hooray! school's out!

my daughter should be posting this blog. but she isn't. yesterday's the last day of school for the year & in her case, last day in primary school. i asked her if she'd like to have my camera (& i even offered her new batteries) to capture in digital print moments commemorating a passage of rites with her classmates/teachers she may want to keep for posterity, but she politely turned me down. hey, what gives???

my parents never owned a camera & i got my 1st only in med school. looking back, i now despair at the numerous precious memories that now only reside in the dark recesses of my mind. if i had a camera when i was 12, imagine the stories, illuminated with photos, i could have come up with!

i have a faint recollection of my last days in primary school but i still remember some of the teachers vividly. mrs thumboo comes to mind 1st, followed by puan rahmah & mr brockett. puan rahmah was the primary 1 class teacher & i was her "pet". she liked me so much, she even asked me, on more than one occasion, if i would be interested in one of her daughters. up to this day, i still do not know if she was teasing.


primary 1 : pn rahmah - mother-in-law??

mr brockette is eurasian (my 1st encounter with someone so big & fair-complexioned) & primary 4 class teacher, schooled in british tradition in hong kong & a true blue disciplinarian - he could very well had been the headmaster, except that the latter was even more fierce than him!!

primary 4 : mr brockett - disciplinarian

there were also a few trainee teachers who, despite their brief sojourn, endeared themselves to my classmates & i. mr nathan came in at primary 4 - he was a really likeable chap & we tried to help him as much as we could. i remembered his appeal - that during his assessment, when he asked questions, as many of us as possible should put up our hands, whether we knew the answers or not. but we felt sorry for him because he failed in his stint with us. mr boh ooi chek, a batu pahat boy, was with us in primary 6. he was truly "one of us" & i really missed him when he left. i wonder what he's up to these days - should be enjoying retirement by now.

but what i do remember clearly of the good old days is that school holidays is for.....er.....holidaying, be it a few weeks with the grandparents, hanging out with friends/relatives, going on a vacation with the family. or even just "lepak" around at home. but none of that sedentary stuff for our modern super-competitive parents/students. as i write this, i know for sure plans are afoot for day classes, night classes, tuition classes, extra classes, motivation classes, memory improvement classes - any thing that will make sure the students stay ahead of the competition.

hey, doesn't anyone know how to be a kid anymore?