14 - Always Onz

posted by Yincertus @ 6:22 PM

it's 2012. can it really have been nine years since i stepped into hwachong for the first time, felt the gentle breeze on the air there, felt a little scared of the way the noise in the canteen bounced off the walls, full of happy khaki-clad people? i was still in my rgs uniform, worn paper-thin from 4 years of wear, wondering if i would fit in. i had a face full of pimples and awkward specs, plus for some reason the way i wore my belt made one of my shoulders look higher than the other.

we were bundled into lt5, and barnard gave us a talk. barnard has just retired. he made some remarks about pornographic uniforms. we leaned over the benches eagerly, wondering if we had what it takes - worried about the humanities scholarship interview, whether we would be unceremoniously kicked out after three months. we eyed each other carefully, curiously - scoping out comely members of the opposite (or same - ) sex, most of us excited we had finally left the monastic life of secondary school.

in the morning we stood in a single file, always in a predetermined order which was mysteriously preordained and fixed after a few weeks. i stood between (i think) junrong and jane. then we sat on the floor and giggled whenever mr ang said "wahchong farmily". we never imagined that we would EVER be nine years older.

the most urgent task was passing block tests. barnard kept a list of everyone's results on his desk, cunningly face up, and no one needed telling to go check on themselves. some were discouraged, some galvanized.

in the afternoons we walked across the cow grass from hwachong to chinese high or sim to eat food that wasn't necessarily better, just different. junrong could polish off three plates of spaghetti, and yet remained skinny as an ostrich. sometimes we bumped into the chinese high guys' teachers. sometimes we just sat around talking cock and drinking just tea.

the clock tower rose gracefully from the tar-paved road that arced, a smooth crescent, around the green field. leaves skittered from the trees when the wind came, our shoes got damp from the evening dew.

the air con in the library was cold. we wore jackets while mugging. tong-kai had an discman which sometimes he shared with people to listen to bach while studying. when the rain fell, it clattered over the tin roofs that sheltered the new block.

sometimes, in between class, lt5 got a little noisier as we relaxed, reading play scripts or explaining econs to mel. kaisiang would steal my camera, and start taking glamour shots of shwang. or videos. joyce scrambled over the tables chasing someone for something. someone would snatch away someone else's essay because they had spotted a new (higher) mark and wanted to photocopy.

we ponned assembly and CT. sometimes we hid behind lt5. we were assigned the weird velvet-cushioned seats right at eye level of whatever speaker was addressing us. the whole two years, the only good speaker i remember was royston tan. the rest of them made us "stone".

mr miles expressed interest in the phenomenon of "stoning", whereby one sits very still and takes on the properties of stones, conserving energy to be spent later on soccer, choir, shufa, drama, or any manner of things.

barnard gave his class lecture. some of us are still marxist determinists to this day; others have turned alarmingly neocon. who knew? back in those days, it was just a fancy new graph to me. S/D curves, PPBs, nifty things to write poems about of a salacious nature.

things got more serious at the end of j2. the desperate scramble for universities and scholarships. did any of us even really know what it meant, to leave your homeland for three, four years, some of us forever? the thing seemed bright and just within grasp - that thing, whatever that thing was, that haunts us from the corners of our eyes and in the middle of our nightscared dreams - doing our families proud, living up to expectations, giving back to the country, returning in glory someday to the motherland.

the silent disappointment, the crazy desperation, the grim determination for something bright and glossy in the scholarship talks, always flashing some bright promise of winter jackets and graduation gowns and hats and certificates - all in the picturesque setting of somewhere with snow.

we were so young when the envelopes started coming, or not coming. what did they bring, what harbingers of fate winged their ways through the mails? what did it mean for our futures, our pasts, our loves? we were hungry, young, eager to please, contorting desperately for a chance at the golden ticket to a far country. did we think about what we would find there? did we imagine it could change everything on the outside and in?

were we brave? foolish? stupid? wise?

posted by Yincertus @ 5:27 PM