Speed Racer

I eat fast. Various people have commented that I eat very fast. I know it's not good, but it's a hard habit to kick. Harder still when the habit came into being for survival's sake in the first place.

It all started many many years ago in a sleepy town in Perak, where young boys were made to live at an old institution for being some of the best young minds at the time (12 years on, I think it might have dimmed somewhat - at least for me). Leaving the comfort of our own homes were a bitch, even more so at a young age like that. I was a fat kid who never wanted to be there, so it sucked quite a lot for me.

Yeah yeah, I'm getting to the story!

Okay, so we lived almost completely removed from the rest of the school. Our constant contact with the seniors are the 5 prefects who stayed at Prep School with us. I think they refer to themselves as Custodians or something. We had two sets of rules to live by, one is the school rules which are rather standard anywhere you go and the other one is the standing rules. Standing rules were effectively rules that has been passed down verbally throughout the years, prolly with some tweaks here and there. These rules were the ones we really had to adhere to. School rules, who cares? Break those, and you'll get caned or something. Big deal. Break the standing rules, there'll be hell to pay.

There's a rule for every aspect of life. Which toilets/showers to use, how to arrange your clothes on the railings (for the record, must be colour coordinated and neat), how to wear your clothes et cetera. Of course, there were rules on how to eat too.

We would line up in twos outside the dining hall and would walk (don't shuffle your slippers!) quietly and sit at our respective places. We were lucky enough in a sense that our food were served, not like the other boarding schools. Then it's time for the Do'a, which we'll take turns to recite on the platform where the High Table is. After that only we can eat.

We have to use fork and spoon, and have to make sure we don't clang them around on the steel trays. One loud clang will bring about a hushed silence, as we wait for the verdict. If nothing is said we continued on. A dropped utensil, or a loud clang that's too hard to ignore, or the hushed conversations got a bit too loud, and dinner is over. Sometimes it ended before it even started. Baru duduk dah ada mangkuk yang terjatuh sudu. Sigh.

So we learned to eat quickly yet silently. Once the prefects announced that it's time for Do'a again (signalling the end of lunch/dinner), we would shove everything as fast as we can while saving the fruit for later. Choking was considered a nuisance rather than a hazard. Living life in the fast lane.

Hence, so many years later, I still find it hard to chew properly and eat like normal people do. Maybe I'm the only one afflicted, but that's the story behind my speed-eating prowess. I know it's not good, and I do try to make a conscious effort to curb it. Too bad it has become Pavlovian, just minus the request for Do'a.