Worlds Collide

Most people in the Subang Jaya area pursue tertiary education after finishing Form Five. The main question, however, is where we go. Most people go to private colleges for their pre-U education, but some, like yours truly, went (and at the time of writing, still go to) to Form 6.

My batch is a relatively small batch. The competition between the biology class (6A) and the physics class (6B) for top marks is fierce, but I can't say the same for the social science classes, for we do not share the same subjects. Ok, maybe it is just two people (you know who we are) but both classes are always curious as to how well the other class fared. Nevertheless, as there are only 39 people in both classes put together, news spreads fast, and even social misfits like yours truly are able to get hold of the news. Maybe not everything circulating around, but that's another story.

So was the case when Ya-Pei's father passed away. I believe the information I received was third or fourth hand, but it does come around. So, as always, the two classes bonded together as they normally do when something like this happens. Plans are drafted up, collections are carried out (with a tin labelled "Derma untuk Kematian Pelajar 6B. If the situation was not so serious, everyone would have been laughing) and those on either side who needed comfort found it from one another. Like any decent person, I turned up at Ya-Pei's house. Not that I knew the father but my main purpose being there was to comfort the living.

Of course, I was not the only person with the same idea. So I found out when a classmate of mine was turning up (who wants to gatecrash alone?) and showed up at the same time. After the wake and subsequently after paying my respects, I proceeded to chit chat with a couple of my old schoolmates, after they were updated by Ya-Pei herself. I hung behind to watch and bid my time.

When Ya-Pei was done, she called my current schoolmates over. To me the group looked completely recognisable, minus one who I had not seen before. However, to my current and past schoolmates, this was the first time they were seeing each other as they were complete strangers.

For me, personally, it was as though my worlds had collided. One being the world I had come to know of as USJ 12, where I spent 5 years and made quite a number of friendships there. The other was of course, Seafield, where I am due to spend two plus more months there before leaving secondary school for good. I had always wondered how my two worlds would collide, but I had never considered it would have been during a funeral.

As in all planetary collisions, sparks fly. New planetary fragments form, asteroids leave and there is a big release of energy. For those of us who were meeting the first time, we formed new connections, found common ground and talked. For those of us who were old friends, we caught up on what we had lost out while "in the wilderness", found out how green the grass is on the other side, and reconnected. However, like all planetary collisions, it was brief. Nevertheless, I wonder what would happen the next time two of my worlds collide - it might not be USJ 12 and Seafield.