Self Portrait

When I was a child, my media source was restricted only to what my parents wanted to see or hear. As a child, I watched Hong Kong dramas with my mother and listened to songs from the 80s in my father's car.

Occasionally when we watch movies, we watched what my mom wanted to watch, for example Titanic. And during explicit scenes, my mom would either cover my eyes or tell me to close my eyes until it's suitable for me to continue watching.

When I grew to be a little older, around the age of 7, I was given some freedom to watch cartoons. At this point of time, I did not have the wondrous invention of Astro, thus limiting me to Power Rangers on Thursday evenings and 2 hours of cartoons on Sunday mornings. At the age of 10, my mom finally decided on getting Astro and I began spending a lot more time watching cartoons. This became so bad that my mom placed a security code on the tv and restricted me from watching cartoons on weekdays.

When I was 11, I made my first email address. But I didn't really enjoy going online because at that age, there was nothing much to do. Besides, dialing up Jaring took forever at that time. None the less, occasionally I would check my emails, with 90% of the mails being chain-mails sent from my mom.

After UPSR, I was given my first handphone, a classic blue screen Nokia phone.

Because in primary school, everyone loves each other and we didn't care how each other looked like, I had quite some friends and I would email them and even text once in a while. But once I got into secondary school, people start caring about looks and being cool. I was a short and geeky boy with a bad haircut, thus I was bullied in class.

I was exposed to MTV when I was 14, since then, I no longer listened to music from the 80s with my dad or watched boring movies with my mom. I started listening to many different kinds of music and watch many different shows, and at last I could enjoy music of my own choice. But despite being exposed to MTV, I was still a nerdy little boy who was bullied.

At the age of 15, I was given my first laptop and I created a Friendster account, my first social networking profile. This made me go online more often and made the internet more entertaining for the 15 year old me. But as my attention moved from the television to the computer, my mom soon restricted me from going online on weekdays.

As I turned 16, my life magically change, maybe that's why they call it Sweet Sixteenth. I finally had my growth spurt, got a nice haircut, wore contact lenses and was a rebel in school. Suddenly, I was rather well known in school. The sudden attention went up to my head and I was full of myself. At one point, my handphone number was being passed around in SMK Assunta and I had weird texts coming in.

That year, I also created a Facebook account, I ditched my Friendster page and tagged along with the crowd. Facebook helped me make friends with many new people from different schools and places and quickly occupied most of my internet time.

By 17, I was given freedom to go online whenever I wanted to, watched the tv whenever I felt like it and I could go for late parties. But all this was restricted once again a month before SPM.

And at last SPM ended and secondary school is history. I got my driving licenses and received much more freedom in all aspects of my life compared to secondary school. And being in college now, I'm exposed to more new cultures, music and entertainment.

And the story continues...