It all started in a Sec Four Mathematics class where I remembered well we are starting on the chapter of Probability. I remembered well we are learning about the probability of getting a certain poker card.
That was when Mrs Koh (I still remember her surname, I know...she was once the Head of Department for Mathematics and the last I hear, she's not teaching in BPS) joked about using poker cards and the like in Probability and saying about kids who do gamble. Something like that. She was referring to us because she did asked how many cards are there in a poker game and so on and some replied back. Then the remark - 'Looks are deceiving.' in a mockingly serious manner. It was all just a joke, but then this has to be one of those things I remembered from her.
As I was thinking what is the title for this entry for this Mothers' Day, I began to think back what I read at Angels & Demons in the wee hours of this morning to almost 1am. Who was the real villian after all in the novel...is not something I had expected towards the end! A real shocker, I say. My mind was filled with 'No...', 'How can this be...', 'No way!' and so on. A lot of questions. I almost gapsed loudly in the room as I read the book, where my sister was using our father's laptop then. Times where I want to scream a 'No!', where I want to cry, where I was just lost in the plot, where I want to laugh, where I want to smile quietly and occasionally, just feel like cursing few of the characters too.
It's where my first hobby, first love really came alive. Art. The churches, the sculptures that were all mentioned when the main character is in the Vatican City. As much I have to admit I ain't quite a pro in drawing (I realised much later in life that you need plenty of practice), the whole appreciation for the arts never left. Never ever left for a moment in my life.
And it's prominent all over again in The Da Vinci Code which I first started to read this afternoon. It just makes me so excited again. Like going back to when I was just a kid, trying to find out what I like. And I never realised one of those things which I did in my primary school days in KCPPS is anagrams. How I feel like a real idiot when I read in the novel about how it's done. It led me back to the time when during those free periods in classes, word play, crossword puzzles, IQ questions and anagrams (which I only knew today it's being called that!) are among those things we do in the free periods or even after our final exams.
Now speaking of the anagrams, I remembered at that time, everyone was trying to outdo each other. What our teacher will do is that a word is written on the blackboard (that is before whiteboards become common in classrooms) and explain that we can rearrange the letters and form a new word and there are many possibilities to it. Imagine a bunch of primary school kids outdoing each other over that! How cute and funny I think back now. Oh my. Guess I understand even more now about why my father want to send me to KCPPS to study because of the English standards. Other than distance-wise.
It's also where I first discovered I do like to sing (those weekly chapel sessions had 'trained' me already...haha!) and knowing about Christianity for the first time. I had said this indirectly yesterday about the latter. It was then the quiet, soft-spoken, obedient (I am merely lifting some of those things I saw on my report books on my teachers' comment of me) yours truly really like those chapel sessions. Yes, I actually always look forward to it. I know given the religion my family especially my mother is in is different, it has never stopped me from knowing more.
I was really like a fish out of water as I was reading The Da Vinci Code. Half the time, questions kept popping into my head and half the time, I tried to understand whatever is being written from what I had found out online. Too many to comprehend, too many to research into. For once, I feel so hopeless and overwhelmed all over again with too many things I often cannot understand. A lot of it deal with history. History that span many, many years ago. Way before our time. Again I realised why I do like to study history. It brings back the purpose once again in front of me.
Genenalogy is one branch of history topic which I had always being fascinated with. I first raised this up as my father and I were watching the highlights of the FA Cup this late morning on cable. Dad pointed out on TV that Prince William (yes, that Prince William - eldest son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana) was giving out the FA Cup trophy to Liverpool who won on penalties. I remembered I read before Prince William is like the head of the FA or something. Then I remembered about reading on Wikipedia how Sir Winston Churchill (one of the most famous people in the history of the modern world and the British wartime prime minister too) is actually distantly related to Prince William's late mother. The late Princess Diana.
To my father, history-related subjects most of the time do not appeal to him. I had always know why from the start actually. I explained that it can be fascinating to know at times how actually famous people can be related to each other in a way or another. It was still not enough to convince my father about it. Never mind. Whatever. LOL.
Coming back about looks which can be so deceiving. Yes, some agreed never since the time of Harry Potter, we had seen quite phenomeon all over again especially in terms of the runaway bestseller The Da Vinci Code (which I am reading at the moment!). It's so correct. How many times we think we know who is the real villian, the ending of a plot...but it ends up the other way round in the end. Ouch. Haha. That is the one lesson I learnt after finishing reading Angels & Demons actually.
Looks being deceiving...literally? That is the question. I only know what to do when reading a passage, a novel as I always does - read as if a movie is playing in your head. My Sec Four English teacher Mdm Kavitha had said that in class once.
Before I go, Happy Mothers' Day.
