Journal Entries

The Best Is Yet To Come...

To The 2000 Royal High School Chamber Singers

I want to tell you the things about myself I thought people should know about each other before I let you go, so here's me…

I always write Daniel Lam on my papers, but people have been calling me Dan, for who knows how long, because it's simple. People have asked me what my middle name is and it is Yantou (Yun-toe). I'm Chinese, and I speak Cantonese. My favorite color is green. I like to eat my meals with rice and tea. I hate Szechuwan food. I like to watch martial arts flicks and music videos. I also like to play video games. I like to buy flashy shirts, shoes, and jewelry. I try to draw and write whenever I can. I love to take pictures. I have an extensive collection of comic books and car magazines I read. I've had several peking ducks as pets. I'm constantly on the computer. I sing constantly. I run constantly. I live to sleep... I think. I think a lot. I think about how I appear to everyone. I think I try too hard to please people. Sometimes, I feel I value other people's friendships more than they care to value mine. Sometimes, I feel alone... You know?

There isn't much to me, but I think it's important that most people should find it comforting that at least someone knows what kind of person you are. Some of you have known me for a while now, but don't really know me. I've FELT the connection between us! Only for a little. It was yearning to be tended to. And now, we're parting. But I'm glad I had the chance to talk to each of you individually, at last! I felt if I didn't do tell you this, I would have regretted ever meeting you because I would have lost a part of me that wasn't even there to begin with. I know the best is yet to come for all of us, but I regret we weren't able to get to know each other at the personal level, now, as I would have liked... I'm sorry.

Since I've been at Royal, I had been working to fix that particular flaw in my character. Other people were lucky that they had friends in the same class who liked to sing, but I didn't have any nor could I get any, and I wondered why. I wondered if there was actually something wrong with me because whenever I came to class, I would be the only one without someone to talk to. But personally, I didn't really care. I didn't need those people as friends because I had other friends. It was nice when people would introduce themselves, but it usually just stopped there and never developed. So it was like this for my first two years, I only made one-liners and sang. But I realized it wasn't only my error in judgment, it was the fact that no one tried or cared, either.

Fortunately, I was able to leave that place and I joined you, fine people- a more familar bunch of faces that included people I had known for while and other people who established a name for themselves. This time, it wasn't hard at all with you people, we hit it off right from the start. The free-spirit and willingness of all you had played a tremendous amount of importance in the reason why it was so easy for us to have so much fun this year. Some of my fondest memories has come out of things we did together. But the inevitable truth had come so soon, and I realized that we, as a group, had not taken the time to contemplate why there were so many groups, so many walls, so many seclusions between all of us that shouldn't have been there. For a small group like us who spent so much time with each other and hardly know anything about each other is incredibly wrong.

I started this project because I thought this was the best way at getting this group to acknowledge and let each other know that you weren't overlooked and ignored. I know that some of you had so much to say about a person, and some of you had little to nothing to say about another, but no matter if you forgot to remember, how much you failed to understand, or how much you felt wronged by a person, I pray that there must have been at least something about that person that you're fond of, no matter how intangible it may seem. I hope none of you develop a sense of being where you're only quick and alert in the things of life and not the significances. I knew a lot of you had doors open, but I hope you remember to be more inviting to the people you meet. And I hope you remember each other... I hope you remember the kid in the flashy clothes. Because a person can only offer so much friendship.

I hope I succeeded.

Joy Geen! (See You Again!)
Daniel