I Love My Family… Part 1: The Phone Call
PART 1 - THE PHONE CALL
There was a time when I couldn’t stand the incessant requests from my parents to come back during summer and winter holidays. There was just so much to do in between semester breaks. And all my plans had to be on hold just ‘cos dad bought a plane ticket back for me. In retrospect, I was indeed a spoilt and ungrateful young adult, always thinking about myself. At that point in time, there were just things I needed to do on my own.
In 1999, my life was all set. I had a American-Chinese girlfriend full of character, cultured, family-centric, with corporate ambitions, and a great companion. Who also shared my love of dance, albiet not as intense of ambitious as mine, but great when it came to the occasional social dancing she came along.
I was working on my MBA at Sloan, unbeknownst to a lot of my friends in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department. I had a Research Project with the Artificial Intelligence group at Sloan, which paid enough for me to up-keep my rent, occasional clubbing, my dance expenses, and my Dodge Neon. It was a very cool, 4-door, black far-from-sports-but-looks-cool car. I had wheels, I had enough dough to keep my life good, and had everything taken care of with tuition.
My dance life was still full, with 6-8 classes a week, in 1 or 2 levels above my peers who started dancing the same time as I was. All I was aspiring to do was earn some extra cash for Private Lessons, which cost about 3-5 times as much as group classes. I noticed that I needed that extra bit of cash to really get ahead of the other dancers in Silver and Gold. I was targeting to hit Open in 2.5-3 years.
And then there came a phone call. It was my two brothers, who were in LA! I was thrilled, before they told me that they will be visiting me on an agenda. They had with them a one-way ticket from LAX to KUL are were not going to leave until all my stuff were packed and I promised to get on a plane back home.
I put down the phone and just sat there thinking…. should I keep to my father’s intentions of uniting our family again…
TO BE CONTINUED
August 26th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
wah!! drama!! and then, and then??? although I suppose I know what happened already. But I have the Malays’ fondness for drama (occasionally).
note: we are getting old. we think about the parental units so much more as we grow older. i see my dad now and think…”he’s getting older now. must spend more time with them coz i dunno how long they’ll be around. must also be nicer to them.”