When We Were Young

Warning: This could be a potentialy long post, read if you only have TIME. (Read Facebook)

A brief visit to a stationary shop and I found myself reminiscing about my childhood days. Some things just don't change. 

Like the Luna colour pencil design and the bright blue Buncho water color box. They were still like how they were 20 years ago =)

1. Arts used to be my favourite subject back in school. I remember how I evolved from the small Luna color pencil box with 12 short sticks then 12 long ones while secretly being envious of some friends who had the 24 colored box.  I might even have stolen one or two from them and watch them cry. Don't judge me. You may have done it too. Maybe you stole the green tipped white eraser with that "B" alphabet. You had the entire collection all brand new. Unused. Only "B" was missing. Maybe I even stole erasers. Haha.

Probably life's most meaningful gift & priceless possesion was  the 36 colored Luna box which I only got ONCE because after that younger sisters who grew up stole my color pencils, broke or destroy them to satisfy thier needs on curiousity. Karma.

My mum would tell me "Irekerethe mothe payyeh ma",aprum Jeeva periya pillai yaa noone, puthusa vangikella".

Translated simply: Used what you have first ma, After Jeeva grow up, we will buy new one.

Please note: This is the same sister who stole the color pencil from me and who happens to be 4 years younger than me.But she's so small. When will she grow up??  By then, I'd probably sulk or cry and at the same time thinking whose color pencil to steal next.  (Circumstances give brith to criminals). I would later secretly hate my sister and thought my mum didn't love me anymore. 

Of course I was too young to know that sharing is caring and wasting things means you're ungrateful.

2. Music became my least favourite the moment playing instruments were incorporated. Maybe because I felt like regardless of how I held the recorder and blew it, the sound that came out of it was just of single entitiy. Noise. These were on the rare days where I actually brinng the recorder to school. Most days, I

a) Forget  it.

b) It went missing.

c) My grandma used it to scratch her back!! ( The invention of brown scracth stick only came in much later.)

d) I made assumptions like my sister must have taken it (Same assumption she made) because we used to share recorders among many other things.The typical middle class family.

e) My parents gave up buying 5 or more recorders in that one school year.

f) I was scared of my music teacher. I still remember his name, Cikgu Saiful.

g) Bilik guru was small and teachers have friends too. I was also scared that  Cikgu Saiful would turn into Cikgu Faisal,  the cikgu who threw water on students face because they forgot to do something. 

End of 1994, was the first year and the only year I received SPBT (Skim Pinjaman Buku Teks) because the next year the school thought my father had a promotion and can afford to buy our own books but all I had was another sister in Standard 1 whom I must pathekeran. (Take care). She must have annoyed the life out of me. In that SPBT room that year, I experienced one of my  most happiest moments, music text book for Darjah 5 was missing. Yahoo. The pegawas SPBT said we have UPSR to study for. Who cared. I don't  have to hunt for recorders anymore. The world had no idea how that meant to me. 

Now music is life. How ironic. It wasn't the fear of music itself. Rather the awareness that we need to know how to do something, to be guided properly so that we can enjoy it and then excell in it.

3. The person who invented the primary school's orang bukan Islam's dark blue pinafore uniform with TALI PINGGANG should be shot dead. I lived to survive 4 years of traumatic BELT hunting mission at home before the pengawas uniform saved my life during Darjah 5. Imagine the burden  my small and thin shoulder had to carry. I had to look for many things besides doing homework, fighting with my other sisters and grandmother and along the way breaking sharpeners, remote controls and glass coffee table. Among the list of things to look for besides belt would be recorders, text books, color pencils, socks, shoes , then shoe lace (when Velcro shoes went out of fashion), normal name tag, Ketua Darjah name tag, badge dan lain-lain.

Here is the best part. Just when I thought, I  could jump in joy because I won and my sister lost. I know. What a competion right?  (Please note that me and my elder sister would be simultenously finding belt at the approximately same time, say about 10 minutes before we go to sleep) I would suddenly start crying because of one or more of the following reasons:

a) The belt that I found does not belong to me. It's my sisters. No one thought me the rule of finders keepers and losers weepers. 

b) The belt's shade of blue is no longer dark. Friends will make fun. And mean pengawas will tug the belt at my waist and say "Apa ini?"

c) It's yours but the button or hook is lost which technically means I have to go and make ammends with the only  grandmother that I had fought with spiritfully because only she can sew it.

d) None of the above happened or I suddenly remembered I need to bring something for arts lesson tommorow and the kedai runcit has closed.

e) I wail longer and then sleep off.

The next morning, the belt would be there because my grandma or mum would have found it and discovered many of our school treasures as well. 

With time we ( the four sisters) became the Pavlov dogs, adjusted to our environment accrodingly and saved our tears for other worthy dramas. We know in the mornings, everything will be there. 

This is where we learn to take people for granted when we should be learning responsibility.

4. Despite all the stealings and irresponsible conducts, I always became the Ketua Darjah or Penolong Ketua Darjah. It was very simple. I was chosen because I had nice handwriting. Apparently,good behaviour is not as popular as pretty handwriting. I think my teacher had a point because when you become the Ketua Darjah, you are bestowed upon such high powers without punishing people yet stroking your ego. YOU have just been given the permission to write on the board without solving any Maths question, fill in the blanks for tatabahasa or drawing some cleft or treble or whatever it was in music lesson. So when you have to  write HIDAYAH X3  or RAZAK X 5 (that means they bising  that many times, I'm not too sure how I arrived at that number or how long one bising session lasts because sometimes I remember reducing the number.) all that matters was to write it as pretty as possible because the teacher, Pn.Mogandass MUST read it.  But now after learning about racism, maybe she picked me because I was also an Indian and my dad was a cop just like  her husband or brother. Wait was she married then? Opps, can't remember now.

Point is,  I guess she could relate to me. ;p

During Pn.Mogandass's time, there were also demotions. This is probably WEIRD to some of you but when my handwriting became worse, I became Penolong Ketua Darjah dan Zawawi  ( I think his name was) among the few successful ones to take away the thone to became the next Ketua Darjah. I lost my power as the girl who always became the Ketua Darjah dan disliked Pn.Mogandass rightaway. My primary school had 6 months of morning session and 6 months of afternoon session. More WEIRD discovery, I know. Every session, Ketua Darjahs' were changed except when handwritings quality was still maintained.  Can't remember how many times, I got promoted and demoted but finally it ended when I became Pengawas, during Standard 5. Haha. That time rumours were that I became one because my sister was one. I'm sure this rumor was spread by my frenemies whom I stole rubber :D and color pencils from. "Pencuri pun boleh jadi pengawas wei".

This is where I learn about being competetive, following an elder's example and practise being fake while turning a deaf ear to my environment.

5. Primary school was tough. My next fear would be the flag pole. Being a pengawas was not easy. Especially when you have to raise the "Negaraku" flag as I call it. Sometime later, I was laughed at a meeting when saying "Negaraku" flag, it was bendera MALAYSIA. Technically, Malaysia is my negara what. Damn, I wish I could tell them that then. There were many issue with the pole and the flag. You have to fold it properly. The stars and moon have to face the right direction and the pengawas pelatih ( the seniors whom we had obession over but sometimes useless ) were not always nice to show us many times. The speed to which you raise the flag. If you reach first and the music stop much later, your are SO dead. And when you successfully do it well, you have to tie it to the pole without causing it to come down at all. If some hawk eyed  mean seniors saw that it went down a little while you were tying it, you WILL suffer. The fact that arts had increased my level of creativity didn't help much besides giving me an over imaginative state of mind. What if the music stop shalfway?  What if the star and moon appeared right to me and wrong to them?  Or the ultimate  What if the pole fell on me the times we had perhimpunan in the dewan? ???  It was kind of light in weight, you know.  

This is where I learned about  humiliation, facing my fears , practising perfection and how important it is for us to appear perfect to the whole world. Something that we all practise untill now. Prove is written all over  the perfect world of FACEBOOK. No one airs their dirty linen in public.

I guess these inexhaustive memories are worth reminiscing for it bring smiles and shed a light upon us that we have all learned to evolve into better human beings. ( I don't steal anymore ;p)  Most of these life lessons held no meanings to us then. We simply acted given the way we were. Spontaneously and very childishly but indirectly it has built our character inch and by inch.

It is indeed true, looking back now I realise that the small me and the big me has many traits in common which boils down to the fact that character building isn't inherited but it was practised day in,day out through thoughts which became words which then became actions. And actions one after another made you the person you are today. This is also why you could always eat meat or kill a cockroach but when someone kicks a cat in a makan shop, you get angry at them. Because both were the choices made by you on how you feel about something and then act accordingly to your thoughts. 

So if today you're someone GREAT it's because you chose to be one and because you have built your character since you were young without you having to know it. And of course it was also because you pernah kena rotan with hangers or kena belt adi (belt beating). Lastly but importasntly, you would never be where you are today if not for some great helpers in your life. Those who laughed at you, called you names like keling or babi, the mum who never bought you new color pencils and the dad who tolle urikiran you. ( A popular Indian term used when you're beaten till your skins peel and flesh bleed).

They were the fertilisers of your growth. 

Please feel free to share this note, relate yourself , share your own memories or comment on any of the above mention examples. Maybe some the facts, time and names mentioned were wrong for this is as far as my memory brings me. Do not take anything personally for this is only a real life story of a  frail young child who was still finding  her place in this big bad cruel world. ;p

If  there is any of my embarrassing moments in school you would like to share, please save me the humiliation and inbox me instead. Hehe... Kindly refer to Flagpole example for reasonings  of this request. and also remember KARMA.

Yours truly,

The color pencil & rubber stealer :)