As I was feeding Ruqaiya this morning and slowly drifting to a sweet slumber, memories upon memories of Gateway Malaysia (or more commonly known as GM by its regular members) assaulted the forefront of my mind.
GM really was one of the most pivotal influences of my life. It caused me to be more actively involved with trying to relearn my homeland's language as well as stimulated some self-confidence. I was always so shy and passive. I barely spoke what was on my mind. I barely let myself be creative and do things out of the box. I was rather guarded. For me, friends were people you got along with at school, connections I had to remake every fall. The few true friends I had at the time were few and they all had moved away with only e-mail to connect us and our memories. Honestly, the people of GM changed me. For the first time, I made friends not because we were in the same class or belonged to Malaysian families attended the local university. For the first time, I made friends on my own based on myself.
At first I was really shy but eventually I managed to open up. I was able to enter the conversations. I was able to contribute to the forum discussions even though the times I was online was when most other were asleep and when I was offline others were online. I remember going on everyday to check the forums. I went on before school and after school. I made serious points, I had crazy stories, I wrote poems and I spammed.
I loved it.
I remember the spam wars that would pop up now and then. When all of the posts consisted of nothing but "hahahahaha" and smileys. I remember when we had wars with smiley icons. I remember the forum discussions would always veer away from the original topics. I remember when we all tried to post in every discussion to increase our post numbers. I remember all of us trying to be "kings and queens" and getting our "titles." I remember having a hard time understanding conversations about the Malaysians way of life and school but finally getting an idea. I still remember going crazy over trying to figure out what the word "poyo" means.
We were always trying to get new members but still those of us that regularly go on were was relatively small. Maybe under 20. For me, this small number made GM special and unlike most other forums. We were able to become close friends, which I don't think would have happened had there been hundreds of members. Not only did we communicate at GM, we swapped ims and chatted via MSN and YM. I still have some of them listed. I've never used them before. Even on my first and only visit back to Malaysia when I was 16, I actually spent an afternoon with them.
I even had my first nickname come from the GMers. Yeah, I've had one or two before but they weren't actually used (except for my beloved late Atuk). Dee became my nickname and dear Asma popularized it.
GM influenced in other ways as well. I had my first blog as a result of GM. It seemed like everyone had one so I gave it a try. Who knew that I would still blog now and then. Though the real enjoyment was from designing the blog than actually blogging. Every other entry I had was probably about my new layout. I remember spending hours of my weekends working on a new graphic or trying out some codes. hehe. It sparked an interest in media production and graphic design. Although I haven't done any for a long time, I can still remember the techniques that I used and learned. Additionally even the address (windee) was inspired from my GM years when I took the title "Queen of the Winds."
Too bad good things come to and end. As more joined it became harder to keep up. I enter a state of depression that lasted for months. I wanted to disappear and even deleted some of my old posts. Older friends were going to uni and everyone became busier. Soon many of us have stopped visiting. I can no longer remember the username and password that I once entered in everyday.
Yet, even though we've lost contact for years and we have gone our separate ways, I still consider them my precious friends. Emma, Mira, and Maiza were my older sister figures. Asmaa and Shara were my hyper friends, with whom I can be crazy and start singing online with. Qiki was the creative one. Nasha was quirky. Dill was the elusive one to me but well known. Izzat, whom whenever I chat with we would always first talk about the time and the weather. And of course the Sharen brothers, notably Alleem, Haziq and of course Zufar, King of Hearts, founder, and the Lavender Gunslinger (no matter what I can never forget that. It was too funny).
The friendships were wonderful. They gave me self-confidence maintain the friendships I had with my American classmates. I go out with friends. GM gave me the sense of freedom to say weird things. To think poetically. To act quirky and odd. And I love it.
Hopefully I can meet these people again.
don't they look delish?