Parental Guidance

Caution: Reading this may cause you to dream more. Just dream.

The end of SMUgging Marathon was marked with a narcissistic sense of self achievement. Of being able to slog through these 4 years of studies of subjecting myself to adapt to a routine of attending classes, class participation, doing projects and endless smugging while successfully suppressing past shadows that lurks in the subconsciousness that marks maybe a mild scar of inferiority complex. I have finally convinced myself that age is not a barrier to learning and I thought that my past would be my first concern in making new friends of which it became just a hearty shrug by my friends over the years.

Maybe it is a sign of becoming older when one starts to reminisce about past things, it would also be a therapy to recollect events that shape what you are today, for you are what you think and decisions are what made you. Thus, pausing into my usual meditation mode before blogging, I remembered.

Holistic Selection

SMU admits us based on a holistic criteria and selection and part of the selection process involves a group interview. Only 5 months out of prison, I went for the interview in office wear with an orange tie. I remembered the orange tie because it was the only tie I had at that time and it used to belong to my elder brother when he was young and impressionable. Sitting right at the end of the second row of a seminar room in Mannaseh Meyer with 7 others interviewees, we were given a recent article on Straits Times regarding the recent new Act on Consumer Rights Protection. We were asked to comment on the topic and I cannot resist being the first to raise my hand to speak. I wondered whether is it in my nature to speak up, or the fear of losing to the other younger minds, commonly known as kiasuism, or the spur from inferiority complex that I was an ex-convict, or simply that going to SMU is the dream then that I wanted most to come true. I would like to believe the last to be critical to ignite my initiative then. Without a dream, life would be an existential one. The interview went well as I noticed that the two professors have started to ignore my raised hands and I presumed that was an endorsement.

Leadership and Team Bulding

One of the general core modules is called Leadership and Team Building. The module requires the team to embark on a community service project. After sharing my testimony to my new friends and project mates, the seven of us decided to adopt my suggestion of going back to where I was last residing, Kaki Bukit Prison School, to implement a 4 week programme we screwed our brain juice out to help a group of 30 pre-release prison students on reintegration. The need to mentally prepare my mates on prison life and culture so that the “shock” could be controlled was not neglected as I share about life in prison in my usual interpretation with a tinge of fun. The programme centered on “Bonding and Befriending”, “Goal Setting”, “Expectations Management” and last but not least an “Informative session cum Dealing with Disappointment”. Games were inculcated into the learning process too as I fully understand boredom is a word most known by the students in there. I recalled the first visit back in there as the escort, the same sergeant who escorted me out on my release date a year before then, opened the numerous gates till the library. I saw the inmates all squatting down as it was a standard procedure where there are visitors. For once, I could see myself one of them previously when I squatted at the same place when I viewed visitors come in and out. Going into the library, seeing some old faces that bid me farewell a year ago then “welcomed” me back. In my 5 years 4 months of prison life, I have seen many came back to serve time and I always wondered what if I would be one of those unstable ones? I throw out that thought always and I once told them I would “go” back to prison but it would be as a volunteer and I did it a year after my release. The inmates love our team and helped create a video journal for our end presentation. “Going back” to prison is to help heal myself too.

Gaining Trust and Going Public

If one thinks that I bore the stigma of an ex-convict, it is wrong. It is me and my beloved family members that bore the stigma of me being an ex-convict. Even though they did not share with me, I knew that the stigma of any association with an ex-convict insidiously curbed my family members to shun any conversation with friends and relatives about my past. This has a damaging effect on my family personal selves in a way that they forced themselves not to accept one of their own because of the stigma I brought to the family. Over the years, on hearing sad stories from others in there, I have been contemplating over a solution to overcome this barrier.

There is no easy one though. Upon my release, I know I have to give them and me time to regain their trust that I would not go back to a druggie lifestyle. My father initially still phoned me every other hour to find out where is his 28 yr old son, my elder brother having doubts on my future when he tried to find job openings for me before I find a university that would accept me. I have learnt to be patient with them and let them learnt through time I am not what I was anymore.

I know I have to do very well in my studies and prove that I have above-averaged capabilities. Thus, when I am subjected to comparison with another without a record, I hope to surpass one based on my abilities and not be “discriminated” by my follied past. Indeed, I did well in my first year and got onto SMU Dean’s List. The only way to break the bondage of the stigma is to make a “public declaration” that I am not what I was anymore and let the public and prospective employers make the choice to accept me. An opportunity came up when Wong Kim Hoh from the Straits Times decided to write on my story in his Column “Extraordinary Lives”. When I told my elder brother, that I am going public about my past, he was sort of apprehensively supportive and I fully understood the stigma that is bothering him too. “Trust me.” I replied. The day it was published, I went downstairs to buy a copy and was elated the half page column “Wanted List to Dean’s List” fully summarized the follies, emotional struggles and transformation. I gratefully thanked Wong for helping me to open this door of my new life. Now it is up to the public and I am a patient man. My elder brother now smiles more when he speak to me.

This marks the reflections for now and part two will be coming up soon. I have paste the link on the column written by Wong.

http://ua9jrq.tuk.livefilestore.com/y1pg0Qg8eEwC5q1F3RUBsaO83LnyW1Sobl1O5TG_qxQ_Xv7gWRZ4l6Oo6Ei6c2ihegj

Live a Dream