I must be getting old.
I've been going retrospect a tad too much lately. First, the ex-cellies. Then the ugly bag of my teenhood. And something nauseating is about to happen further, very much further down this post. Something from my past. Prepare to upchuck. Not now. Tunggu, can?
I reckon it must be the onset of Crescent Girls' School's 50th Anniversary Celebration, due to happen on the 18th of this month. I think my insides are throwing a right ol' tantrum about missing this big event. As it goes with all the important occasions in my life at this time, I will be geographically undesirable. Little Miss Almost-Bimbo RedHat Stewardess will be in London. The big bash will be in Singapore, on top of the hill at 357 Tanglin Road.
Ironically, in the past, there were many times when I was on top of that hill, bored to pieces, wishing fervently that I was in London or somewhere else, instead of watching Miss "andartu" Lee slice a pig's eyeball in half during biology class with her bare (BARE!?!) hands (then can go scratch her head somemore tau!). I wished so hard that I was somewhere else, for the next test, I could not remember the difference between the schlera and the conjunctiva but I could estimate the distance from that Tanglin Road hill to London. See? What happens now? Ambik kau. Come the 18th this month, I will be in London. When I am fervently wanting to be on that hill. So, children, be careful of what you wish for. When the dog (cat/parrot/younger brother)finally eats your homework for real, you're going to be cleaning up the poop.
Big things are happening to commemorate the school's half-decade hullabaloo, I'm sure. First up, it's going to be a big-assed reunion! All the past 50 batches of Crescentians are invited. Including the bigwigs (i.e. Crescentians who've made a big fat impact on the world). That's like..hmm.....30 girls in one class.....nine classes per level per year....Sec One to Sec Four.....50 batches.....that's 50 years.....hmmm......a kejillion girls thereabouts. They are to be dressed in yellow and blue, our school colours. I read that a few juniors of mine, who are also bloggers, (you know who you are,hokay?!) are planning to make it literally yellow and blue by turning up in their school uniform. *applauds* Eh...I also have my lemon-yellow blouse (its translucency still amazes me!) and peacock-blue skirt (hemmed short to a fault!) also, you know?
A hybrid orchid is also being cultivated specially for the event. It will be a yellow and turquoise edition and I hope they'll be selling it or something so I can bring it home to Dubai with me one day and annoy all my lilies. I'm sure it's going to turn out oh-so-pretty. A yellow and turquoise orchid......waah!
And then, I'm sure they are going to announce the whole thing about the school using tablet PCs to educate their "ladies and leaders". It's some pilot project by IDA and Microsoft to integrate technology into imparting education. The girls will use their own individual tablet PCs (yaahh...provided by the school, no less!) for lessons, personal and group projects and daily homework. Ugh. Nak buat orang jeles aje. In my day, we had handwriting competitions (which I never ever won), we used folscap paper A4 sized (the smaller the lines, the better so it looked like you did a lot of work on one page!) and the word "stylus" was as foreign to us as the word "stylish". Invariably, when old girls like us are deprived of such tablet pleasures just because we were born a few years earlier, we might turn violent. So to avoid a riot of disgruntled grown women, I hope there is a slight possibility of each old girl who turns up getting a free tablet for the sake of acknowledging the alumni (and avoiding that stampede!). Disclaimer, this is a wild card I'm drawing here, based on how us girls are so "loved" by the teaching staff, no matter how jahat we were (read: Sec 4/3) so mana tau muka kita cantik enough for them (especially Mrs V. Siah) to feel blinding remorse from past sins and bless us with a free tablet each (those who can't make it, FedEx is readily available to deliver said tablets). Again, this is a wild card aje eh?! I take no responsibility for disappointments later on kalau terkebil-kebil pergi reunion then tak dapat tablet ok? Don't say I didn't warn you and don't say Raihan said what here.
Anyway, a whole decade ago (yes...I AM old!!), we celebrated our new school building's official opening and our 40th Anniversary with a BIG BIG BIG thang and the late ex-President Wee Kim Wee was our guest-of-honour. I'm not sure why he was our guest-of-honour, seeing as this year's guest-of-honour is one of Singapore's lady ministers who is an old girl of Crescent's, but there's got to be a connected reason for Mr Wee to be invited then. And no, it's not because he was an old girl of CGS or anything funny like that so please don't get weird ideas about this honourable man just to poke fun at my school. And me.
So a decade ago, I was in Sec Two and ALL of us (ALL from Sec One to Sec Two) had to be involved with the performances. And they were big-assed performances that took months of practices and rehearsals! A la National Day type, with a blinding overload of glitter, labuchi, sparkly bits and stage make-up (i.e. wayang cina!). Naturally, the Malays had to dance a really complicated, lari-sana-lari-sini Malay dance with either tudung sajis or flimsy chiffon selendangs.
Naturally, I was one of the most kaku ones (Huh? Me? Malay dance? In public?Like public stoning?). Unnaturally, I was to dance with a tudung saji. Eventually, I noticed most of the tudung saji dancers were the kaku ones. Then it all made sense. The Kakus. The Tudung Sajis. Which, as I told Shazila a few days ago on MSN, made me feel very macam a plate of tempeh basi. It didn't help that the tudung saji dancers had to wear this matronly baju kurung made of some kind of itchy material and etched with shiny glittery light-reflecting-to-the moon bits with a stiff super-high collared neck that could almost graze my ears! Then, as if the idiocy wasn't achieved yet, the baju was in bright neon flourescent orange. And the kain (brace yourself for this..) was in bright neon flourescent green. I swear it almost resembled a straitjacket one would give to divas gone wrong. Perhaps Mariah Carey.
The selendang dancers had lovely kebayas, which were also of the same itchy material, shiny bits, bright neon flourescent colours but of red and orange. Not so suicidal. Not at all tempeh basi. Yes, my fashion life was already unfair to me at an early stage. Blardy bolognaise.
But I remembered we enjoyed ourselves so much throughout the preparations, the practices and the performances (there were two...preview and actual thang!), all of us got kinda depressed when everything ended and we all had to revert back to normal study mode. Though there were many many other memorable events that left that indelible mark in my mind and in my heart, the official opening was one thing that reaffirmed my belief that I was meant to be in Crescent and that it was okay that I did not do well enough in PSLE to make the cut for Raffles Girls' School. Those few points that set me back from being a Rafflesian made me into a happy happy happy Crescentian.
Okaaayyy....as far as I know, my girl Rozi Mrs Fendi, the ever patriotic ex-Crescentian is definately going so at least there is someone from my batch who will show her face there. As it stands in the alumni's index, our year does not have a single representative tau!? And here I am, waxing rhapsodic about my alma mater and how fun my batch of gurlies were and not a single one of us (please don't look at me, I very far from alma mater physically now hokay?) has her name up there for alumni references! Hello? Class of 97?? Bradley Jones girls?? Anyone? Blardy bolognaise.
Above all else, Crescentians here, there, everywhere, I hope those who can make it to the reunion would have loads of fun, Crescentian-style. And those who can't make it (like me) , stay cool (not like me), don't throw tantrum (not like me) and wait another decade for the 60th Anniversary (like me when I am 34 *shivers*).
And so to put an end to my long retrospective post, I'll give y'all the upchuck moment I promised earlier (no, the stuff I wrote about Crescent was not the upchuck thing). I browsed my old website and stumbled upon this, among other shenanigans.
Will someone please just poke my eyes out before I do it myself?
Yeap. That's me. Nauseating? No? Not yet? Now?
Oh well. Sooner or later, I'm bound to make someone puke anyway. Hello, barf-bucket!
*hurls*
Blardy bolognaise.
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