Daryl Tay.net

Today marked the end of my boys’ journey as scouts in SJI as they handed over their responsibilities to the secondary 3s. Even though I really wanted to stay home and recover from being ill, there was no way I was missing this.

A little bit of background for those who are weirded out with the term “my boys”: I came back to the SJI scout group in 2005 after being away since 2002 because of certain incidents and the army and right from about the first day I saw that this batch of then-sec-ones were a pretty unique batch.

I have to say today was pretty darn emotional for me. On one hand I looked at it probably the way a proud parent looks on his kids when they’re growing up but on the other I feel like four years just went by so quickly.

In 2005 when I started my journey with these rascals, I wasn’t even 21 yet, wasn’t even in university yet. And here I am in 2008 with them about to embark on their O levels and I’m almost ready to graduate. When I came back in 2005, I never thought I’d work with one singular batch all the way through. It’s gotten me into problems with some people, but me being me, I don’t give a shit.

We’ve laughed together, trained together, had good times, had arguments, they make me furious, I make them cry, they’ve made me cry, they’ve not always agreed with me but we’ve always tried to work things out. I think at the end of the day for me, I look back on four years of madness and hope that in some way I’ve influenced this batch of special boys to be better men, in the same way various people in my scouting life have made me a better man. I didn’t always understand things when they happened while I was 13-16, but I do now that I’m much older, and hopefully in time, they will look past the screaming and the scolding and the punishment, and understand. As much as I’ve been very very hard on them, I’m also very very protective of them.

In a lot of ways, they’ve contributed to me wanting to enter education at some point in my life. Working with young bright people like them has been tough, but ever so rewarding. I watched the video montage with amusement until the famed “We love Daryl’ picture, which got the emotional bit of me going.

It was almost weird today. I watched the boys say “goodbye” to the other leaders and shook their hand. But when it came to me (I was right at the end), for most of them there was no “goodbye”. In fact for most of them there were no words. Just a handshake, a nod and a hug. Maybe they genuinely didn’t know what to say, but on my end, I couldn’t possibly say anything in those 5 seconds to sum up four years of time together. So silence did the job.

So to my sec 4s:

I don’t say this as often as I should, but I’m very proud of all of you. Especially in this final year when you’re sec 4. It has been very enjoyable having you all on the same “level” as us, knowing that most of the time I can entrust you with things, and have them done to the best of your abilities. It wasn’t always the case and it wasn’t easy getting here, but we did. Together. I don’t know if you guys will want to continue your journey into ventures and beyond, but even if you don’t, I hope you keep the friendships and bonds that you’ve made over the last four years. They are very, very difficult to replicate.

I’m glad now we can look back together and laugh at UTC 2006 when I went nuts and destroyed your campsites, but if there are things that I’ve done that still sting, I hope you’ll forget about it and understand why things were done in a certain way. On my end I genuinely do not remember who has complained about whatever shit and got me into trouble how many numerous times. I think these are things that just happened and I don’t look back on them negatively. They’re just experiences we’ve shared together and we grow from there.

I wish you the best in your O levels and I hope you get to wherever you want to be, whether it’s JC or poly. I don’t really know if I’ll still be around next year, but I thank you for giving me something to look forward to every Friday for the last four years, and the good far far far outweighs the bad. If you ever need anything, you know where to find me.

To end off this post, Mr. Zachariah Chan has requested that I post his pictures on my blog so he can just download from here and be a lazy fart. So here they are.