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A colleague of mine, he brought a Ukulele today. Immediately I thought of you. F is for Frolic through all the flowers, U is for Ukulele. N is for nose picking, chewing gum and sand licking here with my best buddy.
But you weren't always a Spongebob fan. I remember we used to have all issues of Doraemon comic books. Back in the days an issue would come out every fortnight, and we would go buy them from the nearby bookstore. The book store still looks the same today. You would read them, as if you know what they mean. Then you would draw on them. It made me mad when you drew on them. Because you would make happy characters sad or angry. You would give them silly brows that changes their emotions and it annoyed the hell out of me because these comic books were very limited.
Mom bought a Doraemon video from the store, and you would always ask us to play it for you. Once you learnt how to operate the player by yourself, you would play it every morning at 8 AM. Every single day. You would sit in front of the tv and you would sing along and dance along.
I remember you always wait for mom to come back from work. If she isn't home by 7PM you would call her office and cry for mom. Her boss would answer the phone all the time.
A little while later you started getting fascinated with Garfield. There were comic strips you would cut off the daily papers, and you would make scrap books full of them. Then you started drawing them too. Initially it was tracing from actual comics, then you went on to making your own strips. I remember we made a frame for one of your comic drawings. If I only remember where it is kept now.
Times were quite bad, and I don't know if you were aware of it. Mom and dad always fought. I tried my best to not let you see them. I would always carry you up to the room and lock ourselves inside. Then they eventually broke away from each other and you had to stay with mom on weekdays and us with dad. But that didn't lessen the fun we had.
You were in high school, when things turned for the worst. Our family was an broken as it could ever be. Everybody hate going home because we would always have to deal with bitchy parents and fights and fights and more fucking fights we all hate. Your brother and I were outside hanging out with friends all the time so we didn't have to deal with those fights. We didn't have money. Dad fucked up. You started skipping school and smoking. You would hang out with the wrong bunch in the park and learn all the wrong stuff. And you did them just so we would notice you. So we did, the day you came home with all those cuts in your arms. You got our attention.
After that things were good. Straight As, one year after another. You would know a lot of skanky friends, hang out with them, but never stoop to their level. Not even once. You knew how to return home to your family and you think of us before making any decision outside. We are all grateful for that.
So you started to dream of things you wanted. When other materialistic girls wanted Burberries and Guccis and Pradas, you wanted llama farms and polar bears and pandas. Your fighting fishes were Doraemon and Rudolph.
Most girls dream of meeting Prince Charming who'll be very rich and give them everything they want. All you talk about is making money and buying your very own Impreza Version 10. We'd play RO together, although just very briefly I loved it. I hope we can do it more often even now when you are about to leave.
I call you stupid not because you are stupid, but because you are silly. You would make mistakes, laugh at yourself, and let it go. That is something I have to learn from you.
Look at you now. No longer the little girl with that red flowered dress with the sour face, no longer the round-rimmed glasses girl who looked like Jackie Chan's son. You are no longer insecure of your physical look, well not always. Your ears look just fine. Who would've thought someone in our family could afford a scholarship from a world-class university.
Times will be tough from now on, but know that it will only be temporary. You will be alone, but you will never have to deal with things by yourself. We may be hundreds of miles away, but we will always be there for you, just like old times. No more weekend visits to Mid Valley, though.
But chin up, this is for a brighter future. We will adapt, we always do. People reject everything in the beginning, but we always adapt. Go out and face it with everything you have. Things will get better and you will eventually love the new life you will have.
You are the second best thing that happened to our family, second to our little doggy.
Go and do the best you can. You are the best that ever came out of this family, and you will be better than anyone else can ever be. You will open a new chapter in your book of life. You will pursuit a greater goal, and face a greater challenge. And you will succeed. What ever happens we are already very very proud of you.
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