KS Parents' Love Story
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sunlight7:
Like that only ar? Tell some more la.... There must be more... If the thought of how you met her, wooed her, could help you cool down and remember why you love her and nobody else, there must be more to the story :evil:I met my wife during my sophomore year in university in, of all places, the library. We were from different faculties, so I dont really know who and where she was from. Until today, that \"moment\" is still so vivid in my mind its like an image embedded in my mind just yesterday, destined to remain forever. The moment that would change my life forever. As a co-ed tertiary environment, there are plenty of boys and girls everywhere or should I say teenage hormones everywhere.
Beautiful model-like girls from the Arts faculty, snooty but stylish would-be lawyers from law, nerdy but cute ones from engineering/comp science, studious and frantic ones from Medicine faculty, dressy ones from Business school and the arty sexy kind from Architecture etc. Its like a weird and wonderful world of mish-mash tribes co-existing in one eco-system of potential partners. I had just came out of the hermit-like world call the army to be slapped across the face with so many girls. It was exciting but also very intimidating, especially for a shy, arkward boy like me.
Its a scary environment. I felt like a guppy in a sea of sharks, barracudas and octopus. -
Well, there has ever only been three true loves in my life - my mother, my wife and Manchester United football club. I often tell my wife that Man U is my greatest love because it is my first love, a full 10 years before I met her. I do not mention my mother to avoid the misery of being sandwiched between a mother-daughter in law rivalry.
This is my love story between two ordinary persons in an extraordinary world and if you are the kind of reader that needs the closure of an ending, you can stop here now because I could not tell you even if I want to. Because I don’t know how this love story will end. Will we still be sitting in our rocking chairs staring into the distant sunset, our arthritic fingers intertwined with our wedding bands softly clinking against each other as a last gesture of our undying love ? Or will it end in a year’s time through some terrible terminal illness or perhaps even tomorrow through a twist of misfortune on the road ? Nobody knows but all I know is that this love story has to be told because it is the greatest love story in the world to 2 persons. We wrote, scripted, edited, directed and acted in this love story. Amongst the 7b people who walk this earth, we two only share in it , no one else. Oh there has been part actors and actresses, funny cameos, mean villains and blessed angels along the way.
It is now 15 past midnight and so begin my love story as I whisper to my sleeping wife beside me,"this is the story of our love, darling" and begin to type… -
But first it is important to set the stage with the background and the setting of the story. As has been said, the setting is in a tertiary campus, whom uI share now name "The Eco-system"
1. The Eco-system and its colorful organisms
As anyone of you who has been through a tertiary education would recall, the campus is a rather colorful coral reef of life. (for those who did not experience university life, I apologize , but you have something more powerful - your imagination). There are, in effect, many different tribes or schools of sea creatures swimming around. And yes, there is a male and female version of each creature.
a. The shark - this is a solitary creature. Sharp, highly intelligent, destined as a high achiever but lacking in social skills. The male version is the computer science undergraduate , usually in an old T-shirt, out of fashioned jeans and gasp sandals. The female shark tops her class in Accountancy or Science, wears mismatched flowery blouse and skirts and walks around in flats. They are respected for their intellectual prowess but shunned for their social ineptitude. The barracudas especially disdained the sharks. Sharks always graduates as a single and may meet other sharks in the workplace, so they marry late and lead a miserable workaholic rest of their dull lives.
2. Barracudas
Now these are beautiful creatures that moves in groups of 3-5, stands out from the crowd as much with their herd appearance as with their sharp biting teeth. Female barracudas are pretty but bitchy and the male ones are…well, pretty but bitchy. Barracudas can be commonly found in the Arts faculty , Law faculty and the Business school. They seek strength in numbers and tend to dress alike, if not in form then at least, in intent. No barracuda would be caught dead in a T-shirt, their belt and shoes deemed as a personality statement and so is their hairstyle.
3. The Sardines
These are the thousands of faceless, uniform , conforming students with no personality, no opinions and no excitement. The sardines are uniformly grey in color and being less brainy, their sole purpose in campus is to struggle academically to get that degree. They are dull and usually end up in the civil service as a career. Barracudas ignore the sardines but do not scorn them. Sardines would love to be barracudas but do not have the time, money or fashion sense.
So, what was I ? I was a clownfish. Solitary yet colorful, shy yet funny. Everyone loves a clownfish because it is witty but never really belonging anywhere, just frolicking in the reef. That was me. Clownfish do not hang out with other clownfishes. My best male buddies were an octopus and a turtle. The octopus because he had multiple girlfriends and spend all his time juggling one against the other. The turtle has one girlfriend from 14 years old and has never known the meaning of variety in his love life. Both were sad and pathetic , that’s why they love to hang out with me - the clownfish.
So that was the Eco-system.
Before I met my wife, I dated one barracuda and one shark. The barracuda almost choked me to death and the shark extinguished my zest for life. I was as miserable as my octopus and turtle buddies until that moment when I first laid eyes on her (now my wife) - the angelfish… -
I love episodes. Especially those that i have time to catch.
You sure write to bait, bro. :celebrate:
Anticipating next episode. :please:
Psst.. 7 is my favourite number.
No no no.. i don't have 7 kids.
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buds:
Agree agree.I love episodes. Especially those that i have time to catch.
You sure write to bait, bro. :celebrate:
Anticipating next episode. :please:
Psst.. 7 is my favourite number.
No no no.. i don't have 7 kids.
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Ep 2 The octopuss, the turtle and the angelfish
My love story would not be complete without at least the honorary mention of my two guy buddies then - the octopuss and the turtle. Octopuses , both male and female, cannot help using their many tentacles to clutch at other creatures. They love to be the centre of attention and this octopuss buddy of mine just cannot settle to one girl, he loves women and spend his entire life juggling among multiple girlfriends all the time. The turtle buddy knows only one girl and she basically runs his life. His concept of women is defined by this one girl. Both octopuss and I hated his domineering, overbearing and obnoxious girlfriend. She, in turn, hated us even more.
We were also very average students and used to compete to see who would score nearest to 50% in our exam papers. Whoever scores nearest win, meaning failing at 47% is better than passing at 80% because 47 is nearer to 50 than 80. We were happy to be average in anything and everything. We were a trio of happy idiots because we were average outliers. We belong to no cliques and not acceptable anywhere except with each other.The octopuss and the turtle would knowingly or unwittingly play a big part in my roller coaster romance with the angelfish…
Ahhhh…the angelfish. Where shall I begin ?
It was August 1994. Man U has just won the first league title after years of mediocrity and near misses. Alex Ferguson was into his 7 year managing the club. I was ecstatic and drunk with euphoria and made the resolve to be average no more. With that in mind, I decided to hit the books early and made the library a constant in my life, not the swimming pool. In a way, my first love led me to my second.
The octopus and the turtle were aghast but reluctantly joined me in the library but spent most of their time looking at share prices on the TV teletext. We were business school students, loosely speaking.
I was looking out from the library cubicle when I saw her or rather she hit me like a bolt of lightning. Even from behind the thick window pane, I see her. She wasn’t walking as floating across the atrium, her light walnut-brown hair cascading down her shoulder in unruly tresses as the wind gently blows. Her face was half illuminated in the sunlight but it was crystal clear to me, even now. Her face was round with big bright eyes , a small button-nose but most of all, I could see the eye lashes. They were long and slender, and flutters with every blink of the eye. It was mesmerizing and my pulse began to race while my heart started to palpitate. I was 22 years old then. That condition now would be call a heart attack needing immediate medical condition.
She floated across the atrium towards the library door as I felt my jaw dropping lower and lower. Actually she looked like a fairyfish but since there is no such thing, an angelfish would be apt because of it’s graceful movement and svelte shape.
It would be the best of times and the worst of times for me, as I spent the next 2 years looking, staking searching and hoping for the angelfish.
My angelfish. -
Wow, sunlight7....I'm hook on your story. Episode 3 please
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Ep 3 Finding angelfish
An index finger lightly touched my chin and gently pushed the lower jaw upwards back in place. It was Turtle and beside him, grinning like the village idiot, Octopuss.
"You look like you’ve seen a ghost?"
"Sort of"
"Pretty ghost ? Your jaw was about to touch the floor" Thats all Octopuss ever think of.
"Lets go for lunch." I was not really in the mood for inanities.
I told them about my surreal encounter peeking out of that window pane, like a schoolboy meeting Santa Claus for the first time. I was shoving food down my throat but barely tasting what I was eating. Turtle was calm and attentive, perhaps hoping that my romance would not mirror his sad relationship. Octopuss kept chortling in a mocking manner and making these idiotic kissing sound. Both were fascinated by my getting so animated and increasingly high-pitched tone. My words would tumble out of my nostrils in some kind of high pitch staccato when I get excited and my buddie knew that well enough.
"I have to find her."
"What, your angelfish ? Why dont you just swim with the sharks and go with the barracuda flow?" I shot Turtle a dirty look.
"How about you, Octopuss, you in ?"
"How about I introduce you to one of my girlfriends instead? I’m sure one of them would suit you"
"F*** you ! Will you guys help me or not?"
"Do we have a choice? You must have saved my lived in my previous life, I’m like your slave bitch now"
"Ha ha ha…"
Thus begin our long quest to find angelfish…
A university campus is actually not a very big place…until you try to find somebody. Then you begin to realise the enormity of the task, given all the stairs, rooms, corners and sprawling open ground. Not to mention the thousands of sardines swarming everywhere. For the next 2 months, I would rush to the library early in the morning, stand first in line for the door to open, sit in
that same cubicle on the same day of the week at the same time slot and looking out at the same spot. But no angelfish. My buddies offered to stake out in my place but it was not possible because all they had was a visual description and I could not risk them missing her. And then the horrible thought came to me suddenly - the mother of all "what ifs" - what if she is in her final year and
graduating soon. Oh no ! To find her is already hard enough in this litttle university coral reef but if she swims out into the vast ocean call the working world, I might never ever see her again. I was getting desperate, anxious and insomniac just entertaining that thought. And for the first time in a long while, I had a pimple on the tip of my nose and it hurts like hell. I was now desperate,
anxious, insomniac and pimply. Just in time for Christmas, great!
"This is not working, we need a plan" Octopuss, despite his flaws, usually had a plan, even though 90% of them either do not work or was over-ruled by us. But he was creative and persuasive and tampered by Turtle’s practical approach to life, the final plan was usually at least looked fairly workeable on paper. "We look at the geographic layout of the campus and we comb through it like looking for a runaway fugitive." Well, that was the crude plan but what else could we do.
We looked in the library, in all the canteens, in the administration buildings and we looked in the swimming pool and the laboratories and the track and field. We searched in the lecture theatres and the rooms, we searched the bookstores and the hostels. We staked out the bus stops and the restrooms and we staked out the clubs and the societies. But no angelfish.
At least I had the sweet distraction of watching my team, Man U, taking a strong hold in the English footy league and playing rather sensational football. A certain 18 year old by the name of David Beckham, was beginning to make a name for himself and so were the other Fergie fledglings (so called because they were young footballers graduating from the youth academy under the watchful eye of the manager , Alex Ferguson) like Gary Neville, his brother Phil, Nicky Butt and the precocious Paul Scholes. My life then essentially revolved around two things - watching Man U on TV and looking for angelfish.
As the days passed into weeks and the weeks turned into months, I was also physically transformed. I became more and more haggard with dark rings below my eyes, as much from the physical exhaustion of the search as from the lack of sleep. The thought of not seeing her again kept me awake almost every night. There would howver be one or two nights when I would fall asleep due to sheer fatigue. My hair became unkempt, I had a perpetual stubble as I was unshaven and also listless. The energy sapped from my body and my soul.
My heart began to sink, and so did my grades. From an above average student, I was gradually slipping into the red zone - failing my tests and my assignments. They were not beyond me, I actually could do them with a little bit of reading but I just did not have the mood nor the inclination. My buddies too were falling behind in their assignement and project datelines but their grades were still marginally better than mine.
And that was when the I had my first encounter with the Killer Whale a.k.a. the Dean of the Business School…
(Nest Ep - Encounter with the Killer whale). -
Ep.4 Ecounter with The Killer Whale
If you are a fan of National Geographic, like me, you would know that a whale is generally a very gentle giant, gliding across the vast oceans with its mouth open wide to ingest little planktons as food. They move gracefully and slowly, never loud or intrusive. But most of all, they can be elusive and tend to leave others alone. However, contrary to that notion is the killer whale, who is is far from gentle. It is a bloodthirsty, cruel and cunning meat-eater, a carnivorous killer that stalks, toys and tosses its prey, usually a dolphin or a seal, in the air again and again before subsequently eating the poor creature.
I was, unfortunately, similarly stalked by a killer whale a.k.a. the Dean of the Business School during my dark days. A Dean of an academic instituition is, by and large, an isolated job. He or she does not actually teach and interact with the student body but rather to set policies, rules and generally lord over everybody, especially the lecturers and other teaching and administrative personnel. They function as his eyes and ears, so he pretty much would know what goes on in the faculty. He is like an emperor ruling over his little kingdom and behaves as such. Suffice to say, the Dean is a most hated figure in the world of academia. We also hated our Dean.
The Killer Whale looks nothing like its namesake of the ocean. Our Dean was small in stature but big in ego. In fact, he was big in everything else…including…well. you know what they say about bald men, right ? He was about 1.65m from sole to scalp, but rather rotund in girth. He actually looked a bit like an angry garden gnome with his red puffy cheeks, hooked nose and a balding head, speaking of which is very impressive in shape and size. His head seemed to be proportionately too big for his body and gave the optical illusion that he was wobbling as he walked. But the shape was perfectly curved like an egg. It was smoother than a baby’s bottom. That was indeed one heck of a dome ! You would know he was appraoching simply by having the sunlight bounced off his forehead
into your eyes. His ego, on the other hand, was huge. As far as he was concerned, his word was law and his faculty, a monumental reflection of his success. His gold plated watch, his thick gold necklace peeking out from his hairy chest and his gawdy colorful suspenders are symbolic representation of that success. Needless to say, the faculty’s academic performance was further evidence of
his success and any blight on that platform of success was considered a direct challenge to him and everything he stood for.
So, you can imagine what we meant to him - a trio of fun-loving, easy going and truant losers, not goose-stepping in line with his definition of succeess. Being average , to him, is being a failure. We were like a cancer eating at insides, rotting bacteria corrupting his pristine world. Of the 3 of us, I was considered exceptionally abhorrent because my grades had been falling consistently and alarmingly at a reverse 45 degree towards zero. Towards failure. Towards an insult to his kingdom. Towards an encounter with the Killer Whale…
The rumuors have been making the rounds in the grapevine for weeks that I had made it to the Dean’s list. No, not the one for the brainy yet all rounder high achievers. This was the "alternate" Dean’s list that came with warning letters and verbal reprimands. The rumours finally came true one fine day when I was summoned to the Killer court to have an audience with the Dean.
"Congratulations, you made the Dean’s list"
"Yeah, right"
"So, when are you seeing his royal highness?"
"Thursday"
"What are you gonna say"
"I dont know. What can I say ?"
"Just say you are naturally intelligent and this is just a very temporary blip in your long academic career and that you will bounce back with a vengence when your brain has had its sufficient rest". With friends like that, I was doomed to a life of irreverence and dark comedy.
The meeting with the Killer Whale was actually rather uneventful, given the build-up hype to the event. I knew his personality, his pompous nature and his inflated sense of self-importance but what I was not mentally prepared for was the emotional intimidation:
"What we have here and what I have built is a very fine instituition, my dear young man. By all acccount, we are one of the top universities in this region, if not the world. Do you know what that means ?"
"Uh huh."
"No, you dont ! Because if you do, then your pea-brain would be able to grasp the significance of the situation. Here are your performance in chro…no…lo…gi…cal…or…der…" His fat, pudgy index and middle fingers tapped at a stack of A4 sized papers. I fantasized of McDonald’s oversized french fries. They were my assessment and examination scripts.
"Chronology is only important in a controlled series, sir. For changeable situations, chronology is actually quite irrelevant. The past is only a reference, its not a predictor."
"Shut up ! Oh, you think you’re smart, arent you ?! Well. this is the situation, listen carefully…either you buck up in the coming semester or you ship out of the faculty…MY faculty ! Consider yourself warned."
"What?"
"You heard me, shape up or ship out."
"You can’t do this. I passed"
"Passing is the new failing, my boy. You and your two moronic friends are a disgrace to the reputation of this instituition."
"But, but…"
"Dismissed !"
What an asshole, I thought to myself as I walked out of his court. Therein now lied the dilemma - if i devote more time to my academics, I would not have time to search for angelfish but if I don’t, I may never see her again if I somehow successfully got myself kicked out of university.
I needed help. I needed Vivien - the Queen Barracuda. -
nice! waiting for e next epi!!!
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