I suddenly realised...

...i've never visited any of my previous schools ever since i left them.

sure, the main reason is that both of them are in a different area, different state, even, from my house.

i've never stayed in a house the same area as the school i'm going to, so needless to say my schoolmates were never my neighbors.

i've never even been to a classmate's house until f5. haha, sad, aint it. it's always somewhere outside so that we can meet up at a "titik persilangan" so that both of us don't have to travel so far. (student ma, no driving license)

maybe this atributes to why i'm awkward about going into ppl's houses? i never know what to do then. especially houses of people i know. (if dunno the people living in a house you're visiting e.g. father's business client just smile and look interested while pretending to be busy with something e.g. phone. XD)

was going through the photos posted on the group site of my primary and secondary school. dang my primary school has changed, a LOT. the field i used to be crazy in is still there tho. but the places i spent the most of my time in are... gone. in their place are freakishly new buildings that, i guess, are the pride and joy of everyone there, especially the new students.

but to me, 南强 isn't real anymore.

I used to love its antiquity, the peaceful countryside scene in the middle of the busy car-ridden concrete forest, like some sort of timeless piece undisturbed in the modern era.

of course i knew that it would change after i left. they always do. already they were in the final stages of collecting donations for a new school hall.

I did return a few years back with my mom, as she needed to find a colleague.

It changed.

far more than i expected it to.

to me, now it has lost its sense of uniqueness and blended in with the modern world. it is now the same as any other school.

南强 had few tables, and the some of the stone stools used to have cracks in them but i never said anything. if anything i thought the cracks were marks or the school's history and shouldn't be touched.

I hated a school i went to. so much that i made a fuss about everything. the teachers, the students, the rules, the facilities, EVERYTHING.

i must have been an idiot and a nuisance to my classmates, many of whom, no doubt loved their mother school as much as i loved mine.

i regret my behaviour. had i stopped being so selfish, i might have noticed good points about that school. but honestly i still resent being sent there.

It's true then, when you love something even its flaws are perfect. If you hate something even its perfection is flawed.

Anyway, the cracked stools, they're gone now. replaced by new ones.

one by one my memories of that place is disappearing. soon, it would be a totally new existence that i don't have anything in common with.

would Assunta be like that after another 10 years? remodelled into a face i do not know? Assuntarians of ten years ago has surely felt what i'm feeling now as Assunta of ten years ago is also very different from the Assunta it is now.

Will you do that to me too, Assunta? will you change again so much that my memories held by you are destroyed? Will I be the only one who will remember what happened?

I'm not opposed to change. change makes us grow, for better or worse, but it makes us grow nontheless.

However i will never say i like it. Adapting to change is difficult, especially if its a bad one. Change destroys everything you have and forces you to start anew.

Change, makes reality a memory.