JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

8/12/2005 - I was in KL with my 27-kgs baggage waiting with mixed feelings to depart for Italy. At 12.00 noon precisely my family and I went to watch ‘Perhaps Love’. I made my cousin book the earliest movie on that very first day of showing, because if I miss this one I’ll be stranded with no mother-tongue entertainment for the next 2 months to come. At 7 we went to the airport, and at around 10 my exchange friends and I walked along the wide terminal and board KL 810 in its final call. The person sitting beside me (i got a window seat) was combating with me to bid goodbye to KL. At that very precise moment I was missing Soon Khen and Jieyang and CLHS-after-the-SPM. Anyway, I held still some anticipation, looking forward to my exchange. I’m sorry I forgot to text Yu Min to wish her happy birthday.
9/12/2005 - I was in a rainy Rome, and we Malaysian exchange students were torn into 3 groups according to our respective departure times to our host towns. I boarded Alitalia and flew up north to greet a freezing Torino and my host coordinator. When I met my host parents I was quite excited, but I think I have more fatigue in me. At the evening we went to some church party where they serve really great spaghetti and lots of pannetonne (Italian Christmas cake). I rejected a party invitation my host sister offered me, as I was so tired to the bone I could barely keep my eyes open upon stepping into my home. I met my to-be classmate Luca.
10/12/2005 - Sunday. I spent most of my time unpacking and soliciting with my host family about my needs - a SIM card and an international calling card. They made plans for getting me my transportation pass (for bus rides) and school matters. I was not left home alone, they went to church in shifts. That was a sunny day.
11/12/2005 - I skipped school, because my host Mum have to register me as an alien at the local police station, and the opening hours is like from 10 to 12 only. Later we got the transportation pass and head home for a huge lunch. Winter really makes you hungry. I finished half of my dark chocolate high energy bar that day.
12/12/2005 - My first day at school. Everything from the textbooks to the classrooms were so exciting to me I was shivering with amazement on the way home. I was placed in this later-I-learnt-to-be-special 4C, with 16 girls and 3 boys excluding me. My Mum got me my SIM card. The number, as I can vaguely remember, was +393485755357. Vodafone. Currently that’s the number for my younger sister.
15/12/2005 - Unbeknownst to me, my host family knew the following day was my birthday and they made sorta a pizza-and-pie thingy for me, with a candle from my Mum’s friend. I was really touched and I can’t express my gratitude in fluent Italian, just mere ‘grazie!! grazie tutto!!’.
15/12/2006 - I will attend a quite-foolish Western Music lesson at 10am in the morning, following a lunch with my friend in the school canteen probably. Later at 3.30 I will attend another always-interesting ‘Disease and Social Injustice’. After that we’ll go for dinner while lambasting ourselves for not making enough time to study. At 6.30 we’ll go into an unknown classroom for our second Biology Test this term - molecular biology and introductory zoology. I will go through another tormenting session of squashing my brain only to find I forgot to read that part concerning transposons and I messed up Operons with Insertion Sequences, stratified with striated etc etc. At 9.30 I’ll probably accompany my friends for supper (which will cause much moolah by then), or return to my bedroom for a movie (if I’m watching a movie that means I did very badly and doesn’t want the company of others).
16/12/2005 - I attended school as usual, nobody knew today was special cos I was the new student and they never asked anyway. I went back home to be greeted my Claire’s phonecall. I was touched. I think I received a t-shirt from my host family. At the same time, Ms. Lon Eng’s birthday card should have arrived, but it didn’t. So I guess she must have messed up the address and it landed in Iceland instead of Italy. Anyway, it got bounced ultimately and she received the card 2 months after I’m back (April).
16/12/2006 - I will be officially 18, still the youngest in my class in terms of birthdate, but ordinary in terms of age. My classmates will wish I grow up and mature soon, or else they’ll have to tolerate a few more unbearable years of fake-wailing and shoelace-pulling (i stopped that already). I don’t want to make this a fuss. I will call home, and maybe I’ll sleep a lot today. At 19.30 we’ll go watch a NT$300 violin concert. And if I got my new iTalk by then I’ll call my host family, maybe.
Without us noticing 2006 will be history soon. Whether this year brought forth joy, sorrows, luck or unfortunate events, this is the one official year we CLHS people parted each other and pursue our own destinies. Thinking back, I haven’t seen some friends for one year now. I look forward to seeing their already-forgotten faces soon, and I do hope even after 30 years leaving school, we will still hold our same passions, perseverence, and dignity about things we cherish and felt right upholding. As we wave goodbye to 2006, let’s pray for a better 2007 and that Jun Yi will pass his coming biology test.

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