(wordy post ahead) The New York Times calls the past decade the Big Zero- where we achieved nothing and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true. I think all that happened was that I grew from 8-18.
2000: eight years old; primary 2. i liked attending school then, walked to and back from school with friends from the childcare centre everyday. and on the way back, we would spend whatever leftover allowance for the day to buy tidbits from the mama shop. didn’t like chinese lessons. never once completed my chinese homework on time. my chinese teacher was a funny looking old man who smelled funny. even so, i still did pretty well in my exams. p2 was still the year when my scores were all above 80 and surprisingly, chinese was my best subject. art was my favourite subject. took chinese calligraphy and chinese painting lessons. quitted chinese calligraphy and chinese painting lessons. stole my mother’s 10 bucks to buy myself a gum-watch. witnessed a funeral send off together with friends while walking back from school. stood there and watched till it left. the year my grandmother passed away.
2001,2002,2003,2004: nine; i still liked attending school because i still had my childcare centre friends to walk to school with. and my form teacher was a very funny and nice person. left the childcare and peiying primary at the end of p3 because i had to move from khatib to woodlands to stay nearer to my relatives. remember being very sad because i had to leave my friends behind and khatib was a place with many childhood memories.
ten; studied in woodlands ring primary, new school, new uniform, new people. i was put in the last class because i enrolled late. didn’t like it at first, but i made some friends. spent alot of time at the cousin’s because my mum had to work, so i was put under the care of my aunt. listened to o-town, liquid dreams was my favourite song haha(of cos i didnt know what the lyrics meant…until much later). did well in school and was first in class.
eleven, twelve; promoted to a better class. made new friends. had an idiosyncratic form teacher. always blowing up and then walking out of the classroom over petty matters like forgetting to get some consent form signed. so she thinks we are uninterested and unmotivated individuals who doesn’t give two hoots about school…crazy woman. and poor us had to deal with her irregular mood swings. learnt that dna stands for deoxyribonucleic acid and could spell it by heart. saw a human cheek cell and a plant cell for the first time under the microscope. homework, homework. tests, tests, tests. fertilized corn plants for a hybridization project to produce coloured maize. favourite subject was science. primary 6. did five-year-series. played badminton under the void deck. had the same crazy form teacher. played soccer with the boys for the first time. liked my art teacher alot because she was the first art teacher who went beyond just asking us to draw whatever we wanted on a piece of drawing paper. remember getting very worried about my psle score. dreamt that i only had a score of 180. had two best friends then whom i don’t even talk to now. i did somersaults and handdstands and threw punches and kicks.
2005,2006: thirteen, fourteen; Keep reading →









