The main reason I signed up for the creative writing workshop, the real reason behind my daring of taking on a course alone (no friends, no family, nadda. Just my miserable self and butt) was that I was doing it on a whim.

Face it, three consecutive weeks of boredom - 'stuck at home, on a laptop all day' kind of boredom - got to me good.

So, when I saw the words 'Creative Writing Workshop' on the front page of my polytechnic student web's, I was immediately enticed by the bait, and I would not be exaggerating if I said that I was hooked at sight.

It was scheduled on a Tuesday, and happened to be the immediate day that occurs after the day I arrive home from Malaysia. I had a doubt that I would not make it.

But I did.

Walking in a completely foreign part of the polytechnic's gargantuan campus, I was solely dependent on the route I had memorised and backed-up with sightings of the directional signs overhead.

I was curious about everything: what was this course going to be like? A lecture-like one, a discussive one, or one that was totally hands-on? The information page had little information about the enrichment course (oh the irony), just where to meet and when.

Also, was it a big gathering of aspiring writers or a small gathering of intellects?

Will the people there be nice, sarcastic, sadistic, or weird and wonderful like me?

I saw a boy clad in orange and grey standing by a door. He was the only soul I saw that seemed to be waiting - and I was rather early- so I believed I found the place. I was right, upon confirmation that I found unit T643.

When the time came to go in, I moved into the classroom - and got a nice little shock.

'Nice', as in that it was not a bad shock. I was happy about that shock.

It was a small class! Good grief, I was worried it would be a mass gathering of people talking about writers that don't exist in my mental catalogue of writers. It is pathetically small.

I saw a mass of tables stacked into each other into a beehive like formation in the far left of the room, yet giving ample room between the tables and the wall.

There were some people there already. There was one girl there busy munching on something, and another bloke on the chair, working on a laptop. (I should've brought mine.)

The orange and grey boy stood around, and so did I for a bit.

But there were chairs placed around the perimeter of the table formation. I had been standing for quite some time now.

So I sat myself at a corner seat.

The rest followed suit and sat down. Typical lemming behaviour, but I shan't comment.

I didn't want to be seen as a clam - all clammed up from the world. It was a past error, a haunting shadow of my shy and timid past, that I made in situations like this. I was going to be my confident self - at least, confident and not overwhelming or boisterous - as far as I can carry myself.

And, for my first friend, I decided upon the other person in the room who was of my gender. She must have had the same thoughts too, as she sat right next to me.

She saw me watching her gorge down her biscuits, so she told me why she was eating so voraciously - in Mandarin.

Uh oh.

The chubby accomplice now revealed a little more of herself, a little more than what I would've thought was comfortable for a first-time meeting.

She was worried about being late and she came from Yishun, and was a part time student. Her Mandarin was rolling off her tongue (the irony that Chinese is a Mother Tongue subject) and I was taking it in. I cannot write it well, or speak it so fluently, but I could pull off some listening.

Further introduction revealed that she was Lina, someone who was a talker and not such a writer, and was one of four girls who signed up - a girl called Yi Xin, a Priscilla, Lina and myself - out of a group of twelve, give or take one.

So much for the stereotypical 'women are the writers' thought.

But I could see something clearly: if Lina was so fluent in her Chinese, it was nearly hundred-percent possible that her English was of down-the-drain standards. I would have to help her as much as I can, given that everyone else in here would have a better hold and grasp of English than she. It would not do good for her confidence, and if there was any hope for her English to excel, that confidence must not be deflated. That, I will help ensure, though my bombastic words may terrorize her.

Our lecture-in-charge was a Suan Tze, some lecturer in the Language and Communications Department, and her oral English was poor (a lot of unnecessary '-s' found their way into her speech), her written English is not such a hoot and she could not read my hand-writing. (Now that last point was fine by me.)

What was the first agenda of the day?

Physical stretching.

What a bummer.

I complied, and we all attempted to stretch in a ring formation. Hip gyration was avoided as well as I could, but the rest were all right, though everyone looked like eyesores. Writers did not need an image of themselves - they need their words to do the imaging.

Then it came to the ice-breaker. Everything was predictable. A ball was made in haste - a ball of scrunched-up scrap paper - and tossed around the ring from an individual to another. We were to say our names as we threw the ball.

The lecturer decided to bend things a little. We were to add an adjective to our name.

Oh dear.

It became clear that no one was rather eager to do that. Neither was I. Everyone's mind went blank there, but I was not going to make myself look like a wooden block.

I thought of a good one for myself. Since the lecturer had used an adjective that shared the same first letter as her name, it was best if I followed suit.

Mmm... 'M'... something with the letter 'M' and would not blow my image and make me look proud and pompous, nor make me look too simplistic.

'Maverick' would do fine. It's not such a big word, and it meant that I was a greenhorn.

The adjective was used, and I passed the ball to another person.

More or less everyone had thought of a word to go with their name, but there were those who just could not think of one, so I thought of some for them, and they took it. So one had a 'spunky', another with a 'lively' (that was for Lina), and the rest I forgot.

Finally, after a quick recap of our names, we sat back down at the table and we finally got to writing.

Our task was to cough out at least two or three pieces of work. That was fine.

For starters we had to mention five memories (any memory, I remembered the lecturer saying) and pick one of them, the most lively and energetic of the lot, and write a short story of it within a time span of fifteen minutes.

I immediately chose the Ipoh Hor Fun experience, and had my short story down within ten minutes.

I turned to Lina to check her progress.

My fears were confirmed. She was lacking in the written-English department by more than a stretch. Instead of five activities, there were five sentences of 'I like to...', in a basic elementary style. Her short story were just a bunch of sentences which were, unfortunately, non sequiturs.

I glanced at another person's progress, the one to my right. He was faring better off.

Oh dear.

I could not help Lina to 'improve' her work, as the only solution there and then was to take her paper, axe off everything, and get her to dictate to me of what she liked about shopping. It would be a total annihilation to honesty and learning.

She knew, from a glance of my work to hers, that her work was far from the expected standard and she started to whine about it. No, she did not sound whiny, but it was in a sulking manner. She complained about her poor English standard, in her flow of Mandarin.

I listened, as that was all I could do. It was too much for me to fix, and already eyes were looking at us, pointed glares if you may.

I told Lina, after she was done, that she should cool down and focus on dealing with the next topic, never mind if her English is bad. Getting that all out in Mandarin was not easy.

The teacher wanted us to convert our story into a poem. Problem was, I was horrible at poems. I hardly do poems, in fact I don't think I do them at all.

But I did mine anyway.

Lina had a hard time with hers, but it looked a little more acceptable now.

Next challenge: Spice up the poem to make it 'hot'.

Oh, I got it! The polytechnic was running a creative writing competition, one that was entitled 'That's Hot'. So we had to heat things up in our poems, eh? Not a problem.

I added in chilli and pepper into the poem. Go me, I was all for the obvious and unimaginative.

A break was called for, where I treated myself to a grass jelly drink and a samosa. Lina helped to pass around the paper plates loaded with nachos.

As I walked around, I pointed out the possible people in the group I had to watch. There were this bunch of boys from the same course, who were absorbed into each other only and not to anyone else. Bad team material, but maybe this will bring good plot about, if they discuss things out well between themselves.

There was an artist-girl who decided to write, there were two Malay boys who looked fine on their own. There were at least two serious writers in there, excluding me, that I presumed.

The next writing exercise was too obvious. We all took pieces of paper and passed them around, where we were supposed to write a word for each letter or scenario placed before us.

Lina thought of the absolute simple words, while I added in flamboyant ones, partly because I wanted to challenge myself to remember those bombastic words, partly because others were putting up flowery words too, and partly because I needed to cover Lina up.

The painful truth was that, I discovered to my hidden horror, that this was not what I thought it was. This creative writing workshop was no more than an English lesson gone simple. There was no active discussion of our works, no talk of improving or such a vein, nothing I had hoped for.

But I bit grit and went for it. I cannot complain. If I did, pandemonium would break loose, or others would think that I was just too snobbish and immediately turn their cold shoulders my way.

Besides, it deserves a chance. I give chances where I can and where I see fit. I see some people there had talent; Yi Xin had written a poem of claws and white horses to portray her encounter with tooth extraction. Another guy, I forgot his name, could write a short story in the same style I do.

I wrote a story, and I had to read it out myself since she could not read my handwriting. She did laugh when I prompted her with corrections twice and decided to read it out aloud instead to save her the trouble.

And when that was over, the creative writing workshop had come to a close.

I was slightly disappointed. I was not writing at my peak. I could not churn out a proper tale, a story of standards that I could hit, but did not.

Lina was discouraged, but I was her listening ear. She was outgoing, I could tell, and could rattle anyone's ear off. At least it did not turn ugly.

Suan Tze ended the event with a note: she hoped to create a Creative Writing Club out of the lot, and was hoping that we would stay and continue.

I gave it a thought, and determined it: I was jumping onto this bandwagon.

And if Lina wanted to come aboard, a friend would be waiting to give her the moral support and the coaching if she wants it.

And right now, I'm thinking of a plot for the next meeting. A 'hot' story, a story of warmth, a story of discovery (no, I did that one already)...

I ought to put up one of my stories here sometime.

Meanwhile, interest yourself with the results that I received from a type quiz. It labels you as a type of person, or character, whichever way you see it: INFJ

And, on a lighter note, Happy Birthday my good friend and fellow writer Hahli Husky!

Whap me, girl! Whap me!