Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of ....School?

Well, I did admit to being a procrastinator...thus the lapse of more than two weeks...so, to continue...school days...Hmmm..

My mother has told this story, more than once, just so to embarrass me - that I ran crying from the classroom on my first day of school. Remember, there were no kindergarten at that time so primary one was my first experience (I can't possibly remember the seperation from mother when 18 months old!) being away from mother.. So naturally when I don't see her, I cried and ran towards the tuckshop where I was seperated from her.. This I'm sure happened to a lot of kids.. Embarrassing.

Anyway, I've learnt my ABC's and I could count to one hundred, before I even went to school.. (my mother had her good points too). And because I am so clever, the teacher asked me (7 years old) to write stuff on the blackboard for the other students to copy.. I was elected class monitor and was sometimes told to go to the next class to keep and eye on them.. Wonder why the other class had no class monitor.. I remembered the 1B class teacher, Miss Betty Lim. Can't remember who my class (1A) teacher was.. so sorry for that...mainly because Miss Lim was kind of short and round like me and always smiling. By the way, I went to Birkhall (Road) Primary School which was later combined with Queenstown Primary School.

In primary 2 I got to know a Mr. Wee who taught art and craft.. He's not my class teacher but he instilled in me the love for needlework and almost anything to do with art and craft. I learned to make bead-bags and also how to print on cloth... In those days we used a template over cotton cloth, colored in the design with crayons and then placed a piece of white paper over the pattern and ironed with a very hot iron. This printed piece of cloth is then sewn up neatly and I got a table napkin. Totally color-fast..not even boiling in water could remove the colours!! Only thing was that my mother complained that her iron was ruined.. (I volunteered to lend the iron to the school for this project and the filament got burnt). Another project I did in Pr 6, was to weave a carpet... I shared this project with another girl and when it was exhibition time, the teacher decided that to show people that we did it, we took turns to make a smaller version of our work during the exhibition period. (This smaller carpet - 2 of them - was promised to both of us but I never saw it after all was done..??)

One reason for not remembering my class teacher was that she accused me of dishonesty.. You see I was good in all my studies.. no mistakes.. so.. one day I got back my Chinese test paper and got 98/100.. The teacher circled the word for 'tree'... she said I didn't dot it which I did.. She then accused me of dotting the word AFTER I got back the test papers!! ME DISHONEST?? I swore not to learn Chinese after that!! (Well my grades dropped and you'll learn what happened later).

In Primary 3 I had a tonsilectomy at the beginning of the year. When I came back to school I was informed that I was selected to be a prefect, but they asked another girl to hold the post temporarily.. She refused to give up the post and so I just left it at that. No big deal. I became head prefect in Pr 6 and was always late for school... No problem.. I didn't have to queue, just patrol the corridor which I did after sneaking to the classroom to put in my bag. During my hospital stay, there was a lady who went round to all the patients and asked them if they want to do cross-stitch, to pass the time.. (no tv then, only piped music.. ) I asked her to show me how it's done and from then onwards I liked doing cross-stitch. I did cross-stitch with raffia to make a bag for one of my craft projects in Pr 4 or Pr 5, both of which was a blur.. During these times and before the PSLE Exams I was asked by my class-mates to give them tests.. So we sat someplace and I would ask them questions, after quickly reading through.. That was how I revised my studies.. I did mentioned I was very clever (big hat to me) and my maths was very good.. I remembered that during the PSLE exam I finished my paper very quickly and then fell asleep at the desk.. The invigilator (a teacher from another school) was worried and kept tapping on my desk.. I think I fell asleep for 20 mins and woke up, annoyed with the tapping.. I looked at the teacher and asked if I could hand in my paper.. She thought I couldn't do it and was surprised when she checked my paper.. I supposed there were no mistakes because I scored well and went to Raffles Girls Secondary School...My class teacher said I had to smell his foot first before I could go to that school.. Well how about smelling MY FOOT!
[I wasn't the smartest student in school. There was this boy in my class Chan Wai Meng, who did so well in the PSLE that he was offered a place in Victoria Institute which was one notch better than Raffles Institute although his parents only chose neighbourhood schools for him...they couldn't afford to send him to the other more prestigous schools but he got help from the Ministry of Education...]

Secondary School...Sigh... we were not from Raffles Girls PRIMARY School and were treated like lepers by those from RGPS and also most teachers... We were easily identified because we went to school for the first week in uniforms from our primary school.. We were given a stack of papers with uniform pattern and rules and what not, and book list, etc., on the first day and were told to get new uniforms by the second week.. And the first 2 classes were reserved for RGPS girls and so I was in class 1/3 together with some who became my best friends.. In secondary one we had to study all subjects..English, Literature, E-Maths, A-Maths, History, Geography, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Art, Domestic Science (Home Econs) and a second language -Chinese.

Secondary 2 : we were streamed.. in Arts class you had to take History which I hated and I went to Science class although I hated Biology and Chemistry.. Fortunately we need only take two of the sciences if we so chose.. and I took Physics and Chemistry.. No dissection for me!.. Yucks! As I said before, I swore off Chinese and my grades dropped and so I went from Sec 1/3 to Sec 2/4 to Sec 3/5. During one of my failing-Chinese classes, the teacher told me not to sit for the 2nd language paper for the 'O' levels so that my certificate would look nice..no failing marks...(lucky me..my year was the last one before it became compulsory to take the 2nd language..yay!!) So.. because I didn't take Chinese at the year-end exams my grades were high and I was 'promoted' to Sec 4/2 . I made new friends, one in particular was Chan Fong Chee, and there were the twins Judith and Julia, Oi Chin, and who else?? Can't remember.. But still my best friends were those from Sec 1/3... Nai San, Fong Peng, Chui Leng, Fong Wah, Wai Lin,....

After 'O' levels I went to Singapore Polytechnic, made a few friends and went through lessons there like a zombie.. Didn't know what I was doing.. the rage then was electronics and so I chose to learn that.. Unfortunately the professor teaching that was also new to the subject and he confused me more that anything and I was spaced out (people might have thought that I was on drugs) and failed the second year (my dad, the wise old man, sat me down and did not scold me, but just remarked that I wasted one year of opportunities..wake-up call!!) So I ended up doing 4 years for a 3-year diploma course in electronics and communications... The only funny thing that happened was also related to Maths. I said before..I was good in Maths.. so good that I finished in 2 hours what was a 3-hour paper. After checking it numerous times I decided to hand in the paper and walked out of the exam hall.. There was a buzz as everybody else started to panic and checked their watches and looked around.. until the invigilator announced that there was still one hour to go before time was up. A big Sigh of relief from everybody.. When the second year exams came.. my class mate warned me not to leave the exam hall early and so I sat there and did all questions for the fun of it (Only required to do 5 out of 8) Hahaha..

Another incident that happened during this time generated a rumour later in my life...one of my classmates was always making fun of me until I got so fed up that I stood up to him and dared him to fight with me... He told people that I know martial arts!!! Hahaha..... EVERYBODY WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING.. HAH! HAH!