my secondary school days

in secondary school...

1. i had my secondary school education at tun seri lanang secondary school from 1979 - 1982. the school was previously a malay-stream school. in line with the government's policy to phase out malay schools and have english stream schools, my cohort of students became the first english stream cohort of the school. that was the reason why most of us who did not even choose the school landed there instead.

2. given the malay-stream origin, and the education policy at that time (1979), those who did not take malay as a second language had to take it as the national language or bahasa kebangsaan. i had it easy as i had some malay grounding given my part peranakan background. but not my classmates who struggled through the year. and during exams, my classmates would copy from me... and of course, the teacher would conveniently excuse herself to allow us to copy (i think she knew that if she did not do that, she would have to answer the principal...)

3. my second sis influenced my choice of extra curricula activities and choice of subjects to a great extend. she was in the national cadet corps. so, i did the same. i became a member of the national cadet corps and after 4 years, i was promoted to a cadet staff sergeant (ssg).

4. again, due to my malay background, i enjoyed excellent working ties with my malay classmates and ncc mates. they quickly embraced me as one them.

5. i was the flag raiser when i was in secondary school.

6. in secondary 1, i failed my chinese so badly, my form teacher asked me to consider switching to malay as a second language. i did not.

7. my sec 1 form teacher was a malay lady who enjoys wearing tight kebayas to school. she was also our science teacher. once, during the laboratory sessions, we inadvertently lost control of our live cockcroach and it ran into my teacher's kebaya. it entered between her breast... you can imagine the commotion that day!

8. i was a class monitor in sec 1.

9. one of my favourite lessons in sec 1 was literature - greek stories, jason and the golden fleece, the rabbit's foot, etc.

10. in secondary 2, my pe teacher was this guy called mr gabriel tan. we enjoyed teasing him. once, during our swimming lesson at katong pool, one of my classmates went underwater and pulled his trunks off! :-)

11. i was in the afternoon class in sec 2. one of my habit was to read while walking to the bus stop. once, i walked into a lamp post. there was loud "bong!!!!" and everyone at the bus stop looked up and stared at me. i acted super blur and continued walking.

12. i had a gay english teacher in sec 2 - mr gwee. some of the things he did that we did not like - he changed our school song from malay to english. he changed the design of the school tie from something that was rather nice to one with horrible turquoise blue colour.

13. mr gwee once told my class boys to stay back in class after formal lessons so that he can share with us how to tell if a guy is a virgin... cannot recall what he said, but i think it had something to do with the colour of the head... lame.

14. i first wore long pants in sec 3. remembered buying it from a shop in tanjong katong. it made a super proud to be wearing it on the first day of school. i felt like an adult. well... it's an ego thing!

15. i faced in my first major dilemma as i went into sec 3. i love science. i love technical. i love arts. due to streaming, i have to choose one. in the end, i chose technical. as i said, my sis had a huge influence on me. as science stream was consider to be the best of the three, my sis got me transferred to science even before school term started. so, i ended up in science stream... i went along. after all, i enjoyed science too...

16. i was a prefect in sec 3 and sec 4.

17. i joined the gardening club, the english oratorical club, ncc, athlethics... once during my gardening club planting and clearing of weeds sessions, i found a set of rodent's skeleton! initially, it scared the shit out of me. once i recovered from my fright, i actually took the skull and played with it!

18. i was a member of the english oratorical club (in fact my whole class were!) by default because my sec 3 form teacher - mr rahim - was the teacher in charge of the club. we all loved my rahim! he was a funny but, in a way, very serious teacher.

19. sec 3/4, it's all about sex... puberty and hormones aplenty. my class (both boys and girls) would bring porn to school and exchange them amongst one another! one of my class girls actually brought a whole set of magazines for me... cos her sis was an air stewardess!

20. i had my own study group. 6 of us including me - doris, eng chuan, hh, lb, vanessa & i. naturally, everyone would pair us up... but nothing happened... ha ha... i was actually closer to another girl. as for study group, apart from studying together, we would go sight seeing almost every weekend. chinese garden. clearest memory.

21. i experienced my first `break-up' in sec 3. i got to know this girl called lay nah during one of the ncc leadership camp. i decided to call off the `relationship' even before we started... reason - she lived in jurong, i lived in marine parade. it would be so difficult for me to take a bus all the way there to see her. long distance relationship was difficult and worst of all - it was exam period. thinking back, it was rather funny. excuse was super lame...

22. i was a happy, cheerful and highly energetic kid. my bio teacher mrs chan once commented that i bounced from point to point rather than walk.

23. i took my o levels chinese twice. and for both times, i got  "d7" grade.

24. i can add more, but shall end here.

25. i went to temasek junior college in 1983.