The Good Old School Days as a Saint

I was a Saint for 12 years.

No, don't look at me like that. I meant when I was in school. I was in Saint Margaret's for 10 years and Saint Andrew's for two.

Photo Credit: St. Margaret's Primary School

We were often reminded that St. Margaret's is the oldest school in Singapore so as her students, we are to uphold her honour and integrity.

My Primary 1 class!
Can you guess which one is me? ;P
Most of us are still Facebook friends, even with our teacher, more than 20 years later! =)
(P.S: I am the blur-looking one 5th from the right, last row)

Our primary school is set on a hill, Mount Sophia to be exact, and had army patrol vehicles driving pass every now and then because we were right next to the Istana. Our school building was so old and dark that we often heard (and told) stories of how so-and-so classroom/corridor/toilet was haunted! It was a blast =)

As we progressed to almost-teens (Primary 5-6), the Boy Band revolution started and all of us picked a group that we liked and started following them. I remembered that we especially loved the Backstreet Boys (I still do *laughs*) and Spice Girls; we would sing and dance to their songs in the classroom after our exams!

This is damn embarrassing but one day my mum dug out this old file of mine where I kept cut-outs of my favourite celebrities!
I used to love Thomas Ong! The fellow never aged a bit.. it's not freaking fair.

My Primary 6 class
Our teacher, coincidentally, is in the same church as me and  she still recognizes me after all these years! =)
(It's amazing because I look nothing like how I looked then and if you must know, I'm 2nd from the left, last row)

We then moved on to Secondary School where our Principal and teachers tried to instill some grace in us. Twenty years later, this is still how the school wanted everyone to view its students (nice to know that nothing has changed since my time)..

Photo credit: St Margaret's Secondary School

But the truth is, 80% of us were nothing like this at all! We wore shorts under our skirts, walked and sat like gangsters, talked trash and spoke our minds like there ain't any boys to judge us because.. they ain't any boys to judge us! We could be our true selves, discover who we really are and not have to worry about impressing the male species.

My Secondary 4 class
(About 8 of us are moms now! How fast time flies!)

We were the batch that started off in the original campus at Farrer Road and then got shifted to the holding school at Commonwealth (as seen in the picture above). We spent more than two years raising funds for the new school (at Farrer Road) but we never had a chance to enjoy the fruits of our labour. We only returned to the new school to collect our 'O' level results!

The only good thing I remembered of the holding school was that each class could paint the walls of our classroom in any way that we liked because the school would eventually be renovated anyway. So paint we did. We even painted the corridor black like the road, complete with double yellow lines! =)

Even though I wore the same green polka dotted uniform for 10 years, I loved it! It was the easiest uniform to wear as there was a zip just underneath the fake tie (yes it is fake, thank God!). Getting dressed in the morning meant "zip and go"! The material was also quick to dry so if you had an "accident", you could wash it off in the toilet and wait for like 15 minutes before it is completely dry and no one will know (if you must know, yes, that happened to me).

Which is why I got quite a shock when I proceeded on to St. Andrew's Junior College and had to actually tie a real tie! *horrors*

Getting dressed in the morning no longer took the usual one minute. I had to tuck in my shirt, adjust my skirt, tie my tie! Thankfully there was a straight bus from my house to the original school campus at Malan Road so that I don't have to wake up too early in the morning.

The old SAJC premise

My JC class at our school's track

I fondly remember training hard for my Physical Fitness and even managed to get a bronze award for the first time! I think I was the fittest then. The sister and I often ran or cycled along the river near our house and I even climbed 19 floors everyday!

I don't think I can even climb 4 floors to my house now.. *sigh*

Our class as well as the class next to us (which were the few classes who took literature as a subject) were heavily involved in the Drama Club's play production. I was part of the backstage crew and was the lighting person as well. It was the first time that I have ever controlled a bunch of switches that can influence whether a character gets light on their face or not.

One of the scripts where I scribbled notes on when to turn on the lights

Although I really hated studying for the 'A' levels (torture I tell you), the experience was somewhat made better by having really great classmates to chiong (rush forward) with!

School was fun but I doubt I would ever want to go back and relive those days of spectacles, ugly hair and acne skin (skinnier body aside)!

I'm happy where I am as a mother of two =)

Linking up with:

P.S.: Yes, if you must know, I was the one who forced suggested to the Gingerbreadmum to add that girl in the middle to the button. Cute what.. ;P