My life as a teenager....

I met my match! She was game, and willing to try. She captivated my attention and was always ready to answer my questions.
We bantered like two long lost friends reunited - on YM tonight. One topic led to another and finally we agreed to have a blogger's challenge.

She gave me three topics to choose from and I were to do the same. Then we were to choose one of the topics and write an entry within an hour.

Her options for me were :
- Your life as a teen ager.
- My first time....
- My favourite musics as a young man.
All three about a page from my memory lane. Not surprising given that her latest entry was about a trip down her memory lane, days of her childhood when she played the role of remote control for TV channel switching - and she was obviously in that kind of mood.

I chose - My life as a teenager.........

A STAR rugby team - Perak state champion.

Teen ager Idham spent most of his teen age period at a boarding school in Ipoh - popularly known as STAR.
It was also his first time living away from home. The transformation was not easy for a twelve years old whose world has never been outside his little village in Kelantan known simply as Kampung Kemubu. He was never exposed to neon lights, and never had shower under a running tap. His toilet habit was primitive - what was known as the-free-for-all-behind-any-bush one can find. So to have been sent to a boarding school, where his dormitary was brightened by not one but many fluorescent lamps - it was a cultural shock to young Idham. That was when he first saw a brighter world. But he longed for his kerosene oil lamps, the 'pelita'. He told his dormitary mates how he missed his mother who would always accompanied him on the other side of the 'pelita' while he was completing his homework.
During his early days in the hostel, he was obsessed with the running tap water - and spent hours in the shower cubicles. He said that the shower reminded him of rainy days when he used to enjoy going to the padi fields to look at his fishing nets.

His early teen life was a transformation from 'bawah tempurung' to 'a bigger, more modern and city like tempurung'. Still a tempurung - but more of a self imposed tempurung because even with the freedom - he wasn't adventurous enough to go beyond his comfort zones. To his friends who tried to influence him to do some of the naughty things young teenagers did - he simply said, "My mak will not like it if I do that". His mother had a major influence on his early teen age life.
Little wonder he did not know how to swim, neither could he climb trees. It was during the second half of his teen age life - when he felt safer to try and venture - that he really saw a brighter world.
He picked up smoking at sixteen. As if to declare publicly that he has left his 'tempurung' and was ready to conquer the world, he spent one entire semester break when he was sixteen to go on a back-packing adventure around Malaysia. With some clothes packed, he went hitch-hiking from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur, to Malacca then JB, before making his way up north again towards Kelantan. He came close to a few scarry encounters with drug addicts and tramps during those nights he slept at public parks. In Terengganu, he was taken home by an elderly couple for a good shower and a hearty meal in their lovely home - a good deed he remember fondly to this day. The couple also gave him enough cash to take a bus to home in Kelantan if he so wished. But alas....he was on an adventure and the money was saved to pass on to his mother instead.

Idham's teen age period of adjusting and adventure continued when he won a sholarship to study A Level in Grantham, Linconshire England. He built a penchant for traveling - a lifestyle he carried into his career later in life.
It was as a eighteen year old student that he met his first girlfriend - an English girl by the name of Catherine. He also became rebellious in his dressing - went for the hippies look which was trendy at the time. He even wore ear-rings. His hair was long and unkept - fashionable he said.
His relationship with Catherine was awkward. Not a surprise really since he never had a serious relationship with a girl before. Afterall, he has spent his early teens in an all-boys boarding school. It was Catherine who taught him how to lip-kissing. It was also Catherine who taught him the meaning of jelousy and heartbreak. It was a relationship destined to be experimental and failed - for after a few clumsy and awkward 'first time' experiences - Catherine decided she was tired of playing a 'teacher' role - teaching a naive young boy with every trick and skill in a boy-girl relationship. Catherine moved on. Idham spent the rest of his teen age life concentrating on his studies - at the same time mending a broken heart. His entry to adulthood was marked with a chance meeting with his first true love - also his unwilling girlfriend, the one who he nurtured into a relationship which ended in marriage.

The Grantham train station.

That was a brief recollection of idham's life as a teen ager.

Time to check with my new found blog friend , Jacquis Curve, who tonight through the YM chat agreed to do a blog challenge with me.

"J.T. , where are you..............? Are you done yet with yours?"