Memoirs of a confused mind

tuesdays with haoz:Chapter 4..."First to bata,then to school"

No,I am not here to promote Bata to everyone.But I guess most of my generation of kids have heard or seen the slogan above before.The buying of new shoes before the start of a new school year.Remember the days when your mother would jostle with other aunties at the school's bookshop to be at the front of the queue to buy school textbooks for u.U stand there with other blurry-eyed kids your age sipping slowly at that packet of "not so sweet" lemon tea and thinking of the mischiefs u r about to commit in the coming school year.

Well,those were the days huh,I guess its pretty obvious I am gonna write about school life,its gonna be a pretty long posting but take yr time to enjoy it because I assure u,u will like it.

Primary school....

Remember the days when cute school bags and pencil cases that have 101 compartments ruled the classroom.Where 'tok ka' and catching were the standard recess activities(I came from a boys school so forgive me if i do not know wat gals do k:)) and when a bowl of noodles costs 50 cents.Well,thats primary school I guess and in my 6 years in montfort junior school,I come away with valuable experiences which I would like to share.Some are funny,some are painful but I guess all are great.

1.I came from a chinese speaking family.The only english I knew before kindergarden was only the alphabets and thats abot it.How bad was it?Well,on my first day of primary school,we were told to write our names on the excercise book.I couldn't understand a thing that came out of the teacher's mouth and so I just do but all boys do well in,copy!I looked over the table and did wrote wat the guy next to me wrote..."yeo min hao..".It was then that it struck me that NAME is name!something my mom taught me just the night before when I was too restless to remember.

2.I was never the role model student.In fact I was a constant pain to the teachers I guess.I have not much recollection of primary 2 and 3 except that my primary 3 form teacher always loses money from horse racing and that bookies will come in their thick gold chains in the middle of the lesson to collect money from him and they will disappear and we will have a free period.

From Pri 4-6,I have a terror of a teacher and her name is Miss Sim Ai Koon.She made me hate school so much more than I already did.Canings were a daily thing.I would be considered lucky if i got caned less than 10 times a day.For me,the standard would be around 50 per day.Why?Well,like i said before,I was never a good student.I was lazy and restless in class,and she used to give piles of homework a day which I could never finish.So they just pile up and up and up.I would hand in screwed up work and she would just tear them apart and I would have to redo them again,not before she gives me a good caning.She used to tell me that she would rather spend 1 sec tearing my work apart than spending 2 hrs marking my work and making her vomit blood.My life was at an all time low then,I did my homework late into the night with my hands swollen from the canings.I began to loathe school and started playing truant to avoid hell.So bad that i was called to the principal office 3 months before PSLE.He did not scold me or reprimand me and I was pretty stunned when he actually offered me sweets and talked to me nicely.

I guess that worked and I went back to school after that.Miss Sim just told me this:"I am not going to give u homework until PSLE.To me,u r invisible in the class and its up to u to decide how much u want to learn."I didn't complain because for the first time in 3 years I managed to focus and really get down to studying instead of playing catching up.I was stripped of my prefectship(hard to believe i was one huh) and i really enjoyed my new lease of life and in the end I left primary school with a psle score of 240.

Secondary School...

Secondary school days were hard to forget.Teenage angst and puberty ruled.Football was a daily thing.Other boys would go down to shopping malls to pick up girls from other schools but me...I would head straight down to the field after school.Playing until it was time to go home for dinner,rain or shine.There were also many nice things to talk about during my secondary school life which i spent in montfort secondary but i think i will just share the best of them.

1.I would often go to school with shoes that have alot of holes in them which are often brown rather than white and pants that are patched over and over again.This was due to playing football in a desert like school field.No matter how hot it was,we would be there,something that i cannot understand till now.My uniform would be wet from perspiration and people would not sit beside u on the bus home if they have a choice.Though tired and dirty,no one complained and it happens all over again the next day.

2.I was never an english speaking kid.My english grades were often mediocore and i just cant seemed to improve.That changed in secondary 3 for me.

How?Simple.I had a crush on my english teacher.

Her name was Miss Angela Tan,she was not pretty and not gorgeous.She was just sincere and caring and I guess I like that point.English lessons soon became my favourite lessons and i strive to do well in my english to impress her.Looking back,it was pretty silly but then i was i just wanted her to recognise who i was.My english improved tremendously and I became the "potato" people know me by since then.Though she stopped teaching me english in sec 4(she became my geog teacher in sec 4)I continued to do my best in english and in the end i managed to score an A1 for 'O' levels(though i pretty much screwed up my GP in 'A's but it was pretty good all the time until 'A's).

3.Boys school are full of teenage boys with raging hormones and once in a while,a certain vcd would surface in class.Those would be the odd days where they will be no soccer as everyone would be at someone's house to watch the vcd.I dont think i have to tell u what it contains .

4.Fights were a common thing in my school.I myself fought a couple of times.I guess it looks silly now as we fought over things like spilled 100 plus and chocolates but then,it was like a reputation thing,not wanting to look weak,we would challenge each other to a fight.The class,instead of breaking the 2 guys up,would chant "FIGHT,FIGHT,FIGHT!!" and everyone would wait anxiously for recess where the whole class and often the whole level would gather in the toilet to watch.It was not just slapping and pushing around but punches and kicks were exchanged often leading to a bloody mouth or nose.I took my first punch in my first fight and boy,did it hurt.However i won because that idiot slipped and fell and i just went over to kick him until out form teacher showed up.So there we were pretending to pee and comb hair with a bruised jaw(me) and a bloody mouth(him).

But i guess there was nothing malicious.It was just things that teenage boys do.I never bore a grudge against anyone i fought before and we become good friends again 2 hours after the fight,as do everyone else.

Like my principal said then,"there is no honour in six people beating up one fella,if u want to fight,do it one on one with hard punches and kicks but make sure any grudge is forgotten after that."

5.Being neighbourhood kids that we were,we never really cared about wat other people think of us.We live by our own sets of rules then and and never envied anyone from the better schools because we know we r better than them in our own way.Life was simple and I never had complications of the heart to deal with.Though alot of my friends have their so called "stead" then and i admit that i wish i had a "stead" too but i know i just cant get into a relationship without making a full commitment.Just give me my football and my friends and I would be contented.

Junior College dayz...

Serangoon Junior College was my destination for my post sec sch education.For the first time since kindergarden,i was studying with girls.It was a huge culture shock for me,not that i was complaining though.I made alot of great friends and had my first relationship in jc.it was definitely one of the best times of my life.

1.After wearing white and blue for ten yrs,i finally changed to wearing the biege and brown of srjc.Sick of the tight fitting uniforms which my first 3mths classmates love to make fun of,i bought uniforms that are a few sizes bigger for life in srjc.My shirt was XL and my pants were 33 even though my waistline was 28 then.Its all about looking cool because if i had bought the correct size,i would have looked like a nerd.

2.One can never study well in the study area of srjc.Students throng there in groups after school to socialise and talk cock.Especially during 1st 3 mths,much to the ire of the seniors who are really trying to study.Pictures were taken there and dai dee were played there.Alot of things were done there and studying seems only to be done when the exams are coming.

3.Crappy friends are a must.I would have never made it through jc without my crappiest of crappiest friends.People like ah kow,kenneth,alex.brian,risshe and many many more.Remember the times we did the odac cheer just outside the canteen.Or the times we would hide in LT 4 before a certain lecture and scare people coming in.Those were really the days man.

Guess i'll wrap up chapter 4 here.Just wanna bring back some memories of days gone by and though somethings might look stupid now but hey,it sure was fun doing it last time.Well,till next week,adios amigos!