Monday, August 27, 2007

 

I don't know why, but somehow, recently, I've been in this cycle of nostalgia. I was reminiscing abt my stone age past in the last post, and now, I miss my nunnery times in RGS. And somehow, my memories of both schs are not triggered by their related physical entities (I did not even really feel much when I see the girls cheering on TV last nite, but the UNITED cheer did make my limbs itch to cheer along), but rather my frens' posts about the schs. Be it pictures galore for NJ, or just a few simple lines for RG, they were enuff to make me slow down and think.

Although my RG days were reduced to quite a blur of events now (it's been so long, I'm old), I still can't deny the fact that they were my happiest time in my studying life so far. Things were much simpler then, and fun was fun, without any connotations. But I can still remember my first day in sch: I was OVERDRESSED. I mean, I followed the picture in my handbook, so I came to sch smartly buttoned up to the neck, with a tie to boot. Yea, sure I was toot to the extreme, but hey, I thought I followed the rules. Thus I was quite appalled when I arrived in sch to find my fellow schmates without a tie, and I was thinking: wah, 1st day break the rules already ah? This went on for almost half the day until I was approached by a prefect who told me that I could take down my tie, as it wasn't required. SO, I was the extra one. Hmpf.

On why I actually went to RG when I could go to others, I dun have an answer. Somehow, since primary 5, I knew I had to go to RG, and till now I was still puzzled why I had that thought. So adamant I was to go that I simply went ahead after PSLE, even when nobody was to accompany me there. I guess I was quite lonely for a while, but the frens I've made then stuck with me till now, so wat's the complaint?

I was a blur bloke in sec 1, had most fun in sec 2 (cos of SYF and the unbelievable things our company did in class, u seriously wudn't believe we did wat we did), leanrt abt leadership in sec 3, was thus nurtured and grew spiritually, thou I was a mess academic wise. And sec 4 was just... CHIONG AH... for the big Os. No regrets, although I should have worked harder and not dropped Jap in sec 3. But i guess the lessons in life she taught me made up for it. Not forgetting my favourite principal Carmee Lee, always dressed in vibrant colors to brighten up my each day, making me look forward to go to sch everyday!

And just like every other sch, where its sch spirit is so unique to herself, RG was....culturally vibrant, to say the least... I miss the racial harmony days, the outrageous Teachers' Day, the Sports Day, the unique low-pitch cheers, the sch song. I miss the foyer, the amphitheatre, the CO room, the corridors. I miss my rather cute Sec1/2 class, my lawless Sec3/4 class who broke all kinds of rules and made teachers cry, my CO juniors, seniors, cello partner ML, and the mad rush every Saturday to Shangyin for cello lessons! There's sooo much more....

Pple I've met after RG were all quite shocked that I was from RG, becos I dun carry the looks or mannerisms of what a typical RG girl would be like, and that, I agree. But what they don't know is, my memories of my alma mater are so deeply etched into my heart that I'm already a true blue Rafflesian, hidden right inside there.

Once a Rafflesian, always a Rafflesian. How true.



cheers to Athena and my fellow sisters,
Filiae Melioris Aevi

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

 

Damn it, reading rr's and ade's post abt NJ made me nostalgic abt my stone age past. But NOOOO... I'm supposed to hate NJ..HOW COULD I BE REMINISCING ABT IT??? Ok, maybe not the whole NJ... just the food.. Western food omelette, chicken chop, nasi briyani and two bubble teas within 8 bucks!!! OMG, how could they do this to me???

U see, NJ is quite reputed to have the best food in the JC league, I think. Even if it doesn't in the whole Singapore, it sure does in Bukit Timah Rd. Students from the other side of the road are known to cross over for our food, especially so for the first 3 mths. Lemme see... Western food boast of the longest queue during breaktimes, and so does Yong Dau Foo, but sadly, ade said she could find the Yong Dau Foo stall no more when they went back. Mixed veg rice's good too, at least their dishes were to my liking. I remembered there was once rr and I ordered the sinful 三层肉(fatty pork) and the auntie actually said to us in Chinese: I choose those not too fatty ones for u two hor, I know girls dun like the fatty ones. What she did not know was both of us ordered that because we wanted that soft fatty layer to ooz out when we bite into the alternate layers of fats and meat. Argh... so all we could do was to watch her choose the dry and meaty ones while the delicious fatty ones lay there, screaming at us to eat them :(

Ah yes, nasi briyani stall was not bad too, consumed once in a while to spice up our dull life, value for money too! Chicken and duck rice were nice alternatives for me too! And yes, the drinks stall! Selling delicious milk tea and bubble tea! Of course, how can we forget the snacks stall? Patronised it when the other queues were too long, or when we need to grab a snack for munching in lectures, and of course, before assembly time! It became so habitual that it made us decide to skip assembly altogether, for a period of time. Well, it ended because we were CAUGHT!! dammit, on hindsight, we should have just like, ran. Because 1: the teacher was a female and wearing skirt and heels, and did not look very athletic, 2: we were quite a distance from her (u know that stretch of carpark leading to the classrooms? We were almost on opposite ends) 3: Our backs were facing her!! So if we had run and hid somewhere in the building, she wouldn't have caught up with us, and she wouldn't have recognized us cos she couldn't see our faces!! (ok, maybe she would then asked SP for help and SP would use her means to track us down) So for this, we were given detention for one week, and our job was..... to catch late-coming pple. -_-

Talking abt SP. I've been caught by her quite a few times for wearing colored socks, but luckily she always let me off with not-so-nice comments only. So whenever I saw her coming, I'll look down on my feet, analysed what color my socks were, and ran in the opposite direction if they were not white. But there were nice teachers in NJ la, for eg, Mr Ong, our Physics tutor. His vigour and passion in teaching has not been dampened by students like me, after all these years! He's really cut to be a teacher! Thou Miss Chan is kinda naggy, but at least she teaches well, though she almost vomitted blood teaching our naughty class, so much so that she did not want to be our CT in 2nd yr!! Sobz!! Miss Lim, haha, during my short times in her class, I can feel her lameness without trying to, but she's a nice lady la. And hohoho, the ever awe-inspiring Mrs Lim who would go 'Next!' during class. She never failed to cause my heart to miss SOME beats whenever it's my turn or when she suddenly called out 'Puey Ling!' to answer her questions. Her intimidating gaze, omg.

But I guess our class managed to survive it all, despite topping the bottom or second bottom in most cohort tests. And I guess it's the unique 03S25 spirit (slacking spirit i mean) that kept my sanity in the suffocating NJ atmosphere. Naughty too. Only our class would think of elaborate plans to fool teachers during April Fool's Day. We asked the most earnest looking Big Ben to tell Mr Ong: I think u din zip. With which, he immediately flushed red, and looked down, only to find himself fooled. We tried to make Miss Chan think that she's deaf by having someone talk to her in descending amplitude and the rest of the class talking to each other, only with no sound coming outta our mouths. We failed though, cos the fans in the class were making the 'ratatatta' noise, which gave us away. And Miss Chan thought we were crazy, like duno to laugh or cry. But the most lame thing is to ask someone to pretend to faint, in order to see a frantic Miss Lim. My goodness, only this kinda lame joke can fit an equally lame Miss Lim. I cant remembered if we did carry it out. I think we did?? Ahh.. now to think of it, I miss the daily congregation at the grand stand before assembly.. and the stupid card tapping system to track attendance(use fingerprints, dear NJ)... and we the Chem droppers buying food before breaktime, thus not having to jostle with the rest of the cohort. Big Ben is real lucky to have Small Ben buy food for him.

Gosh, this post is longer than i thought. I cant possibly miss NJ that much rite??? But this shall not end after I've explained the escape routes of NJ. Nono, not the fire escape routes, dude, it's the 'when there's a will, there's a way' escape route of the students. 1st up, the gates. The gates of NJ has varied difficulties for escape because of their height, location, and the angle of the ground they are on.

The bus stop gate is the easiest as it has grills for u to step on and it's the lowest, so easy that pple queue up to climb over it. But because of this, drivers passing by Bukit Timah Rd were appalled by the sight of supposedly lady-like girls climbing over it, thus complained to the school. So barbed wire has been installed on top of the gate. But a certain hole in between the wires has increased in size the last time I looked, soo.. u know wat I mean.

The gate near the drive thru is difficult because of its sloping ground, and to get there, u need to pass by the office and possible patrolling SP. I remembered our mis-adventure climbing over it during year 1, when me, ade and suet sneaked out during Chinese break. We suffered erm..a few 'casualties' after jumping down from the rather high gate. BUT we found a gem too!! We could actually slid under the fence beside the gate!! woohoo!! so that's how it became our weekly escape route! But there's still the 10m dash from cover to cover as we had to pass by the track, where PE teachers may be lurking.

The main gate is... big and tall and has a security guard guarding it 24/7, but no one climbs the main gate cos it's always open. It's the only thing that's open. But we have to pass thru the security guard, and be on our alert for any possible SP appearances. Lame excuses includes: My lessons ended, we have to buy paint for banner(think we used this to skip sports day hahaha, I'm still proud of NOT attending a single sports day during my days in NJ), I forgot sth need to go home to get it/buy it etc.

The last option is... to go under. Underground. Wonder where my soil digging skills came from? Well, guys, NJ trained me la!! wahahaha. ok no la, the tunnel was already dugged. Erm I mean the drain that crosses the gate at the track. But u'll need at least one or two strong guys for this Operation Underground. One to lift up the heavy drain cover on the side in NJ campus, jump in, walk till he passes the gate and lift up the drain cover outside the campus, from under. Then he can pull whoever has difficulties coming up from under. U can either heave yourself up, thou that'll be quite unsightly for girls. Or do the 'sideways rabbit hop', it's quite hard to explain here, but basically u balance yrself with both feets on one side of the drain, and somehow get yrself out. It's a gracefull skill, I've seen girls done it so nicely that even if u forgot to wear shorts inside that day, u wouldn't worry abt indecent exposure. But u can do a jump and place both feets on either sides of the drain, and get yrself out too. It think it's the easiest. Oh yes, the 2nd guy should go in last, as he would have to replace the drain cover inside the campus.

Of course, Operation Underground only works after sch hours, as it is in plain view of any passing by teachers from all angles. Provided it had not rained few hours before too, cos the drain would be flooded. There goes the same for Operation Underfence, cos the grass would be wet and muddy. I actually got my blouse hooked by the wire once, which left a small hole in my blouse.

Well, if all else fails, just call a taxi into the campus, hop on, and say byebye!! We actually did that right under the nose of our CT, Mrs Lim, and within seconds in the taxi, ade got a call from her: 'Where are u all going?? Sch havent ended yet u know!' Ade: 'No lar, we going to support Kelvin at Kallang for his Dragonboat compeition! We've got no lessons now ma.. will come back after that one.. dun worry..' SO we've got valid reasons k... I think there was once we came back into sch after our escapade via the bus stop gate, and the guard asked: Where did you all go? To which we answered: Can't talk to u now, uncle! We are late for class already!! And sped offffff!!!HAHAHAHA. Of cos, that's a lie la. But to cover up for that lie, we had to continue running from the bus stop gate to the grand stand, up the stairs, and disappear into the canteen, so as to make us look like we were really rushing for time and cant explain our untimely appearance into the sch. IT'S DAMN FAR OK!!!

OK! ENUFF ABT NJ ALREADY!! But i guess I have a love-hate relationship with my JC alma mater. Hate the sch, but love the people there, well, some pple. Enuff to make me come to sch almost everyday, but enuff to make me pon some sch activities and sneak out from time to time. HAHA. After typing so much, I hope I dun dream of NJ later, it's freaky. (especially the grey uniform that makes us look like stoned persons)



-the NJ student signing off-
(dedicated to all NJcians)

Sunday, August 5, 2007

 

Actually I cant believe I'm still here after sending derek and sop off, should be sleeping u know. But somehow I'm now listening to the nature CD I've bought years ago, waiting for the sunrise, and calmness just engulfs me. I guess there are just some things I feel that I need to pen down before they disappear when I wake up again in the morning.

I hadn't have this feeling for very long. It's that wake-up-in-the-wee-hours-of-the-morning-and-travel-to-the-airport-in-a-taxi-kind-of-feeling. Enjoying the scenery on the way and seeing the airport was kinda surreal. Not much excitement, just at ease. Perhaps I've always liked the airport very much. And today's Changi Airport looked like an airport. I mean in recent years the airport has been the place of congregation of students studying in the fast food outlets, much too bustling and too 'neighbourhoody'. But today was different. The right atmosphere. It was rather quiet and people actually slept on the seats. Makes me think of either me or a certain friend who once suggested long long ago to stay over at the airport.

So once again, the airport woke up the wanderlust in me, and am itching all over to travel again. Actually I chanced upon One Litre Of Tears on the Malaysian Channel today, and suddenly I was thinking: What if I was diagnosed with a end-stage terminal disease, with 4 mths left to live? How would I spend the remaining time of my life? The answer didn't take long, in fact, it was immediate. I would like to travel, to do backpacking in Europe. It's been a dream since sec 3 and I've yet to fulfill it. I dun even mind travelling alone. It would be such a different experience. Free without restraint. I would pick up languages as I go along and eat whatever I want. I would do things I've never done before: bungee jump, parasailing, diving, ALL the seasports.. I can sign any papers now that I'm 21!! I dun need any damn parents' consent! Wahaha... But of course I would come back home after 3 mths and spend time in my home country, catching up with frens and family. I dun wanna die in a foreign country and have my body shipped back, u know. Troublesome logistics on my parents' side. It's not very meaningful but I wanna die happy. Oh yea, I wanna learn instruments too: guitar, saxophone, flute, drums, pipa, guzheng... (ok, that's greedy. how's that possible in 4 mths??) Maybe just Hotel California on guitar, Careless Whisper on the sax, 舞曲on pipa...(ok, that sounds even MORE impossible, nvm)

Nevertheless.. would still love to travel. Maybe this December? Chiangmai then straight off to US/Europe?? (ya rite, look at yr bank account first, even if I start saving 200/mth also not enough) Haiz..we'll see abt it. Maybe I'll inherit a fortune from a distant relative. Till then.

P.S.: woo the sun has risen and my CD is playing Running Down to Home. Perhaps one day I shall live in a cottage at the foot of the mountain, by the river. I'll run up the mountains to catch the sunrise everyday, and run back down home with the running stream by my side. Perfect.

Right now, I think I should go to sleep. :p