Wake Up Call?

The assembly was packed full of students, all seated on the floor waiting the a game to begin. There are white and blue uniforms in scattered groups, chattering noisily when the game then begins. Visible groans fill the air when a ping pong table is rolled out swiftly and unfolded - seems like it was not the expected event for the majority of students. The match begins oddly, not the high-tension serious match one would expect. The boy and the girl who are meant to be opponents to the death are goofing around. They are doing tricks with the ball, shooting it too far, making the ball do curves around the table - the sense of competition is absent from their match. They are simply goofing around, and I get agitated. In classic passive aggressive manner,I stand up along with some other kids and exclaim loudly to myself that the game is not watchable, and that they're just goofing off. Even though I had no concept to ping pong rules and regulations, that they're just bombing hard at it. I hear cries of protests that I can't leave, but I reassure them that I'm not, I'm just going back to the classroom to wait it out.

I wake up, and the things in the room are trying to line up from their trailing images. The magazines and books all over my room tell me that I'm vastly disorganized, and that I'm no longer in school, but back in my room. I can tell just from the books and magazines that I have various periodicals, comic books, and just clutter all about.

I wake up again, this time in a dark room. I'm almost sweating despite that it's rather cool in the room. It's 3:36 and then I realized that it was all just a dream in my head. Then this overwhelming sadness overcomes me because I realized I'm not in school anymore. In an odd manner, I really do miss school. I miss St. Andrew's in Singapore because it was just pure school - I was who I was, and I looked forward to everyday because there was soccer to be played, jokes to be told, personalities to be developed. I miss Hazen as well, though I had to be fiercely guarded, and being Chinese was suddenly a huge factor to who I was. Still, I had something to prove, there was the excitement of a new experience and yet a harrowing paranoia that I was going to be racially singled out by some jock. Still, there was a potential of new things coming my way. College was exciting as well, so many paths and options, and suddenly for the first time, I could decide which fork to venture down. Unfortunately, I was terminally insecure and indecisive, and after a couple years of blazing Journalism, I went the way of the Independent Filmmaker, proving that passion and responsibilities don't always mix. But it was still such a great culture - a place where people are together to learn, share, and there's a certain transitional feel about college.

I miss all those things so much. Not I'm working at a rather respectable place, though it is certainly not my first choice of ideal careers. It lacks the culture I seek, a place of creativity, learning, excitement, and the median age in my company is seriously in the range of 45. Everyone is self-absorbed and serious. As well as they should be. But I stick out like a sore thumb. I need to reconsider my life a bit and bring some of that excitement back into my life because right now it simply feels like I'm coloring by numbers. I need to write more, create more, and hopefully my day job will change to allow that more naturally. There is so much I feel like I'm missing out by just doing the bare minimum to go to work, pay my bills, be a good family man, and keeping myself distracted by popular media. I need to start molding, writing, creating, fabricating, and leaving some kind of legacy besides the memories I leave in people's minds. Something tangible that can be experienced by others. Otherwise there will be not cure for waking up at 3:36 in the morning in a sweat, then blogging about that jolt to the system.