My journey...Part 2

After regaining some of my enthusiasm on writing, here I present to you...my journey Part 2.

The schooling days...

After much of the happily and carefree kampung life, I was began to embark to another part of my journey, i.e my schooling days!

I received my first time education (informal), also known as pre-school education from my third sis. Since my family was poor at that time, my ma and pa simply didn't have that extra money for our preliminary education. I learnt to write A,B,C and also 1,2,3 not from any kindergarten teacher in the world. Instead, it was my sister. That is why I'm particularly enjoyed children songs even until now, thanks to the lack of the exposure when I should learn it at that time. :) When the mood is in the air, I will sing a few to cheer myself and thinking how good I was in memorizing those words...Ding dong bell, pussy in the well, who put her in, little Tommy Lin......

OK, I'm prepared to set out for my primary 1! My school is located 10km from my village. It is situated in a small town which was perched on some hilly areas, and from school, I can witness the majestic scenery of the banjaran Titiwangsa. My parents enrolled me in a national school and to be specific, all of my siblings were educated from the same school! Even though my family is a very typical Chinese family and like the other chinese families do, we SHOULD be sent to chinese schools. Instead, our parents sent us to national school. Their reason was so simple. They wanted their child to be educated in Malay and English, so that they can use both of the language proficiently when they go and seek for jobs later in their life. Our parents did not want us to be ended up like them. Cannot even understand or read a simple Malay/English letter from the government. But of course one of the main disadvantage from this was all of us can't read Mandarin!

I was accompanied by my second sis for my first day of enrolment in school. Feel a bit bored since I did not know anyone of those who was same class with me. I was assigned to 1 K, which was later changed name to 1 Hijau. I can't remember much of what was happening to me for that whole year. What I managed to remember was that I wanted very much to become a class assitant monitor and I lifted my hand up once the class teacher asked who wanted to become one. Unfortunately, my application was rejected :( Then in one occasion, I remembered bring my sis's big white bag to school. The boys in my class was a bit notorious. There was no teacher in the class and the started palying the chasing game. My big white bag became the victim of their game. They stepped on it when they were running and jumping from chairs to chairs and my big white bag became a black colour bag with numerous shoes prints on it! I was scolded nicely by my sis for that. Haha. I did pretty well in academic and I remembered making my ma proud by producing 7A (various subjects) in my report card and she liked to praise me in front of the neighbours. :)

Then I was in 2 Hijau. Settled in a class in the upper floor. Had 2 blackboards in the class, located vertically to each other. One at the top and one at the bottom. When the blackboard at the bottom position is occupied by writings, the teacher will pull the another blackboard down and placing the one with writings to the top by operating the pulley. For me, with the 8 year-old thinking at that time, thought it was one of the greatest invention ever! A few girl classmates and I loved to squat down and sat under our wooden study tables. Down there we will have a bit of chat, shared some biscuits and played games. I'm not sure what were in our mind that time but we kind of liked these activities very much and we did these quite frequent in the class when the teacher was not around. When I was in standard 2, my sis who is 1 year younger than me started her primary 1. I used to wait for her during the recess time and we will be headed to our our school canteen to grab some 10 cents fried sweet potatoes. Our pocket money was 20 cents each and by deducting the 10 cents for the fried sweet potatoes, we managed to save 10 cents and thus started our saving money project.

We were moved to another building near the canteen when I was in standard 3 (3 Hijau). This was the last year that I'll be in evening session. Standard 4, 5 and 6 will be in morning session. I liked to do a lot of picture colorings in the B. Melayu text book. In fact, the whole class of mine liked it. What's more, it was graded by our teacher. Hence, when there was a new topic being introduced, we will color the pictures as colorful as we can and try to get grade As as many as possible and compared the amount of As among ourselves. These were the most unforgettable moments in Standard 3. Some other unforgettable moments including: I was slapped by the dental nurse for brushing the wrong side of the mouth when she conducting the 'how to brush your teeth correctly' by holding a set of teeth in front of us. I gave a slap to a girl fren and ended up in the penyelia petang's office. This year, I made my parents proud again by securing a 3rd place in my class, and I was given a chance to attend the Upacara Penyampaian Hadiah by the Headmaster. I was so happy that my parents came to the ceremony and watched me receiving the present from headmaster on the hall stage.

Starting standard 4, I was reshuffled to class 4 Jingga. Farewell to my classmates in Hijau class of 3 years. 4 Jingga consists of pupils with smarter brain, in other words, stiffer competitions for getting high rank in the class. Some of the classmates in this class were still remained as my good frens until now. 4 jingga is basically a bunch of naughty, notorious, noisy but yet intelligent brats. That was why my class was well known all over the school for that. No teacher was willing to become our class teacher. The syllabus for standard 4 were more intriguing compared to Std 3 as we were introduced to Alam dan Manusia (subjects about science, geography, history but mostly science) which was quite fun and knowledgeable.

Standard 5 and 6 Jingga, I shall summarize it in one paragraph since the enthusiasm juice is getting drier. I was placed in a laboratory-cum-classroom in Standard 5 Jingga. We'd got to see speciments of reptiles, amphibians in large jars. This was the year that I got bullied by a spoilt brats. He chased me after school and was trying to beat me. He likes to threaten me in the class. Sigh, I never make him angry or what but somehow he liked to bully me. In Standard 6, the final year in our primary schools, we were especially nervous as we need to face the major exam, the UPSR. Still, we enjoyed very much that year. We had the most fiery teacher in the school, Miss M and we were so scared of her. She likes green colour very much, all the exercise must be underlined with green colour. Must pay attention in her class, or else...you will get the super duper hot slapping from her. I kena once, for the stupid 'pongkes' which i don't know that was the 'penyodok' that she meant. Had a pinch on the face and a big slap on the back. Pity me, I was the first student on that year that received such a noble award. Fuh! Well, all in all, I managed to get 4As in my UPSR that year and once again made my parents proud. :)

Goodbye primary years.....and welcome secondary years....
To be continued....