Today during lunch, mingyong suddenly asked me about where i'd live after graduation... good question! the answer is 'i dont know' for it always seems so remote to me, the word 'Graduation'. Never did i realise that i'm gonna graduate in slightly more than a year. where will i live then?
All my life in Singapore, i've stayed in hostels, hopping from one to another, from Eton Hall in Bukit Timah (first time away from home), to Raffles Institution Boarding School during sec school, t
here that is the photo that i took in RI, (good), then Dunman High School Hostel during jc (okay only), and now NTU Hall 12 (pleasant). Stories that are related to RI boarding are always alive in my mind. So strict! Yes, all the house mistresses there were very strict. Mdm Cheah (some naughty girl changed her name on the board to Mdm Cheat once) was the head of the house. When i first went there, she gave me the feeling of entering those British convents in olden days where the nuns are everywhere to catch all the naughty girls.
I was rather frightened imagining myself being punished and locked in a dark room... 'oh, how is it gonna be like' i wondered, 'but there shouldn't be any rats in RI at least' and that thought was comforting because i simply hate rats...
And how 'far-sighted' i had been! Cos it was proven right when on one of my first few days there i (and 2 of my frens i think) were locked out of the Moor House (that's the name of the block where other girls and i stayed) because despite the fact that i ran like a lightning back to Moor, i reached the door step at 10:02pm instead of 10:00pm, and that was right, the door was closed just in front of my nose! What a pleasant surprise! The rule was that we had to return to Moor BY 10:00pm (BY and not ON THE DOT or AFTER).. And when they were kind enough to open the door after us banging on it, Mdm Cheah explained to us how the rules and regulations there were to be followed and that we were there to learn the boarding school manner, we're special because we're in a Boarding School and not a Hostel (and not until when i went to stay in a Hostel was i able to see for myself that yes, she was right, there was really a difference, a stark difference!)
'So you have to submit a report to me by tomorrow' said Mdm Cheah, and we followed suit. And that was the first and one out of many reports that were coming my way through my years in RI Boarding.
Do you watch those Chinese show long time ago when there was always this person walking around the campus or the neighborhood saying "It's night time, the weather is dry, be careful about your fire" or something along that line?
When i watched those shows last time, i always laughed at those people, until one day guess who needed to play that role, and it was not even in a play or a show, it was in real life... hahaha, who else but me, but lucky for me, it was not those ridiculous 'be careful about your fire' but a simple 'hey, it's 10:30pm, it's time to sleep' for the whole week, every night, i needed to walk to every room on every level, can't remember how many rooms there were in total, to remind people that it was time for them to return to their room and sleep. After checking all the levels, the final job was to switch off all the corridor lights, no doubt the punishment was named 'lights out duty' and then reported to the one of the house mistresses.
And the cause of this punishment was quite surprising, if you have never stayed in RI boarding school, you may even find it rather absurd. The mistake that i made was to sit on my roommate's bed and talk to her at 10:40pm while i was supposed to be either sleeping on my own bed or reading books at my own table at that time. The rule was 'you can only stay at your own corner and do quite work after 10:30pm.' So a report was submitted by me explaining the reason for my misbehavior and i was awarded with 1 week 'lights out duty'. Of course that wasn't the only time i broke the rules and regulations in Moor House, there are many others and various types of creative punishment that i recieved through out my stay there.
Prep time was the time for us to study, 'remember that you can only leave the study room at 9:45pm, not 1 min earlier' and how clever i was, leaving the study room 4 minutes before the clock on the wall said 9:45pm, reason being my watch showed 9:45, i was certainly caught and my resoning was rejected straightaway.
But for this time, i was really honest, didn't mean to be mischievous. It was ridiculous that i would wanna leave 4 minutes earlier, isn't it? Even if i had finished my work, i couldn't have been so out of my mind to leave early knowing that punishment was definitely coming my way if i did. But the house mistress didn't accept my honest reason, and for the first time there i cried.... in front of them, i didnt care about their presence.
That night I missed home, the place where people trusted me, the place where noone was gonna check on me every single minute.
Well, ups and downs in life, i believe all of us experience, but the most important thing is that we've got no regret when we look back. And now, looking back at those times, i'm glad that i was posted to RI Boarding. And no doubt, compared to the rather run-down (even though it was newly built) dunman high school hostel, the house mistresses were right in saying that there was a difference between boarding school and hostel. One of the obvious difference was that, there was no swimming pool in the hostel (i'm not talking about NTU though, cos NTU belongs to a diff class, tertiary education, i'm refering to those lower education level hostels), but i didnt really care so much about swimming pool, cos i dont really swim, i can only float, so i seldom go to the swimming pool (there's one near dunman high so most of us would go there if we feel like). There were quite a lot crack lines on the walls in my room, i hope they have done something about it after i left. And the lift gave me a fright when one time it jerked horribly and then stop in the middle of nowhere. Darn scared, i thot in a moment I would free-fall, and could tell my physics teacher, Mrs Loo, how the real free-fall felt like.
There are a lot of funny memories about all the places where i've stayed. and with all that, i grow up. got to know many people from various countries as the result of staying in boarding school and hostel, some of them have become my friends-for-life, Yan Ling and Stella, the two seniors who are so so so nice to me despite the
fact that they always say i'm very naughty, i think i was cos i always teased them. Stella has gone back to Hongkong, while Yan ling is now working here, Ching Chui, the 'stupid girl Lee Ting' (she calls me Stupid girl as well), Anesia, Zoe, Thanh Ha, Tu Anh and others. Time flies...
Flash back... thinking of all the punishment and reports that i got to write while staying in RI boarding, (didn't write any in Dunman hostel cos i was in TJ's council so had the permission to come back late everyday, all thanks to Rohan who helped us apply for it, and there were not so many rules and regualtions in Dunman hostel, a positive aspect of it), I have no regret. Sometimes somehow, i missed the house mistresses and tutors over there in RI. The house mistresses were strict and suspicious over certain things (i haven't mentioned the time when all our slippers were confiscated because we didn't place them nicely under or in the shoe-rack), they had mood swing sometimes too cos it was pretty obvious if they were in a bad mood, but behind that facade of being a house mistress, they were just as nice as anyone else, when i accidentally met them again after i left RI Boarding, they smiled brightly, they remembered my name and even how i looked like back then. It made me feel nostalgic. And when Ching chui told me about Mdm Cheah looking rather weak when she met her, I thought perhaps we did contribute to all her white hair.
They have all left RI, I don't know if the new generation of mistresses are as strict, but I know, for a lot of people, those that stayed during the same era as me, when we have a chance to meet and reminisce over the old time, all those stories never failed to warm our hearts, as much as we hated being punished, now we know that we've learnt from all those experiences, and as much as we disliked the idea of being forced to have a 'boarding school manner', now we realise that it's fun actually, being boarding school girls.
All my life in Singapore, i've stayed in hostels, hopping from one to another, from Eton Hall in Bukit Timah (first time away from home), to Raffles Institution Boarding School during sec school, t
here that is the photo that i took in RI, (good), then Dunman High School Hostel during jc (okay only), and now NTU Hall 12 (pleasant). Stories that are related to RI boarding are always alive in my mind. So strict! Yes, all the house mistresses there were very strict. Mdm Cheah (some naughty girl changed her name on the board to Mdm Cheat once) was the head of the house. When i first went there, she gave me the feeling of entering those British convents in olden days where the nuns are everywhere to catch all the naughty girls.I was rather frightened imagining myself being punished and locked in a dark room... 'oh, how is it gonna be like' i wondered, 'but there shouldn't be any rats in RI at least' and that thought was comforting because i simply hate rats...
And how 'far-sighted' i had been! Cos it was proven right when on one of my first few days there i (and 2 of my frens i think) were locked out of the Moor House (that's the name of the block where other girls and i stayed) because despite the fact that i ran like a lightning back to Moor, i reached the door step at 10:02pm instead of 10:00pm, and that was right, the door was closed just in front of my nose! What a pleasant surprise! The rule was that we had to return to Moor BY 10:00pm (BY and not ON THE DOT or AFTER).. And when they were kind enough to open the door after us banging on it, Mdm Cheah explained to us how the rules and regulations there were to be followed and that we were there to learn the boarding school manner, we're special because we're in a Boarding School and not a Hostel (and not until when i went to stay in a Hostel was i able to see for myself that yes, she was right, there was really a difference, a stark difference!)
'So you have to submit a report to me by tomorrow' said Mdm Cheah, and we followed suit. And that was the first and one out of many reports that were coming my way through my years in RI Boarding.
Do you watch those Chinese show long time ago when there was always this person walking around the campus or the neighborhood saying "It's night time, the weather is dry, be careful about your fire" or something along that line?
When i watched those shows last time, i always laughed at those people, until one day guess who needed to play that role, and it was not even in a play or a show, it was in real life... hahaha, who else but me, but lucky for me, it was not those ridiculous 'be careful about your fire' but a simple 'hey, it's 10:30pm, it's time to sleep' for the whole week, every night, i needed to walk to every room on every level, can't remember how many rooms there were in total, to remind people that it was time for them to return to their room and sleep. After checking all the levels, the final job was to switch off all the corridor lights, no doubt the punishment was named 'lights out duty' and then reported to the one of the house mistresses.
And the cause of this punishment was quite surprising, if you have never stayed in RI boarding school, you may even find it rather absurd. The mistake that i made was to sit on my roommate's bed and talk to her at 10:40pm while i was supposed to be either sleeping on my own bed or reading books at my own table at that time. The rule was 'you can only stay at your own corner and do quite work after 10:30pm.' So a report was submitted by me explaining the reason for my misbehavior and i was awarded with 1 week 'lights out duty'. Of course that wasn't the only time i broke the rules and regulations in Moor House, there are many others and various types of creative punishment that i recieved through out my stay there.
Prep time was the time for us to study, 'remember that you can only leave the study room at 9:45pm, not 1 min earlier' and how clever i was, leaving the study room 4 minutes before the clock on the wall said 9:45pm, reason being my watch showed 9:45, i was certainly caught and my resoning was rejected straightaway.
But for this time, i was really honest, didn't mean to be mischievous. It was ridiculous that i would wanna leave 4 minutes earlier, isn't it? Even if i had finished my work, i couldn't have been so out of my mind to leave early knowing that punishment was definitely coming my way if i did. But the house mistress didn't accept my honest reason, and for the first time there i cried.... in front of them, i didnt care about their presence.
That night I missed home, the place where people trusted me, the place where noone was gonna check on me every single minute.
Well, ups and downs in life, i believe all of us experience, but the most important thing is that we've got no regret when we look back. And now, looking back at those times, i'm glad that i was posted to RI Boarding. And no doubt, compared to the rather run-down (even though it was newly built) dunman high school hostel, the house mistresses were right in saying that there was a difference between boarding school and hostel. One of the obvious difference was that, there was no swimming pool in the hostel (i'm not talking about NTU though, cos NTU belongs to a diff class, tertiary education, i'm refering to those lower education level hostels), but i didnt really care so much about swimming pool, cos i dont really swim, i can only float, so i seldom go to the swimming pool (there's one near dunman high so most of us would go there if we feel like). There were quite a lot crack lines on the walls in my room, i hope they have done something about it after i left. And the lift gave me a fright when one time it jerked horribly and then stop in the middle of nowhere. Darn scared, i thot in a moment I would free-fall, and could tell my physics teacher, Mrs Loo, how the real free-fall felt like.
There are a lot of funny memories about all the places where i've stayed. and with all that, i grow up. got to know many people from various countries as the result of staying in boarding school and hostel, some of them have become my friends-for-life, Yan Ling and Stella, the two seniors who are so so so nice to me despite the
fact that they always say i'm very naughty, i think i was cos i always teased them. Stella has gone back to Hongkong, while Yan ling is now working here, Ching Chui, the 'stupid girl Lee Ting' (she calls me Stupid girl as well), Anesia, Zoe, Thanh Ha, Tu Anh and others. Time flies...Flash back... thinking of all the punishment and reports that i got to write while staying in RI boarding, (didn't write any in Dunman hostel cos i was in TJ's council so had the permission to come back late everyday, all thanks to Rohan who helped us apply for it, and there were not so many rules and regualtions in Dunman hostel, a positive aspect of it), I have no regret. Sometimes somehow, i missed the house mistresses and tutors over there in RI. The house mistresses were strict and suspicious over certain things (i haven't mentioned the time when all our slippers were confiscated because we didn't place them nicely under or in the shoe-rack), they had mood swing sometimes too cos it was pretty obvious if they were in a bad mood, but behind that facade of being a house mistress, they were just as nice as anyone else, when i accidentally met them again after i left RI Boarding, they smiled brightly, they remembered my name and even how i looked like back then. It made me feel nostalgic. And when Ching chui told me about Mdm Cheah looking rather weak when she met her, I thought perhaps we did contribute to all her white hair.
They have all left RI, I don't know if the new generation of mistresses are as strict, but I know, for a lot of people, those that stayed during the same era as me, when we have a chance to meet and reminisce over the old time, all those stories never failed to warm our hearts, as much as we hated being punished, now we know that we've learnt from all those experiences, and as much as we disliked the idea of being forced to have a 'boarding school manner', now we realise that it's fun actually, being boarding school girls.
posted by Baby Wombat at 5:10 AM
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