The Journey
Sunday, August 7th, 2005The journey was the name of Eusoff Hall’s float for this year. It basically speaks of a person and the periods in his life……from the moment of birth, to when he grows, and in the midst of all he faces trials and tribulations, obstacles in his path . He has to conquer these as he travels on his journey. In the end, he reigns victorious and is a man of his own destiny. He sets aside all his setbacks and look forward to all that life has in store for him.
In a way, i feel that the past 3 months have also been quite a journey for me. From the moment we started Rag 2005 on 22nd May 2005, it was a period of growth, a time of learning, of gaining wisdom and knowledge. We started by learning how to use the tools and devising the mechanism, figuring out how the joints work. Even then, challenges began to appear when the mechanism malfunctioned or simply didn’t work. Frustrations abounded as we tried to solve all the problems and finally we availed over them.
Throughout the second half of rag, i feel like a pandora’s box was opened within me. If you’re not familiar with the story of pandora, a greek legend, it goes that pandora was supposed to safekeep a box where all the evil in the world was kept and she wasn’t supposed to open it. But due to her curiosity, she opened the box, and everytthing escape before she closed it….except for one thing…Hope.
In a way i feel like a pandora’s box has been opened within me. Never have i felt emotions so tangible and strong that they affected my very day to day actions and mind you these were negative emotions. I felt anger, frustration, disappointment, loneliness….even jealousy, very strong and tangible jealousy. I din’t really feel as if i belonged. Many times i questioned myself on why i was in rag…whether it was worth the effort and the time. I must say that i have to thank all the other raggers for the hard work that they put in, if i had not seen them work so hard i would have just dropped everything and forget about it.
The past month of rag was really quite a bad period for me emotionally…..physically the long hours was draining , there were times where i did a full 24 hours…but it wasn’t as draining as the mental fatigue that i was experiencing, but like in the story of Pandora, hope remained. There was hope and the motivation to exceed, to excel and to retain our throne. And even then, hope appeared occasionally just went i felt the lowest, and it boosted my energy to continue on.
Finally, the day of reckoning came. We were still behind the dateline and as we rushed to catch up with it, we poured our hearts and soul into completing the final lap of our race. Tired as we were, we persevered….
Needless to say, we were on an emotional high that day when we completed our performance. Everything moved to perfection and every cue was on time. We were totally overjoyed when the results announced that we won the least cost float . But as soon as that happend a heavy gray cloud grew over us, enveloping us in despair as we lost shield after shield. The coveted best design that we so wanted was not within grasp, neither was the best float shield. At this point, i felt really disappointed and even so as i knew what these awards meant to us. As i consoled a senior, i myself couldn’t take it and started cryin…never before have i cried in public…but i’m not ashamed to say that that day i cried…i cried for the pain i felt within me….but more for the pain i felt within others….and yet again, when we least expected it, Hope appeared…….when thte final announcement was made, we were crowned overall champions of rag and flag once again defending our coveted throne. We truly felt like champions that day…..the Eusoff Rally and the Hall anthem was simply rousing….many sang off key cause they were choking off tears…u could just see the tears streaming down the cheeks of every single eusoffian there male or female.
In the end, we were victorious.
Like our golden man, we conquered all adversity to take on the world….and claim our victorious future. That is our journey.
and i’m still waiting for my hope to reappear….one day..some day…
that’s y ppl…never ever lose hope…and never ever give up.
*Dedicated to Eusoff Rag 05 - The Journey*
please watch this space for pictures of the event.
