Left behind

The study papers i've pasted on my wall and don't have the heart to take down.

Amanda wasn't kidding when she said last year that i'll miss school. School has taken out give or take 12 years of my life, and it has been the core of who i am now, and what i will be in the future.

School has taught me to think. School has given me friends. School has introduced me to stress and worlds of pain, and being in an all-boys school has taught me how wide one road can be.

St Thomas's two years back. Not much has changed in this area.

I won't pretend and say "Oh, St Thomas's sucks - we're a whole bunch of useless students who get worse results every year." There is so much more to life than results. I've wasted too much time in Form 4, playing, debating, writing stuff. And i admit my results won't be as good as some of the others - the SPM passed in a haze, and weeks afterwards i wake up sweating, fearing that Chemistry test that has already been swept away in a current of time.

Life now has now taken a surreal turn. I was talking to Paul the other day - he was sitting cross legged by his phone, one eye bandaged and both eyes closed; while i was lying in bed with a pile of tissues - my bane. It was weird, to say the least - and he was talking about Swinburne, taking up engineering. Paul will do well, no matter what he says. He has the brains and the ability to perceive what people think through observation - a quality that he insists was native to Thomians, back when we were a premier school.

I do hope i have that quality, but there is undeniably a Thomianess that you can't place a finger on, for every old boy that leaves the school. I have given 5 year of my life to be there, and i dare say i've been an asset to it, and the worried English teachers who wonder who to place as pawns in the never-ending game of winning competitions. Yes, you detect an undercurrent of sarcasm here - i find commenting on the habits of schools a pleasing thing to do, after reading Toltoy's subtle chiding of the pet Historical theories of his day in such a succinct fashion. The fact that i can even write like that is owed no small part to Cikgu Orlnda's doing - she's taught so many of us to think and to argue, often with hurtful and hilarious results.

I can't dye my hair green yet, apparently there are passport photos to take and the imigration departments of other countries don't take well to green headed aliens invading their lands. There might be a small chance that i'll be migrating, and the question would be when, not if. At any rate i hope to stay here for at least two more years, and tie up the loose ends that i've started - starting being something i've done so much over the last two years.

I am Eli James, for better or worse. I sigh when i hear a school bell. I have been left behind. Three months to go.