It's been a while since the last time I shared my childhood stories. I happened to go blog-hopping recently and a particular post in Erna's blog caught my attention. Since then, I've been day-dreaming that my JJ will grow up some day looking up to me as her role model, much the same way Erna looks up to her dad.
I've been meaning to write a bit about my own role model too, but could not really find the right time and mood to do so—until now.
Well, this lately I've been thinking a lot about my dad. I'm trying to recall all the good things he has done as a daddy. And then I was horrified to find very few that I can remember. The human brain is a very strange recording instrument. At times, I find it so hard to remember some events which took place only a couple of weeks or months ago. Yet I can still remember quite a lot of my childhood experiences very clearly as if they had just happened recently.
When I was very young, I used to look up to my dad as a great man. He was to me everything I wanted to be. In retrospect, I honestly don't know why I felt that way. Perhaps it was merely some sort of instinct—that children will automatically take their parents as their role models. But as I said, the more I try to think back about my childhood days, the more I find very little to justify my admiration for my dad. If anything, I can remember many, many occasions when I asked myself, "Why isn't my dad like other daddies?"
I think I was about 14 years old (form 2) when I joined some friends on a camping trip during a school break organised by the Boys Scouts. It wasn't really an advanturous trip into the deep jungle; rather it was merely a 3-day camp at a school compound in Likas. Dad had dropped me off at the camp and promised to fetch me in three days' time.
Well, we had lots of fun over those three days, playing lots of games, learning some outdoor stuff, singing etc. By the third day, I was so tired and couldn't wait to get home. But after waiting for about 2 hours, dad still did not show up. I did not have any money on me, so I started walking home with my heavy backpack. Back then I was living in Kobusak. The distance from St Agnes in Likas to Kobusak must have been more than 15km. It was around 6pm when I started my walk, and I had to stop several times to rest along the way. In the end I reached home at around 9pm. It was a very exhausting walk. I think it wouldn't have been very tough if it's not for the heavy backpack.
I can remember clearly now—I've just passed the Queen Elezabeth's Hospital and heading towards Taman Fortuna when I started crying because of the exhaustion, thirst, hunger, fear and anger. Well, I cried all the way home that day.
When I reached home, dad was there watching tv with the rest of the family. He had forgotten all about his promise to come and fetch me in Likas. But he said it's good that I had the training to become a strong and brave man.
I think it's moments like those that resulted in the gradual loss of respect and love for my dad. Over the years there were many other similar stories.
I'm sure if only you knew what I've been through, you'd understand why my dad is no longer my role model today.
I've been meaning to write a bit about my own role model too, but could not really find the right time and mood to do so—until now.
Well, this lately I've been thinking a lot about my dad. I'm trying to recall all the good things he has done as a daddy. And then I was horrified to find very few that I can remember. The human brain is a very strange recording instrument. At times, I find it so hard to remember some events which took place only a couple of weeks or months ago. Yet I can still remember quite a lot of my childhood experiences very clearly as if they had just happened recently.
When I was very young, I used to look up to my dad as a great man. He was to me everything I wanted to be. In retrospect, I honestly don't know why I felt that way. Perhaps it was merely some sort of instinct—that children will automatically take their parents as their role models. But as I said, the more I try to think back about my childhood days, the more I find very little to justify my admiration for my dad. If anything, I can remember many, many occasions when I asked myself, "Why isn't my dad like other daddies?"
I think I was about 14 years old (form 2) when I joined some friends on a camping trip during a school break organised by the Boys Scouts. It wasn't really an advanturous trip into the deep jungle; rather it was merely a 3-day camp at a school compound in Likas. Dad had dropped me off at the camp and promised to fetch me in three days' time.
Well, we had lots of fun over those three days, playing lots of games, learning some outdoor stuff, singing etc. By the third day, I was so tired and couldn't wait to get home. But after waiting for about 2 hours, dad still did not show up. I did not have any money on me, so I started walking home with my heavy backpack. Back then I was living in Kobusak. The distance from St Agnes in Likas to Kobusak must have been more than 15km. It was around 6pm when I started my walk, and I had to stop several times to rest along the way. In the end I reached home at around 9pm. It was a very exhausting walk. I think it wouldn't have been very tough if it's not for the heavy backpack.
I can remember clearly now—I've just passed the Queen Elezabeth's Hospital and heading towards Taman Fortuna when I started crying because of the exhaustion, thirst, hunger, fear and anger. Well, I cried all the way home that day.
When I reached home, dad was there watching tv with the rest of the family. He had forgotten all about his promise to come and fetch me in Likas. But he said it's good that I had the training to become a strong and brave man.
I think it's moments like those that resulted in the gradual loss of respect and love for my dad. Over the years there were many other similar stories.
I'm sure if only you knew what I've been through, you'd understand why my dad is no longer my role model today.
6 comments:
can't help noticing you changed profile and even profession from a registered surveyor to tukang kutuk. Is that your full time job now?
lateral line,
I knew that someone is bound to notice the change sooner or later.
From the very beginning, I named this blog "Because I say so...", because the opinions conatainted herein are solely mine. Whenever I'm referring to comments or opinions by others, I try my best to quote the source.
I've always been very direct in my comments about stuff. I wanted to be responsible about the things I say here, and I did not wish to hide behind a nickname. There are so many blogs where people criticise others, especially the Government. But they do so in a cowardly fashion, i.e. by hiding behind nicknames.
However, this lately I realised that there have been attempts by some people to interpret my personal views as those of my profession, company, family or friends. There have been suggestions that my comments - especially when it comes to criticisms, may be construed as those coming from others.
In reality, I have not changed my profession. But I thought to save all the trouble, I might as well not mention about my profession, company, family and friends. And since some people have already referred to me as Tukang Kutuk, I might as well adopt that as my "profession".
So now I am just another Sabahan blogger. So far I have no plans to use a nickname. I am still Cornelius.
Heya Corn,
I for one have always enjoyed your more personalized take on life in general, more so on yours and your upbringing. I've always felt that it is a good way to understand where one comes from and sometimes also helps to explain why we have certain views on things that others may not understand or appreciate unless they are in your shoes.
Regardless of feedback (be it good or bad), your personal posts are always an appreciated read.
Is that also the reason for you shying away from discussing hunt questions lately? Have not read anything on that subject for a while, ever since you were told not to repeat topics and bore readers.
But if you considered yourself as Tukang Kutuk, you must live up to that expectation.
Shan,
Glad to know that at least someone enjoys reading about my childhood experiences. I had the impression that old stories like these are not so interesting to most people.
Unfortunately, it's not always very enjoyable on my part to recall my childhood days for obvious reasons. Whenever I'm into remembering my past, I always find myself feeling sorry for myself. And that's silly, because it's all in the past, you see. Yet some parts of my childhood were so traumatic that I can still end up in tears whenever I see it all again in my mind.
lateral line,
I'm not shying away from discussing hunt questions. I did not reveal to my readers that some of my fans wrote to me, saying that they did not mind my repeating some topics. They said they enjoyed reading the analysis all the same!
However, I also realise that perhaps some people do find my hunt discussions boring. So I am determined to choose what I discuss about these days. And here I've found myself facing an uphill task, because a lot of the times, CoCs have the tendency to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, yet I'm trying not to keep criticising the same mistakes over and over again. I realise, for example, the subject of "double duty" has been discussed a few times, but I keep seeing it in some hunt questions, you see. In other questions I keep seeing grammatical mistakes etc. So I guess there is very little value to continue discussing about the same thing.
Apart from the above, I also have a more specific reason why I have refrained from discussing some of the mistakes. I have in the past been rediculed for my obsession in grammatical accuracy. So I decided to create a trick based on grammatical accuracy in hunt question. And that particular trick worked wonderfully too! Sometimes, people will never learn no matter how many times I discuss it here, so I can easily punish them through my questions.
I see some interesting possibilities in some of the recent questions. In my last discussion in Mike's blog, for example, there was a mention about:
Q) 5/3
A) ...ish
And the answer H @ Hydrant was rejected. What my readers don't know is that I actually went ahead to discuss this question through exchange of emails with some friends. So I can make my point about this question the next time I do a hunt. Who knows, maybe I will be able to trap a fair number of hunters, you see.
Finally, it's not really the same if I am not in the hunt to experience the questions myself in the field. To see the questions with the answers is not exactly the same. So my comments may not be fair.
If there is something "new" to comment, I will try to "live up the the expectation" of my readers. Is that fair enough? (smile)
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