Tertipu

Hari ni entah kali ke berapa ratus aku balik lambat. Extended OT time due to overlisting. Fenomena biasa kalau kerja kat OT. Kalau jadi kat gomen memang akan jadi sumber perang dingin (yang kadang-kadang boleh jadi hangat). Tapi kalau di praktis swasta, ko senyap je la buat kerja sambil makan hati. Heh!


Tadi bila start lap AP resection pukul 2 petang, kawan aku kata kena tipu dah kau ni. Hmmm... Bila pikir balik hasil penipuan ni, sekurang-kurangnya ada juga orang yang dapat diselamatkan (atau dipanjangkan nyawa; omputeh cakap 'survival rate has been increased'), insyaAllah. Jadi lapang la balik hati aku yang tadinya berkobar-kobar nak marah.


Kira tertipu jugak ke macam ni. Ikhlas kan je hati, kurang-kurang jadi pahala kan?

Misunderstood

"Kalau berjalan, mata pandang bawah. Jangan pandang atau bercakap dengan budak laki2. Kalau perlu cakap, panggil dia 'Pakcik". Jangan nak ber'abang-abang'." That was what I was told during the so called 'Orientation Week" when I joined my secondary boarding school. I and the rest of the class followed this religiously which I think in retrospective if they wanted to transform us into a bunch of terrorist army it would be a very easy job. So fearful of us towards our seniors that we just embraced whatever they say like a plant in dire need of sunshine. The funny thing was we had nobody to call Pakcik since we rarely talk to the boys that we ended up practicing it on the poor canteen workers, the gardener or the janitor. They were so furious (some of them were barely in their twenties, mind you!) that they called us "Makcik" in retaliation! Frankly, I think all that were bunch of rubbish because in real world we are not segregated. The way they taught us had made us think that celibacy is THE way of life.


We were segregated in school; male and female that we didn't even talk to our own classmate. Those who talk were made to feel bad. The worst are those who had a fling with the opposite sex. When I say fling, it just meant harmless hello and some letters being exchanged. No physical contact whatsoever was involved. Still, they were treated like an outcast. Imagine if some of them were caught dating outside the school, even lepers sufferers would have received a better treatment than them. Honestly.


As we grew up and became slightly more mature, signs of rebellion started to surface. For girls, it will be something like; listening to some rock music, keeping rock stars poster. Or even adopting unusual fashion habits; like wearing your skirt slightly higher than it should be with ankle-length sock so when we walk, there would be high chance that part of the ankle will be exposed. For guys, I think the usual would be keeping their hair longer than it should, even donning some unual fashion habits, smoking or truanting. Small rebellion. Small maybe, insignificant to others. But still, it was a rebellion. A subtle reminder to our soul that nobody can control us.


Segregation is bad. It made us curious, even prejudice and eventually we ended up fighting with the other party. One example; I knew a girl who had a chair thrown at her combined with abusive words (she was called a 'whore'!!) by a male classmate simply because she made a funny remark about a him. Some volatile response towards a harmless observation! Even I had my share of bad experience; thanks to my male classmates. They called me names and I didn't even know what I did wrong to deserve something like that. The more I ignored them, the severe the verbal abuse. I think somehow it affected me as an adult. It contributed to a bitter, blunt and sarcastic side of me. But the bright side is; I'm a stronger and more resilient person now. Also thanks to them.


Anyway, as my batch became seniors I heard they became more tolerant, more flexible ( I wasn't there to witness the change, as I went to another boarding school). Nobody in my batch had become a terrorist and nobody had comitted suicide so far. As for me, it took a very very long time to forgive a few of my male classmates. Maybe they were plain ignorant. Or maybe we were all misunderstood.

TO SIR WITH NO LOVE

Everyone has their favourite teacher. Mine were many; from primary school till postgraduate. My favorite was Ms Tan Moon Geok in primary 2 who instilled my sense of worth and self respect. However the teacher that I couldn't stand the most was Cikgu Tanzizi. He was the disciplinary teacher and also taught us Science & PE during standard 4. I don't remember the lesson but I still remember his constant bully.

Terima kasih sebab tag gambar aku. Dalam ni takde gambar Cikgu Tanzizi. He he

It started from a harmless tease but gradually became personal. He would loudly made nasty comments about my face, my school uniform and my tudung (I was the first among the very few who wore tudung in my school, back in 1983). He would punish and humiliate me for small mistakes while the class crook escaped scotfree (I was the head of class then). He made me stand on a chair for one whole period because my parents had refused to sign a consent form for a certain vaccination. He even subtracted a mark from my exam paper when my answer was actually the right one but awarded free marks for the rest of the class just to prove his authority. But the one I remembered most was 'the electrical current'. One day during a free period he suddenly became interested to teach Jawi (after he found out that I didn't bring the book). Unfortunately more than half of classroom also didn't bring the book. So he made us line up with our fingers pinching the ear of the person next to us. And he stood in the front pinching a student's ear, the first in the line. He bellowed "karan!!" and started to twist the ear and we supposed to twist the next person's ear too. So the 'electrical current' flowed from student number 1 to student number 25. Of course it was hilarious because it involved the whole class, not just me. Lucky me.

But one day, he came to the clinic where I did part time locum last month for consultation and to take medication for his heart problem. He didn't recognize me but of course I knew him. He was still looking good, still very articulate, totally unlike my imagination of him would become; haggard, frail looking and begging for my forgiveness! In my mind all I thought was it's payback time! In my head I was planning; should I swap his medication with something else? Give him poison instead? Should I tell him straight ; "You big bully! See what happened to you now!"

My husband's story has another twist. The most hated secondary school teacher who used to bully him had the cheek to borrow money from him when they accidentally met years later. And he tried to borrow money from his other former students too. Of course my hubby politely refused him.

But what did I do to Cikgu Tanzizi in the end? Nothing. Didn't want to embarrass him. Didn't have the heart to actually harm him. But didn't want him to feel proud of me either. Maybe deep inside I've already forgiven him. But not yet ready to forget.