my junior college days

my college days...

1. i was in temasek junior college (tjc) from 1983 - 1984. as mentioned, i was influenced by my second sis. i went to tjc in part cos my second sis had her jc education in tjc.

2. i was in orientation group 14. i got to know khoon seng in the orientation group. he was my best friend in college.

3. i raised the school flag on wednesdays. that was the day when we all had to wear our college tie and sing the college song - it went "it matters not where we are from, to temasek we now belong. sharing experiences, yours and mine..." and so on.

4. becos of my science background, i got myself enrolled into a triple science class. i took bio, chem and physics at `a' levels. in my second year, i dropped my physics to 'ao' levels.

5. we were all required to join at least one extra curricula activity. i tried joining the college choir (in part cos my second sis was in the choir too). went for the audition and was asked to sing a song. it caught me by surprise (stupid me!). on the spot, i sang the national anthem... i was nervous, i went out of tune... needless to say, i failed :-)

6. failing to join the choir, i challenged myself to do something out of the world. so i joined the chinese orchestra instead! this despite my screwed up chinese. nonetheless, the chinese orchestra became one of the best memories of my junior college years.

7. while in the chinese orchestra, i played the er hu and zhong hu. in fact, i found myself to be rather adept at string instruments that i ended up learning almost all the string instruments including the luan, liu qin, yang qin and the pipa! i was no good when it comes to wind instruments. never good at blowing things... :-)

8. i never pass my chinese as a 2nd language in my whole life! i sat twice for it in my `o' levels and thrice for my `a' levels. for all my attempts, i obtained d7s! i even failed my oral exams! guess my dislike for chinese (that started in pri 4 after my chinese teacher wrongly accused me of deliberately shooting her) was too acute to be overcome.

9. i belonged to civics group (cg) 19/83 and my cg tutor was mrs so. she was also our chemistry teacher. my class comprised 14 girls and 4 guys (including me). my classroom was located at the third floor of the central block in the college.

10. i didn't like general paper lessons, or rather, i dislike my gp teacher - ms hsu (she later became mrs tay). one day, while discussing the topic abt the importance of music, i shared that tones have all along been impt to human beings and for that matter, tones are very important for us to be effective in our communications. a few days later (obviously ms hsu forgot which class she conducted), ms hsu came back to my class and shared that in one of her class, one student (me of cos!) said that music was so impt that one could even equate speech to music... and she laughed out loud. i felt so misquoted and embarrassed by her!

11. mrs bok taught us bio. she's malaysian and she was rather blur, but we all loved her.

12. once we had to dissect live rabbits for bio lab classes. my classmates and i managed to get the rabbits from chinatown maxwell road (i think we bought 12). brought them to college and i volunteered to chloroform them all. i placed all in a huge trash bag, poured chloroform onto some cotton butts and before throwing it into the trash bags. and to ensure maximum effect, i pour the rest of the chloroform into it. pure. the rabbits went crazy... they struggled and fought for their lives. the trash bag broke. out came all the rabbit jumping (they went as high up as my eye level!) and literally screaming. it was weird. that was my first time hearing a rabbit screach! a few seconds later, they dropped onto the ground, dazed, dying, and totally knocked out. many had blood flowing out of their eyes... i picked them up - one by one, placed them in a pail, brought them to the lab and we dissected them... as we did it, my class girls cried.

13. another time, we had to dissect earthworms. it was rather coincidental that it poured that morning and the school corridors were filled with earthworms. they had crawled out of their holes as it was all flooded by the rainwater. my class guys and i had fun picking them up... in the lab, we poured boiling water onto them. that was the first time i saw earthworm `jump'. very drama.

14. reflecting on the above 2 incidents, i think i was very cruel. i will never do such things now!

15. miss kee taught us physic in our first year. new teacher. enthusiastic but we didn't connect with her. mr pakri taught us physics in second year. he was a pervert who enjoyed touching my class girls' hands. we gave him the nickname pakricus garfieldicus as we didn't like garfield - a very popular comic at that time.

16. my junior college education revolved around 3 things - class, chinese orchestra and khoon seng. class - for obvious reasons. chinese orchestra - my eca, again for obvious reasons. khoon seng - my orientation group buddy. we continued keeping in contact after orientation. we would spent hours together after class, after chinese orchestra practice (lion dance practise for khoon seng). we would go to east coast and chat through the nights...

17. i had my first experience in politics in chinese orchestra. the form teacher in charge was miss kee (my first year physics teacher). she came in and tried to meddle in our chinese orchestra committee affairs. she came in between us and the orchestra alumni... we hated her! well... reflecting back now, i think we were just simply childish.

18. after my college education and while waiting for enlistment, i worked part time as a traffic `counter'... i literally sat at different traffic junctions to count number of cars passing through the junction. when i went for the interview for the job, i was so boh-chee ("no balls" in hokkien, or "lack the guts") i asked my mum to accompany me... :-)