How many of you remembered what you filled up for your ‘cita-cita’ (ambitions) when you were standard 1?
I remembered mine vividly. I remembered the feeling of trying to fill up the three lines when they asked to rank them. It was exciting, much more exciting than walking up the stage to get the best student prize. I never filled them up honestly.
My dad, who is an ordinary secondary school teacher, was not born as an ordinary thinker, I think. When I haven’t started schooling, he bought this encyclopedia about star gazing and everything else up in the sky. He then sat down with me during cloudless, clear sky trying to make sense of the constellations on the sky to match ones in the book. His favorite, which is then mine, is the Orient’s Belt, three stars lined up perfectly. Of course we got to see them only less than half of the year. Once we could locate Orient’s Belt, we could easily find Taurus the Bull (which by then I didn’t know it is my zodiac), the Plaeideus (seven princess who actually are not really seven), the Zeus and his wife, two Orient’s dog which resides two Ursula (major and minor, which I think the minor is brighter than Ursula major, weird huh?)
Orient’s Belt remains my favorite, till now. You could only see them from October onwards in Malaysia. Orient’s Belt still be the reason of me gazing out to the sky on the cloudless clearly. Orient’s Belt is still the reason me falling in love with the stars.
So there I was, a seven years old girl, dreaming about owning a real telescope just to see the stars clearer. Dreams of owning a real telescope developed more each years, rapidly. Gazing made me wanting to see more, wanting to experience more, to go up there and see how’s it look like.
The last chapter of the book, which has already lunyai (‘meshed up’) by the time I turned 10, was about the adventure to the space. I always read through that very quickly, for I know it won’t be true for me. But from star gazer, I grown to like astronomers, then astronaut, then by the age of 12, I really thought I would settle for astrophysicist. I asked a relative who studied astrophysicist and bluntly he said, there is no job prospect for that in Malaysia. Fine enough, being rejected by the first guy I had crush with since I was seven, I thought I might wanna migrate to the States and stay there forever, mending my heart while working my ways through to NASA.
I read about the space more. I had Valentina Tereskova, the first woman to space, as my idol, secretly signing little V in my signature. When I was 15, I then fell in love with Physics which then I think I want to be an aerospace engineer. Anything to do with the space. I figured out that to get my way to NASA, I at least have to have two degrees, then one master then join their training for an average of three years. So I thought of having degrees in Mathematics, then Aerospace Engineering, then Physics, then Astronomy (okay, so that’s four, figured out that I can do two at one time), then a Master in Astrophysics, then three years of training, by the time I am 29, I should be able to pass the training at NASA and ready to go to the space.
I thought hard about the job prospect thing. I though hard about not leaving Malaysia since the puppy love doesn’t turn out to be the real love anyways. Thinking that Malaysia would never set up a space center, by the time I sat for my scholarship interview, I had settled less to an aeronautical engineer. Flying to the space is not gonna be a reality, then flying or assisting with flying a plane might be good. The scholarship gave me a mechanical engineering degree, which I did with so not flying color. The case study about the O-ring failure of a rocket back in 1990s which then killed a kindergarten school teacher then confirmed that I am not ever going to the space.
So here I am, a mechanical engineering graduate who dreamt of going to the space, who then settled down as a fuel procurement manager doing commodity trading and contract at the age of 29. Funny enough, when I was 29, the aerospace program was introduced in Malaysia. Many applied, a few went through when they managed to settle down for 2 candidates. I bit my teeth browsing through the papers, pretending not to be interested whilst in my heart, I thought about the dreams I had all these years, the Orient Belt, the Astrophysicist degree, the NASA and how stupid the dreams felt like a few years ago, and how stupid am I today to let go of the dreams.
When Dr. Sheikh Muzafar’s Soyuz blasted off, I prayed hard that his O-ring went well, then he will finally see the earth from the space, then he’ll see things that I never get to see. I still bit my teeth with jealousy but deep inside, I know I was the one who killed my own dreams. If only I stayed on dreaming, I know I’ll be the one who celebrated Hari Raya in space.
I never shared this with anyone, not even The Man, the dreams about going to the space, the passion about star gazing (except with my dad who then thought that I have grown up getting bored of the Greek’s Gods History), about how I killed my own dreams. I guess it was embarrassing to be wanting to be out to the space, but it was more embarrassing to let people know that big dreams were crushed by the very own dreamer.
But would I wanna go back in time to change what I have now? Guess I wouldn’t, looking at the li’l Kiddo playing with my parents, I’d rather have Hari Raya here with them. But one thing stays, I would let li’l Kiddo know that never crush his own dream, for one day, it might come true.
Perhaps I’d really go out and buy the telescope. Back to star gazing, yeah.
