So excited recently. Just got in touch with long lost classmates from primary and secondary school! We found each other through Facebook, 24 of us so far. Each of us connected and added more classmates whom we are still in contact with. We have even formed a clique in FB to share private conversations and to catch up with each other. My phone is buzzing with plenty of notification alerts whenever my friends posted something. This is personally so significant to us because it has been decades since we last saw one another. Imagine for some of us, we have known each other since Primary One! Below is a class photo of us in Primary One. Yes we were from one of the Methodist schools.
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| Our primary one class photo! |
It is amazing we can still recall each other's names when I cannot even recall most of my classmates' names from Pre-U and MBA days. I think it is because the sweetest and innocent memories always come from our childhood.
I am most touched by one particular classmate whom I have a fond memory of. She joined my class in Primary 3 and left after Primary 6. In that short 4 years, we used to swim and play together. She also used to stay a few blocks away from me. She came from a relatively well-to-do family and she was an extremely smart girl and did very well in her studies. Yet she was very humble and did not look down on poorer kids like me.
After she left to join a prestigious school, both of us used to write letters to each other for a few years. I remember in some mornings, while I was walking to school, her dad's car would passed by and she would call out to me and waved at me excitedly! In one of her letters to me, she would write: "Saw you from my car this morning, waved at you but you didn't see me. How are you, my friend?"
This time when we found each other in Facebook, she said she has been looking for me for decades! She said she even went to my old house just a few years ago to have a look but suspected I had already moved. And she questioned me if I had sent her an anonymous Joker card back then. Haha! I told her I seriously could not remember anything about it.
My friend said we were sending Christmas cards for a few years and then she stopped getting a response from me at some stage, so she thought I had moved. We could have stayed in touch all these years! Every time she looked at the Joker card she would think of me. But unfortunately she had just cleared out all the old post cards and letters just hardly 2 months ago.
When I told her I had dreamt of her just 2 years ago, the same old tanned bright-eyed girl in primary school, she laughed. She said she was very honoured to be in my dream after so many years! She rekindled little details of our memories of school which I had totally forgotten. She said she remembers my "fated duty of guarding the staircase ... was it every recess? And also catching the late comers in the morning. Did you even get time to eat on those days?". I could not even recall this. In those days, I was a Prefect from primary 5 till secondary 4, and then Head Prefect.
She remembered the tiny school bookshop perched right at the top of the flight of staircase leading to our chapel hall. She wondered how come we did not walk to school together. That was because I used to be fetched to and fro from school on a trishaw! I only remember we walked home after swimming lessons. Sometimes we had stopped and buy ice cream or some snacks from the mama shop.
I am most touched by one particular classmate whom I have a fond memory of. She joined my class in Primary 3 and left after Primary 6. In that short 4 years, we used to swim and play together. She also used to stay a few blocks away from me. She came from a relatively well-to-do family and she was an extremely smart girl and did very well in her studies. Yet she was very humble and did not look down on poorer kids like me.
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| Taken during one of our swimming lessons |
After she left to join a prestigious school, both of us used to write letters to each other for a few years. I remember in some mornings, while I was walking to school, her dad's car would passed by and she would call out to me and waved at me excitedly! In one of her letters to me, she would write: "Saw you from my car this morning, waved at you but you didn't see me. How are you, my friend?"
This time when we found each other in Facebook, she said she has been looking for me for decades! She said she even went to my old house just a few years ago to have a look but suspected I had already moved. And she questioned me if I had sent her an anonymous Joker card back then. Haha! I told her I seriously could not remember anything about it.
My friend said we were sending Christmas cards for a few years and then she stopped getting a response from me at some stage, so she thought I had moved. We could have stayed in touch all these years! Every time she looked at the Joker card she would think of me. But unfortunately she had just cleared out all the old post cards and letters just hardly 2 months ago.
When I told her I had dreamt of her just 2 years ago, the same old tanned bright-eyed girl in primary school, she laughed. She said she was very honoured to be in my dream after so many years! She rekindled little details of our memories of school which I had totally forgotten. She said she remembers my "fated duty of guarding the staircase ... was it every recess? And also catching the late comers in the morning. Did you even get time to eat on those days?". I could not even recall this. In those days, I was a Prefect from primary 5 till secondary 4, and then Head Prefect.
She remembered the tiny school bookshop perched right at the top of the flight of staircase leading to our chapel hall. She wondered how come we did not walk to school together. That was because I used to be fetched to and fro from school on a trishaw! I only remember we walked home after swimming lessons. Sometimes we had stopped and buy ice cream or some snacks from the mama shop.
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| Our old school back then, which has since been demolished to make way for a MRT station |
Our school tuckshop was so small with just 4-5 stalls. She loved the curry chap chye with bee hoon that was her favourite food for the entire year! I remember the coloured syrup drinks and all the unhealthy snacks we fed on. Not forgetting the old market at the back gate of the school. We feasted on so much sweets, chewing gum, soft drinks, and suck on those syrup ice cream in cylinder form! We even bought paper dolls from the mama shop behind the school. Haha!
Such beautiful sweet memories. My friend is based in Mumbai India now. I am waiting to meet up with her soon and with everyone else. I feel on top of the world at the moment, or at least the bunch of us are.... how apt but to play this old song from our time....back then, we felt WE ARE THE WORLD.
damn old school! but it's lovely to meet up with these friends once in a while! all the childhood memories... :)
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