Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Good Times



I’ve been having more frequent moments of missing Penang, so I’ve decided to blog on some old pleasant memories.

1997, 1998. My last two years in a uniform that was for the most part white on Monday and off-white on Friday. Not that you'd notice for a lot of the time, the haze being pretty bad then, just as it is now, thanks to neighboring bon-fires, pyrotechnics, and overdoing the first steps of "Native American Traditional Smoke Messages for Dummies" and “Extreme Baking With Mak Cik Enak”.

Form 6. Senior enough to have some influence, hopefully mature enough to use that influence well, and most importantly close enough to the end to sneak in a bit of fun. I remember getting Editorial Board trainees to lock some of us seniors in the Board room on Mondays so that we could get an additional hour of sleep while the assembly droned on in the distance.

There were Ed and Bob, our mascots/pets – balls made up from old EdBoard printed and discarded drafts and completely enclosed in cellophane tape, which somehow ended up being thrown out the window, and thus had EdBoard members following suit (if found, the fact that they were made from our papers was rather incriminating).

There was Chien Seng, whose extracurricular skills included grabbing someone’s foot and within 3 seconds, have untied the shoelaces and thrown the shoe out the window.

Yes, a great many things went out that window. Including some objects you wouldn’t imagine being able to fit through that window.

There were roti jala days, when your truly would take orders that looked something like five roti jalas, three big bags of curry and a coupla Malay donuts, whisper the order to the roti jala seller while happening to drop an empty school bag, and picking a somewhat-not-quite empty bag a little later to be taken to the Board Room, where having food and drink was completely outlawed and thus even more enjoyable.

There was the once-only Teddy Bear Week which some of the Form 6 girls thought would boost morale, which of course it did when the boys placed the bears in positions from the Karma Sutra.

There was Shuffle Puck and Lemmings, from an ancient time of computer games. The updates post-it board in the Room, on which was pinned up the quote, “Trainee, if I don’t see that report tomorrow, you’ll never have kids.” Somehow the opposite seems to have more effect: as my friend once said in response to a teacher threatening demerits, “Lu bagi aku demerit, aku bagi kau anak.”

As Seong Hong might say, a decent dose of senti. Good times, indeed.

5 comments:

Angeline said...

Those were good times indeed..Ed Board, MAD...amidst much laughter and tears (yes, i said tears..ask me why some other day :p)
I just noticed that you have the word "Narcissist" below "Posts i enjoyed"...who taught you that? huh? huh? Oops..I guess that makes me the narcissist now.. :p

eg9 said...

Kama Sutra?

hm. I'll bet it boosted something more than morale...

Mike Wong said...

Damn, now you've got me missing MY school days!

AF said...

Angeline: Haha, the "narcissist" line has been there for quite some time actually. Will indeed ask about old times when the opportunity presents itself.

Sneexe and Mike: heh heh, hormones and old times.

tsh said...

good senti shit.. haha

i remember my first few days in the edb; you were so excited at the prospect at teaching us all pagemaker, yet i never did go for a single lesson.

thanks for not raping me