College Days

I had always wanted to write about my college days, and as of lately the urge has been stronger. Why? Maybe is because I realize that the older I get, the more forgetful I become. Great memories are slipping past in a rate that it starts to trouble my soul...

Enough with the rumbling.

My college days started in KDU, circa Jan 1997. Those were the days when dial up was still 33.6kbps, the concept of IM is widely introduced by ICQ, and everyone was on IRC. I was staying with my brother at a house somewhere near KDU, and I did not come with any of my hometown friends.

Gush, for some odd reason, I still remember how I looked like then. (Actually, I had a video to remind myself that, but more of that later.) Gold rim glasses with oversized lens, Brycream gel-ed hair, thick jacket (to fight against the extreme cold in Lecture Hall 1), loose jeans which are way too blue, and Spalding basketball shoes. Oh yeah, not forgetting my Aiwa walkman and my 2o bucks Sony headphones, which hung around my neck idly most of the time.

Despite all that, I managed to make a couple of friends at week 1. Mei Ling, who was slightly older than us because she studied Form 6 (which none of us did). Yuen Ling, the first Ipoh girl that I ever know, and who I had a crush on. And Pao Ling, the other "Ling" girl who always had a smile on her, and had an optimistic view on everything, and as far as I remember, she was the only other Christian in our little group.

Week 1 was pretty interesting overall, with two things that happened which I can still recall today. First, was Orientation. Erm, actually, I only remembered the last part of the session, which ended at a bar at 1 Utama, where a couple of seniors brought us for "socializing". To be honest, we were to new to the concept of clubbing (at least it was a first for me, the true blue Kampung Boy from Bintulu), and we were so awkward that I ended up ordering a weird bottle of "coke" (which I found out to be my first alcoholic pussy drink) and went home before midnight, which my brother was waiting for me, and first thing he noticed was my extreme bad breath. What a way to start day 1...

Oh yeah, the second thing was that Mei Ling, the only local, brought us up to Gasing Hill at night. Don't ask me why. Definitely not to make out. But I did remember that we all wanted to peek into parked cars, but was too chickened out...

There are many more stories involving our extended group of friends, including Chee Kong, Joe Tan, Ben Tan, Raymond, Stephanie, Wan Hwa, Annie, Foo Thye Cher, Alexi and others. I'll try my best to recall the story as true as possible... for my own entertainment.