There is a goodbye in every hello, a lyricist whose name I can't recall philosophically said. How true that is, I now think.
When I arrived in Kuala Lumpur in July 2008 with a suitcase full of swirling expectations and wild plans, I knew somewhere in the dark corners of my mind that the adventure would have an end to it. Two years is a long time out of anybody's life (the IB-ers can swear to this); the initial months after my arrival, when I hardly knew a soul and found KL to be indifferently chaotic, the end of the two years had seemed to me then impossibly far away. I even started questioning my ability to last.
That all changed sometime in the beginning of 2009. The shift was a gradual and barely detectable one. When I woke up in the morning and the sky was still a uniform ocean-blue, there was a hitherto unfamiliar feeling of calm, a new sense of belonging. It took me a little while to realise that I had finally come home. What had brought about this shift was the host of incredible, warm-hearted people who had suddenly, almost unexpectedly, been ushered into my life. These ranged from selfless, side-splittingly funny colleagues/friends to amenable, affectionate students who never ceased to amaze me with their warmth of character. There was a great deal of uncontrollable laughter, of confiding, of relishing what is truly good about this life. De Saint-Exupery would have been proud of the whole bunch of us.
Then Time did that funny little trick it tends to do when you're having fun: it sped up, and for the rest of 2009 and the beginning of 2010, I lost sight of the weeks and months. Everything rolled up into one fast-spinning ball of excitement. Then IB5 sat for their exams and left behind empty, echoey classrooms. The reluctant juniors turned into seniors. Soon there will be new faces roaming the hallway... The circle of life and all that jazz.
This is my last entry as the editor-in-chief of Opinionated Monthly. The torch will be passed on to Ms Catalina Rembuyan for the August issue, and I am sure she will have a blast, just as I have, working with the seniors. I will remain the editor-in-chief of the blog (www.the-opinionated-ones.blogspot.com) so my ties with the school will not be completely severed. But to keep both the magazine and the blog alive, I do need your undying support and, most of all, contributions!
There are so many people to thank and I don't really know where to begin. So I won't. I'll wait until the seniors' graduation to bid you a proper farewell, but until that inevitable day in mid-July, please keep in mind that without your good will, humour and creativity, the magazine would not have seen its first anniversary back in April. You have made it all possible.
I have not begun to miss you yet, but I am sure I will when I find myself gazing out of the window of my tiny Amsterdam apartment, and realise how ludicrously fortunate I have been these past two years.
Edward Ong
Editor-in-Chief
A Few Words
from the Deputy Editor
from the Deputy Editor
I guess I have to count myself lucky for being able to be the first to see the magazine in its entirety and the last to have a say about it, because of our peculiar standard operating procedure that makes me both deputy editor and unofficial layout editor.
As such, I am the first to see our beloved Editor-in-Chief’s last contribution to Opinionated Monthly. I can empathise with the feeling of letting go a project you started but never got to see it through as it continue to grow over the years. I can safely say, on behalf of the editorial staff past and present, that we will miss you, Mr Ong, and your steadfast leadership for more than a year. We thank you for choosing us to be on your team, and it was an honour and our own good fortunes to have you, for more than a year, guide us and nurture our ability to write professionally.
Personally, I thank you for giving me so much room for my own column this month! I also want to express my sincere gratitude to you for accommodating my vision to rejuvenate and transform Opinionated Monthly into a top-notch publication worthy of a bookshop’s magazine rack.
But fear not, IB and Upper Sec readers alike, for Edward Ong will never truly leave us. As he had kindly emphasized, we will continue to see him online, both at the Opinionated Ones blog and at his own blog. Rest assured that I will continue to keep an eye on his articles and print whatever material he writes that will capture our attention and stimulate our thinking.
On that note, I guess I will be the unofficial censor for Mr Ong’s entries! In retrospect, I think us editors do have the final say on what gets printed and what gets chucked into the bin. In a way, we are censoring the material that will be read by the general public! Now, wouldn’t that contradict our stand against censorship?
John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty (1859), had this to say: “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.” This is a man who seems to be completely for freedom of speech. However, if for example parents are not allowed to censor the material their children are exposed to, what will happen to society in the future? Similarly, if we as editors do not censor the material for our readers, wouldn’t we be responsible for anything damaging? Certainly it could not be considered evil if we choose to omit anything overly political, or relating too strongly to religion, or even expressively explicit, could it?
Moving on, I wish to officially give a warm welcome to the new batch of IB students the IB July 2010! We will be earnestly anticipating any fresh ideas they may choose to contribute to Opinionated Monthly. For now, please entertain yourself with our views on football, music, IB, a continuation of the series “Chronicles of the Soulless”, and of course, censorship.
FIAT JUSTITIA ET PEREAT MUNDUS
Deputy Editor
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