Cliques

You put a line,

You put a sign,

Blinking red lights,

Pretending as if all you did was right,

This is me and this is you,

What else are we expected to do?

Roll your eyes,

Count to ten,

Maybe I'll disappear by then,

Why bother to try to be like you?

When I can be true...

-Izzati

Now that my times at matriculation has end. I realized many new things. I was terribly worried at first. And truthfully, the first few days was horrible. We were fasting, and it was my first time being away from my family. I got sick and we were cramped into the surau that obviously couldn't occupy us all, at least not without bumping shoulders. But that was just orientation week.

Mostly I was worried for my classes. Who are my classmates, who are my teachers? Will they be strict...will I have friends?

Of course, this ended up better than I expected. I had low expectation, thinking I probably would gain one friend after a few months at least. That's how my high school went. But, my classmates were awesome.

There was no cliques, no one excluding one specific person or making anyone feel left out. In a way I expected, oh yeah, we are grown ups now. They probably aren't gonna help me if I ask.  They wouldn't care. But, it wasn't like that. They could haven't bothered but they made everyone feel comfortable, no one was left out.

I didn't feel the need to be someone else. I didn't feel the need to try to impress anyone.

There was one time, I was kinda paranoid. Usually when my roommates go to their night classes, I'd be fine. That day, I was kinda scared. I was planning to keep it inside, it's not like I was planning to make them stay. They asked me, If I was okay being alone? I tried to jokingly respond, "What if I wasn't? What would you do about it?" They actually got concerned, and tried to find someone to accompany me. Knocking on our neighbor's door. I was so flustered.

My classmates also as just as caring. There was no sense of rivalry. We had a netball competition. And truthfully we all were beginners, we practiced once and then the next day we had to compete with other classes. So, entirely I didn't feel pressured cause we were all learning. But, of course- there was some naturally better than others. Let's just say I have zero coordination or agility or anything for that matter. Sport is just not my expertise.

Yet, the guys in my class was patient with us, not annoyed we were losing. And, it was really just fun. We all participated, and although like I said there was some better than others we didn't held that against each other and made sure everyone participated. And I did join despite being awful and they were chill about it. Easy said we lost every round, not my fault we went against the pros.

There were many moments I was entirely grateful. Moments I expected them to be uninterested or not care but yet they do and go beyond. 

I was also not criticized for being myself. When at high school, every little thing seemed to be not right.

Among my classmates, I don't feel a barrier among any of them. When I was back at school, there were only a certain group I was close to while the rest was basically strangers.

I learnt a lot of new things. It's okay to be myself. Try to put myself out there. Never give up, no matter how far behind you are feeling. Don't look down on yourself.

Studying there was hard, I never had a tight schedule. It was pressuring. Seeing the teacher's look, full of worry as they look at me, it hurts.

Overall, I stumbled around a lot, fell in the drain once. But everything ended okay.

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.

-Maya Angelou

How's your experience?