copy lagi.......

I copy and paste this article from the star specially for my 2 girls to read.

Taking the first step
The Gap by TRECIA TAN SHU HUI

LAST month, I went to my uncle’s house for the school holidays. My cousin has everything, from PS2 to iPod Touch to an impressive DVD collection.

I was there for 21 days and they were quite meaningless. I just realised that now. So what if I’ve watched more than 40 movies? Or played a couple of video games? Or caught up on my favourite TV series?

So what if I’ve spent more time in front of the computer these last three weeks than in the entire year? All that just wore me out.

Yes, I am sad to be back home because my mum is kind of grounding me. This is like what happens when summer break ends in the United States, except that it’s summer all year round here. The thing is, it’s time for me to face reality and do what I’m supposed to do. It’s time for me to grow up ... until after the SPM, of course.

Believe it or not, I’ve learnt a lot from my stay. I learnt that I may have watched 40 movies, but only a couple of them are memorable, so I’ve wasted about 70 hours of my life. I learnt that completing all levels in a video game is only satisfying for about a day, and isn’t worth getting a blister on your thumb for that.

I learnt that the computer isn’t everything, although it means a lot. I learnt that getting celebrities to tweet you back is exciting, but getting someone to praise you in real life is much better. And I learnt that blogging is interesting, but nothing beats writing on a piece of paper.

I also realised one thing that I’ve been denying all along – I am addicted to the computer.

At the start of 2009, my class teacher told me a story about a very smart girl who scored all As for her PMR examination. Then her parents made the mistake of getting her a laptop as a reward.

The girl couldn’t control herself. She was obsessed with some computer game and started to skip classes. Her parents took the laptop away. She threatened to starve herself so they gave it back to her. She locked herself in her room and just played games online. At last, the school expelled her for skipping too many classes.

I know my “addiction” isn’t that serious. But the three weeks made me realise that if I had a laptop of my own, I might end up like that girl. The fact is I had fallen behind in various subjects months ago. And if I were to retrace the “cause” of that, I’d say it started when I had a twitter account. Blogging just made things worse.

I couldn’t sleep last night. Why? Because I thought monsters were going to attack me. I had watched a horror film earlier, so that was perfectly normal.

But the second reason why I couldn’t sleep was Physics and Chemistry. These are my worst subjects, partly because I don’t like them. To be honest, I couldn’t catch up with Physics even before I started twittering. But it made it worse. I could have spent more time on revision, but I spent more hours blogging.

And Chemistry? Well, I was lost over one chapter. You know how some chapters are related to each other? So I got lost in all of them.

Actually, I’ve thought of all this before, but they never kept me awake at night. Then I knew what triggered it.

My eldest brother has received an offer to take up an Honours degree in some finance-related subject at Melbourne University. He is this smart guy in my family whom everyone worships. My parents have been scolded by him but they didn’t give him the “respect-your-parents-because-we’re-older-than-you” lecture. Dad’s password even has his initials on it. (Don’t worry, you can’t hack it.)

My parents even wanted to name our new puppy Aussie because he is studying there. Of course, I objected vehemently because it sounded vulgar in Cantonese. And you can see the glow on mum’s face whenever she mentions him to some random stranger.

My brother is this clever, perfect child in mum’s eyes. And she expects me to follow in his footsteps. She has lost hope in my second brother, but since he is charming and athletic, he can survive in this huge, dangerous world.

As I’m socially awkward and not that athletic, I need to be smart. Although mum doesn’t expect me to score the same excellent results as my brother, she does expect me to ace my exams.

Although I’m cross with her for placing too much hope on me, the thing is, I know she’s doing this for a reason. Sometimes, clichéd as it sounds, “it’s all for your own good” is true. That’s why I’m taking my first big step.

Which, of course, is to come clean about my addiction. This is why I’m writing this article.

The second step is to quit blogging because it takes up the most time. The third is to stop using Facebook. That should be easier because if my friends really want to contact me, they can always text me.

Finally, I have to stop tweeting. That may be a bit difficult. I can’t really quit cold turkey because, well, an addict is an addict. Apparently, they don’t have some patch or gum for it, unlike tobacco.

So, I’m taking the last one slowly and just try to cut down. It may take a few months to really quit. By then, let’s hope I would have caught up on lessons. Maybe, who knows, the SPM might be over.

I’m on my way to step one now. And I’m going to quote the late King of Pop: “This is it.” Wish me luck!