A Look Back in Time: Pre-University School Days (Part 1)

Part 1: The beginning

I stepped into the class room with trepidation. It was my first day in a new school and to start a 2 year Pre-University course, with the hope of passing the Higher School Certificate well and be eligible for enrolment into the university. And hopefully a better life ahead, for me and for my parents.
A simple dream of a Kampong boy who was educated in a kampong primary and secondary school, now entering into a suburban secondary school for a pre-university education (different world! very self conscious lah of my kampong background).
The class was noisy. An air of festivity. There were a few groups. Some had joined the class in the beginning of the school year in January (their pre-lim results must be good lah). Others, like myself were joining only in March after our O level results. But they all seemed to know each others as they came from branded schools called brother and sister schools. No wonder they speak so eloquently..did I detect some slangs?
Where to sit? Sneaked into the back and ponked onto an empty chair. Very very self conscious as I was wearing my old school uniform that had seen better days and my almost worn out badminton masters shoes. Worst was I had the apek style haircut from the Chinese barber shop at the local village market just before school starts. ( Mother said it was for good luck?)  Malu lah.
Then this tall skinny Indian classmate from another group saw me and came over to introduce himself..very confident,..Hi I am Cobra. Alamak, ada gang ah? My secondary school was in a village that was infested with gangsters. And now here? in class?
Seeing my confused face he said his name was Subra but his friends call him "cobra". He was from the Base and so were 4 of our other classmates; another skinny guy who called himself "Guru", so holy (actually short for Gurucharanjit), a stylo milo girl call Brapa, another skinny Indian guy with struggling puberty moustache and beard said with his hand extended "Money". Ah? (funny names but later I know that it was Praba who was wearing boots!!! Wow! Got attitude and Mani short for Subramaniam). A cute Malay girl calling herself Zab (or was it Zap..be careful). All were from the Base and studied in the same secondary school as Cobra.
Oh hi! so all are from the same kamponghood..the Base.
Everyone was so warm and friendly introducing each other, no class divide, no attitude. Soon inhibition, trepidation. self conscious all left the class room. Joined in the festivity. It was a very noisy class. And it was not just a class but a MULTIRACIAL class! We had 6 Indians, 3 Malays, 3 Pujabis (Guru Singh, Jit Singh and Hairy Singh who did not wear a turban but had his hair cut (was it because of this that his father called him hairy? No. His name was Harry but pronounced as Har-ri and gosh he chewed betel nuts!! He taught some of us later the art of chewing betel nuts! Our teacher and principal would have gone bonkers if they had found out) and an Eurasian boy called Timmy. A melting pot of different cultures!
A tall slim well groomed elegantly dressed lady with a branded handbag walked in and went to the front..teacher's table. "Good morning, I am your form teacher Mrs A. Chi" ( Ah..Achi).
There were no lessons for the week so one of the  girls called Pris (thought I heard Priest) and another called (now I know) Praba decided that we shall all go up to the front one at a time to introduce ourselves. Alamark! How ah? Never been up front and talk. Tongue will get twisted and then tied up and face all red. Lucky I wasn't the first one and heng ah! after the first few it did not carried on as some girls could not take the too personal questions that were asked of course lah by the boys. Curious mah.
For example, one very brave boy called Lek (I think ex ACS) asked one of the girls who was introducing herself as to what colour of panties she preferred! My face was red man, for the girl but she was cool cat and gave all the expectant boys the answer without batting an eye. Wah, ada respect lah.
As we built our comradeship over the days I too was morphing to become a half city boy.
A few weeks later a group of class representatives was formed to meet the discipline master to seek permission for the boys to wear trousers instead of short pants which was the school's uniform except for senior prefects. Our school was an Integrated Secondary School which had both English classes and Malay classes from secondary one to pre-university two.
Of course the Discipline Master was not pleased to be confronted with such issue. However, the truth was that we were all approaching 18 years old and we have grown taller and also our limps were longer and hairier. As we have to buy the short pants which were pre-tailored and came in sizes of small, medium and large, the short pants were not fitting. For the tall guys the pants were too short and for the short guys it was like wearing bermudas. ( our shorter classmates literally bought white bermudas to wear!! Hee! Hee! Hee!) In the end we got the permission to wear tailored trousers to look decent! (so hairy legs were no longer exposed and our class girls got no more chances to pull the leg hairs as we ascended the stairs...gee!).
Our request to wear black leather shoes as part of the uniform was turned down as the Discipline Master felt that wearing leather shoes would erode the school's staircases! Gosh. where did she learnt that leather shoes can cause erosion to cement staircases? We all wonder as to her intelligence.
Then a bombshell landed.
We were told that some of us had to change class. From A to B and some from B to A because of the syllabus and time table for the subjects.
Of course this caused both confusion and many of us dislike the form teacher of B a Miss Teo.
After a week some of our classmates from A marched to the principal's office to complain (ada attitude dah).
We learnt democracy early and not be forced down by the tyranny of Miss Teo.
Hurray! we won and all of us were transferred back to A and it was mayhem.
This episode bonded us as one cohesive class (all for one and one for all?) and the days, weeks and months ahead became more eventful.

.