When i was still a school girl (Part 1)

I was just thinking back upon my schooling days. It's amazingly how fast one grows up. From Kindergarten to primary school and on to secondary then to JC and finally University. Did i really spent 22 years of my life studying? Ok, perhaps not 22 years, but it would at least have been 18 years. Despite numerous complaints about homeworks and exams and stress during those years, studying was definitely the best times of my life thus far.

I vaguely remember those days back in nursery and Kindergarten. My parents enrolled me in PAP back then. Those cute blue uniforms with the mega lightning badge above the left breast pocket. Ugly but forced to wear. Yes, i think i was already vain at the age of 5. I stayed with my paternal grandparents during the weekdays so that i could go to school. The reason being that i used to live in Jurong while my school was in Hougang. Perhaps i was a lonely girl then, no sisters to pick fights with, no sisters to bully and no sisters to scream at, which left me with lots of time alone to doll up and be vain. I recall rummaging through my aunt's drawers to find her prettiest clips adorned with crystals to wear them to school even though i had little hair to speak of at that age. I would spend lots of time in front of the mirror each day trying to pin or tie my hair into the prettiest ponytail or bun before school. Not that there were any cute little boys in my class i wanted to impress, but girls are vain by nature aren't they. They just want to look pretty all the time. Even now, my mom and grandma never fail to remind me that i was a difficult kid when young. Crazy, wilful and stubborn. My grandma probably told everyone how i used to bite her when she refused to buy me sweets each time she picked me up after school. And up till now, her friends still ask her which was the grandkid that used to leave bite marks all over her arms back in those days. They really make me out to be such a terror.

K2 or in my case, pre-primary was spent in RGPS. I think the '86 and '85 batches were the only ones who had this programme introduced. I thought it was pretty cool but have no idea why the government abolished it anyway. I have to admit the hours were long and tiring but i found it more fun than staying home and playing make believe games with a younger sister who cries all the time. Pre-primary was like a prelude to primary 1: long hours in school, fierce teachers, endless homework, intimidating seniors and what nots. Yet, it was exciting at the same time: I could take the school bus with my sister and sit with the rest of the older people; i could put on my cute little blue and white striped sleeveless uniform with matching bloomers underneath; i could stay in class and wait for food to be delivered to us while the others queued for food in the canteen; I could take afternoon naps after lunch while the others were studying and the best thing was the fact that i could go to school with my elder sister. I have always enjoyed the long bus rides to school (I shifted to Hougang at the end of K1) though i remembered always getting bullied by this primary 5 Henry Park boy called Matthew Koh. We called him Mopiko and he absolutely hated it. He would try to taunt me all the time and there was this one incident when i tried to kick him because he was being such an irritant, but he grabbed my leg and snatched my shoe away. Feeling indignant, i confronted him for my shoe and we started arguing which resulted in me scratching him and him getting a scolding from the bus uncle. Hahah. Otherwise, my K2 life was pretty much uneventful.

Moving on to primary school is perhaps an important phase in every child's life because this is when a child officially starts schooling. To me, it was both exhilarating and terrifying on the first day. Having studied in the school for the past one year, my mom probably thought i would be fine on my own. I though i would be too but as i wandered around on my own and saw crying kids with mothers comforting them, i began to feel alone and i cried. I remember standing in the middle of the walkway, feeling lost and trying hard to be brave. I was upset that i didn't had my mother to comfort me and I couldn't find my sister which terrified me even more. It was many years later that my mom told me she actually went to school to see me, only that she did it stealthily. Being in a so called elite school, there was the pressure to work hard. Everyone did exceptionally well in tests and exams and there were still the absurdly smart GEP girls. I was very much the good girl who had to score band 1s for every exam and cried when she couldn't. The very first test that i failed was a models math test. I scored 7/20 for it and went home crying. To make matters worse, i got a huge scolding for failing. And i thought my parents would be more sympathetic since i was already visibly upset. I wasn't a talented kid from young. I didn't have ballet and piano lessons to boast about; only chinese speech and drama lessons which i adored and it's probably the reason why i love chinese language so much. I attended chinese calligraphy, art lessons and took up gymnastics as well but i didn't have the flair for any. I probably led a boring life during my primary school days. It was school and then home after school to study and do homework, i never went out. Sometimes i wonder if that's the cause for my rebellious ways in secondary school.