Life and other weird things

Another plan made to get out of this place.

Plan to take off to Pulau Tioman. Which is off the eastern coast of Peninsula Malaysia. Supposed to be ranked among the most beautiful islands in the world.

Called up just now to find out how mucha budget hotel would cost me (thanks, wikitravel, for leading me on the right track).

A helpful lady from the Salah Indah Resorts that it would be about 40 ringitts to stay in a non air conditioned room with a fan. Which is not bad. Considering the place is just on the beach. That's less than 20 Sing Dollars. The trip, if I do it from Singapore in a bus costs me more than that ! Hmmm....I just hope they keep the reservation.

Plan to leave here early on Saturday, take the bus from Larkin bus stand in Johor and bus it to Mersing. Thence ferry on to Tioman.

Insha Allah.

An interesting day.

Since the time I went through a rather trying phase of my life about 10 years ago, I always had felt curious to know how I could stand up to facing up to the proverbial skeletons in a certain closet of mine. Well, today I discovered that things were gone and buried.

The trying phase basically was one that begun happily enough with my getting a 2 year scholarship aftermy 10th standard. What made the experience a difficult one was my complete lack of maturity at the time to understand my responsibility to myself. In summary, I squandered an opportunity and was not able to complete the required 2 years of study under the scholarship, and returned home to continue my class 12 education at a government school.

Strangely enough this wasn't what made the phase worthy of being called a 'closet cartilaginous framework' either. As I was only about 16 or 17 at the time, repeating a year would not have (and indeed, has not) caused any lasting effect on anyone. What went wrong was a few personal traits - which to put diplomatically ranged from the mildly eccentric to the boderline criminal. It runied my peace of mind, brought untold grief to my parents, and left me teetering a bit as far as living normally was concerned.

Which brings me back to my original point. I always imagined if I could hold up normally when I came into contact with the people who were on the recieving end of my eccentric and at times plainly insane behaviour. It turns out, as a friend of those days pointed out yesterday, that I had been fortunate enough to be in contact with a few people who refrained from making spot judgements - and who probably viewed those days as much a weak moment in my past as I did.

While talking to this old friend of mine, I was reminded of a line from Lion King. 'The past hurts. But you either run from it, or learn from it.'

Though I shared it with no one before, the last (maybe) 6 years has been devoted to coming to terms with that past. Today I am quite happy doing what I am doing, and have nothing to hide from anyone. I am lucky to have a couple of friends who I can fall back on at any time for help. I genereally have a good rapport with people and have made reasonably good aquaintences from all over the world. But nothing can make me forget that one year from a decade ago when my existence went haywire. In many ways, that one year changed my life and built up what I am today.

Last night, I felt that though it had taken years, I had finally learnt to learn from my past.

I felt completely at ease with myself. At ease enough to write this.