Refleksi Minda

It has been five years since I left my alma mater, Sekolah Menengah La Salle Petaling Jaya. Five years… half a decade and yet it seemed only yesterday that I trudged my way to the pokok besar, the place we were had our daily assemblies. But while the memories stood still, time, as always, did not.

I spent five wonderful years in La Salle PJ. I’ve had my up and my downs. I’ve had my share of rotans and bad examination results, my portion of comic reading and football and rugby and play-acting and wrestling, amongst others. And I gained a great deal from my time there, moulding my spirit and my character into what they are today. Most of all, however, I gained a wonderful group of friends from my time there. Friends which, though I seldom see them due to the circumstances of our respective educations, remain close to my heart. Friends so close that even after 10 months or so of seperation, it would seem that we had only saw each other yesterday. And whenever we meet up, we would reminisence the ‘glory days’ of our time in school.

What made us enjoy those days so much? Maybe it is because during those times, ‘responsibilities’ was a word foreign to us. Sure, we had to think of our studies, but for me at least, it was not something that was paramount in my mind at that time. Yes, we paid our dues, we read the textbook come exam time and we listened to our teachers (well, some, of the time :)). But there really was no preassure as such. At least, not like my time in college or university. I believe that while we gained an education, more importantly, we gained a sense of belonging at that time. We actually felt that we belonged somewhere, that we had a second family in school. This is probably due to the fact that I had a group of close friends, as well as the fact that my school instilled a spirit of unity in us. That by being a part of La Salle PJ, we were a part of a family.

I do believe that this is the main reason that I enjoyed my time in school so much. It is also the reason why I actually looked foward to school during those times. And that sense of belonging has carried itself over to my current life,as evidenced by the fact that I still am very close to my former school friends, so that even if I should travel the whole world, I still know that I have a home, a place back in Malaysia.

That is why I believe that a patriotism goes way beyond flag-waving and anthem-singing. You will not fully cultivate patriotism in that way. Patriotism has to start from our schools, from the basics, and it must not be force-fed. For a person to love their country, they must first love their state, and for him to love his state, he must first love his district… and all the way to the fact that he must first love his school. Only when a person is given a sense of belonging will he be able to love and appriciate his country. As I said earlier, once that feeling is instilled, even if he travelled the whole world, he will still call Malaysia his home. For he feels that he belongs here.

I wonder if the schools all over the country has taken this route. We must realise that school is just not a place of education, it is a place of learning. We learn not only of history or mathematics or bahasa, but we also learn how to shape our character, our drive and everything that we will become as an adult. We need to make our students enjoy coming to school, we must give them a palace where they feel that they are a part of. Only then can we sow the seeds of patriotism.

Sure, La Salle PJ might not achive the best results acedemically, and our co-curriculum is nothing to shout about, but the spirit instilled upon us during my time there, in my opinion, is priceless. We called it the ‘La Sallian spirit’, and me and my friends hold dear this semangat until today, half a decade later. And I believe that it will still burn fiercely five decades later, God-willing.

Rapid-fire thoughts

• Seriously, with the amount of futsal and football played by our youths today, there is no viable reason why the quality of our football is still less than satisfactory. Someone, somewhere has to be accountable to this sorry state.
• I still somehow think that RM40+ for an original music CD is a little too expensive. Perhaps they should take the route of original VCDs which sell for about RM20. Especially because music can easily be found for free on the internet nowadays.
• Watching ‘Embassy Dome‘  on TV1, I learned a very interesting thing. The native language of Fiji has many similarities with that of bahasa. For example, ear is called ‘delinga‘, food is called ‘makan’ and five is pronounced as ‘lima‘.

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