There are a number of events directly causational to the authoring of this post. The first has been a so far ongoing phenomenon which started when I returned to Malaysia for holidays. Quite unlike last year's break, I have devoted significant amounts of time to looking up the few school friends I maintained relations with and hanging out with them. There may be only three or four of them left, but I regard that as Nature's way of weeding out who I would now be able to consider truly sincere friends.
The second incident occurred when I was leafing through my old yearbooks, and especially the one which in my short tenure as a photographer with the school's Editorial Board, I helped produce. I've always felt a deep connection to that issue, which was my final year's, which is understandable given that a lot of the photos in there were mine, and that I personally knew and associated well with the vast majority of people involved in it's production, including, it must be noted, the late Eunice Lee, who was the Chief Editor before her sad passing from illness in 2005. In fact I would confess to a feeling of affection for the Ed Board as a whole, so even though I do not presently know many people there, I still try and offer some semblance of support.
The third incident may be divided into two 'sub-incidents', the first being the retirance of our school's principal Aziah Abd Rahman, and the second being an email arriving regarding the potential formation of a Hartamas alumnus. The fourth and final one happened just today, when I stumbled across stacks of old papers my loving mother kept and stored in envelopes. Leafing through them I found myself reliving all sorts of quaint memories; of winning Class of the Year in Form 3 as Head of Cleanliness; devising all sorts of bizarre puzzles and maths theorems with my friends; inane chalk fights with my closest friend Chian Shen after-hours in which we'd throw stubs of chalk leftover from the day at each other at full-strength; desperate and frankly absurd debates with my English teacher for one extra mark in essays; participating in the prestigious ISKL Forensics and going all the way to the finals; my first ever crush on anybody; some readers might know who that is, but for her sake I won't mention her name here. Reports, essays, photos, trivia sheets, model test papers, notesheets with incredibly random doodles and afterthoughts penned into them, they were all there. These incidents all culminated in me asking myself the question: just what legacy have I left in my school?
This question had occurred to me previously; this time last year I had written an article about myself for the yearbook, in which I penned [paraphrased]: I would like to be remembered as an eccentrically intelligent yet positive-minded boy who while was never the best academic-wise, was diligent enough to earn his merits for himself as well as in the name of the school.
A few weeks ago, I was involved in a discussion with Chian Shen about just what kind of people would leave a legacy in the school. Who exactly would be remembered, and most importantly, would the school want to remember? I managed to categorise these people into four groups. The first group was the people who were basically the all-rounders who excelled in being as such, the ones who were Head Prefect and President of all the clubs and societies and still managed to obtain stellar academic results. Excelling in academic as well as co-curricular activities, who wouldn't like them? I loosely term these people 'The Professors'. The second group would be those who, while were at best maybe above-average in their academic results, did enough in the name of the school to be forever remembered, maybe have future school wings named after them. These were the record-breakers, the star athletes and master-class essayists who participated and shone in competition after competition. These I call 'The Sprinters'. The third category was for people who might've been anywhere above average in terms of their results, but were charming enough to be the 'teacher's pets'. These were 'The Apples', the people who one way or another would always lighten the otherwise grim expressions of the faculty, who had the charisma to get away with probably not doing particularly much, being unremarkably consistent in their academics and co-curriculum, yet still be remembered fondly with reminiscing sighs and glazed expressions. The last group I call 'The Rebels'. These were the people who probably wouldn't be remembered for much more than basically breaking the mould, the ones whom no school rulebook could successfully contain. There was however, a certain charm to being a rebel, something special about them that they would always be remembered by the staff and students who were there at the time.
It occurred to me then that I didn't actually fit into any of the categories. Sure I was eccentric and perhaps successful enough, I was the first [and still probably the only] person to bring a camera to school daily in order to feed my passion for photography. I was elected Head of Cleanliness for two straight years, during which we were Cleanest Class of the Year consecutively and Class of the Year in general once. I scrapped about in the ISKL Forensics Tournament before reaching the finals, performed in the SEA Games opening ceremony, reached the Presidency of the Science Society and the secretaryship of two other clubs including the school's Red Crescent, had near-misses in prefectship in which I was nominated thrice consecutively but never made the cut, and was a member of the Ed Board in my final year whilst maintaining throughout an academic position anywhere between 6th and 19th during my time there.
Given that I never actually won anything personally such success is relative, but I reckon I did myself sufficiently proud. Yet it is possible for people with some degree of success to remain somewhat unpopular. I know that whilst I may be remembered in my alma mater, it would not be with any large degree of fondness. It may be that I will be remembered for what I did more than what I achieve, and it is for this that I put myself into a fifth category, 'The Drifters'.
To sufficiently reason this I will admit that I was certainly a controversial figure in my time at SMK Seri Hartamas. Eccentricity isn't for everybody. Maybe I was subordinate for too long, but in my final two years there I became increasingly outspoken, most notably against several members of the faculty. Whilst there is no real indication of a vendetta against me, there were certainly enough signals by the end of my student tenure to suggest I did not cut a popular figure among staff circles, details of which I will not go into for now. Answering back was certainly a feature in my last years in Hartamas, and maybe a certain desire for respect which they perhaps felt I didn't accord.
Going through my entire tenure as a student without achieving any notable academic success would certainly be a contributing factor, and though it was not outwardly displayed, I could definitely perceive a degree of pessimism and sarcastic acceptance towards some of my 'weirder' habits, which ranged from my non-belief in God, to my close affinity to nature which involved me doing things like picking up snakes and insects, and having an encyclopaedic knowledge of various species. Rather innocuous, one might think, but it was certainly not something that was encouraged by my teachers, nor indeed by a fair number of my peers. What with popularity being hard to come by, I became more of an intellectual introvert, whilst being affable enough to accord friendly attention, was more morose and withdrawn. In short, I perhaps had a bit of a 'Rebel' streak in me, but in a more charmless and individualistic manner than was deemed respectable. All this isn't to say I particularly care anymore, but as I reminisce about my school days, I cannot help but feel that I will forever be remembered for being a 'Drifter', an averagely successful student, remembered not for what I brought to the school, but what I did to the people around me, and this is no legacy.
