I'm terribly, horribly sorry.
I don't know what's going on but seems like my blogging mood has evaporated approaching Christmas and New Year, and even worse, I didn't get to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year here. Even MUCH worse, I didn't get to post even from my home country. What's up Carissa? Like really? You used to be that frequent blogger then now it looks like you've vanished up to somewhere.
I'm extremely sorry for the ridiculous delay of posting stuff. But as I said in my last post, I'm definitely going to spill everything that I did in my winter break. Let's start from the most important event and one day out of all 21 days spent in Jakarta. I'll probably share about my indescribable feeling and sensation of going home in another post. Not this one.
So basically, I heard of this rumor coming since November that my high school building, famous with being flooded every rainy season, don't ask, is going to be demolished. No, it's not like the school would be gone forever. Ha. It's just that it seems to be the principal was tired already of school days-off due to flood, literally forcing the students and faculty to stay at home since getting through the flood itself was nothing but impossible (it depends on how deep the water was).
Anyway, yeah. With the school being demolished, a new building would stand right in the same spot only far more modern, posh looking, with flood-preventing structure constructed. The so-called flood-preventing structure itself was nothing big, since the first floor of the school would be emptied and used as a parking or huge void. I'm kind of imagining it to be like a very wide space that would look like a basement parking lot. Obviously the reconstruction would take approx 5 years, so they decided to relocate the school to an abandoned university building in South Jakarta, and transformed it into a temporary school building.
Whoa, when can we get to the real story? Alright, I'll just start off here.
December 17 was the last day before the school got demolished on the next day. I heard that a lot of alumnus would be coming to take the last glimpse of the famous blue yet worn-looking school building that had kept their memories. I met up with my friends there and we had a small reunion before getting to explore the school, having some nostalgic moments in every place that we visited.
The tennis court stayed the same. Worn and covered with dirt that seemed to live there forever.
The board that announces the schedules of remedial tests. It seems like as if I could still see my name written on one of its rows lol
Seeing this sign made me unhesitatingly want to enter the classroom right away, sit by one of the desks, and wait for the teacher to come and start a lesson.
Have you ever known the term time machine?
Visiting this school was almost like being in a time-machine. It was just several months when I got the last glimpse of my high school before taking off to the US. The entire views and sights involving the blue building have been replaced with a vast school ground with many buildings divided in quads, which is my currently college environment. Then at that very moment, I was back to that my high school only to find it didn't change a bit. I had to adjust the sight of the contrast of my high school and my college building, trying not to consider my view of my high school building as my college building and vice versa.
Each room in the school building had been emptied, and that day was the last day for the moving before the entire building was to be demolished. So, it's kind of sad to see how most of the rooms were already hollow and empty, only a few remained occupied with the same old desks and chairs, but they were to be moved out as well.
My class of seven students was now but a hollow, unused room.
Visiting this school was almost like being in a time-machine. It was just several months when I got the last glimpse of my high school before taking off to the US. The entire views and sights involving the blue building have been replaced with a vast school ground with many buildings divided in quads, which is my currently college environment. Then at that very moment, I was back to that my high school only to find it didn't change a bit. I had to adjust the sight of the contrast of my high school and my college building, trying not to consider my view of my high school building as my college building and vice versa.
Each room in the school building had been emptied, and that day was the last day for the moving before the entire building was to be demolished. So, it's kind of sad to see how most of the rooms were already hollow and empty, only a few remained occupied with the same old desks and chairs, but they were to be moved out as well.
My class of seven students was now but a hollow, unused room.
Anyway, good thing that since that day was to become a memorable one especially for the alumni, we had a little reunion there with the rest of Class of 2010.
Coincidentally, December 17 also happened to be the last day of the current term, before Christmas break. So I bumped into some of my enrolling friends (juniors) who were now in their twelfth grades as well as eleventh grades.
Several of my friends and I decided to go on tour around the school and had ourselves stuck in the past aka nostalgia time. Everytime we stopped by a place, we talked there for a minute or two remembering what sort of events had ever happened at that spot. Sometimes, we giggled at the sweet memory that the place had recorded. If only some rooms were camcorders, we would gladly ask them to play the memories back, aww...
This experience might remind me and my friends that we were no longer students of this high school. It was quite an awestruck to see that now we were college students, considered alumnus in our high school. Gosh I could never feel older than that time.
(Anyway, notice how my English is getting suck-ish? Where the heck are all the vocabs gone?)
Okay, if you feel like I've been melancholic throughout the post, I decided to give you a bit ice breaker. Do you notice any similarities of the picture below....
...with this one below?
LOL the ballad of three girls and an air conditioner continued!
And....not to mention, we were lucky enough to meet the faculty and staff who were in the middle of moving the desks from the still-occupied rooms. We felt bad for disturbing their work, but at the same time, impressed by how they saw us now. It was amazing how they still remembered us (of course, we just graduated a few months ago though).
The picture below was not taken by me, but a friend of mine instead who happened to have the camera when I was absent. When I got back, I found her aiming the camera at the second floor's corridor, where a teacher or two looked excitingly towards the camera. But then another one came, and more kept coming.
See how these teachers struggled to get the position in order to be visible in the picture?
The hilarity still left in mind everytime I looked at the picture above. Teachers could act silly, couldn't they? Along the way, we encountered more and more faculty and staff, one of them was surprisingly my last homeroom teacher!
He happened to be the advisor of the English Club back when I still held the position as the President. Here's a picture with my friends, who also happened to be the former members of the English Club.
Some people can't just resist to be shot by camera, can they?
Here's my friend with her last homeroom teacher. Don't they look just adorable? I could've mistaken them as daughter and mother LOL
The picture below concluded our school visit. My friends hitched a ride with me just like they did back in high school days. Looks like they missed my driver so much that they want me to take a picture of them with my driver. Gain fans much?
Alright, so basically that was one of the most amazing yet memorable memories of overall twenty-something days in Jakarta. I'll be sure to post some more stories relating to my days in Jakarta.
And of course, the impressive journey on the way back home to Jakarta, and back to San Francisco. Impressive enough to be memorable since it was my first time traveling abroad all by myself.
