WHY I WRITE

by Diana

18/4/13

   I am always an overachiever. That is, trying to achieve the unachievable. Unachievable in my book, not others. Because I believe that, even if I fell short of my target, I won’t fall that low. So, when I was 15, about to sit for my PMR examiniation, I set myself a goal of getting straight As.

   Bahasa Malaysia, Mathematics, Geography, History, Living Skills, Science, Bahasa Iban; all checked. English? I had love-hate relationship with the subject. Perhaps I could always blame the English Language teacher who was almost constantly pregnant throughout the entire years of my lower form of schooling. I could say she made me dislike the subject with her constant vommiting while she was in class. But to be fair, I just hate to learn the technicality of a language. I guess she had the wrong approach to teach us English Languange, too technically academic in her methodology.

   But not getting an A for English was really going to ruin my entire PMR result. Diana Spencer, 7As1B. No way. So I pulled myself together, exactly a month before the exam. But how could I ace the subject if I hate studying it? This Einstein in me thought of something unconventional, doing it the way that I love it.

  Read novels. Lotsa and lotsa novels. Immersing myself in them. Absorbing the language subconsciously without actually thinking of the technicality of it. Grammar, tenses, I didn’t actually care about them. I just had a feel of what was sound and right.

    Fast forward a couple of months later, fate was kinder to me when it gifted me with this young, hot but female English teacher. She made me looking forward to English class instead of dreading it. She tackled the subject via unconventional methods. She made us listen to songs, acted in dramas and sometimes even danced!

   One day, I guess she must ran out of idea to make learning that day fun. She made us write free style. I wrote an open letter to her where I told her my love of football and of course, the athletic, handsome and good looking footballers. I started to make use of my newly acquired vocabulary in this open letter of mine. And I just loved it how crazily outrageous I could get in this piece of writing.

   Ever since that day, for 3 years I couldn’t stop writing. And eventhough this young, hot but female English teacher only taught us English for only a year, I kept on sending my piece of writings to her. Now, after almost 10 years of hiatus, I started writing again for my toastmasters speeches. And this (not so) young, (still) hot but female teacher; bless her soul, still does the checking on some of my writings.

Anyway, did I get an A for my PMR’s English? Of course.