...eat slowly...
...and lie about your age.
[or at least get a rejuvenating massage so you feel a lot younger on your birthday, @ Estebel Spa].
Happy '25th' birthday nyet! *lolz*
Monday, January 18, 2010
The secret to staying young is..
...to live honestly...
Monday, January 11, 2010
Big girls don't cry
I remember my first day in Kindergarten.
In those days, no one has heard of Nursery or Playgroup or any of that nonsense. Us kids, we start school at 5 years old when our parents (my grandmother in my case, Mum was a teacher and couldn't take annual leave on the first day of school- duh) put us into a fugly checked uniform and tell us we're going to 'K-wan' at the nearest 'P-A-P'. I don't know what that means but I got a new water bottle and shoes to go with the uniform and its all looking good.
Lalalala.. we stroll along like any other afternoon walks. The sun is shining and we pass by an empty playground. "Nanti balik boleh main kat playground ok?", my grandmother assures me.
I hold on to her hands and skip along, feeling very excited to be in 'K-wan', Mum told me I would have nice friends and a lot of fun things to do. We turn round a corner and I stop in my tracks. No nice friends here, I am faced with a congregation of Brylcreamed children, all crying, some hysterical. They're all desperately clinging to their respective guardians. The teachers are yelling and sweaty from trying to exercise crowd control. I start to panic a little bit but my Tok Mak pats me and mutters words of assurances which I do not hear over the din.
We're all hearded into chambers that resemble a little more than a mortuary with alphabet stickers on the walls and small orange tables and chairs set in clusters. Fun is a foreign concept in this classroom it seems!
I feel a mounting claustrophobia at this point, that I would be abandoned in this whitewashed room with its glaring flourescent overheads, and would never see my Tok Mak & Tok Bak, my parents and smelly brother and cat- Bobby- anymore. My life had officially ended.
I join in the howling of my friends who had magnetically attached themselves to walls underneath the louvre windows holding onto the hands of their loved ones. But the witches pull us away one by one and close the shutters with a finality that makes us howl louder. In our mutinous state, we crying children cling to each other for comfort, each feeding off the other's panic.
By then, I had made up my mind to hate school, especially this one with its smelly and mean teachers. With its colourless walls and disinfectant odour. How long do I have to put up with this torture!!?
Sidenote: I put up with a decade of official schooling + 2 years in college + 3 years in uni + 1 year in postgrad + 2 years in Masters. Not bad for someone who started off so badly eh! *masuk bakul angkat sendiri, actually I was putting off going to work* But then, Mum had transferred me to a more fun school called Zion Kindergarten so kudos to them for instilling a sense of lifelong learning in their charges. :)
***
And because I remember all too well the (bad) experience of a first day at school, I prepared Arissa well in advance for her transition into school- by talking to her about the new school, taking her there during orientation and helping her make friends with the other children. We spoke about her school bus and her teachers and her newfound friends at length to whip up the excitement of going back to school.
I don't know if she remembers what was spoken (at 4, I sure as hell didn't) but little did I know, she was so ready to go back to school I had zero problems on Day 1. I didn't realise how much she yearned to be with friends her age.. even the solo bus ride did not daunt her.
When I got there, she ran over to me excitedly "Kakak tak nangis tau, Kakak dah big girl!". She's positively looking forward to 'Skola Masjid' every day!
In those days, no one has heard of Nursery or Playgroup or any of that nonsense. Us kids, we start school at 5 years old when our parents (my grandmother in my case, Mum was a teacher and couldn't take annual leave on the first day of school- duh) put us into a fugly checked uniform and tell us we're going to 'K-wan' at the nearest 'P-A-P'. I don't know what that means but I got a new water bottle and shoes to go with the uniform and its all looking good.
Lalalala.. we stroll along like any other afternoon walks. The sun is shining and we pass by an empty playground. "Nanti balik boleh main kat playground ok?", my grandmother assures me.
I hold on to her hands and skip along, feeling very excited to be in 'K-wan', Mum told me I would have nice friends and a lot of fun things to do. We turn round a corner and I stop in my tracks. No nice friends here, I am faced with a congregation of Brylcreamed children, all crying, some hysterical. They're all desperately clinging to their respective guardians. The teachers are yelling and sweaty from trying to exercise crowd control. I start to panic a little bit but my Tok Mak pats me and mutters words of assurances which I do not hear over the din.
We're all hearded into chambers that resemble a little more than a mortuary with alphabet stickers on the walls and small orange tables and chairs set in clusters. Fun is a foreign concept in this classroom it seems!
I feel a mounting claustrophobia at this point, that I would be abandoned in this whitewashed room with its glaring flourescent overheads, and would never see my Tok Mak & Tok Bak, my parents and smelly brother and cat- Bobby- anymore. My life had officially ended.
I join in the howling of my friends who had magnetically attached themselves to walls underneath the louvre windows holding onto the hands of their loved ones. But the witches pull us away one by one and close the shutters with a finality that makes us howl louder. In our mutinous state, we crying children cling to each other for comfort, each feeding off the other's panic.
By then, I had made up my mind to hate school, especially this one with its smelly and mean teachers. With its colourless walls and disinfectant odour. How long do I have to put up with this torture!!?
Sidenote: I put up with a decade of official schooling + 2 years in college + 3 years in uni + 1 year in postgrad + 2 years in Masters. Not bad for someone who started off so badly eh! *masuk bakul angkat sendiri, actually I was putting off going to work* But then, Mum had transferred me to a more fun school called Zion Kindergarten so kudos to them for instilling a sense of lifelong learning in their charges. :)
***
And because I remember all too well the (bad) experience of a first day at school, I prepared Arissa well in advance for her transition into school- by talking to her about the new school, taking her there during orientation and helping her make friends with the other children. We spoke about her school bus and her teachers and her newfound friends at length to whip up the excitement of going back to school.
I don't know if she remembers what was spoken (at 4, I sure as hell didn't) but little did I know, she was so ready to go back to school I had zero problems on Day 1. I didn't realise how much she yearned to be with friends her age.. even the solo bus ride did not daunt her.
When I got there, she ran over to me excitedly "Kakak tak nangis tau, Kakak dah big girl!". She's positively looking forward to 'Skola Masjid' every day!
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