X-Artsians, paronomasia intended (To all A02ers: Read this!)

All right, I have to admit, this one entry is going to be really, really pathetic (read it at your own discretion). Nevertheless, my wish is for you to indulge in Schadenfreude by reading it, as it showcases my plaintive, pitiful life. Just the other day, as I was still appalled by the fact that NJ has only around 40 Arts students as compared to 500-strong Science students, I thought of a dumb parody, which is more or less the spin-off of my previous entry.

I name this story, X-Artsians: The Prologue.

Not so long ago, during the times of Pre-Artsians Extermination (PAE), approximately in the early 2007, there lived a group of 26 teenagers bestowed on beautiful gifts uniquely their own. They were fated to meet each other at the National Science College (NSC) where they were the heavily-persecuted minority. They were not metahumans1, mind you. They were mutants, to be exact; mutants because people were so engrossed in science and technology that they thought arts people were kooks, oddballs. Arts people were ostracized then because it was not the de rigueur field to master.

These 26 teenagers were particularly passionate about the arts and being in a place where science was the sole language (not even the lingua franca), they were relegated to the wasteland named A02. Being the nice people that they were, they did not feel resentful. Instead, they took everything in stride and the adversities eventually made them stronger. They were very united. Knowing that the genocide carried out by the so-called science students was so prevalent at that point of time, they worked hand in hand to save each other from their impending demises. The biggest war ever recorded in the history of Artsians was the Juvenile Artsians Extermination (JAE) 2007. The discrimination against Artsians inflicted so much pain even until this very day. Initially, only thirteen Artsians survived, although in the end many more were resurrected.

Alas, eight Artsians died in the Great Battle of JAE 2007: Bruno, Germaine, Guojun, Michelle, Peishan, Perdana, Shauna and Xinmei. As luck would have it, the surviving Artsians were aggravated with Cheryl, Nina and Yiwen neutralized and made science students.

Up to today, those 26 brave Artsians, who were bold enough to face the life-threatening circumstances at NSC and who were daring enough to stand up for their own rights, are still honored and revered. They fought until their last drop of blood to defend what was rightfully, fundamentally theirs. Some people believe that the first generation Artsians, all 26 of them, have descendants or have been reincarnated as the 40-odd Arts students who are hitherto staying at NSC. These first-born Artsians were unanimously referred to as “X-Artsians.”


Now, meet some of the X-Artsians. Roll the red carpet, please…

Jianhao, Y.
The Internal Movement Leader a.k.a CT Rep.
Strengths (S): Innate narcissism and high level of confidence that enabled him to remain vain in all photos despite the fact that people had been begging him not to ‘act cute.’

Weaknesses (W): Low stamina and endurance. He ran like there are tomorrows.

Valerie Goh
The External Movement Leader a.k.a House Rep.
S: Supra-loud burping that could shake a thousand mountains. Her nickname was Godzilla, both for her burping and you-know-what-lah-hor.
W: Excessive health-consciousness. She did not consume anything else other that fruits and green vegetables and her irregular appetite made no one nutritionists could declare if she was anorexic or bulimarexic.

Yuvika Diwan
The Scholar
S: Obedience and eagerness in learning. She helped to increase A02’s passing rate in most subjects, including Civics.
W: Naivety. She was also very gullible.

Leung Yan
The Linguist
S: With commands of English, Chinese, German and a few other foreign languages at his fingertips, he could easily confuse the ordinary guy.
W: You could either take a picture only of him, or his spectacles, not both at the same time.

Nina L.
The She-Hulk
S: She had unwavering stamina in all sports and never once you shall doubt her physical strength—it’s immense! A great motivator, too.
W: No chocolate, fried food and fattening meals for her diet. She wanted them so bad but she had to telekinetically push them away lest her canoeing mates saw her in possessions of such treats.

Perdana P.
The Bitchy Guy
S: He could maneuver all sorts of satires to suit the intended recipient. His tongue lashed all kind of people as he always had things to comment on every single thing imaginable.
W: Low physical endurance and somatic power. He ran 2.4km under 12 minutes with his lungs severely affected and a 10-kg weight was impossible for him to lift.

Guo Jun, L.
The Artist
S: He had an artistic taste that was elusive; no one could really fathom what he was thinking or doing. He could keep people at least 500m away from him.

W: He did not know that his strengths were his weaknesses as well.

Theodora Fang
The Photo Spoiler
S: She could turn a drop dead gorgeous picture into a drop dead dead one, just by being in the picture.
W: She never knew which photo she should avoid and which one she should shun, because practically, she should not take any picture at all if she wanted them to turn out nice. She was totally not a ‘fangky’ girl neither was she a photogenic person.

Vivien Leung
The Non-Viva Voce Lady
S: Her demureness mesmerized all those mommy-boys out there who just needed someone like their moms to be their girlfriends.
W: I am so sorry to say that she always felt really sorry for not being able to stop saying sorry. I feel so sorry for her.

Joel Sng
The He-Hulk (No copyright infringement, please. Arts people must be original!)
S: The male version of Nina. Look at those muscles, pectorals. Sailing the Atlantic Ocean alone would not be a problem for him.
W: Good things come in small packages. Yeah, he was a small-built guy.

Joycelyn G.
The Ordinary One
S: Being ordinary was her forte. Amidst all the eccentric arts people, she still could preserve her ordinariness.
W: Too ordinary for the subtle me that I can’t describe her immaculately.

Donnie
The Hip-Hop Ballerina
S: She danced ballet yet she wore hip-hop outfits on a few occasions, concealing her identity of a ballerina. She has multiple talents. She was a DSA student under Western Dance yet she scored 6 points for the O-levels. Some people just have them all…
W: She would just never take off that Kappa sweater no matter how scorching it got. She had this phobia for exposure to sun.

Bruno Poh
The Boon for A02
S: He’d got the bucks, brain, and brawn. Ladies, need I say more?
W: On to his strengths, he was already taken (vacancies are still available for Perdana, though. Get the application form from me quickly! 400 forms taken and still counting… The early bird catches the worms. Okay, I digress. I know. Haha. Ignore me.) and do not expect him to be your IT guy. He only knew that PC’s are actually personal computers and they’re something he could afford.

Shauna Tio
The “Ponner”
S: The ability of camouflaging herself in order to skip lessons (or at least, attend them and doze off, anyway) and to influence others to follow her steps would be her asset. She was so immune to teachers’ dressing-downs that all the teachers wanted to scold her no more. They have had enough of this “ponner.”
W: Too rebellious for her own good. She decided so readily that JC life was not for her the first day she came to NSC and headed to polytechnic instead.

Shabana Shakuro
The Holy One
S: Together with her members from the bit*h club, she reigned the world of A02. Her teachings of self-defense-when-other-bit*h-attacks and just-float-don’t-walk-so-that-you-get-less-time-for-lessons were widely accepted because they were seen as the ideal philosophy or idea a typical arts student during her time should adopt.
W: Her hunger pangs were ‘domesticated’. She did not dare to experiment with other kind of food. Just give her “ayam sambal” or spicy chicken from the Malay stall, top it up with fried potato and she would savor the meal with gusto.

Delle
The Kentang (Anglo-Chinese)
S: Her power of words would leave you astonished. You would even want to commit suicide now that you know your English, just “cannot make it one.”
W: A pure breed of English speaker. Ask her to converse in Chinese and you would start to doubt your level of proficiency in Chinese. She spoke Chinese with the tang of Received Pronunciation (British’s national accent for English).

Sher Yan
The Dirty Joker
S: She loved to share dirty jokes. Both metaphorically (those jokes only a young adult would be allowed to hear with no parental supervision) and literally (she got very enthusiastic about her jokes that her saliva got dispersed everywhere).
W: Being muddle-headed was one of her shortcomings. She was often so ‘blur’.

Hejin, C.
The Macho Girl
S: Being your ordinary, feminine, girl-next-door would be the last thing she ever wanted to do in her life. She was considerably tougher than any A02 girls. She played soccer, did not cry and very affirmative. Tomboy as she may be, she still kept in touch with the girl in her.
W: She was too blatant and overly-honest. Her blog had got the substance, but it was too controversial and outrageous to the more reserved people.

Wan Lin
The Math Prodigy
S: Numbers and statistics were her best friends. She spoke in the language of Mathematics and she solved math questions like she solved a six-piece jigsaw puzzle. Also, she was a very sensitive person who would rather cry her heart out than bottling up her feelings.
W: No physically-demanding and strenuous exercises for her. Mentally-taxing Math questions might be her cup of tea but not P.E. activities.

Michelle Tan
The Stoner
S: She could ‘stone’. That is, to refrain from moving for a long period of time. She was also blessed with double the organs any ordinary person should have. First, she could sustain hunger for more than 12 hours (she didn’t usually eat at school) and secondly, she could run 2km yet send SMSes and greet people, all at the same time. My God, where did you get all those oxygen from if you had no extra lungs?!
W: Once she laughed, no one would be able to stop her epidemic laughs unless she wanted to stop herself. Again, she had those extra lungs. She could jolly well laugh for two days, two nights without inhaling air.


No archives or any records was found for these X-Artsians: Ronda, Cheryl, Shiying, Xin Mei, Germaine, Peishan and Yi Wen because the seven of them were believed to perish during the PAE era. Haha. I was just kidding. I do not have their pictures and hence, the absence of their descriptions. Sorry! Rest assured that they are equally nice and great people.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

*****

All right, it’s reflection time now. The purpose of my writing this story is not to make fun of everybody but rather, to show you why A02 could stand strong against all odds. It’s because we complement each other. We have our own weaknesses but they cease to exist once our friends come into the picture—they fill that gap with their strengths. For example, I might not be able to cover 2.4km in 10 minutes but the sporty Nina can always psych me up to run faster and faster. On the other hand, I can use my gift of the gab (as if I had!), euphemism for bit*hiness, to defend the mentally weaker Yuvika, for example, from the ferocious true blue bicce (Old English for today’s bit*h) out there. The list goes on and on. Just like Tom Cruise, I can say to any A02ers, “You complete me.” Above all, we have this one thing in common: our never-dying love for arts. People might say that arts is for losers, as science is more practical and stuff but hey, we have proved to the world how many arts students, especially those liberal arts students like Mrs. Hillary Clinton can too succeed in today’s society because we are versatile, we can make that confident intellectual and social presence. Already, that is an achievement in itself. At the end of the day, the whole world has to admit that over-emphasizing on science is detrimental. It upsets the balance of nature. That’s all I have to say and I hope whatever I’ve written here will set you thinking. Goodbye for now, world!


Love,


Perd.


1) Don’t read DC comics? The term ‘metahumans’ actually refers to the group of people who acquire superhuman powers not from birth but rather, later on in their life; their powers are not intrinsic. An example will be Peter Parker, the Spiderman, who was not born with any superhuman power but eventually gained one when a spider bit him.