ten years in scgs has made me complacent, spoilt me silly and turned me into an ungrateful brat.

not because sc is bad - but because it is too good.

alright, i sound silly but this is because i miss sc so damn much'. everything, i miss everything about it. i knew i would miss it from the start - but i didn't know i would miss it this much. i can't bring myself to sing the school song. and most of the times when i keep really quiet and walk, wallet in hand and by my side, i'm thinking, 'what would it have been like if i had gone somewhere else?'

the same, i guess. nj is fine, really it is. it's just so different. let's start with the toilets. i suppose nj's toilets are what you consider normal; but look at it from a spoilt sc girl's view. being in sc for ten years has made me perceive sc toilets as normal. it was only when i went to nj i realized we were spoilt beyond comprehension. scgs toilets are spacious, spotless and located less than half a minute away from the classrooms. the tiles are painted green with nice designs.

and then, on to the people. my class is alright. but the majority of them are chinese-speaking. people always say sc girls have a different way of speaking. i didn't notice it till now. we do speak differently, and because i've spent ten years in sc, i've been brought up to believe that was the normal way of speaking here in this little place called singapore. people who used singlish were in minority - and people who used chinese to converse? heck they were out of science fiction novels as far as i was concerned.

in sc i could run up to someone, grab them and wave my hands about and ask if they'd watched or read snow falling on cedars. i could sit in class facing the window, looking out at the camp site, or hang by the railings above the coi pond where ms heng the fish lived - and really talk. not just gossip, but talk, about life, about aspirations, about souls.

i do miss ms heng, our principal. the nj principal is totally fine; but ms heng, oh she is so principled, so proper and she speaks with such conviction even in her short statements that it leaves an impression, no matter how small. and the sc cheer? yes i miss it. we only had one cheer which in my opinion sounded very michael jackson, but oh how i miss it. and i miss 4PR with chalene's regular speeches and the sing-a-long sessions i used to roll my eyes at during contact time. i think i'm going to break down soon if i don't stop thinking about all those things.

i took sc lit class for granted. i want to kick and slap myself for sleeping during ms ma's lessons, whining about ms sie and making fun of kai when she asked chris chua to write in her autograph book. not that nj teachers aren't good - i'm sure they are, but in my opinion, no other school [including jcs] can do lit the way sc does it. i miss my lit class, i miss sitting next to mel during class and getting excited together when ms ma flashes a certain poem, or when i read bits of prose. i felt so alone during the introductory lit lecture in nj. i found out we were covering conrad, huxley and eliot/hardy. and all around there were murmurs of 'ugh i hate lit' or 'ewww conrad'. me? i was trying not to jump around and look like a freak because HELLO I LOVE JOSEPH CONRAD. and then when the lit teacher talked about the poetry festival i was one of the few who actually wanted to look at the booklets. if i was in sc, the whole class would be up there and the alfian and alvin pang groupies [dawn+shirin+i] would be excited together. even sam t doesn't seem all that thrilled.

WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE IN ARTS IF YOU HAVE NO PASSION FOR IT HUH? makes me sick dammit.

and when our teacher outlined what we would cover in a level lit as compared to o level lit [to reassure us o level lit students would not get bored] i realized sc covers lit at a level standard. i know i keep saying this, but i really do take things for granted. even if i did go to ac and take war lit, i doubt that ten creffields would be able to bring ac up to sc standard. i once talked to my parents' friend who taught at rjc, and she told me if i could do well in sc lit, i must be fantastic because the way the teachers marked lit in sc was mad. i never believed her till today. the way our teachers mark have become rather normal and frankly i feel ms sie is lenient.

the thing about me is that when i love certain poets and writers so much - it gets like this. if you but mention, or cover one of their poems in class, i will breathe, 'oooh william blake' or 'WILFRED OWEN!' or merely keep silent with all this shouting in my heart. why? because poetry seems to reveal the deepest darkest depth of a person and after reading all of it, you feel like you know them because you have loved the work and you have, hence, loved who they are, how their mind works and the people that write. and when they are mentioned, you feel so proud, just so proud, even though they're buried somewhere remote in england or may be hardcore plagiarists because after reading their work, you have loved them for themselves. they become your very best friends that you just can't stop raving about all the time.

i love lit, i love being in arts stream, and even though nj people don't seem to - i'm going to show them how sc girls do it. if they're going to think i'm weird for launching into applause just because the teacher talks about samuel beckett or ae housman, let them. i love lit and i'm not ashamed of my passion.

i love scgs. i am an scgs girl, before i am an njc student; or any other jc for that matter, should i decide to leave.

+ posted by M @ 8:09 PM