Try to bear with the cheese...when you're feeling sad, everything you write tends to be cheesy.
This note also shows up on my blog.
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Yesterday was just one of those days I'll take forever to forget. Who can, in the end? You only graduate four times in your life, five if you count kindergarten (though I had not that privilege because I left kindy for Australia in graduation year).
Today, we sat through five minutes of rain because it wouldn't chase us away, because farewell is oxymoronically uniting. Today, we made our last effort to leave a shred something behind for the school to remember us by--a final gasp, because we had suddenly realised that we had not done enough. That there was more to do, but no more time! We had to engrave our names deeper. Today, we put up the show of our lives.
It happens every year. It's happened to every working adult who has ever lived. The fact that we're graduating from secondary school will not change the course of the road, the country or the world--even within the dome of humanity, it is unimportant. It's meant to happen, by system and by rule.
So why does it seem, and why do we act, as if it's the final day of a fading life?
Or perhaps it does change the course of the world. A new group of students is released to the world, to build another column in the city of learning. And it isn't an ordinary group--this year's graduating batch is weird. And it's something I've felt through my four years here. Something confirmed yesterday morning.
No other head prefect has ever pretended to bust the mike, or had lines from a Ke$sha (or any dubious pop star's) song in her Vote of Thanks speech. Or ever broken her speech just to have people dance to the aforementioned song. No one has ever claimed to have an "eye infection" on-stage when she was actually crying (yes, Nicole, I love you for saying that). No other group of house captains has ever run onto the stage to snatch the champion house trophy from the winner. No CEMU actually messed up the beginning of three cheers before (it was entertaining), or ever combined four cheers into one epic one.
Today was special, particularly, to me. I've never made so many friends in a day before--so many people were coming to me, folding my sleeves for me (cough) and telling me things that make me happy to have written this song. It was the first time I sang for the school, the first time I was asked for an encore. I didn't do it alone, and I need everyone who's heard the song to know that. It just doesn't do that, on Graduation day, I'm probably going to walk away with almost all the credit for the song. If it's the last gift I can give to my RGS schoolmates before they become "RI schoolmates" and before they leave my life, it's a word of thanks.
Thank you, teachers. This song is ultimately for you. I think, to some extent, I know how they feel--the same way I felt when we nursed a turtledove back to health in our back garden, and let it leave. It's to tell them, your teaching has come to fruition; we know what we have to do with it; we'll do you proud.
And 415. Odd that I'd be thanking a class that was never mine, but it's farewell now and in it everyone is equal. They were the first to hear the whole song, and they made me believe I could actually perform it without being laughed at! Remembering the way they cheered after I finished puts me on the brink of tears--I actually thought I had made a fool of myself there. And especially you, Xaviera; it was the first time anyone I wasn't familiar with ever singlehandedly encouraged me as much as you did.
Thank you 410, too. I'm sorry I never let you here it first. But yesterday you actually came on stage for me! and I love you, love you so much, for doing that. I'm glad that at the end of my RGS life, I sang my song among the classmates who bore me through my two longest years here.
Thank you 411 and Voon and Denise, for pulling me off the stage and into the crowd. It was a surreal, beautiful feeling to be standing in the middle of the school while we sang everyone else goodbye. And Kimberly got to sing with her class, something I admittedly would have forgotten, much to my shame.
Kimberly, whose part in this is just so darned underplayed that it frustrates me. She actually agreed to sing under the pressure of urgency, without knowing anything about the song. Kimberly, if you read this, such faith is hard to come by, and I'm utterly thankful you agreed, thankful that I've had someone like you come into my life. Without you I'd never have had this chance to share the song.
Nicole, Esther, Dionne, and everyone behind the graduation songs. You made me feel more comfortable, because I wouldn't be doing it alone. We all did it--we brought the house down, and we made RGS history by writing three graduation songs for the year! Mr. Ow says that he's proud of us, proud that there are so many "musicians with noble and generous hearts" in this batch. 2010 is special, the graduating batch of 2010 is special, whatever you might like to think.
Aofei/AF/Matt and Hui Ting/HT/Guy, who were just there all the time, and who were the first to hear my very first song, back in P5 when I was an antisocial emo. I hope graduation doesn't mean goodbye, severing as the term can be. We've been friends for six years, and I'm certain we can make that sixty years.
The IT department, for running the show without a hitch. You guys are awesome, under-credited, awesome, ultra-cool, awesome. If no one else will thank you (but Isabelle did, so I shall again), I will. Thank you, and I'm sorry you have to work with but once-yearly thanks. You make the show. And everyone who was on-stage at one point or another, the ones who put together the performance, our swan song, the shower of sparks at the tail of a falling meteor. You all made our last day as RGS students the best any of us could have asked for.
And thank you to everyone I've known from the batch, everyone who made my life here, everyone I didn't credit. The song was inspired by you, by the people who are leaving RGS with me. Yesterday's farewell concert was a blast; it has its own special place in my heart (and on my blog/Facebook) now. Now, it's time to take a bow, and leave for the next stop of the tour.
The world is really quite small--and as long as our roots are set here, we'll be able to find each other. Even if we change citizenship and fly all over the world, a part of each one of us was made in Singapore, made in RGS, and this is the part of us that can trace us back to each other.
It doesn't matter to the world, but it matters to four hundred hearts. Long live RGS Batch'10.
