Confessions of a Cat-holic (54)

Nevertheless, life went on. More and more of my new friends were manipulated by my persona and the facade I put on in the new school to believe that I must have been the Karen Mok of St Francis. Pretty, rich, smart, driven, the best in every category yet of a comparatively lesser degree when put in a basket of candidates from the fierce and unforgiving district of Central. They figured I needed to wake up from my overprotective and somewhat secluded monastery in Wanchai because life was a hunger game. Okay, thank you very much, lunatics. Our society and the entire universe were centered around and built for the benefits of the demented and neurotic, for sure.

The fact that my new friends only looked at me, and me only, did not help them see the forests around the tree. I was not disliked or envied by my peers. I was fleeing for survival. But would they ever find out if I never told them so? The movie script assigned by my alma mater did not give me a chance to defend myself. In John Wick's terms, I was on excommunicado by the church and on a mission to assassinate all those who came after me to hopefully one day reach for my dream destination at the continental. Jesus, when could I ever leave this island?

Many people thought that I was the ultimate winner who had it all. But quite ironically, I was just a foul eliminated from my alma mater for my overall incompetence and noncompetitive tendencies. Did you watch Infernal Affairs? I could be that undercover Tony Leung.

The students from SPCC were too occupied to mingle with friends outside of the school to realize that our society was not as what was portrayed in the tabloids. Their understanding of life was based on a cult and their perception of the world was built upon the sensational headlines of tabloids but could you trust what the press said? Something pathetic I observed in this new circle of friends was that they couldn't tell apart media hype from truth. They didn't bother to fact check what they heard. They believed in whatever they were being told, with no critical thinking and independent censorship. There was some truth to the news stories. I wouldn't say the press was all making up stories and generating fake news. But if they had no real friends, and maybe no real interaction with real people in real life, they would probably never find out that they had been blindfolded by the system.

So, in school, they were manipulated by the bible and Christian faith; outside of school, they were manipulated by the press. Would they ever wake up from this dreamy planet anyways? I was worried about my new friends. But at the same time, I was glad that they remained perpectually bamboozled.

I invited my new friends to my home as a courtesy after our basketball practice in South Horizons. I wanted them to chill for a few drinks and maybe had a safe and comfy place to sit and relax after the games. If not at the court down below my apartment building, we would be playing at the court down the road on MacDonnell Road. Usually, we would walk or take the bus to Pacific Place and have a quick bite of food at the McDonald's. My friends were not at all in the mood for a meal so they were just ordering tap water or a 2 HKD ice cream cone to sit at one of the busiest diners in town. We had around 10 of us, and altogether we ordered no more than 10 HKD worth of food among the entire table. I was too embarrassed by their way of consumption and stinginess so I always ordered a full meal with a top up of chicken nuggets that would slightly bring up the bill. But even so, sharing a burger meal with chicken nuggets among 10 girls didn't help much in eliminating the frowns upon us by the staff and other customers waiting in line for a seat.

God forbid I had just committed septem peccata mortalia. Little did I know that my kind invitation to my home was perceived as an uncivilized way of showing off my relatively new apartment and recreational activities in the complex. Apparently, inviting my friends for a drink in my apartment was said to be a sign of parvenu.