Hate-hate-hate-hate-love

For the past few days, I have been bumping into people that I met from this course I really hated when I was in school.

I remembered how much I condemned the course for being like real-world society (well, you can say I'm autistic and antisocial).
Every lesson was like a networking session where people put on fake smiles and make small talk, just to get a partner for the next assignment (There's this rule that you have to work with totally different people for each assignment) And I hated networking and all bonds fake. To me, putting on a fake smile is like a chore, making conversation with people who you don't care about, or conversing on topics doesn't interest you is a painful task.

After the course, I realised it wasn't that bad after all. Hey, I've learnt so much more than just sitting down listening to the droning away of the lecturers. I've gained plenty hands on experience, that has proved to be very useful now. And most surprisingly, I found that my classmates are actually nice peeps. They wished me happy birthday, even though I only talked to them once or twice (even though it might be a just a social networking thing) They waved and said hi when I walked past them, and when I bump into them, we actually did catch up and talk about what we've been doing recently. It's a nice, warm and fuzzy feeling. Especially when you take into account the fact that, here in school, people you've worked with in your previous classes basically just forgot you existed once the class is over, they can't even recognise you when you walk past them in school!

I was pondering about this when I remembered this group I worked with in one of my classes. It wasn't the most pleasant experience working with them, because I ended up doing everything, and I remembered grumbling and complaining to myself that I was down in luck to have met such group members. Yet again surprisingly, we kept in touch and met for lunch once in school, even though we are not taking the class anymore.

If I was given one more chance, I would have taken the course more seriously, went to classes more often and get to know more of my classmates. But who knows, even if time did turn back, I might still be the same old me with the same old attitude hating the course.

It's kind of intriguing that the things that you hated the most turn into memories and experience that you cherished the most. And things that appeal to you, things that you thought you would love, turns out to be no big deal after all. It might be the theory of relativity but I guess, life is irony, after all.