The Impressionable Days...

If one were to ask me,"Which part of your life was the happiest?". I will say without hesitation,"My Primary School Days!". Generally, my life as a primary school student in Ang Mo Kio Primary, a typical neighbourhood school, was full of life-changing events and I got to meet some great people whom I still treasure as good friends. To summarise it in a sentence, it was practically filled with 99% PLAY and 1% STUDY. To relate all of these meaningful incidents down would be extremely tedious and time-consuming and would be equivalent as writing an autobiography, with the only exception that I may get paid if any does buy it. Therefore, I will do my utmost to entertain you with my anecdotes, which may contain some form of bias in my own perspective.

I still remember it was all thanks to Mr Lau(if I remember correctly), the then principal, for admitting me because my mom missed the registration date for admission and Mr Lau willingly accepted me without hesitation, despite the administration people were making a hell of a fuss. So, sometimes I wonder why people sticks so closely to rules and can't be more flexible? Anyway, thanks to him I got to experience a proper education and meet the people who will change my life. Due to my late registration, I was sent to the last class, which was supposedly filled with people low in calibre. However, it was indirectly a result of that that I got to be the top few in class in terms of academic results. But, I did not shun any who did not know how to spell "police" or couldn't differentiate a noun from a verb. As a matter of fact, I still remember being together with a guy who spoke ONLY hokkien and mandarin and it was remarkably hilarious everytime I recall having to be a translator for him during English lessons! As a matter of fact, my friends back then were mainly people who were thought to be "stupid". But, I saw a different potential in them as friends.

I had a very good friend back then whom I will always stick with in Primary 1. He was, like me, a gentle and soft-spoken guy and therefore we got together due to our similar personality. However, he was accidentally pushed into a shallow but dirty pond in my school garden by someone and I must remark that person is freaking good at pushing the blame. He pointed the finger at me and I was the one to "carry the black wok". Apparently, my teachers thought so too and during one assembly, his grandmother came and scolded me upside down and inside out when we were singing the national anthem! I was so ashamed and frustrated, unable to explain myself clearly and not having anyone to trust me! In the end, he left the school as his parents were moving off to another district. However, what comforted me was the fact that he trusted me and believed that I was not responsible for his unfortunate fall.

I got to know another great friend during my Primary 3 days. He was a very scholarly person and both of us enjoyed reading and we would share interesting things we read in books. However, our friendship was short-lived as he was "tested" to be talented academically and was sent to Anglo-Chinese Primary due to his excellent results during streaming. Seems like all my friendship did not have favourable outcomes.

The turning point came when I got to know the first female good friend during Primary 4. Initially, I was sitting beside another female classmate but was tranferred to sit beside a much "quieter" female classmate as I was disturbing the teacher's lessons while discussing loudly about TV drama serials. Well, it turned out the "quieter" girl was not what she seemed! It seems that I learnt lots of thoughts from her and I will always remember our "philosophical" discussions of the tortoise and rabbit. She would always remind me,"Slow and steady wins the race." We also enjoyed playing those rubber eraser games where we tried to win by turning our erasers over your opponent's. I still have no logical explaination but it seems she kept on winning me. And, she would always say as a matter of factly her philosophical theories again at the end of her victory. But, it was also thanks to her that my results were kept good enough to stay in the top class as she motivated me to do my homework and coached me in my weaker subjects. Well...if you are reading this by chance(P>0.001), thanks for all the encouragement and help back then!

I got to know my best friend, even up to now, during Primary 5. Apparently, he stayed in the same block as me and therefore, I would go to his house practically everyday to "bia" game, to the extent that my mom would go to his house at night and "fetched" me back, with a few extra patterns on my skin as a result. I guessed it was that comradeship that made us stick together even up till now. Although we held several different viewpoints, we respected each other's perspective. Together with anothery male classmate, we would eat together in the canteen every break and play games after school. A very famous game we played back then was "Poisonous Ball". Does it ring a bell to you? It was basically played by having 2 groups of people on opposite sides of a court and attemptting to hit each other using a ball. If I remember correctly, a tennis ball was used initially but after several "unfortunate" incidents, a less harmless ping-pong ball was used as a substitute.

I was like a flash and we had to take our Primary School Leaving Examinations(PSLE) at the end of our 6 year education. I sill remembered I only flipped through the textbooks on the night before the exams, reading them like a story book. I though I was the "best" but I even heard one of my classmates claiming that he did not even touched the textbooks! Perharps it was a stroke of ladyluck, but I managed to fare quite well in the exams. But, strangely I was very disappointed at my results when I received them as I did not make it for any SAP schools and couldn't apply for the same school as my friends. Several in my class even made it to top schools like RGS and RI! Well...maybe I was the less academically inclined one in class? But, I am thankful I did not follow my friends as history may had been rewritten and I may not be what I am today as a result of the differences in experience.