every math lesson, I cannot help but feel a bit 自卑. Everyone seems fine with maths, or at least they seem to be coping. But not me. I stayed behind, cleared my doubts on the questions on the paper, asked a few more questions on logarithm, then was finally released. It was nice to know that Mrs Teng cared so much for my mathematics standard though.
Came 2nd June, the day of SMO (Singapore Mathematical Olympiad). While I had voluntarily signed up for it, I regreted it. Not only I don't stand a chance, I wouldn't enjoy it. But here's what happened. I missed the competition. Not on purpose though. It was a simple case of oversleeping. I woke up at 2pm utterly shocked, if not just purely confused. I have never slept till this late! Not in Singapore though. I did set an alarm but either it didn't ring, or I was just too asleep to notice. Normally, I have no problem waking up, I have never been late for school, for competitions, for most things. But probably SMO just didn't register in my brain properly? Weird, maybe it's my subconscious trying to tell me something else.
Music
Due to the usual monotony associated with the holidays, I have been going to the music room to play the piano for the past few days. It was great to feel alive again after all that happened in school for the past few weeks. It was my way of escaping from reality, and I like it.
Zi Kang and Aaron had followed me the music room for all times we used it, occasionally Zi Qian and Eng Keat would come. Shi-Jie made a guest appearance for 5 minutes (to sell Zi Kang the sandwich that he had bought wrongly, the one with meat). We played all sorts of songs that came to our mind. Sang a few, experimented on a few. Had a blast. On Sunday, Zi Kang, Zi Qian and I didn't get a room as the office was closed. Instead, we played the piano outside Blue Tea. For 4 hours! Though Mickey, our second favourite guard next to Karen Monica Cheng, kept walking around us and giving us what we saw as approving nods. Weird. Pauline said that she saw Mickey playing the piano a few times when we told her of it, I'm not sure if she's trying to scam us though, cause she didn't sound serious. Conclusion: our guards are 多才多艺.
Last night was one night of realisation though. I had suggested going to the music room, so we went down to the office to book a room. This time, Zi Qian and Eng Keat followed. I had presumed that they wanted to have fun with music so I was all "the more the merrier". But it turned out that they wanted me to assist them in practising for their class performance, playing the Mission: Impossible theme song.
Although I know that I would not enjoy it, it was fine by me to help them, so I said okay. We started playing for a while. Then, I forgot who was it, someone started singing the Keat song. Then Zi Qian started playing it on the flute, so I started playing the accompaniment on piano. Suddenly, Eng Keat pushed my hands away, I knew something was wrong, but I just said "what?" and continued to play for a while, until Eng Keat made a few very hard bows on his cello, I stopped. I walked away from the piano, then Eng Keat started banging all over the piano. Now everyone knew that he was displeased, and the atmosphere was awkward. I was a little angry too, because I didn't get what was making him behave this way. I reasoned that if he was angry with the song we were playing, he could have just told us or let out his angry slowly, but it was his sudden release of anger that made me angry.
Everyone was not saying anything, but I knew what they were thinking. I had to let it out, so I said rather angrily, "I ... I have to say something. 你发什么脾气? Seriously, it's not that I want to say or anything, but if you are angry, you can tell us or something or what right? Do you need to bang the piano and do all those things that you did? I don't get angry all the time, I don't scold people a lot, but seriously, this time?" Then I stormed out the room, and what coincidence, my mum called at that time.
After speaking with my mother, Zi Kang, Aaron and I discussed about what happened. I asked if what I said was too harsh? Aaron told me it was just "very regular pissing off", Zi Kang said "not really". I was in the heat, I was thinking of leaving the card and key on the piano and to tell them to return them when they're done, then leave the room. That was when I saw Eng Keat cry. Then I hesitated. I have never seen my dear friend cry, it came to me I was the one who started it, so it was up to me to end it. It was so tempting to just leave, but I didn't. After a few moments of consideration. I went in to apologise. Zi Qian and I started to console him. I told Eng Keat, that I NEED to know what made him angry because I am his friend. It was the song that we played, and everything that was about it. I said that I was very sorry for whatever we might've done in the past, and that I will try to stop doing it as far as possible. That was when Mr Lee Khen Seng came in suddenly. He asked if we can handle, I said yes. Zi Kang later told me that Mr Lee's daughter wanted to use the piano, but then he saw Zi Kang and Aaron standing at one corner of the music room. He asked what happened, Zi Kang told him that we had an argument so they thought it'd be better for them to stay outside. Zi Kang and Aaron left soon after that.
After saying what I said to console him and to apologise, I felt that I had to tell him the bigger picture, because I was a friend. I told him the reason why people do this. I said, everyone gets this, even I get angry at times when being called names and hurled insults by the people I call my closest friends. It is the things that we keep inside because we fear hurting our friends instead. But it is based on the assumption that our friends would keep it within, or that our friends wouldn't mind, that we say such things that might hurt them on an internal level. We can promise him the world to console him but slip back into our old ways after some time. I told him, it is the whole inevitability of being friends and that THIS is the meaning of being friends. It is about the things we don't say, but we mean in our hearts. It was the things that I told Eng Keat when I poured my heart out. What we do in real life might not reflect how much we see the other as a friend, the whole string of assumptions we make, of how our friends wouldn't care about this, of how they wouldn't mind about that, shows how we take them forgranted. But once in a while, it'd be nice to tell them: You are my friend, I appreciate you, I value what we have gone through together. And you who are reading this at this very moment, get the hint please, this is what I am trying to tell you right now :)
I understand that it might be a continued suppression of these emotions that led to such an outburst. At that time, I was thinking, I don't want this friendship to end just like that, so I did what I did. I suggested going back to our rooms and to get an early rest. In the end, it was the signature "HI" of Eng Keat that broke the awkward atmosphere, a smile appeared on the edge of my lips as Zi Qian and I looked into each others' eyes knowingly. As we walked back, we talked about the event that just happened, Zi Qian suggested that all of us could try letting out our displeasure bit by bit. I agreed, but I was just happy that we could talk normally again.
A night of music turned into a night of realisation. I know, it's all just a part of growing up, but I'm glad that it happened to me now than later on in life. I mean, just look at me, co-founder of the Keat song and the term "OMEK", living my world of assumptions. I know that everyone lives with these assumptions of friends, I'll probably still live in these assumptions after this event, but one thing's for sure: I'll be more sensitive to matters regarding these assumptions. Would like to end with this analogy I thought of, inspired by friendship, by life, by the lessons learnt. Life is just like a melody, it's just better with harmony. Together, we create the most harmonious melody of life.
Yours musically,
Xue Zheng
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