My Beginnings: Two Alternate Universe's Part 1

       As long as I could remember I had always divided my life into two parts. Perhaps it was a child’s way of making things simpler, more understandable. Compartmentalizing the two aspects of my life helped me keep them and life in perspective. It was not easy; I shudder to think of what happened to the person who told the Sun and the Moon that they had to share the day. My world began in two places. They ran parallel to each other on the same timeline. Mixing the worlds together was unthinkable, unimaginable, and unforgivable.

This is Life.

      Little did I know then that life does not work that way nor did I expect my worlds’ to rupture and form tiny cracks creating a gazillion different pathways leading out of the world’s to form new dimensions altogether. However, my world did begin with just two, only two. That’s not much is it? Black and white, good and evil, yin and yang, all these two dimensional concepts are what my world began with.

     

                  Selangor Gymnastic Team at Sukma 2004

Selangor Sports (Sukses)

     “Just do it” the Nike slogan was pretty much the advertisement of my life. I grew up in a gymnasium. Every day after school and on the weekends my parents would diligently and dutifully drive my sister and I to practice. At the gym I learned to reach for the sky and run in the clouds, to fall free and easy and land like a cat with nine lives. It was a challenging, nerve-racking, high flying experience and I loved it! It was the ultimate playground. Gymnasts were special, being one gave you confidence, an identity, less than 1% of the population can do what I did and it felt uplifting and unique to be a part of that elite group.

Rhythmic Gymnastics - Rope

       Everything was an exciting and emotionally overblown experience.
       Twirling flaming batons, flying through hoops,
       and dancing with ribbons of pink cotton candy
       was rhythmic gymnastics to me.

Artistic Gymnastics -Beam

         
      Artistic gymnastics was daredevil stunts, doing death-defying acts day in and out. Bounding and twisting your way across twelve by twelve meters of springy wooden freedom. Hanging on to the uneven bars for dear life until your hands are bleeding and blisters just pop up whenever they feel like. The vault was a hulk of a beast at the end of a runway you know you cannot catwalk down.

      However, I hated the balance beam; it was a high, narrow and hard instrument of torture. You would nerve-rackingly make your way across it while envisioning the tallest cliff in the world and all the things that could happen to you if you fell.

       My first world taught me everything I could know about how to survive in the ‘real’ world. In a way, my sports world was my bubble. My secret haven, with secret friends and tricks my ‘real’ world friends would not understand. My first coach taught me a lot about perseverance, working hard and pushing through the tough times. The short, balding, gold-toothed Russian man and his wife Madam were like second parents to me and treated me like their own.

Mr. Vasili trying to make me feel better
 when I was nervous to compete

 I still remember when Mr.Vasili threw me out of the gym for being afraid to do a stunt. Most adults take years to learn how to conquer their fears. I was already conquering mine when I was a child. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said “There is nothing to fear but fear itself,”.

Farah, Me and Madam (one of our Russian coaches)

   



        I also learnt the true definition of competition in the form of my sister or as she was known to me back then “Little Miss Perfect”. She was younger, more talented, skinnier, cuter and better than me. Always being upstaged by your younger sister tends to bruise your ego and damage your self-confidence. She was an extrovert and I was not. I had my nose stuck in a book most of the time while she had people fawning over her cuteness and talent. Needless to say I felt that I had drawn the short end of the stick.

              The green-eyed monster is an ugly thing that follows you around and sinks it’s teeth in your back. Once it holds on it’s difficult for it to let go. Competitiveness and sibling rivalry made for a very trying time. In short, where my first world began taught me perseverance, pain-tolerance, co-operation, discipline, hard-work, dealing with jealousy and nerves, enjoying the good moments and learning from the bad.

All the memories, experiences, values that I learnt there during that time will always be with me no matter where I go.

        I have moved on to so many other things since then (including getting over childish jealousy and my sister is my best friend btw!) but I always fall back on the fundamentals that I learnt there when I was a child. This place shaped and molded me to be the person I am today.

Childhood World 1 Memories

Me, Farah and Diyanna. MSSM Champions

Tina, Farah and Diyanna (The half-Mat Salleh Crew..) haha

From left : Farah, Ika, Me, Fatin, Diyanna, Liyana 

Part of the Selangor Team. MSSM undefeated U-12 champions 6 years in a row

My beginnings: Two Alternate Universe's Part 2

KLCC Photo by The Star's Glenn Guan

              My alternate parallel universe began in the city. I am and always will be a city girl living in the bustling streets, terrible traffic, and soaring skyscrapers that form the landscape of my hometown. The Klang Valley is home to four million and two hundred thousand people according to the most recent census. Who says city life stifles the imagination? That city kids are too sheltered and protected for fear of abuse, kidnapping and a tad too much emphasis on literary education. The left side of the brain is overworked but the right side is severely under-developed. There are shopping havens at every corner, sly street vendors selling anything under the sun, twenty-four hour eateries to further raise the count of obese Malaysians, overcrowded schools and a lot of competition. Cities are the urban jungle, just as much inspiration and creativity can be found here as anywhere else maybe even more so because your scratching and clawing your way to the top to be heard. After all, it is a jungle out there.

             In my parallel universe, I played outside every day after practice. My friends did not care how talented I was or how fast I could twirl. We just played made up games of action and adventure.

Concocting our 'evil' plans...

 Thrilling dinosaur chases, searches for the glittering pirates treasure, blistering Harry Potter duels with makeshift wands, Formula One car races on coconut tree leaves where we pulled and dragged the ‘cars’ to the finish line only to find the ‘exhaust’ burnt a hole through someone’s underwear.

I played on graffiti sprayed slides, swung on half-broken swing sets, organized clean ups of the trashed playground (someone actually stopped to ask who put us up to cleaning the playground), and lectured the teenage boys at the park on the dangers of smoking. I cannot imagine myself as I was then. A pretentious seven year old who could actually persuade seven of her girlfriends to clean up the playground while lecturing older boys (in a snooty voice I might add) on smoking. In a way, I have not changed. I might not be cleaning the playground anymore but having that experience just paved the way to the person I have become.

The cRazy Crew.. spot me!

             

       People say that kids in the city do not have room to play and grow but I beg to differ. My friends and I were holding court room battles before any of us knew what a lawyer was. I was making treaties even before I had a history lesson. We would tell wild, crazy, far-fetched stories to one another to pass the time. 

            

My Bestest Friends havin a crazy moment on Farah's B'day!
 (Forgive me for the photo!)

               There was never a dull moment. Every evening without fail there would be a wolf gang of girls waiting outside my gate for my sister and I to rush out and join the festivities. This was my second world that ran seamlessly alongside the other one. My world had to have begun with both because I could not have started out in this world without them. They ran hand in hand balancing each other out. They were so different that I needed to have different boxes for them in my mind yet they were one and the same.

              Both taught me about life and the lessons learnt are ones they cannot teach you in class. Books might get you so far but you need to experience these emotions and roller-coaster ups and downs to truly know what you are made of. I realize now that it is the bad moments that I am truly proud of. I can stand tall and say I went through hardships and I survived. At the time, you curse your misfortune and tough luck but there is always, always a light at the end of the tunnel. You just have to hold on and grit your teeth. Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Receiving a scholarship with Sunway University from
Tan Sri Dato' Seri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah  

       I am a pre-university student-athlete now (CIMP Sunway College) June 12' and can proudly and honestly say that I have an over-active imagination and hail from a bustling metropolis. Four million and two hundred thousand strangers did not stop me from getting to where I am now and thanks to where I came from; the places my world began....

I am Here.

                             Childhood World 2 Memories

My beautiful mom and me (2yr)

Me, Aisyah, Farah and my beloved dad

Me, Aisyah and Farah

Elly's B'day?? since she seems to be the one wearing the mask... hehe
(Left: Aisyah, Farah, Elly, Me, Sara, Ika, Amira, Nazim)

  

My Birthday, From left: Elly, Me, Aisyah, Farah, Ariff

The Bestie Group:
(Clockwise) Sara, Me, Elly, Aisyah, Amira, Farah