My life (Part two)

Haisian



As I uncremoniously stepped into the then Hai Sing High School (not Marist Stella) , now renamed Hai Sing Catholic School, in January 1998, I become a Haisian ( something I found out only after the discipline mistress , Ms. Goh started to address us. "As Haisians, we are supposed to uphold...."). Yes, that is what the students of Hai Sing are called and no, we do not swim in the ocean waiting to get caught by fisherman.

As a matter of fact, I think I was more concerned with what we called then what I school I actually got into. Therefore when the results for my next posting was out in my PSLE report book, I was numb with emotion. In fact, I suspected that even if I should have gotten RI I wouldn't have batted an eyelid . So who chose the school? My mother did the groundwork for me.

My mother got inside news from people I imagine to be the Wet Market vegetable Aunite, my Church friend's mother and of course, my ever influential Aunite Maureen. She was so Kiasu, she even visited the schools herself and had the principal been free would have been subjected to a rigorous interrogation . And so when she gave the Stamp of Approval to Hai Sing, I enthuastically penciled it as my first choice in my post primary posting option form.

The experience was dramatically different from my sister's . As a top scorer of 250, she even had the choice to choose between a Special School and a normal government school after her results were out. I could only lament that if only I had not used an ink eraser and rubbed a hole in my PSLE science paper, i would have scored a minimum of 270- which of course was total nonsense.

Band of Brothers

I found myself in 1E1, the E standing for express. Though the 1 in front of the E usually signified that we were the best, I suspect the school had a warped idea of placing the better students in a class one would least expect say, 1E4, which was apparently the case in my year.

I made instant friends with Robin and Kee Loong, both of whom Chinese seemed to have no affinity with. Robin had the uncanny ability to transform an essay into a ten page short story which the English teacher, Mrs Teresa Teng would invariably praise. Kee Loong ,Robin and I were caught in a competition of sorts, to see who could write the longest essay, many of which made it to the noticeboard which were, in the words of Mrs Teng, "Exemplary Essays".

As much as Robin was the gentlemanly type, Kee Loong, was the total opposite. He would frequently take out his handkerchief ,which was permanently covered with transparent green mucus, wipe the sweat on his forehead and as a kind of conclusive gesture, fart loudly into the air, all the time trying to look as inconspicuous as he possibly could. He would then pretend to be embarrassed about it.

" what? Don't tell me you never fart before? " he asked innocently.

I could only concede and shake my head as the group dispersed to form a 3m radius around ground zero.

Mrs Teng was by far not the only teacher I remember from those prepubescent years. There was the Literature(which I totally detest, move over Achebe) teacher who seemed to think himself of something between an ecentric artist and a budding poet. He had goatee which I swear looked pasted on. As an ecentric , he once threw a water bottle out of the building just because the student didn't ask for his permission to drink. The pupil didn't bring a bottle after that.

My science teacher came in the form of Mrs Lim, a bent chinese educated lady who looked a little like cleopetra and sounded like Kim Jong Il .

" Clrass, " she would inevitably begin her lessons with.
" I want you all to turn to page 12 of your textbook."

The lesson would then continue in between weird phrases like "gluing (glowing)" splints, "grass(glass) " test tubes and "Clrear? (clear?)" during which there was a collective effort in the entire class to refrain from laughing.

Ironically Chinese lessons were the most interesting. Under my teacher's nose, I would read my novel underneath my desk. It worked fine until the teacher asked me to stand up and read the Chinese passage. Fumbling every other word, my teacher rarely called upon me unless there was time to spare which was almost never.

During those two years in lower secondary, I kept an extremely low profile. In class, when the teacher's back was turned however, Robin, Kee Loong and I were a different story. We stuck post-it messages on people's back, threw crushed paper balls into the dustbin a.k.a NBA and rarely did our homework.

Lower Secondary was so monotonous, I barely remember anything about it. All except the ECA ( yes , I was from that long ago) recruitment exercise .

That day all ECAs were to set up a booth in the hall and to stage a continous string of performances ,during which the individual ECA heads would exhuastingly promote their ECA. Even Chess club could look good then. ( You know it was said that Sun Tzu played chess to formulate his battle formations) I had initially wanted to join the choir, apparently confident of my baritone voice. But all was not to be as I saw the majority of the choir being made up of girls. My mind started ticking:

" I can't join the Choir, there are too many girls"
" Good what, can interact more."
" Cannot let my friends think I come from a sissy ECA le."
" join NCC or NPCC then lor."
"Siao ah, 2 years plus army not enough must add another 4 years is it?"
" then how?"

Yes. I do think like that.

It was then, with the time running out for me to make my choice ,that the band started playing. Actually it was only the drums playing the marching rhythm. I stood there captivated by the drummers. I had always wanted to play the drumset. Here in front of me was my answer. I picked up my courage to inquire about the strange new option opened to me, Concert Band.

Even with a microphone , the coordinater had to shout above the din to get the band to stop playing. He looked murderous and it seemed like he was going to throw the microphone in my direction when the snare drum died down.

"Excuse me." I meekly asked the percussionist, an ah beng look a-like .
"Yeash?" he answered in a Chinese sounding English.
"May I know how long the practices are?"
"about 2 hours," a girl interjected. I later found out she was the drum major of the band.
"Tuesday, Thursday and sometimes Saturday. If you want you can sign up here. Don't worry, It's not a must to join." she chirruped.

I signed up for Concert Band and scribbled it as my first choice in my ECA option form.

A Stroke of Genius

I was fooled by the sugary voice. Band practices lasted 4 hours from 2p.m after our classes till 6, sometimes 7. The optional Saturday turned out to be a compulsory sectional practice. As indignant as I was, I couldn't deny that I was having fun in Band.

The Tuba become my companion of 4 years in band when the conductor, Mrs. Chua, an amicable lady who had a quiet energy about her, choose Cedric for the trombone because his arms were longer- something I took as an insult then. At that time, we were divided to lower secondary practices which was in the morning and main band practices. Together, Cedric, Dorothy, Jermaine, Carol ,another girl whose name I cannot recall and I, practiced under the careful tutelage of our seniors.

Band occupied much of my time. Even as my parents freted about how it was definitely going to affect my studies, I barely gave my studies a hoot. It was amazing how I actually passed secondary one and two

But I did, getting fifth in class even.



Even though I studied( read: skimmed through the textbook) Geography one day before the exam, it became my highest scoring subject. Thoughts of inscribing "Genius", "Chairman"( like Chairman Mao) and "Sir"( after being knighted for break throughs in the geography of the moon) became what I foresaw on my epitaph.

p.s Please note that the less than perfect attendance is attributed to band performances and the like . Comments which accuse me of being a humbug will be vehemently denied and deleted.

By virtue of my results and a stroke of good luck, I entered 3E1.


Gangs of Hai Sing

It was around this time of my Secondary School life that I associated with gangs. I was such a tyrant in fact that they actually mentioned me in a recent anti-drug abuse advertisement. (... ... Donavan, Daniel... ...) - ya right. In actual fact, it was more of getting in trouble with them.

Hai Sing at that time was a gangsterism hot spot. Gangs would cluster outside the school to meet up after lessons. The problem became so severe , the principal urged students to not talk to them . It seemed that they were having a recruitment exercise of their own. Though I never actually saw them in their groups, they were easy to recognise. Sporting long dyed hair, pointed combs and untucked shirts they were not people you could offend.

Uncharacteristically, I managed to get into the bad books into one of the gang members, Jiaju. He accosted (no, he did not solicit for sex from me) me on IRC. Luckily one of my Ah lian friends , Ah Hui was online then.

"OEI, WHY YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT TIME?" I could almost hear him shouting.

" what time?" to which I had hoped he would reply in a friendly fashion, "tiger time!"

That did not come to pass.

" YOU WANT ME TO SHOW YOU THE LOG FILE?"

Now I had no idea what he was talking about. I took the same bus as him everyday and should he speak it, his friends would be waiting there for me everyday. This was getting curiouser and curiouser.

" Maybe, it is Clarence, " my prosecuting attorney, Ah hui quipped.

Clarence had a unsual habit of copying other people's nicknames on MIRC then. It was about to be his undoing.

Jiaju and his gang faced off with Clarence the next day. Both parties went off unharmed. Till today , no one knew what Jiaju was talking about.

I met him on the bus the next day and he smiled at me as if nothing had happened.

He was by no means the only memorable passenger on the bus from Hai Sing though. With my family moving to Simei, I noticed another personality who took the bus at about the same time as me.

This person was none other than Fei Hong. No, her surname is not Huang and yes, it's a she. So what made her so memorable (other than her name that is) ? Kindly examine the case in point:

" Hey Daniel ah," she asked particularly sweetly one sunny monday afternoon , "could I borrow $7 from you to buy a tie ? I forgot to bring mine."

Before I could answer she added hastily, " Don't worry, I will return to you one."

One would be forgiven to think that she would return the $7. She threw me the tie back the following Monday.

The audacity ! I nearly threw it back at her face when I realised that I did not bring mine that day.

******

Rude Awakening

I was unruly awakened as the first Geography test paper in Secondary three was returned to us. I failed miserably. I knew then the leisurely stroll was over.

Secondary three was unlike any of my other years in education. For one ,I was more aware of the need to do well which was honed daily into us by our form teacher, Mr. Alwin Njoo, also our Biology teacher. He was one you did not want to get onto the bad side of. A comedian at times, He would talk about his days in army and about his thirteen wonders in Taiwan .

He roped us in for his gardening project which was the closest encounter I got with forced child labour except that it wasn't forced- well, not really . After months of digging, mixing of cement(which made us feel like construction workers) and wading endlessly in mud, the garden was completed in near picturesque perfection.



I think we also set the record for the number of CIP hours contributed.



We contributed 60 hours can? That's like 30 days X 2 hours of hard labour.

All the while this was going on, I was struggling in my Additional Mathematics. My Additional Mathematics teacher then was Ms. Ang Choon Cheng, whose high-pitched voice you could hear from four storeys below even without the microphone she was so fond of using. Clarence, who assured us that it was indeed the aliens speaking to us then, would lead the whole class in the X-file themesong whenever she came for class. An accountant before she became a teacher, she was methodical in her teaching methods. I was particularly fond of her handwritten notes.

"Eh" she would say sounding as if she was speaking through her nose,
" Class, look here . When lga + lgb this equals lgab."

Despite my fondness for her notes however, I never got logarithms and flunk my first Additional Mathemtics Common test. I thought I was going to have to drop it. That is until I sought help from Ruben Aneh, my primary school tuition teacher's son. My best friend,Cedric was also conveniently the top scorer for what was my achilles heel.

Working feverishly, all the time balancing band, school and gardening, I got a mediorce B4 in the final examination which was in my case, a great improvement.




Going Solo



The year of 2000 saw more than failures, shattered dreams and bottomless pits. It had it's fair share of successes, glories and victories.

I was chosen by the conductor for a solo performance for the band's concert. As the lights dimmed and the script called for my entry, I knew this I was the culmination of the events of the year. The fears dissapated. The audience was no more. I took in a sharp intake of breath and played.

My mum was smiling so broadly her eyes became slits.


Striking Gold

Unperturbed by the woes of 2000, 2001 began fast and furious. Jumpy as rabbits, teachers set about preparing us what seemed to be the impending Apocalypse - the "O" levels. Beneath the myraid of activities , the Band was also readying itself for it's own test, the Singapore Youth Festivital. It was our first year in the judging of bands.

For how long we practiced, I lost count but the months of practice had come down to this one moment. The speaker was reading the results by appearance.

"Hai Sing Catholic School." I tightened my grip around my friend's hand.

The silence was deafening.

"GOLD"

I could only see my band mates jumping in elation through blurred vision as I wiped away my tears.

******

I got 10 points for my "O" levels that year. I got A1s for both my Mathematics and Geography. Cedric and I catapulted to overnight fame as we were introduced by our principal as two of the top scorers. Though many said I could have done better, I was just grateful to have survived.

As the year 2001 drew to a climatic close, I accompanied the band for an exchange in Australia. We stopped at Brisbane and Gold Coast. It was an experience best explained in pictures. Enjoy!


Warner Brothers Movie World



My friend complained of a monotonous "ahh.." coming from behind his seat.
Cedric and I were behind him.



Timothy, Me (after a wild,wet ride) and Cedric.



Exchange at St. Micheals.