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Hearing the bell ring, her mother ran to unlock the gates for her daughter who jumped impatiently due to the blazing sun right above her head. After a series of greetings and hugs, Cheng Wai made her way through the front door and into the kitchen for some lunch then up the usual flight of stairs she so despised thanks to it’s length. She reached her room in 8 seconds, a new record as far as CW is concerned and decided to write that down in her notebook SOMEWHERE on her table.
Her table, though as welcoming to her as it may be, was in fact a totally messed up table containing all sorts of junks and papers she deemed useful. Due to the exam pressure, she has neglected her table’s neatness altogether. To find her notebook now, she understood, would result in total catastrophe. If any attempts to find her notebook were to be made, it would have to wait until she had sorted out her table.
With the completion of her last exam paper today, she is now liberated of the burden of management theories, mathematical statistics, and economic studies. She was free, or at least free enough to sort out her extremely messy table. Not that her table needs to be anything more than elegant, but it should not be anything short of presentable as well. God knows what TY,
CW stared at her table for a moment, thinking of an approach to sort out her table. Fortunately, she had learned that randomly pulling stuff off the shelf and rearranging them as they come along is NOT the solution thanks to the unfortunate incident of her having to spend 3 hours looking for one set of lecture notes tucked everywhere imaginable (and unimaginable) on her table, not to mention having several pages found on her brother’s table used to do his rough work. The only other solution she could think of was to systematically rearrange the books by means of categorizing and recording.
She took out a piece of paper, scrutinized her table, and begun writing down a list of what she had on her table. Her final list looked like this:
Major and minor all rojak-fied!!
1. At least a dozen blue pens.
2. 2 waterproof stabilo black pens
3. one red pen
4. 3 rulers
5. 3 pairs of scissors
6. one eraser
7. highlighters - pink, green, 2 yellow, blue
8. A watch - swatch - Happy Joe - men's watch
9. 3 boxes each filled with rubbish (in d pics), postcards, stickers, old pics...
10. nail colors nail color remover nail clipper. I have 2 sets of french manicure, one blueberry, one pink, one green dats bout it la...
11. rubber bands and all sorts of this n dat to tie my hair
12. accesories i dun use -- wooden bead necklace, heavy dangling earrings.. belt... christmas pressies mostly...
13. 2 pencil case
14. baskets filled with toys (surely u dun expect me to name u one by one rite??)
15. papers papers... tonnes of papers... im currently workin on my chinese writin ma... and MORE under my table... cos im keepin my notes for my whoever who wants it next sem...
16. phone charger
17. phone
18. boooks... lots n lots
a. story books
b. cookbook
c. 2 econs txbk
d. conteng books, sum with lines sum takde
e. diary
f. new diary
g. SAM mag
h. mags
i. chinese books
19. candy
20. color pencils - 1 luna, 1 stabilo
21. calculator
22. 2 clear folders
23. 2 ring files
Nothing much ledi... sum misc onli... Hotlink & Digi topup cards, those old sailormoon cards i have since primary... my blood donation book.. d wooden pencil box i made... meaning i have 3 pencil cases on my table..
Tho i have 2 other tables... one for laptop and more books... another which is identical... rite next to it...
She gave a long stare at her long list and let out a long sigh. Writing the list was indeed taxing enough but she knew that it was not quite as taxing as the actual rearranging process. Reluctantly, she inched her way towards the front of her table, “argh” twice, then coordinated the movements of her hands. The rearrangement process has begun…
She displayed all of her newly acquired Mandarin books on the top of her table.
Those books were the spearhead of her Mandarin learning efforts as she was a person who had not at all studied Mandarin. Mandarin, she realized, was indeed one of the most established language in the world. From the beauty of its literature to the significance behind each and every Chinese character, this language has it all. As she just finished her exams, she officially had three weeks of holidays. Learning the basics of this language was a part of her holiday plan. And so, knowing that she would want to access these books frequently, she cleared a book slot on the top left of her table and neatly placed all of her Mandarin books into it. Done, she moved on to her next sort.
The rearranging process continued… from postcards to comics, toys to collectibles. CW was well on her way to sort out her disorganized table.
But then, something else happened…
As CW was sorting out her upper shelves, she noticed a piece of paper, some pictures beside it, and a book. She felt somewhat… weird, as those items were never before noticed on her table. Quickly, she displayed those findings on the top of her table, sat down on a chair, and examined it.
She noticed that it was some items from her younger days, a piece of her history. How on earth did these ancient objects wind up on her table ? She did not know, neither does she intends to find out now. She was intrigued by those items, carefully examining them, thinking of her past, her history.
The pictures reminded her of her childhood and her high school days. How she fought with her brother over a stick of ice-cream, how she would look ridiculous if she were to put on that kiddy dress she wore at the age of ten now, and how her high school friends played pranks on her by tricking her out of the toilet door halfway through her “business course”.
She then set her eyes on the academic report paper, thinking back about those days where she would question her school teacher with loads and loads of questions to the point where her teacher would fear going into the classroom. It was her moment of glory (hahaha, CW says).
The book, however, took her a long time to figure out where it was originally from. Then soon realized that it was actually a book she forgotten to return to the school library… argh !!
Those past memories lingered around her thoughts, image after image. She saw many of her past events, still as clear as a bell. Only after half-an-hour, she realized that she had work to do. Her table was still no where near sorted out. However, as she dwelled in her past, she has forgotten what she was about to do at current ! She knew that she still has sorting work to do but where did she last stopped ? She had no memory about that.
Sigh… after all that hard work of categorizing and arranging her table… :(
Somewhat annoyed, she lost her motivation to continue her sorting work. She sat back on her chair, hands supporting her head as she leaned backwards, and eyes looking up to the ceiling.
As she turned her gaze back to her table, she noticed the notebook she was initially looking for lying on her table. She leaned forward to pick it up. Perhaps she had found her notebook during her sorting work and placed it on her table but did not notice it due to her attention being spent somewhere else. Or maybe it was lying there all along but did not notice it due to her momentary lack of observation. Anyway, she thought, as long as she found it, it did not matter how it got there.
She opened her notebook, took out a pencil and mistakenly wrote 5 seconds into it. The figure was wrong, BUT HEY, she was happy, thinking that she had broken her old record and that ……..made her day.
-- THE END --
The story above was entirely fictional and was only intended for entertainment purposes only. It does not represent CW’s personality.
Oh, feel free to criticize the story (if there are any)in any way.
-By TSENG YANG a.k.a "The Kid"
An edition to Cheng Wai's "Table Analysis" due to popular demand :) :)