We have now known each other for 10 years already!

Somewhere in this month, 10 years ago, a bunch of youngsters traveled 500km (with reference from KL) to an island in the north to further their studies. There they met, become friends and lived together for 3 years on that island, through the ups and downs of college life. Only a handful stuck together as friends and sometimes have small gatherings. Some have traveled far and wide, some have joined together in holy matrimony, some have found lines of work which have nothing to do with what they studied at all but nothing changed the fact of their obscure education place which could sometimes be hard to explain.

My dear roommates are of course the people whom i spend the most time with. More than 50% have dropped out of communication or contact but a few remained. These few are the people whom i really had a great time with. Most are fond memories, happy ones but of course there are insane ones as well. Let me try to list some, daily beach walks, Padang Matsirat pasar malam on Sundays, Bob's food stall, nasi goreng biasa and nasi goreng ayam, walks to airport to withdraw money, RM3 30 minute van rides to Kuah, the constant non-working air-conditioned free bus ride to Kuah, 5-6am arrivals at the Kuala Perlis jetty, tax free KFC (less than RM10 for 3 pieces of chicken set!), Hello Kitty craze @ McDonald's, Samudra shopping center purchases, rented car ran out of petrol (LOLz, no prizes for guessing who :p), strange pronounciations by the lecturers from Indon, incredible shifting of study schedules to extend a 1-day holiday to become 10 days, birthday celebrations with AIR KOLAM! and so many more.

Our college life together was truly remarkable not to mention unforgettable. Through the thick and thin we persevered and we got our prize in the end. So many firsts to be experienced together. Sigh, my recent exam did flashed back some hellish studying for exams back then. If i did not have my good friends with me during this period, i would definitely be lost. A very good friend brought me back to reality on many occassions when my concentration was broken on insignificant matters. I really would like to thank Zbjernak for pulling me out of depression on many occassions. His optimism and advices slapped me back to reality that there are more important things to be bothered about. I have to say he is truly a great friend and miss him alot since he is so damn far away now :(

Then there is the unsuspected rocker. The supposed low profile dude who is great on the guitar. From him i learned to shake my head and body to Guns N' Roses, Metallica and many more. His programming genius got us through for many semesters. His then most powderful graphic card to play CS and indeed we did have a great time playing CS on a self created LAN, 4 rooms of PCs connected to a switch and studies were almost dropped for quite some time. My ex-collection of mp3s were from him, at least 10GB worth of songs, how i wish to listen to them all again.

The skinny kiddo from Sabah. Lazy as he is, he showed me things which i did not expect from someone of his age. It was thanks to him that i managed to step my feet into the Land below the Winds, his treat mar :p I spent 1 week there and even had the privilege to taste his mother's cookings. Simple but great stuff, fresh seafood. I hosted him when he was here for a couple of weeks. One of the few guys whom i know who likes to have long sleeps and would skip class just for sleep.

My first sem roommate who did not finish the course with us but a great guy worthy of a seperate paragraph. He introduced to me Chinese rock songs of which i still enjoy up till today. Its strange that we still keep in contact despite not spending too much time together. With help from his girlfriend, we got some extra tips on our course studies. I still remember a hopeful night whereby we thought the exam papers may be exactly the same as his girlfriend's :p

Not to forget a very interesting person whose name is the same as a popular red dog. Only managed to catch up with him once after college and lost contact until now :( The ups and downs of our days in college and being roommates, the way he carries himself reminds me of someone... Really able to cheer people up with his infectious big smile.

My coursemates also left many endearing memories, a strange girl whose maturity is beyond many people's imagination, a drama queen who showed me that there are really these type of people in the real world, an ex-promising football player who got injured and therefore did not make the cut, an old man who doesn't behave his own age, a ghostlike girl who takes pills for meals, a girl whose lifestyle do not reflect where she comes from (not that it mattered), a sleepyhead who manages to get 'A's with seemingly effortless, a beautiful malay girl who showed me a pic of her without her tudung and left an imprint in my mind, a girl who describes herself as drawing chinese characters not writing them because she draws the characters as how she remembers them instead of following the proper strokes and many many more interesting characters which welcomed me to the real world, real people of which i have been shielded for almost my entire life before then.

My neighbours whom i lazed around with to get through the boring times when there is no class. So many interesting characters, so many memories. Initial D craze swept my college when someone brought the series in. Although i have watched all the episodes before, one day at a friend's room, he was hosting an Initial D marathon watching session, i remember skipping lunch and watched for like the whole day for all the episodes that was available. Point to note, a CDROM drive is NOT for marathon CD watching because the CDROM drive went dead the very next day XD

After our almost weekly outing to pasar malam, a friend would buy a movie and there will be a showing in his room. A great way to spend the night while eating the many foods bought for dinner. When more and more PCs were brought into college, LAN games was the thing on everyone's mind whenever there was no class.

Although i don't smoke, i hang around with many smokers and most of the time i would be smoked by them but never intentionally. I can't understand what's so fun about smoking, its bitter and it made me dizzy as hell after a few puffs. A good side effect which i see would be that MOST smokers are thin, perhaps its corelated to the fact that they are spending money on smoked instead of food.

Having gay neighbours was really something interesting. They are not bad people, they come from troubled families and in college they find people who have the same interest as they do. I learnt quite some things from them just by talking to them, different perspectives and angles of looking at things are real eye openers.

Although booze was cheap, we never had a big party where getting drunk would be the agenda. I did however on several occassions try to douse my sadness with alcohol, got me through the night but never really relieving the real pain. Missed my chance to try out homemade tuak specially made and sent all the way from Sarawak :(

Such fond memories and they seem to be not too long ago. I intentionally missed out a gathering a few months ago due to personal reasons. I really do miss those days in a sense.