In Continuum.

Steam

And so it goes another lonely day
You're saving time but you're miles away
Your fly was drowning in some bitter tea
For seeing lost opportunity

A friend of mine showed me an inspiring video yesterday, or at least that was what it was meant to be. The video of Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham - two female triathlon runners - collapsing a few hundred feet from the finishing line, and crawling on all fours just to reach the very end at a fight for the fourth place - not the first. Wendy Ingraham trailed behind Sian Welch as they approached the finish line, but both of them have already went beyond their physical limits in the race. They could no longer put one leg before the other, tried desperately to feel their legs but they can't. It's the sensation you get after sitting with your legs crossed for a very long time. The way you cannot summon enough strength into your legs to push yourself back up, and you fall every time you try to stand. That was what happened in the closing minutes of the race for them, two women collapsing in front of the finish line side by side, crawling on ll fours trying to get to the end.

It was an odd sight for me initially, because you don't normally see triathlon participants collapsing and crawling to the finish line at the same time. So to see the determination of these two women was actually more weird than inspiring. But of course, whenever I think about my own situation in school right now, everything started to make perfect sense. They always speak of how it is not about finishing the race, but how you finish it that is the most important. After all, given enough time and determination, anybody would be able to finish the triathlon, no problem. But those women did not give up, despite the fact that they were fighting for the fourth and fifth place in the race, not even the first or the second, or third. The way their legs buckled under their body was like the way my body leaned against the white walls in the corridors just a few days ago, staring blankly at the white wall on the other side, frustrated with the rest of the world - but mostly just myself.

Find your mirror go and look inside
And see the talent you always hide
Don't go kid yourself well not today
Satisfaction's not to far away

Computers are not my thing, I've never been too good at using them, let alone have a subject based on them. I remember the very first computer the family bought, and the mere act of turning it on was quite a feat on its own. I used the computer for one purpose, and that was to play games for the fifteen minutes I was allowed to in front of the monitor. As the years went by, I was allowed more time, and more opportunities to explore the computer. However, my knowledge of computers reached as far as e-mails, and I am clueless about everything else. When I heard about the module in this semester, I was a little apprehended to tell you the truth. I was unsure of the subject, but was comforted by the words of some that it is going to be a fly-by. Of course, I've never considered the fact that it might be a fly-by to them, but not myself. I am a computer retard, as good as a rat trying to sing the opera. I cannot study a program that I've never really used in my life, and it doesn't help when the lecturer is a jerk and his lectures are so boring that we grow a year older every week.

It's just like driving, the way they force you to take theory tests before you begin to drive. Imagine putting the theory test after you already know how to drive, things are just different on paper than it is in reality. You don't translate your knowledge in real life into words, and that is the same case for Excel - for me. If you throw me a bunch of things to type into the program, that wouldn't be a problem. After all, using Excel is easy enough even for a computer retard like myself. However, you don't have quiz papers that ask me how to wrap a text, the fastest way to delete the contents in a cell, or what a fill handle is. I know how to do certain things, but I have no idea what they mean when you put them into words. Such things are very intuitive, it's just rather strange for me to be tested on such things. The problem is, I haven't even been a very frequent user on the program in the first place. To be test on something like that was beyond me - and that's an understatement by itself.

Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see

Soon you'll see

I miss those computer lessons in high school, the way we'd all look forward to that class every week with Mr. De Hamel, or however you spell his name. I remember him being the very first teacher whose lessons I was genuinely interested in. Going to the computer laboratories were as good as a field trip to the boys, and we'd look forward to that every week because we were able to do whatever we want with the computers. We were taught how to make a Powerpoint presentation, how to create charts and all those things we might need for presentations in the future. The classes were like little therapy sessions to help us out of our computer idiocy, and teaching us skills on how to survive in the world of education. We managed to pull through, and the skills certainly did help in our presentations in the future. It wasn't really because of the subject itself, but because Mr. De Hamel - or Mr. De as he prefers to be known as - was a great teacher to begin with. He always reminded myself of those teachers in Hollywood movies, the really inspiring ones with their own unique brand of teaching. And the uninterested students would be transformed into underdogs by the end of the movie, inspired by their teacher and their own hidden abilities. A little like Coach Carter, and maybe a little like Akeelah and the Bee. Mr. De to me was like Samuel L. Jackson or Laurence Fishburne's characters in those films, only larger than life and more real.

He was a funny teacher, always able to make those lessons a little more interesting. The mental picture of a computer teacher is usually this old man with glasses as thick as a binocular, standing behind the work station with his back hunched and his hair falling out of his head. But Mr. De was probably in his mid twenties back then, a little chubby and a whole lot of fun. He used to tell us about how he traveled the world after his university days, and how Hawaii was his favorite place in the whole wide world. The hour of lesson every week was taken over by his storytelling, and sometimes his jokes as well. I remember the frequent teasing of my classmate Timothy, and how they would try to make fun of each others' weight and all. Those were the days when computer lessons were interesting, and when the teacher actually played South Park over the computer for the class to watch. It was my first time watching South Park, and I remember thinking to myself," Wow, this is the kind of class I want to be in forever."

Your coffee's warm but your milk is sour
Life is short but your here to flower
Dream yourself along another day
Never miss opportunity

But of course, times have changed ever since those days. Mr. De left the school shortly after he came, becoming the conductor of a school choir in another school. That man - obviously - had a lot of talents, and it extended beyond teaching high school students how to make Powerpoint presentations. He had his musical roots, and I remember him coming back to school to conductor our choir for a performance once. The boys would flock to the hall just to catch a glimpse of our old teacher, standing before the choir and waving the conductor's stick in the air like a real professional. I remember the lot of us making fun of him, and he replied to our jeering with a sweeping action with his hand under his chin, that meant "Fuck off!" in his language. That was the last time I saw him in school, and I heard that he became some Embassador of foreign universities in Singapore, representing the university of - you guessed it - Hawaii.

Replacing Mr. De is this old and fat lecturer, whom the lot of us called the Dark Enforcer. He is not the kindest person in the world, making deliberate mistakes in the notes so that we'd pay attention. But I guess, when the students are not paying attention to you, you can't blame the students entirely. It is part of the responsibility of the lecturers to make the lessons s interesting as possible. We don't pay you big money for you to say," Well, I'm not going to talk anymore. Look through your notes and ask me questions". He does this kind of things in class, and refuses to give any direct answers when we have any questions. Sometimes you start to wonder why he has to be so nasty all the time, if there is indeed a need for him to do what he does. He never looks interested enough to teach the class anything, which is in turn reflected in how inattentive we are towards him. We minus each other out, and we both become victims at the end of the day - though we are worse off than he is I'm sure.

Don't be scared of what you cannot see
Your only fear is possibility
Never wonder what the hell went wrong
Your second chance may never come along

We all lose that motivation every once in a while, that drive inside your head that pushes you on towards your destination. It is that spirit inside every athlete that pushes them on, that little something that tells yourself not to think about how far you have left to cover, but how far you have come. We all have that drive in us, but there are times when we lose it halfway along the road. In Singapore, we call it 'losing steam', and it means very much the same thing. I think I have lost my steam, and with a good start like last semester, it is not difficult for me to fall hard in this semester. I see the same in the eyes of many, and fails to see in some as well. It is comforting in a way, to know that there are people who have given up on attaining better grades than they are already getting, and a little bit stressed that there are people still trying their very best to pull through this whole mess. I am on the fence right now, unsure of which side to lean and which side to fall. It is not exactly a choice that I can make, but I do have the ability to choose which side of my body I want to allow gravity to take over.

The truth is, I think I am handling the other subjects pretty well, threading my way through different routes to get to the same destination eventually. But like I said, Computer Science is really the bane of my existence, and that is the single most powerful force in my life right now, pushing me back down into the bottom of a deep pool. It becomes hard to breathe, suffocating even, though your friends are right next to you in the corridor, comforting you at the same time with their warm hugs. You start to feel the walls closing in, and all your efforts come crashing down before your eyes. It always takes one failure to doom your successes, and I hate the way life works with such an unfair mechanism. But we always have to roll with the punches and swallow our bitter tea, because tomorrow is a new day. It always is, a new day. We just have to buckle up for the rest of the ride, and hope that the gravity takes you to the right side of the fence. Make me fall in the right patch of grass, make the rest of the road right again. Oh please, please.