While still on the subject of school days, I started reminiscing about the time when I was in tertiary. I remember the first tertiary institution I went into. After the intense application, interview, written test and selection process, when I received the letter that I was accepted, I could hardly believe my eyes!
Like I said, my grades were just mediocre, nothing to speak of, so it was a miracle I even went in. But I guess things happened for a purpose. If I had not gone in, I would not have met the person who would mean so much to me, and I still care for him as a friend, but that is another story altogether.
Anyway, when Freshman Orientation came about, I was really excited. There was the overall orientation for all the freshmen, as well as the school orientation for the various courses. In the overall orientation, we were broken into groups comprising freshmen from all courses. Thus, I inter-mingled with those from Business, Computing, Engineering, to name a few. It was great fun, we had eggs and flour thrown at us, water sprayed at us, walked all over campus for a treasure hunt, and camped on the school grounds.
After that, came the school orientation. Those from my course had to go to the respective lecture theatre, where there was a briefing, an introduction around campus, the library, the research and computer rooms, then we went back to the lecture theatre where we were broken into our respective tutorial groups. Each tutorial group had a class tutor and two mentors who were our seniors.
And that was when I saw him. My first impression was that this guy has a nice voice! Soothing, pleasant. Not a sing-song voice, but pleasant to the ears. Apparently he was a mentor and he was calling out the names of the tutorial group he was supposed to be mentoring. And he called out my name!
First time someone pronounced my name perfectly without any need for me to introduce myself! Throughout all my life, I was cursing my parents for giving me this name, so odd and hard to pronounce, as not even my teachers could get the actual pronunciation right, which is odd actually because I always thought my name is pretty easy to pronounce! Thus I was used to saying my name out first before anyone got to it, or else, everyone will spell or pronounce the more common form with an extra syllable.
I went out when my name was called, and he looked straight at me, gave me a smile, and remarked, "Nice name!" I did not know how to react so just smiled. Then we went to a classroom to get to know our tutorial mates, tutors and mentors. The tutors and mentors had to introduce themselves, and when he introduced himself, I was remarking to myself, "Small wonder he got in. A real prosecutor or litigator in the making!" The words just flowed out of his mouth like water flowing out from a tap! How I wish I can be this articulate! I got to know his name and that he was a year above me.
The weekend before term started, I had to move into the hall. I remember my parents driving me down on a Saturday, dropped me off in front of the hall (we had already recce the place a week before), so I had to lug my suitcase all the way to the second floor. When I reached the staircase, he was just coming down. The moment he saw me, he helped carry my suitcase to my room, and said, "So we are in the same hall! I'm just upstairs, holler if you need anything!" And then proceeded to give me a brief tour on where the kitchenette, function room and lounge is. Not to mention he actually remembers my name despite just a glance that day.
That was when I first spoke to him. Besides saying thank you from carrying my luggage, I told him, "You were going down. Were you not supposed to go somewhere?" To which he said, "I was just on my way to lunch actually. You wanna come? Then I can show you where the nice eating places are." And that was the start of a close friendship. Turned out he was meeting his friends and he introduced me as their junior, where I was welcomed with open arms.
From there, he got me into debating, hall activities, school activities and our usual supper bantering time. Being the class mentor, he was the first person I spoke to when I felt I could not cope with the workload and kind of subjects and wanted out. He was fully supportive and told me to do what my heart desired. Of course, by then we were already more than just mere friends. We still studied together though, and he always gave me his notes for reference, so I never really did lose touch with much.
So when I went into another tertiary institution and attended another orientation, somehow that orientation is much more impersonal and not as fun. Perhaps because the next course I entered does not cater just for students, but also for adults and those who entered second careers. Thus the structure was not as well planned out nor as fun as the previous one. All we did was briefing, introduction of the various groups, and a tour around campus. That was it. Even when the campus shifted into its permanent grounds and I ended up in the hall again, somehow I did not feel it was as nice as the previous one.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. Yet my deepest memories were those from school, and not so much on my adulthood. Seems like I hardly have anything worth remembering in my adulthood. In fact, there are some things I prefer not to remember. But in any case, hopefully in the months to come, there can be some good memories to create all over again, who knows?
Like I said, my grades were just mediocre, nothing to speak of, so it was a miracle I even went in. But I guess things happened for a purpose. If I had not gone in, I would not have met the person who would mean so much to me, and I still care for him as a friend, but that is another story altogether.
Anyway, when Freshman Orientation came about, I was really excited. There was the overall orientation for all the freshmen, as well as the school orientation for the various courses. In the overall orientation, we were broken into groups comprising freshmen from all courses. Thus, I inter-mingled with those from Business, Computing, Engineering, to name a few. It was great fun, we had eggs and flour thrown at us, water sprayed at us, walked all over campus for a treasure hunt, and camped on the school grounds.
After that, came the school orientation. Those from my course had to go to the respective lecture theatre, where there was a briefing, an introduction around campus, the library, the research and computer rooms, then we went back to the lecture theatre where we were broken into our respective tutorial groups. Each tutorial group had a class tutor and two mentors who were our seniors.
And that was when I saw him. My first impression was that this guy has a nice voice! Soothing, pleasant. Not a sing-song voice, but pleasant to the ears. Apparently he was a mentor and he was calling out the names of the tutorial group he was supposed to be mentoring. And he called out my name!
First time someone pronounced my name perfectly without any need for me to introduce myself! Throughout all my life, I was cursing my parents for giving me this name, so odd and hard to pronounce, as not even my teachers could get the actual pronunciation right, which is odd actually because I always thought my name is pretty easy to pronounce! Thus I was used to saying my name out first before anyone got to it, or else, everyone will spell or pronounce the more common form with an extra syllable.
I went out when my name was called, and he looked straight at me, gave me a smile, and remarked, "Nice name!" I did not know how to react so just smiled. Then we went to a classroom to get to know our tutorial mates, tutors and mentors. The tutors and mentors had to introduce themselves, and when he introduced himself, I was remarking to myself, "Small wonder he got in. A real prosecutor or litigator in the making!" The words just flowed out of his mouth like water flowing out from a tap! How I wish I can be this articulate! I got to know his name and that he was a year above me.
The weekend before term started, I had to move into the hall. I remember my parents driving me down on a Saturday, dropped me off in front of the hall (we had already recce the place a week before), so I had to lug my suitcase all the way to the second floor. When I reached the staircase, he was just coming down. The moment he saw me, he helped carry my suitcase to my room, and said, "So we are in the same hall! I'm just upstairs, holler if you need anything!" And then proceeded to give me a brief tour on where the kitchenette, function room and lounge is. Not to mention he actually remembers my name despite just a glance that day.
That was when I first spoke to him. Besides saying thank you from carrying my luggage, I told him, "You were going down. Were you not supposed to go somewhere?" To which he said, "I was just on my way to lunch actually. You wanna come? Then I can show you where the nice eating places are." And that was the start of a close friendship. Turned out he was meeting his friends and he introduced me as their junior, where I was welcomed with open arms.
From there, he got me into debating, hall activities, school activities and our usual supper bantering time. Being the class mentor, he was the first person I spoke to when I felt I could not cope with the workload and kind of subjects and wanted out. He was fully supportive and told me to do what my heart desired. Of course, by then we were already more than just mere friends. We still studied together though, and he always gave me his notes for reference, so I never really did lose touch with much.
So when I went into another tertiary institution and attended another orientation, somehow that orientation is much more impersonal and not as fun. Perhaps because the next course I entered does not cater just for students, but also for adults and those who entered second careers. Thus the structure was not as well planned out nor as fun as the previous one. All we did was briefing, introduction of the various groups, and a tour around campus. That was it. Even when the campus shifted into its permanent grounds and I ended up in the hall again, somehow I did not feel it was as nice as the previous one.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. Yet my deepest memories were those from school, and not so much on my adulthood. Seems like I hardly have anything worth remembering in my adulthood. In fact, there are some things I prefer not to remember. But in any case, hopefully in the months to come, there can be some good memories to create all over again, who knows?
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