When I was small, I was a victim of Disney and his cartoons. However, despite Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan dominating my childhood memory, there is something that I still remember very fondly now as an adult.
I loved reading about Greek Mythology: Jason and the Argonauts, Hercules, Medusa, the Minotaur, Zeus and his wives, etc. I remember I had a book of Greek mythology stories, and I still remember how much I loved reading it over and over again. Perhaps this book was the reason I fell in love with history.
Fast forward a few years to my junior high days. I was mesmerized by Egyptian history. The pharaohs, the pyramids, the culture… I used to wish that I had been born in the 1910s so that I could become a part of one of those expedition groups who uncovered the wonders of ancient Egypt for the first time. I even wrote about the mystery behind Tutankhamun’s death for my final year exam. I chose to do History, a dreaded subject for junior high schoolers but not for me. I would rather learn about the mistakes humanity has done in the past than about how a lush rainforest is transformed into a desert, although the latter is a lot more applicable in today’s global warming days. I remember being so eager in my history class; any question asked by our teacher, my hand would shoot up, and I had this unquenchable thirst for information that I would ask outside the required information we needed to know. Don’t blame me, I was just simply satisfying my own curiousity. Unfortunately, my teacher did not see the same. She started ignoring me, picking on students who had zero interest in the subject rather than identifying THIS particular student who could very well be making a career in the field.
In the few years after junior high, I was expected to develop a career in engineering or the sciences, so history became nothing but a mere reading interest. Even then, with the amount of time required to pursue what was expected of me, I stopped reading history altogether. Then, as I was finishing up my degree at Purdue, I decided to take what I thought would be easy A classes: History of Europe in the Middle Ages and Religions of the West. Little did I know these classes would rekindle the fire I have for history. Combine a great history professor, a controversial subject (Islam, Judaism and Christianity: how can the 3 religion co-exist with each other?) and the beginning of my Robert Langdon fantasy, I started reading more and more of the European history, in particular in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
In preparation for my trip to Europe, I have started refreshing my memory in this field, and in doing so, I have this feeling that this trip would be followed by more pilgrimage to the Middle Ages and Renaissance sites. I may even decide to leave Singapore and spend a few months in Italy to study history altogether, and return a teacher. Some people may roll their eyes and say, “There she goes again”, but since my career is in limbo, I’m keeping my options as wide open as possible. I have always loved history, and maybe this is my chance to study and become a teacher who would appreciate her students’ love for the subject than ignoring them because what they want to know won’t be tested in the leaving examination so why bother knowing?
I suppose it’s the mystic and intrigue of history that gives it such a romantic notion to me. Wouldn’t it be exciting to find an evidence of the past that is shrouded in mystery? Imagine the anticipation of decoding it to find out what message from the past it would bring. Imagine the person who created this piece hundreds of years ago, and now hundreds of years later, you are holding it in your hands, linking your life to his permanently.
Note to self- make sure date of return flight can be changed.
