Memoirs of a Chung Ling boy...

I just read this piece of news online...

"THREE debaters from SMJK(C) Chung Ling, Penang, made their school proud when they outwitted their opponents from SMK Penang Free School, another premier school, in the final of the Parliamentary Style English Language debate to emerge the Penang champion.

They were Daniel Law, Koay Keat Yang and Hobart Lim. "

Hold up...hold up...DANIEL Law...HOBART Lim??? Haha...Now, I'm not one who's all supersticious or anything. But, what a coincidence, right? "Hi, I'm Daniel and I'm doing Law and Hobart." :P

And, imagine naming your children after names of places... Melbourne Mah? Penang Pang? Bangkok Beng? LOL... Sorry sorry... the name Hobart is funny to me simply because I'm in a place called Hobart. Haha...Maybe the parents were studying in Hobart or something. Who knows, really?

Ok, continuing with the news...

"The competition, organised by the Ministry of Education, was held at the Methodist Boys School recently. It was open to all students from Form One to Form Five in government- aided secondary schools in Malaysia.

As Penang champion, Chung Ling will represent Penang in the national competition, details of which have yet to be announced."

First off, you know that I am an avid fan of debating myself. I was in the debating team that represented Chung Ling in that very same competition in 2005. Ahh...It feels like just yesterday that I was in the dark marine blue blazer, sweating like a pig as I was debating against St George's Girl School in the State finals. It was definitely an experience worth all the weeks of hard work. I can still vividly remember the team staying back after classes just to bounce ideas off each other and starving ourselves at the same time. Ahh..good times, good times. But, at the end of it all, we LOST to St George's. Now, I'm not a sore loser or anything. But, there were 3 Malay judges, one Chinese judge and one Indian judge. And, the final decision was split 3-2 in favour of St George's. Even the 2 NON-MALAY judges came up to us after the competition to congratulate us for a job well done. Apparently, we were MADE to lose because they couldn't allow a team with no BUMIPUTRAS in it to represent the State to go on to the Nationals. *Don't get me started on this whole issue of Bumiputra thingy...grr..*

Anyway, it's been almost 3 years since then. So, I'm just gonna be the bigger man and let by-gones be by-gones. In my heart, I know that we were the real winners and we deserved to go all the way. But yeah, I'm personally elated that my school did well in that competition. And, I'm happy that there's no such RESTRAINT (notice I chose not to use the word RULING) anymore and they can represent the State of Penang. Make Penang proud. More importantly, make Chung Ling and every debating team that went before you (and got struck down because of some stupid restraint) flippin' proud!

This post just shows how much a "school boy" I still am. I guess what they say is correct..."Once a Chung Ling boy, always a Chung Ling boy."