One Side of One Thousand

I guess than even when I’ve lost every shred of my identity, every last piece of what makes me human, there are the few awesome people who will come and remind me of who I am, what I set out to do. Friends are the people who know the song of your heart, and sing it back to you when you’ve forgotten the tune.

You know who you are. I read what you wrote. I cried after I read it. That was really nice of you..... thanks so much for being there for me.....

To the few people who came to class just to see if I was ok, thanks for your care..... right then I really needed it......

You guys are awesome.....

Someone told me on the way home, that the stuff I worry about is just a small part of what is important. He said to stop caring so much, because after all these things, the rest is really up to you. Thanks for that.....
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I guess one of the biggest things that we’ve talked about every time, was this issue of a facade. Hiding what I felt like it meant nothing when it meant everything. Coming to school every morning with a smile no matter how badly I was hurt, no matter how painful everything was. I don’t think I ever explained myself properly.

None of us ever did.

I’ll try. Forgive me if I fail. I guess some of us try to keep our personal and professional life separate. Don’t take this wrongly, it doesn’t mean I don’t make friends. It just means that I keep personal feelings out of school time and the countless meetings and projects. That no matter how desolate I feel inside, I don’t show anything, just so things don’t become complicated with emotion.

Part of it was because I acted on emotion instead of logic before, and the consequences were tragic. Stung and hurt, I didn’t think I had the courage to follow what I feel anymore.

Part of it was because of doing a lot of science research. Because as a scientist, its part of what you’re trained to do.

Emotions tend to affect experimental results. We’re trained to remove all traces of human emotion from our work, simply because science is supposed to be objective in nature. Science is uncompromising, precise, sterile. The lab hasn’t got space for emotion or feeling. Whatever we feel, its almost duty to hide it all away until we change out of our lab coats and exit the lab.

The philosophy lecture on science was quite accurate about that.

What tends to happen after that I guess, is that people tend to have unfair expectations of scientists. People expect us to be calm and composed in any situation, personal or professional, they expect us to be able to make sound and objective decisions every single time.

They forget that we feel too.

They forget that we can feel every single emotion and feeling that anyone else feels. They forget that we make mistakes too, because we sometimes follow our heart and not logic. They forget that we have to hide all that no matter how painful it is when in our professional capacity.

We laugh, we cry, we get angry, we love. We are people too.

I guess what all this has taught me, is never to take anyone at face value. When you meet someone, you only see one side of one thousand. In truth, we know very little about the people we meet, what they are like outside the situations we would normally meet them in.

I made that mistake once.

He’s two years older than me. In sec 1 I was whacked by him a lot in NCDCC. I was really scared of him and I tried to avoid him. If I saw him coming, I’d just kinda run away.

Fast-forward two years.

Far away from home, in a foreign country, dead tired from traveling the whole day, close to breaking point under the stress of competition..... he was the one who took care of me and did his best to look out for me.....

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that people are vibrant, dynamic. They are multi-faceted. There is so much that makes someone who they are. You probably can never fully know someone. The best you could do is try to think of how they might be like outside of the situations that you usually see that person.

I just want you to know that I’m more than the Alli you see in school everyday.