In Continuum.

A Geographical Mistake

The thing about this semester compared to the last, is the fact that I feel like dropping every single module available to me this time around. In the last semester, I had a couple of good modules, a couple of not-so-good ones. But at least the latter were compensated by good teachers or interesting topics, and that is something that is not reflected in this semester at all. I had music last semester, which was fun because of all the silly things we get to do for our group project. English was better, because it was right up my alley, and Nina is probably the best teacher that I've ever met. I wasn't too hot about Economics, having failed it in A levels, a cloud of dread loomed over me in the first few lessons on the semester. But Baban was a nice teacher, despite his strange antics and accents, not to mention the distracting facial hair. The same couldn't be said about my communications lecturer, but at least the subject itself was interesting enough for me to last as long as I did. This semester has proven itself to be the worst semester so far, though I have only taken one other semester just a few months ago. I don't suppose it is a good sign when I am telling people that I feel like dropping every single subject that I am assigned to. Really, the boredom involved in the subjects I am taking now is no joke.

Jonathan hates humanities with a raging passion. He despises humanities as much as I would hate the sciences, and it is possible for a friendship to flourish with hate. There must be a problem with my memory storage, a screw loose or a bolt missing somewhere. Memorizing materials from the notes and textbook, the regurgitating them out on the exam papers just isn't my forte. I may fare better if you give me a saw and a hammer, with about five minutes of lesson on carpentry. The amount of wonders I can achieve with the saw and hammer, in relative, are limitless. World Civilizations, Computer Science, Psychology, these are the kind of subjects that I dread with a passion, if there is a passion in the first place. The worst part about these subjects is that this has happened before, more than three years ago when I was choosing the subjects to study in Junior College. This is a sort of deja vu, a nightmare happening all over again. This is like a bad recurring dream that is on repeat, and I am in a comatose state that I cannot rid myself of.

The first three months of the Junior College days was truly a period of time with much false hopes and illusions. Nobody was serious about their works in school, and skipping class was as common as breathing during those days. The school life in a Junior College was sugar-coated, with honey dripping from all sides and topped with vanilla icing all over. Everybody enjoyed their first three months one way or another, and everybody looked forward to the rest of the JC life that was awaiting them. I was one of those disillusioned idiots, thinking that the junior college life is going to be the same as the first three months, telling myself that things probably isn't as bad as everybody else claimed it to be. That illusion was further elevated when I heard about the geography students going on overseas field trips every year. Seriously, I was desperate to breathe the air of New Zealand, or roll about in the soils of Chile. Geography was my first choice, and that was the greatest mistake of my life - a mistake of biblical proportions.

I remember the day well, with the glare of the sun reflecting off the surface of the paper, making it hard to see the subjects listed. There were boxes next to every subject available, and there it was shining at me in the afternoon sun, like the lights along an airport runway, guiding me home: Geography. Till this day, I am still a little clueless as to what propelled me to choose that subject, but it must have been the heat of the summer that afternoon. I ticked the boxes with the pen provided, as the sheet of paper rested on my laps. I was never too good in Geography, finding little sense in studying about little pebbles and rocks buried a hundred meters in the ground. But like I said, the craving for an overseas trip was great, and that must have clouded my judgment back then. If it is possible for me to go back in time and warn myself about the choices I made back then, I would've brought a flame-thrower with me to make my point more resounding. Everybody who chose the subject, expected the best and never hoped for the worst. We were all a bunch of hopeful young junior college students, blinded by the illusion of the first three months that shrouded our minds. Three weeks into the new school term, and we knew that we should have chose the other boxes on that green colored form.

SARS, I'm sure everybody remembers it. We were all given thermometers back then, with a calendar given to every students. We were supposed to measure our temperatures about twice or trice everyday, under the supervision of the teachers. Most of us were unaffected by the disease, save for that girl who had her whole family quarantined. It was a national crisis back then, killing people from all across the island via it's deadly virus. Everybody stayed indoors, and nobody dared to visit the usually crowded places anymore. Orchard Road was emptied overnight, leaving a few handfuls of brave souls wandering the streets, not to mention the government going haywire about the health issue. The same situation could be heard from countries like Hong Kong and Taiwan, and some as far as Japan as well. The disease was spreading its reach, and the only way to stop its deadly influence was the quarantine the whole population, as much as possible.

In an effort to keep the virus at bay, my school so brilliantly came up with a contingency plan. The students were advised - albeit it was a rather forceful one - to stay in the country for the next couple of months. This 'advise' meant only one thing: No school trip for the Geography students, and it was written all over the face of the principal as she announced to the rest of the school. We all knew that the school trip was the only reason why we joined the course in the first place. We could hear the sound of the airplanes taking off, the sound of air stewardesses asking us about the kind of meal we would like to have as they push those rectangular carts down the aisles. We could hear the sound of the airport P.A. system announcing the weather conditions, or the voice of the captain announcing our slow descent into the New Zealand international airport. We could see the mountains, the hills, the seamless grasslands and the cows that dotted the fields like a vast black and white carpet. The fresh air, the clear rivers, the sense of rejuvenation in all of us, feeling alive, feeling free...

All of those, replaced by the words of the principal, and the sound of water being flushed down the drain. In our heads, the mountains and the hills began to crumble. The faces of the air stewardesses began to distort into ugly goblins, serving us rotting meat and maggot covered cheeseburgers. The P.A. systems announced the canceling of our flights to New Zealand over and over, and the shrilling laughter of the captain over the speakers pierced through our ears. The grasslands started to burn, and the cows started to die from various diseases that ate away their flesh and bones. The polluted air choked our lungs, the clear rivers were replaced by the waste from the closest city, fuming with trash and human feces. The dream of New Zealand was shattered, and it was all a downward spiral and an uphill battle from there.

We were compensated in the second year with a field trip organized by the school. When that was announced, I was hoping dearly for it to be a trip to Indonesia, or even Malaysia would be good. As long as I leave the country of Singapore for a school trip, I'd die a happy student even if I fail every single paper at the end of my school days. It was announced one afternoon in class, to the dismay of all the students. 'Due to the lack of funds,' Mr. Ng said,' our field trip this year will be to Sembawang Springs.'

Sembawang Springs, whatever the hell that is. On a tiny island like Singapore, the closest thing to a natural phenomenon is probably the small Guilin in Bukit Batok, and Lee Kuan Yew. At that time, I have never even heard of the Sembawang Springs, and pictured in my head a jet of hot water shooting out from the middle of a pond, or a giant waterfall hidden in the middle of a dense forest, just waiting for the adventurous students like ourselves to discover. I remember the day when we were supposed to embark on this trip, and there was a sense of hope in everybody's eyes. After all, we did miss our chances to go to New Zealand, Indonesia, or Malaysia. So to have a little trip to the Sembawang Springs was probably as good as it gets, and we wanted to make the best out of it. Besides, I have never seen the spring for myself, which was why I was as excited about the trip as I would be for a new release of a Hollywood blockbuster.

The bus pulled up by the side of the expressway, and we were ushered out of the bus by our teacher, Mr. Ng. Armed with his baseball cap and a bag that almost looked too big for his slightly hunched back, he guided the lot of us along a long stretch of monsoon drain and into the forest. I was excited to see the spring for myself, having heard of it only from newspapers and friends, but never seeing pictures of it at all. We came to a small clearing with a little brick hut in the middle, a row of chairs surrounded the little hut and the lot of us stopped in the middle of it all. 'Welcome to the Sembawang Springs!" my teacher shouted, as he pointed to a tap that stuck out from the concrete ground like a sore thumb. The sound of water being flushed out of the toilet bowl came back to haunt me again, and I found myself looking for a sign of a practical joke in his eyes. But he was all serious about the spring, taking a pail out of nowhere just to fill it up with hot spring water.

We sat about in a circle, with our feet dipped into the hot water, with HDB flats over the crests of the trees and the sun setting in the distance. We sat around and talked for a while, joked about the springs and about school life. There I was sitting amongst my classmates, dreaming about New Zealand and their hot springs, shooting up into the air and forming a rainbow in the setting sun. I blinked, and I was back in Sembawang Springs, which reminded me of my mistake - my geographical mistake. We returned home from there, with a sore feeling in our hearts, and a pair of sore feet on my part.