Kenneth hmm Kenneth, he is one of my oldest friend around
here although we have sort of "lost touch" with each other
mostly due to his National Service, but I still regard him as one of
my best friend around. To say the truth I think the person that has
the biggest influnce in my life with exception of my parents and relatives
is him. Want to know how I get my nick? Want to know how I get to become
such a crappy person? Want to know how I losen up and become so different?
Well read on.
The case of me befriending Kenneth is almost the same as Wei Min's,
during my lower secondary years he is only a classmate of mine with
not much direct conversations. When I went to secondary 4D along with
Kenneth, Jun Jie and the "Power Rangers" (four girls who don't
really like me). Since my class is dominated by girls with 3/4 of the
population wearing skirts, so the guys tend to be more closely related.
During Sec 3 this guy sat beside me in the front row of the class and
somehow he became the class monitor and more popular, since I have nothing
better to do I tend to help him with his work and in the process I learnt
how to be more friendly with the people around me and make new friends.
Even the "Power Rangers who hated me before started to treat me
like very good friends, I am still not sure about the reason for this
of course I'm happy things turn out this way so I'm not really going
to argue about it. Slowly I became involved in the class committee and
became one of its members, I even got a small certificate of thanks
from our principle when I graduated (no kidding), but the best is that
I managed to make many friends and on better terms then before.
The face that Kenneth projects to others is a fun-loving, happy, friendly,
funny and joking person , of course he also has his own problems but
you will never have a lack of laughter around this guy. Being a funny
guy he is always cracking jokes and making people around him laugh,
though being near him also have its own dangers, like being drag into
the line of fire.
Want to know why I'm called Siao? Here's one of the most probable scenariots
of what happened. we are talking to some classmates and one point (due
to some reason) this guy just call me Siao to either get my attention
or a way to scold me. When my friends ask him why he called me Siao,
he started to say out my name faster and faster until somehow he changed
it to Siao. Well it is all crap and jokes but the name just sort of
gotten stuck, he called me Siao everyday in, out, up, down, left and
right. Slowly but definitely my other friends also picked it up (except
Min). At first I find the name very despiseful and go all out to try
to stop them from calling me that. If you have tried to stop a river
from flowing before you should know that its impossible. In the end
even I myself also learnt to accept it. Well I got a nickname though
not a unique one but one with a "history", hahaha I always
like to tell people how my nickname come about. It also helps to reduce
my vanity by helping me accept how other people look at me.
Other being a big joker around he also has a pair of "itch"
hands, his favourite past time in class was not to talk, not run around,
not "chasing skirts" but playing with my pencil box. Yes my
pencil box of all 40 students in class he always chooses my pencil box
to play with. To say the truth I really don't know why he has this sadistic
hobby, he will turn around in his seat (greet me) and play with it while
I treated him with my flat eye stare which I'm getting pretty good at.
He got a few different ways to play with it. If the pencil box was closed
he would open it up and take things out and play with it, thats the
better part. For example, liquid paper he will try to flip onto its
back, pen he will just take for a spin and rubber he will take out to
write stuff on....etc... When his really sadistic he would just open
it and dump everything out of it. If the thing is open he would just
randomly choose some items. Why didn't I try to stop him, well I really
tried to stop him, I swear it I really did. But he was like a persistant
bug that always buzzes just in front of me and strike when I least expected
it. I remember one time during A Maths lesson, after Mrs Pei had finished
her explaination and its time for us to do our practice, he just turn
around open my pencil box and started to play with it while he asked
me how to do the practice.
I think what many people around him doesn't know is that this guy is
a dreamer. In my terms a dreamer is a person who dares to dream and
makes plans about the future even though some may not be very practical
and achievable. He always liked to tell me about what he will do when
he grows up and things he will accomplish when he does. In the past
he always had this little book with him where he kept everything he
had inside, contact numbers, homework, schedule, or just ideas that
pop into his head in class or anywhere. This little book had also some
parts dedicated to his plans and dreams.
After knowing him for a while this guy started to introduce me to the
finer points of grass growing. He always do that during the science
classes (Biology, Physics and Chemistry), he got a good friend in me
because whenever our teachers caught us talking I always saved him (or
myself) by telling him what was the last thing the teacher was teaching
or where he was at, etc. The teachers were usually convinced that we
were listening to them. Yes this guy will tell me all about grass growing
and things related to it, like where to plant how to sell it, to who,
blah blah blah being the good friend I am I just goes along with him
asking all the questions and stuff. He claimed that he always wanted
to buy the land around Kranji to grow grass (there is really someone
growing grass there now just beside the Kranji War Memorial) because
the price is cheap, but too bad the guy that is growing the grass now
did it before he can do it. After that he came up with another idea
.... it never ends.
This guy also has another hobby that is very unusual when you compare
it to him, that is song writing and potrait drawing. Well these hobbies
can be considered the "romantic kind of hobbies not some one our
Kenneth will do. Anyway this guy really knows how to play a guitar (he
always commented that my hands are suited to play one too, but I'm too
poor and uninterested in it to do it) and likes to fills in his own
lyrics for his songs (he did these things during class too and I always
got him out of hot soup uncountable times). Back then I do not really
appreciate songs so I cannot really comment on whether his songs are
nice or not, though his drawings are not bad (in some not all) though
he need to improve his skills on it.
The only bad thing that I know about this guy may be his fondness of
exaggeration. There are times when his telling some story or event and
when he started to become engrossed in it, he will start to exaggerate
the story making it almost unbelievable. Sometimes I don't know whether
to believe him when he say some strange things that seemed almost impossible
to believe. I'm not sure the exaggeration is for fun or his just doing
for .... I also don't know. Well just remember the story about the boy
crying wolf.
I always left the last part to talk about how my friends affected me.
Only when I'm trying to create his page did I realise the impact this
guy has has on me. Its true that others like Geeks, Wong, Tat, Min,
etc.. has affected me to certain degrees big and small, but it is also
true that this guy has the biggest influnce on me.
I think the most important thing is my views on life, before him I'm
a uptight kid who take every insult and negative comment like its personal
and I may tend to do childish things in return. This guy's cheerful
outlook and jokes and stuff has sort of changed me. Now I am a much
better man, if a guy insults me I will laugh in his face (an insult
even greater to him), if he calls me names I will just ignore his existance
at all, hahaha sounds childish? well not really just that I learn that
if you just ignore these people and live life the way you want you will
accomplish much more, since its your life anyway why be bothered by
the way others look at it. Of course, I'm not encouraging everyone to
do something stupid like walk naked in the streets just because he/she
wanted to live that way. Just 2 words will sum it up: Be Yourself.
Another important lesson this guy thought me is to laugh more and make
other people laugh (well maybe not directly but his the one who make
me so cock nowadays). As I mentioned above I used to be an uptight person
looking at everything very seriously too seriously. Then this guy came
and thought me how to talk cock and crack jokes, and make friends. In
the past I have few shallow friends, after knowing this guy and becoming
a new person I started to make alot of new better friends, even many
female friends. For example, in the past (Sec 1, 2) the four girls group
"Power Rangers" used to hate me like I killed their whole
family and made my life as bad as it can go (to say the truth when I
finish Sec 2 I really hated going to school due to these "evil"
girls). Then when I went to 3D their attitude went 180 degrees and treated
me very good, I'm not really sure what happened but I'm really grateful
for it (else I may had committed sucide by now).
A funny, fun-loving, friendly, helpful and great
friend who wouldn't want of course you have to take into account his
pair of "itch" hands. I must really say thank you to him about
all the changes he influnced me into (note not all are good, but the
good ones outweight the bad ones), without his guidance the current
Siao will be a totally different one. |
