Venting Vengeance

Yesterday a colleague of mine shown me her students' homeworks. You see, she was giving her students an assignment; create a poem with frustration and madness as the main theme. Truthfully, I just took a glance at these poems that they wrote, they number some 20 in all.

You see, the teenage years are the years full of disappointments, anger and frustrations. I'm sure we've all experienced this. Angry at our parents, frustrated with our school results, frustrated at teachers' so-called rumbling and groveling.

Anyway, back to the story. I took a glance at these poems, and can be categorized to two main categories. One is from those staying far away from home, and one from places nearby Kuching. You see, those coming from far away from Kuching have one grouse; their expectations not being met when they make the leap to do their secondary school here. Those from near Kuching, they showed their anger and frustrations on relationship with their friends, family and loved ones. What I liked the most is that the reference to their lovers is thinly veiled I can just see through it.

So if any of them is going to come across this post, I just have this tiny nugget of advice to you. Just enjoy your teenage years. Forget the grouses. I know that is remotely possible, but please try to make less point or less effort to become disappointed. Go win a debate competition. Play netball as good as you can as the school representative. Pick a positive channel to focus all your disappointment. I've learnt my biggest mistake as a teenager; I wilt too easily I missed my chance to be the best I could be. Just remember, trying too hard to become someone other than yourself will just do that, turn you into a different person other than you. You might not feel the effect now, but do believe me it will all make sense when you are my age later.

Sent by the all knowing future-me.