Acceleration

Many times, I sit downstairs alone in the Severance side of the Tower Court dining hall with nothing much. Maybe a cup of orange juice, hard boiled eggs with a bowl of soy sauce and lots of used napkins. And then I contemplate what the fuck I’m doing here, which, of course, leads to playing nostalgic excerpts of Transition in my head and over the last semester, I’ve come to this epiphany…sort of. I mean, I must have realized it while in Trans…and maybe just wasn’t really ready to think about it, voice it.

Transition is for those who want to accelerate through high school. Not for those who want to skip grades. While you do jump directly into grade 11 courses by October of Year I, you don’t really get to avoid all the shit or miss out on the fun that high school has. Just because you’re going faster, at a more rigorous academic pace, does not mean all the other troubles and joys of life do not join you for those 2 years. Liking people, fighting with parents, struggling with what you want and what you should…things just come at you faster and they hit harder. Thus, the of effect that school has on you and what you do on your school career are just augmented. People do feel, love, hate, laugh, cry. We were with absurd people that we always seem to have something to talk about, rant together about, squeal together about. Others were never in that environment and hence we can never expect them to truly understand what we felt and how we feel now. Not our parents, not our elementary school friends, not our university friends. Personally, as hard as I try to explain to my friends here how much Transition has shaped who I am today (gosh that sounds so cheesy, yet true), they would still only nod at me while giving me a skeptical stare.

One friend I have has gone through a similar high school setting, as similar as things can get to Trans. United World College. She is a Chinese-Singaporean who studied in Italy for 2 years at UWC. When I told her my stories, I felt like she kind of understood, kind of went through something so very like it yet so very different (hello? mob of Asians from Trans versus “United World” College?). She said to me “beautiful” and indeed it was.

That cardboard box of 2 years of my life, our life.

You never really know how much something means to you until you lose it. Although I’ll never be able to wash away the Transie within me, I do really miss it now.