The time has arrived,for me to tell my own story. I knew I had to say it,bring a closure to this chapter of my life. A long time ago,about 2 years back,I read Qiuqiu's blog post about her being bullied. It was so horrible that I felt I can relate to her as well,having been a victim of bullies once. Here it is,her blog
post. At that time,after reading it,the emotions felt very raw. Hurtful actually,because my very own stint of being bullied at that time didn't end too long ago.
2010... No,that's not the year. 2010 and the subsequent year was much MUCH better,I finally begin to smile more. Apart from other minor bullyings in school,I shall not speak about it for I myself am sometimes guilty of it too. The year was... 2009. When I was 16.
I will try my best to shorten this post and save you from all the boring bits. But I must first introduce you to this person:
AThere is this copycat in the class,A. Not that I like her very much because she really,is very vain and sluttish for her age. She was very eager to know me,because at that time I'm good friends with T. And A was very eager to know what are T's updates,what are her latest fashion trends. And yes,the sake of knowing all about T is so that she can copy her style. Not surprisingly,T knew her a long time ago when people told her that A have the same scarf,make up and sporting the same hair style as T. T told me to beware of her,but I'm just being diplomatic because I didn't know A personally... A was quite 'friendly' too. She was friendly to the whole class in fact,always doing this pose:
Yupe,I'm not joking. Short skirt,very flirty.. You know,I'm sure you all might have this kind of classmate before. A truly live up to her reputation,to what T had warn me about. That she can be quite 2-faced. Maybe A also realise that I'm not about to feed her all the information about T. And she gossips,so.. God knows what she told others.
I didn't start out with no friends,just a few. But thanks to her,I drift further from my classmates. It is hard to believe how everyone can be so naive to believe everything one person say. But then again,it's many who believed and some who can't be bothered. My class was split into 4 cliques,of gender and race. The malays would stay in class and talk during recess while the chinese would go to the canteen for recess. Well,I bought my food back to class and eat alone while the girls sat in another corner and talk. As long as I eat my food,keep to myself,they wouldn't bother me....
One day,during math test,the one sitting beside me cheated. The teacher,a bit old and quite blur one. So this girl beside me turned behind and ask her friends for answer. The silly me thought I could help her,you know,change whatever impression she had of me.
"Eh,how to do this sia?" "
Don't know eh,how ah?""Erm... I can help you if you want. Here,do this and this. Then write that."*snatch,scribble scribble*"Erm,could you help me with this? Before we hand it in?"*ignore*So,I tried asking for a second time. And it become obvious that she REALLY only want to copy my work. Well,times up and we all have to hand it in. And.. I got it right for that question.
___________________________________________________________________
Some time later... Something else happened,and that forever etched in my memory. I remembered every single detail,expression that they had on their face. Their gleeful laugh,their smirk. This day,I was late for school. And I had to go for detention. Yeah,those were the days. The discipline master (DM) wasn't being very kind either,he called me and only me out at the assembly after recess. I attribute it to my frequent late-comings to school. But well,before I left,I told my friend to throw a packet of sweet drink for me because I can't possibly bring the drink to see my DM.
I returned to the class afterwards. Upon entering the class,I saw the girls gathered at a corner. When they saw me,they nudged each other and smirk. And... 'Meeting' dismissed. I knew something was wrong,but I wasn't sure. Approaching my table,I saw my drink on the table! I was puzzled that my friend didn't throw my drink away. Upon a closer look,my bag was wet.
WET WITH THAT PACKET OF DRINK!Someone squeezed it on my bag. The straw tilted down,everything was squeezed out. Just like how you wanna empty the contents of a drink,or a can,you squeeze the middle...
Being really pissed,I ask the nearest girl who did it. They shrugged and continue what they were doing. On the way while taking the drink to the bin,more water came out from the packet and spilled on the floor. M saw that,and started accuse me of pouring it on the floor on purpose. All hell broke loose. Before I knew it,the whole class jumped and circled around me. Demanding that I clean it up and asked why I do it on purpose. The commotion escalated,and I think the third floor can hear us screaming and shouting. I backed out of the classroom and they followed.
I remember their face going red,some stared in shock,some laughed,some smirked. And some,simply shouted and shouted.
My tears were brimming,I'm trembling with rage. I can't believe this was happening to me. Helpless and not exactly sure how to handle this situation,I turned and ran towards the staffroom. I wanted someone to justify this for me,what have I done to deserve this? A mere accidental spillage,not to forget a conspiracy going on,them jumping on me and attacking? So the DM asked the few of us back to the staffroom and questioned us one by one. But.. They had all prepared the 'story' at the time when I had gone to look for DM. So the verdict from DM?
"No matter what happen,you need to apologise to them. Maybe not today,or tomorrow. But soon,you need to apologise to them because it was your fault."
I have no idea what happened. And slowly,I walked back to class.
With a heavy heart.
~
A week later,someone talked to me.
So... A conspiracy? Perhaps. A plan? Sure.
The rest of the year went by,uneventfully. Thank god for that.
I was so tired by all this bullying,that sleep was my escape. Students sleep in class some times,who doesn't? Sometimes,teachers will send someone to inform the class that the lesson venue had been changed. So sometimes when I woke up,I found the class gone off to another class for lesson. Without waking me up. Or I recall,school has ended. Just ended though,like 10min ago. The class was gone and I'm sitting alone in the class.
I hate projects too,or group work. I always hope that there would be no projects,or at the very worst,suck thumb and do with some guys. They weren't as mean as the girls.
The reason why I keep mentioning
A was because I felt that she is the one who aggravated the whole situation. A year later,after I got into a new class,
H talked to me on msn. I was surprised,and asked her how was she in the new year. Bad,she said. The class was noisy and she couldn't study properly. Her friendship with M soured,and she was here... To apologise. Yeah,she really did apologise. She said sorry for treating me so badly before,and all those incidences..
2011My school trended on twitter for some silly comments. So I went to look through what people had said. Someone said something which made my blood boil. I shall spare her her name. But the tweet went along something like:
I miss [insert class name]! I miss all the fun times that we had,bullying yingzi and [insert teacher's name]!Yeah,I thought about it for 5 minutes. If I should respond to that. But I got
REALLY REALLY mad. So I scolded her directly. Yeah,I @her-name on twitter. In her reply,she apologised,saying that that's not exactly what she meant. She didn't mean that she had fun bullying me in class. ORLY? So what was the tweet trying to say? So what fun times were you trying to tell me huh?
At the end of the day,you may wanna ask me why did they hate me. It's that kind of situation where after weeks and months of seeing someone quiet being ostracized/outcast,you would too believe that she is easy to step on. But I can only tell you that not all of them did,just very few. One or two would try to be neutral still and not take sides. Till date,I have got absolutely no idea what I could have done to incur the wrath of theirs.
I am no saint myself,I admit I did gossip before. And I did bully before,like calling names. But never overboard,if I knew the person cannot take jokes or didn't like it. And yeah,I think the best title for this post is:
Why am I like thisYes,like Qiuqiu's blogpost. You can call me a copycat. But sometimes when I think about it,without that year of bullying,I would be like this now. I'm afraid of changes,I'm afraid of make new friends. And I am afraid of new environment,that IS very scary. I'm afraid that I cannot adapt and I am afraid to leave old friends behind.
But also,because of the bullying,I became very persistent. I am very determined that no one else should ever bully/take advantage of me. That made me voice out my discomfort or displeasure many a time,which some people may find it a turn off.
And also because of that,I learned that not everyone in school was as scary as what I went through before. The people in my new class (2011 and 2012) were much sweeter and from the bottom of my heart,I thank them. I am appreciative of everything they had done for me. And from there,I slowly opened up.
I am still learning though,and I constantly prayed that I never have to went through the same thing ever again. Thanks for reading this chunky post. Email/sms/message me if you must.
Chio right? Is it your dream watch now? If it wasn't,I'm sure now it is! I love the orange-ish gold inside. Complements the red perfectly. All I can say is,auspicious to the max for this Chinese New Year lo. HOHOHO!
Posing with my lovely new and CHIO RED Baby G!
No rush,darlings. Here's the preparation stage. Make up,done! Put on the dress,do up a bit of hair and....
TADAH!
A more girlish,playful look. I think?
And one standing.
After the shoot,let down my hair. Loved the flowers that I bought from Chinatown!
Interesting fact:
Swimming,never my forte but I belong to a water sign! ;)
