When failure overcomes you,

in a corner frail and weak,

you say life has no meaning,

and it seems like the end of the world.

(chorus)

Now I say it’s the sun that shines above you,

It is water that fills the ocean

It is failure that brought you down,

If you stand up you can move on

If you just try

it’s not a hard thing to do,

believe is what you need in you.

Don’t forget that there are other there to guide you,

You are not alone,

(chorus)

---SCBoard 2004.

My fingers fumble in the pitch dark vacuum of my bag. They brush past heavy textbooks and undone homework, then finally touch a thin stack of well-worn cue cards. I untangle them from the mess of paper in my bag, and look through them, smiling faintly as I recall the places that we madly scribbled our script on.

An example of one such ‘special’ place would be the floor of the Khoo Auditorium a few minutes before the actual ceremony, without our shoes because they had been ‘kidnapped’ by some other prefects for polishing services. I also vividly remember dashing between the Shaw Hall, the Auditorium, or the Music Room and Computer Lab 1, lugging along my violin case like it was my lifeline, then running back to the laboratory with a diskette in my hand and new ideas and feedback from Mr. Ang. Then there were also the many hours I spent in that same laboratory with Lynnette, frantically searching for good background pictures or trying to recall what we had been told at the Seminar so we could add it in to the powerpoint slideshow.

It was amazing how there could be so many things going on at exactly the same time. Even when it seemed as if there was nothing really moving or happening, you could always count on someone or something to burst in suddenly with news or a new breakthrough. There would be props people downstairs, dancers wherever there was space, actors in one venue, and the musicians following after the actors.

Although, admittedly, many of us were frustrated because of the time constraints, and we felt that we were on the executioner’s block all the time. However, as always, we pulled through.

No matter how tired, exhausted or stressed we were, at the 11th hour, everything suddenly gelled together. Everything began working out, and the entire Auditorium swarmed with activity as things began taking shape, straining to reach the last hurdle and overcome it, like a long distance runner.

What truly touches me, however, is how fifty something prefects can put aside so much time and give so much for three months or more, through exhaustion, CCAs, matches, stress and tests just to meet up in the afternoon to work something out. I do not know about you, but, I am just completely speechless, really, at how it just seems so natural to put aside most things for a month to labour for this one event.

And it was brilliant, it truly was.

Last night, sliding into a cushioned seat at The Sizzler, I looked around and saw satisfaction and happiness overwriting whatever tiredness any of us had felt. It killed my exhaustion because just sitting there with them knowing we had done our best felt so good.

There exists between us all a camaraderie that goes beyond words.

Grinning now, I shuffled the cue cards carefully back into their correct order and put them onto my top shelf. Already, I was thinking about next year.

Stepping out into this world

now what do you see?

Pictures of different sorts, looking at me.

Devastating pictures,

And pictures of cry,

United we must stand,

In order to fight.

(chorus)

we are heroes,

we are heroes of the world,

we have the ability to conquer

and the ability to save.

We are heroes

We are able to touch one’s heart,

We have the ability to reach out,

‘cause we are,

the heroes of the world.

Pictures now on the floor,

Torn into two,

They are of different sorts,

Looking at me.

Pictures of disunity and pictures of sorrow.

United we must stand

For peace to uphold.

(chorus)

Stepping out into this world,

Now what do you see?

Pictures of family,

Pictures of love…

we have the ability to conquer

and the ability to save.

We are heroes

We are able to touch one’s heart,

We have the ability to reach out,

‘cause we are,

the heroes of the world.

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