Strength

Qilah and her friends before ambik results

Qilah and I drove to Klang yesterday. It was SPM results day. Qilah was really nervous, I couldn't even describe my feelings at that time but most of the time I was just making jokes to calm her down. Like what I always told my friends, I am experiencing what you young parents going to experience in the next 17 years.

I waited for Qilah under a tree, a bit far from the crowd - students and parents alike berkerumun around few teachers that were distributing result slips. My heart was racing and I started to feel tak sedap hati when I saw Qilah walked slowly towards me.

She passed me her results slip and terduduk atas jalan. She cried. I hugged her while trying to glance at her results slip. 2As, few Bs, some Cs and some Es. She was mumbling something between the sobs, I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me. There we were, hugging each other under the tree. She was a little calmer few minutes after. I kept repeating to her that akak tak marah and I am not disappointed at all. Benda dah jadik, we cannot change anything anymore. I am proud of her no matter what. We knew that she couldn't cope with her engineering subjects since early 2007. I was the one who advised her not to focus on things that she is not capable to do anymore, instead focus on subjects that matters the most like English, Maths and some other few subjects. She did just that, all her Es was from the engineering subjects. She passed her maths and add maths! Even I didn't pass my add maths. So for me, she did well and I am happy for her.

It turned out that most of her friends' results pun lebih kurang dia - 2 to 3 As. The best results for the school was a Perdagangan student who obtained 7As.

Qilah went to meet her friends and I lepak with few parents. Makcik la parents yg paling muda kat situ :) Half an hour later, Qilah and I left Klang. On the way home, I tried to make her understands that this is not the end of the world. Nobody is disappointed with her. There are successful people out there who did average in their SPM. I promised her that we will always support her in whatever fields that she wants to pursue. She said she wanted to be an English teacher, which is great because one of the 2As that she receives was English. She scored B for her BM ;)

"See" ,I told her "it wasn't so bad kan?".

She smiled a little. We reached Serdang around 4pm, and then was all the nightmare begins. Qilah's friend from the neighborhood called asking about her results. It turned out that most of her friends received (on average) 6-7 As. Lagik la meroyan si Qilah. Her friends called her hp, she didn't pick up. Her friends SMSed her, she didn't reply and damn those friends, they called our house too. Qilah went into her depressed mode again and just lied on the bed crying. It breaks my heart to see her like that. I told my sister Ya to tell Qilah's friend that she is asleep if they call again. Qilah refused to eat her dinner even when I offered to buy her favorite pasta.

I feel horrible and there were few times I welled up. Akak will always be there for you, Qilah.