My comeback.

the only one in this world who can discriminate me for my writing is me.

for over a decade i have been writing.

when i was as young as Primary 2, i wrote this mystery story about a pair of twin girls, inspired by the Mary-Kate and Ashley series i was so in love with. i had my close friend read it, and i've forgotten how the topic came about but one of my classmates had told our form teacher about it.

i remember the way he had said, "ya! she write the chapter 1, so nice!"

our form teacher made me lend her this book, and after she returned it to me she told me i had the talent of writing. she made me her English rep, and i was so careful not to ever screw up in the subject.

 i started writing in a diary. my first diary came from the year 2003, when i was 8. it didnt have a passcode and my elder brother would read it when i wasnt around, the sneaky little fox.

he would laugh at the things i wrote, about the boys i had crushes on, about the silly fights with my girl best friends. and about my dreams.

my earlier diaries were filled with ambitions. i had wanted to be everything and anything i set eyes on. i wanted to be a fashion designer. i wanted to be an artist. a model! a teacher! a singer! and at one point of time i also wanted to be a lawyer although i didnt know what it meant.

but it was ironic. there i was, writing about these dreams and wondering which one would i be, when the one real ambition i actually had was right under my nose.

in 2004, i wrote these little magazines for my then class, in the form of exercise books with drawings of a certain classmate on the cover of each issue.

i must admit, for a little 9-year-old, those covers i had designed were actually not that bad, with its title on the top and article headings splattered around underneath.

i also put together some coloured paper, stapled them together and wrote stories on them, making it look like a little story book. i made a ton of those, and everyone was reading them.

i had that moment of popularity for that; my classmates would gather around me in between classes and ask for a new book for them to read. they'd pass them around when they were done, and they'd discuss my stories more than discuss about homework.

of course, eventually our form teacher came over and demanded, "just what is it that everyone keeps going to you about?" she snatched one of those coloured books, glimpsed through it, and said, "no more bringing this to class. such a distraction!"

i was a rebellious kid already back then, and i still brought them to class. we all secretly read them, even during this teacher's class [which was English, ironically], until one day she caught one of us and confiscated my whole stack of handmade storybooks.

that was the end of that. but of course; it didnt deter me from this hobby of mine.

in 2005 our form teacher made us write journals. came a week which had "ambitions" as the journal topic, and i wrote that i wanted to be a writer.

this teacher had a method of giving us stickers as a reward for us to collect into a template, and the more we receive the bigger our reward.

i never had many of those stickers, because i was always not passing up my homework, especially Maths [she was our Maths and English teacher]. everyone would be getting two or three for passing up on time or for doing a great job, but i never got any because even if i did the homework, i'd be late.

well, this journal was my comeback. i got two stickers for every entry, and for that particular ambitions entry, i had gotten three. and an additional three for an excerpt i had written, extracted from one of those storybooks of mine.

and guess what? my form teacher even read aloud my entry to the class. i still remember the way she had announced, "she wants to be a writer." i remember so clearly the smile on her face and her tone of disbelief, as if she couldnt believe that a kid like me had such an ambition.

word got around for a bit, and people made fun of me for wanting to be something as silly as a writer. i ignored them and just did what i could. i hated Maths, but i did my best for English classes.

however, i had a new hobby in 2006 and 2007. i discovered anime and i started reading mangas instead of books. i drew comics instead of write. i gained popularity in my classes for this too, everyone coming to me to look at me draw or asking to borrow the sketchbook i had  drawn in.

came secondary school. my blog was a few months old, then known as spark-s-furawar.blogspot.com. i wrote about the daily happenings, about what happened in class everyday. i had many readers then, and everyone else also had blogs.

it was in mid-2009 that the internet at my house started having problems. for the next two years i only managed to blog when there was a computer that had internet connection.

in the meantime, i wrote poems. i wrote plenty each week to represent what i was going through at the time. my diary entries were shallow, just daily happenings but the poems i wrote, as silly as they were, represented my feelings a lot more.

it was only in late 2010 when my aunt and uncle presented me with my own laptop and even got me the broadband thingamajic. it was the period where i was heartbroken after the first kiss episode. i started blogging again, and i wrote about my heartache in the privacy of my bedroom.

my dad got me a little camera in February of 2011. with this camera i started to record little moments i went through. it grew into a class thing, and i made videos of the daily happenings in class 4/2.

we won the Cheering Competition in 2011, a major event in our school. it was what started our fun times and bonds and memories. these memories were captured on my camera and i editted [though my skills were amateur] the footage into daily videos.

in August 2011 i got a better camera to record videos. it wasnt the best but it was more to preference when i was recording. i recorded 4/2's PE lessons the most, when we would all be playing soccer together and just slacking with one another. i loved my classmates.

i wanted to make music videos. i had lots of ideas for every other song i listened to, which related to my life, but i never had the time or resources to make them. the only one i had ever gotten to making was Soul Full Solace, a simple 2minute video about having courage to get up and walk away/move on.

i'd gotten two of my girl best friends to be my models, and i was ordering them around, like a director. of course, they had their turns bossing me around too. it was, after all, all in the name of fun.

that was when i found another hobby: video-making.

i continued blogging at the same time. even as time passed by and everyone started shutting down or deleting or simply neglecting their blogs, i continued in mine. i changed my URL a ton of times, the last before my current one being holyfiretruck.blogspot.com.

that was late 2011, when i was already with that boy whom i'd had a crush on for two years. i decided to change my link one more time when 2012 came, and i decided that it'd be its name for the rest of its life.

this boy had once given me a notebook with "the color black" written on it, and he bought me a bottle of Minyak Kapak for the headaches i was constantly getting; directly translated as 'axe oil'.

from these two gifts he had presented me, i changed my blog URL to 109blackaxes.blogspot.com. 109 was a moniker i'd been using since 2009, and i cant remember the story behind it.

he left me a few days after, but my blog remained as 109blackaxes. up to this day.

during the period when i was getting suspended from class everyday, in 2012, i still continued to write. i wrote instead of doing my work in class. i blogged instead of doing my homework. that year may have been the loneliest year of my life but i had my words to accompany and protect me.

one particular day, i was sitting outside the general office when my classmate came up to me. he told me that the HOD for English subject had came to class and praised the compo i had written during our Mid-Year exam.

my classmate quoted the HOD; "she said it was 'one of the best 5NA compos' she had ever read."

it made my day. i was in bliss. we never talked but whenever she passed me by outside the HOD office she'd give me a little smile and i couldnt help but return it.

i did my O Levels. 2013 came and during the Poly open houses period, i went to check out anything to do with media or film. there were no courses that catered especially to my writing but i didnt mind if i could be a journalist or a filmmaker.

i thought about the things i had done in the past decade. i'd drawn comics, i'd written poems, i'd made videos, i'd directed a music video. although i tried doing so many things, it all came down to one thing. i had a passion for telling stories.

whether they were my real-life events, or made up stories, or real stories that i wanted others to know, i liked to tell stories.

i found a course in Singapore Poly called "Creative Writing for TV & New Media". when i saw that i immediately told myself i HAVE to get into that course. a few days before the release of our O Levels results, i told myself i'd die on the spot if i dont get a distinction for my English.

fast forward to the moment when my sec 5 form teacher called out my name. it was the day we receive our results. i sat down on the chair opposite her, and she had a smile on her face. she was my English teacher, and she announced, "congratulations E'indah you were my ONLY student who got a distinction for English!!"

my eyes lit up. but she turned off the lights in my eyes by saying, "but i'm sorry it's just an A2." she smiled apologetically before passing me my results slip.

i sat in a corner while my ex girl best friends talked among one another. the HOD who was chasing me for my MCs/my English teacher for the first half of sec 5 came up to me and held out his hand. "congratulations for your distinction in English."

i shook his hand, but he broke my heart by saying, "but too bad, i was really expecting an A1 from you."

i tried to apply for that course under JAE. but i couldnt. i only had 5 subjects, because i dropped art, and i'd failed my Humanities by getting a D7 grade.

i tried applying for media courses, but i was not eligible. my heart was broken. i couldnt stop blaming my parents. i couldnt stop thinking of the time my mom locked me out of the house for the few days right before my Social Studies paper. i kept thinking everyone else took away my dreams from me.

i got into where i am right now; Electronic and Computer Engineering. it was far from what i wanted but i couldnt apply for anything to my desire. i only applied for it because of the year 2 option that was to do with media communications, or smth like that.

the HOD of English who had praised my compo back in secondary school was a regular customer at where i am working. she remembered me, which i was sure for my writing, because we had never communicated about anything else.

one day, she asked me; "what course are you in?" it was a question i'd learnt to dread. i told her in a small voice; an engineering course.

she looked disappointed. and then she said, "that is so not you. you should have gone somewhere else. your writing is so good."

i didnt answer. she continued; "maybe there'd be some newspaper cca or something in your new school? you should join that. just don't stop writing. you have such a rare gift."

writing is indeed. it's a gift, but gifts are never blessings all the time. i've never met another writer who is on par with me. it's a blessing that i am unique, but it's a curse that nobody in this society will ever appreciate writing.

it felt like i was not fated to write. i've hated Maths since i was a kid, yet here i am. i'm always waking up in the mornings, angry at God for putting me in Engineering instead of thanking Him for letting me wake up for a new day to continue following my dreams.

i told myself i wanted to stop writing forever because the idea of being an Engineer was getting into my head.  i wanted to start loving Maths. and the only way for me to do that was to quit writing. after all, right now my future depends on my Maths. because i am an Engineering student.

like i'd said; if you were to get stuck on an island for three years, would you rather be trapped with someone you love or someone you hate? i'd say i'd rather someone i hate; so that i can use the time to learn to love them.

but a week after my last post, i couldnt take it anymore. i was going insane from not writing or blogging. i was going insane with all that maths and programming that were jammed in my head.

at the same time, everyone else was telling me about how much they liked my writing. they were people who loved me, and they were people i love; but that just made me all the more lack the confidence that my writing was good. after all, what else could they say?

i still cant deny that this pause from writing did me more good than i expected. when i skipped classes on Thursday, i did my programming. if i still had been blogging i wouldnt have learnt about loops.

and instead of keeping quiet and ranting about people's comments on my blog and diary, i stood up for myself, against a handful of people in my life.

i wrote this post today because i wanted to tell you my relationship with writing. what made me started it, what made me go back to it again and again.

but right now, i have to learn how to juggle the best friend and the classmate. the best friend is someone who has been with you for over a decade, and you always go to her when you need her and have personal problems.

the classmate is the one you need in school. the one who contributes significantly to your grades. you cant talk to your best friend over the phone while you are doing homework with your classmate. your best friend is still in your life, but not all the time anymore.

fine. i wont be quitting writing/blogging. i'm still here. just that i need to cut down on it. it may be my passion, but it is not my current necessity.

i'll ace Engineering, and then i'll move on to Media/Film if God is willing. i'm not giving up on my writing, and i never will; but for now, i have to keep it aside. because Maths is calling me.

thank you for reading.