Wish You Were Here

I was really depressed (see earlier entry), but someone who is close to me seems to have a bigger problem. This is Herry Morris, who is now 18 years old and a former student of mine back in Sarawak. He was also my only confidante and closest person I would call family then. We have a history WAY back for years since 2003, when I first walk upon the island of Borneo.

I don't make friends easily, as many who knew me realized. And if I ever bonded with someone, it would last for life. Unfortunately, during my teaching years in Kapit, Sarawak; I was not able to acquire many friends among fellow teachers. The students, weirdly, were more fascinated with me, no matter how brutally cruel I could be in class. So, I was closer to the students than most teachers could. And they told me things, everything that could catch my attention. From these discussions, I could sieve out the really different characters out of the common muck. One of these characters was Herry. He's a nice person, quiet and shy. Also quite intelligent and those genes were also passed down to his younger brother and sister (also my students). 

Oh and he was also one of the most polite (I hate rude people). I usually have a few students with me at anytime of the day after school because I was a chick-magnet (ha ha ha). People began to complain (because it was such a small place, the boarding school where people can only escape using boats) for no apparent reason about this Malay teacher who got a horde of Iban students doing his biddings. JEALOUSY. Mud beneath my feet. This unsatisfied grumbling quickly ended when I escelated to the post of school warden (by single-handedly erasing the troubles in school in 6 months). Oh, and I publicly threated to rip the throats off anyone who had the gall to talk behind me. 

But this entry is not about me. Like I said, my history in Sarawak was colourful and sometimes painful. Herry and a few stood by me, their favourite Science teacher, against a world of prejudice and backstabbers. I was different, thus alienated even by my own colleagues. And I would never forget such loyalty, one that even a king should be envious of. In a place of such boredom, bad-vibes and loneliness; I have a few friends who made me happy.

So I called Herry today, and he told me he is lonely and confused because his dorm-mates do not wish to be his friends. It saddens me, as I could not be there to console him, one of the person who made my life tolerable in hell. I told him what I told myself when I was his age; they think you are different, and much better than they were, so they hated you. You are a nice person, intelligent and polite; you don't have to keep such people as friends. Keep the ones who likes you the way you are. Study hard and one day you will fly further than the rest.

Oh, I got so sentimental like. Yes, evil people do have hearts too.