Reunion

"If you did not experience the pain and sadness of leaving someone, you will not experience the joy and relief of seeing each other again."

Remember what I've wrote on 'Spooky Feed #30"(one of my previous posts)? They are here again. Finally, after waiting for about 8 months, they have arrived? The ZhuHai group had arrived in Singapore two days ago. As most of us went to fetch them from their flight and finally meeting them for the 1st time in 8 months, we were excited. When we rushed all the way to the terminal and eagerly waiting for their arrival, we all were thinking whether they have changed, whether they recall how we all looked like, whether they remembered the days when we were hanging out together back in ZhuHai in our exchange trip there, what should we say when we meet them... When we caught the glimpse of their trademark school sweater-uniform, blue and white, we all knew. They have finally arrived. When they passed the custom examination, got their luggages and walking towards the exit, where we all were waiting, all hearts leaped. The moment we've all been waiting for. There we go, all the hugs, the smiles, the usual chats, "I miss you" talks and more. People from both sides have already taken out their cameras and snapping photos everywhere with their buddies. My buddy and I have each other a hug and began chatting about the nostalgic stuff and so on. We have finally reunited, even if it's only for a short while. They have came to our school for their turn in the exchange trip, and the Secondary 3s are hosting them. We have all promised them to give them an unforgettable experience here in Singapore. But deep inside our hearts, we are all aware. Aware of the fact that when they leave in 4 days time, we might not be able to have the chance to meet each other again.

Respect

Never take a person's dignity: It's worth everything to them, and nothing to you. - Frank Barron

I've been saving this word from a long time till the right moment to post it as a blog post. This word is very meaningful to me, at the very least, and it is a very powerful word. Respect, like love, can't be measured. Well, there ain't any S.I units for the measurement of Respect. It can't be like, you have "50cm^3 of Respect". Neither can it be, you have "50 tons of Respect". The only way to measure it is to count how many people respect you, maybe for your intelligence, your quick wits, your leadership capability, or your athletic skills for instance. If you're respected by a certain somebody for a certain something, you're respected by that certain somebody for a certain something. It's that simple. However, there's not many people who is in this world who can respect everybody he/she has encountered in his/her life. The respect I'm talking about now is the general respect that every human being at the very least should have. You may hate him/her, love him/her, being not close to him/her, not understanding him/her and so on... But there should be that essential and minimum amount of respect you should have for him/her. A couple of months ago, Three buddies and I were playing Basketball at the basketball court somewhere near to my house. We know we definitely ain't good players, we're not even close. But there's no reason we should be looked down on, humiliated, and thought to be only "small fries" and nothing else. However, a group of guys perhaps one or two years older than us, did the exact same things I've mentioned above. We were just playing, they asked for a match, between us and them, and the match starts. They just ignore our defense, play and trick around us, making us look like clowns, and just spam 3-pointers. They get the rebounds, pass them back out to the 3-point line and continue shooting. They don't even want the easy 2 points. They just shoot 3-pointers. They are obviously better, and we are obviously thrashed. They are not even playing seriously, humiliating us like that. If that happens to you, how will you feel? Today, a similar event happened. It's me together with another three friends (I also don't get why there's always FOUR of us), we were also playing Basketball, and a group of four wearing school basketball team jerseys, wearing official basketball shoes and basketball equipment, all save one guy, came in and asked for a match, obviously picking on us coz' we looked weak in basketball skills (Don't ask me why, coz 'this kind of stuff always happen), and we accepted just for the fun. They begin with one guy who always shoots 3-pointer (he kinda really suck at it, even his teammates acknowledged that), another guy that we know as a very pro player, two others rather unknown. Only the guy who always 3 pointers spam 3 pointers this time, while the others are rather strong. They also ain't playing seriously, until we are quite close to winning, then one guy says "Play seriously now". The first match we lost by 2 points (A basket coz' one basket in meant 2 points), and we eventually won the second match. I mean seriously, why do all these people play like that, fooling around, making beautiful but difficult lay-ups when they can just keep it simple and win the match easily? This does not just apply to only sports and games, but rather giving chances to your opponent to allow them to have a decent chance to win when you know they are "too weak" for you. Picking on people who are obviously below your level may be already considered as a cowardly approach to some. Not respecting them in the game or event, no matter how lousy they might be in the game, unless he/she shows utterly no sportsmanship at all and is really someone who deserves it, does not make you a winner. It only makes you a winner without any glory. And, a winner without glory might as well be considered a "loser". Respect begets Respect. These people definitely don't deserve respect from me.

Repress

No sweeteners will cloak some forms of bitterness. If it tastes bitter, spit it out. That's what our earliest ancestors did. - The Coda

I'd just realised that my previous post was my 77th post. 7 is my favourite number. I can find many 7's in my life. Anyways, I've been busy so I didn't post up till now. Common Test 2 is right up, and the Preliminary Examinations is next month. Gotta work hard, gotta stay focused, gotta perservere through it all.
How many times have you ever repress your feelings, emotions, words and expressions? Exactly how many times? What's the reason behind each of them? I'm pretty sure everyone of us have repressed ourselves for a certain occasion or event. Maybe it's because that you did not want someone to realise your thoughts or emotions. Like maybe in a game of Chess, you did not want your opponent to know that their "king" piece is at risk of getting checkmated so you repressed your smile and anxiety. Maybe in a game of poker where you did not want your opponents to be able to read your moves and the strength of your cards, whether you're bluffing or not, so you put on a poker face, giving a blank expression. Maybe you repress your emotions because so that a certain someone would not know how you felt and lead to undesirable consequences. For several reasons, we humans have all repress our emotions. Babies and Toddlers are the exceptions, cause' they did not care what would happen. If they feel happy, they will just giggle, or make a big smiley face. If they are hurt, they will just cry over the pain and hope that someone will comfort them and fix their "injuries". If they are angry, they will just throw tantrums, fool around and show their dislike for something. If they are scared, they will just cry and hide from the fear. To stop yourselves from expressing what you really feel may be a good decision depending on the circumstances but it's definitely not healthy and it may result in undesirable events. In cases like being around friends and you keep all the unhappiness in between you and all your friends is definitely not a good idea as it does not just leave the problem unresolved and it is likely to lead to more misunderstandings, incurring heated arguements, till the time when you or them just can't take it any longer and would have resulted in breaking the friendship ties and never really communicate with one another again. In similar cases, you should settle down and talk to the people involved about your feelings and you all will work together to solve the problems and prevent similar cases to occur again within the group. Keeping our true feelings to ourselves could lead to several bad outcomes. In a larger and global scale, this could have resulted in failure of a certain policy, deteriorating relations amongst countries, and even war. If only things were as simple as the ancient times where we are very honest in all things that we do. But things are never that simple.

Restrict

Fear is the father of courage and the mother of safety. - Henry H. Tweedy

Fear is one silly thing. Fear can do lots of stuff. Or rather, Fear can make us do a lot of stuff. Fear of doing badly for our exams make us study and prepare for it. Fear of getting lectured by our teachers or getting punished make us do and submit our work punctually. Fear of getting caught of having longer hair than expected(for a male student in the school rules), make us panic and get a haircut. Fear can make us check ourselves to be safe at all times and cleared for a "dangerous" action/event like abseiling. Fear can make us take precautions and be cautious to our surroundings. Generally the "good" side of what Fear can make us do. However, Fear can make us do "bad" stuff too. People may feel insecure as they fear that their loved ones would cheat/abandon them, leading to certain actions and events. People may distrust and get suspicious at someone because they fear that they might use them or badmouth them or steal their position (like at work). Fear can make us "destroy" things that can pose a threat to our safety or something/someone we care about. Fear can also make us run away from our problems, refusing to face them.
Fear can make us do a lot of stuff, but it can also make us NOT do a lot of stuff. Fear can make us stop playing games or slacking when the exams are near. Fear can make us not charge into any situation without any preparations and precautions. That's about the good side. Fear can make us not do something or say something to someone because of the possible and undesirable consequences, letting the chance slip by and never come back again. Fear can make us to not be forward-looking and dwell on the past. Fear can cause us to not make the correct yet tough decision, wanting an easy way out.
Fear keeps us safe, yet Fear restricts us. A shield that would block everything out, and lock everything in. If we can't overcome fear, we would not be able to take the first step. Then the second step. Followed by the third. And the fourth. And so on. Some kinds of fear lasts for seconds,  some for lifetimes. We should FEAR and NOT FEAR at the same time. But can we differentiate when to fear? And what to fear?