Today's my big 21st!!! Wow...so old. Haha...doesn't time just fly...right now, I'm feeling nostalgic all over and I want to write about it!!
When I look back on my life journey, there may be regrets and what-ifs, but on the whole, I have been really blessed. God has given me a wonderful life, born into a loving family with no worries of hunger or poverty and lenient parents who only want the best for me and Laura. I've had friends who came and went, as well as friends who stayed on and will always be there for life. I've had friends who made school seem less dull and daunting and cousins who were playmates since young. Life's been great and today, I just feel like recapping on every significant event in my life, be it little or big.
On April 18, 1984, a little baby was given life. As a little girl, I was dressed in the cutest of the cutest...underwear that had "I'm CUTE" written over the butt, pretty sweet white dresses with pink ribbons, and cute shoes that squeaked with every step I took.
Then I grew older and a different side appeared...a more mischievious and naughty side. The furniture was my playground, leaping from sofa to table to floor and then back onto the sofa again. Stairs were for skipping, and time was killed by trying to see how many steps I could jump across as I attempted to go higher up (with the added challenge of touching the ceiling on my jump down from the 7th step to the ground floor). My very own swings, see-saw and slide in my backyard were worn out by me and the backyard had tracks from my rollerblade skids...
In kindergarden, though I can't remember myself, mum told me stories of how this other boy and I, his name was Paul Tan (still rings a bell), would always go around hand-in-hand, claiming to be boyfriend and girlfriend...planning our marriage in the future, and not to forget, the occasional *blush* chasing of each other for a kiss. Sometimes, I wish I could remember and sometimes, it was better left as a story told.
I also met my first childhood crush around the age of 7. Yes, the 'boy across the street' childhood memories, where I remember we used to play snakes and ladders at each other's place. I would go over and play detectives with him (sitting in his little office made up of cushions and tiny chairs), we would spend the afternoon fighting each other with his lego ships, firing cannons at each other. He would spend some days at our backyard, playing with the swings and slides. And that was how we grew up together...and as we got older, the games changed and we started this Wattern View bike gang, consisting of him and me, my sister Laura, a girl my sister's age who lives up the street, Natalie, and this other boy living down the street, Leon. Every evening without fail, we would take out our bikes and ride up and down our street, chasing after each other as we sped down the mini hill and raced up the steep hill. Only when our parents came home from work did we stop and return back to our own homes for dinner.
Primary School left me with many memories too. I had 2 best friends and we would do lots of things together. We even gave each other nicknames: Fat Cell, Dead Cell and Mole Cell (that's me coz apparently, I have quite a lot of moles - well, more than them). We would have lunch today, go on breaks together and go over to each other's place. At school, I also had this other group (school work group) and we called ourselves the Killerbees. Our group stuck on and we continued meeting up and carrying out silly activities. Once, our entire group got into this eraser business, cutting up erasers into tiny bits, like french fries and other kind of things. For our science project, we had to raise what's that called? Meal worms was it? Yea, we had to raise meal worms into beetles (something I never really liked) and being young, we were so proud of the one beetle that survived the growing up process that when we returned it to nature, we wanted to leave a mark on it so that we could recognise it, but we only ended up killing it with twink (aka liquid paper). Young and heartless or young and innocent??
I also got together with one of my best friend and this other guy friend and we started this group called the "ACL" which is the first letters of our first names. We started a secret code language which only us knew how to decipher (that was what we thought then, but now, it's kind of silly because it is so easy to crack, qba'g lbh guvax? We used to be able to read them off like that...ahh, the hours spent writing letters in that code!) In primary school, I was the little girl and once, my male classmate almost thought I would cry when he lost the last bit of my pen eraser. This other girl at school disliked me because it was rumoured that the guy she likes liked me instead. What a laugh! She was literally at loggerheads with me and at that time, I just didn't know why and it felt stink to have someone dislike you. When I was younger, I wanted the entire world to love me.
In secondary school, there were good times and there were stressful times. Nanyang was strict, but I had really good teachers, especially Miss Sam, who used to pull my ears because I was being cheeky, but I was a good student of hers as well, very interested in Maths. I remember once, in secondary two, we had a chalet and a bunch of us (the ones who didn't want to sleep the entire night) spent hours watching a bunch of adult 20 somethings play bowling till the bowling alley closed, and even spoke to a couple of them, and then we were locked out of our chalet and spent hours talking at the playground until the security guard came around to shoo us back. We had to wake up the 'quai' classmates in order to be let in again.
Playing softball was the best time in Nanyang. When we first entered in Sec 1, our seniors were strict and scary, but very cool at the same time. We looked up to them! But we didn't like the senior-junior relationship and when we became seniors ourselves (sec 2 seniors to the sec 1s), we abolished this strict relationship and became team-mates. As the older and more senior softballers left, the following batches became more tight-knit...We had the most fun and had the best times. We fooled around in trainings, with coach yelling after us "MONKEY YOU", cheered each other on "Pitch it, hit it, everybody catch it..." and we even 'helped' each other with school work. Every morning, we would meet up at the front steps before the assembly bell rang and while some just chatted with others, many were busy copying homework off others. That was the trend. The softballers were known to be playful and sometimes a teacher's nightmare. But we had the best times...of course there were loses and there were triumphs, but they were memories and those were the best, even the memories of coach yelling at us and scolding us for our mistakes in the lost match, or when we had training camp from 9 to 5pm for three days straight, having chicken rice for lunch almost every day and sliding in the wet mud if it rained.
I also met my 'prince' through softball. No...not my prince charming, but just a close guy friend I got to know over the years, who ended up - as a joke - becoming my prince and I'm his princess. We would chat for hours into the night. At 3am in the morning, lying in the darkness, I would be talking to him till my parents got suspicious and came checking in on me.
In sec 3, I was in a great class with fantastic classmates who were spontaneous and outgoing. I stuck with 2 great friends, and all three of us always occupied the last row at the back of the class. Then there was the spontaneous outgoing bunch who knew a bunch of chinese high guys, who organised outings with these guys who were a year older than we were. We even had a shared chalet with them. And that was where I met the first guy who told me he liked me but I was young then, and my father wasn't very lenient on this guy issue, so we were just friends. He would leave pages and I would ring back, and we would talk about anything and everything. And then it all slowed down as he got busier and then it ended...but then it all came back again when we met after about 6 months of lost contact at a friend's pool-side birthday party, where I, along with many other girls, got thrown into the pool by him and the other guys. And we started talking again...but that stopped as we got busier and today, I wonder where he is and what he's doing.
And then, New Zealand came along at the end of sec 4. But before that, every saturday night while we were in Singapore, our family would go over to our grandparent's place, where we would meet with our other relatives, i.e. our cousins and we would play games, scream and chase each other till we were all hot and sticky. During dinner time, we would sit in front of the television and watch "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and after dinner, we would all take turns going for showers. We had such wonderful memories there, blading on Jalan Tari Dulang, picking rambutans from our tree and locking ourselves in the rooms sulking when we were bullied by the younger cousins, ay Nic?
And then New Zealand, a completely different place from home...a new life begun, I grew out of my tomboy phase, and moved into lady-hood, where fashion and appearance counted!! I did my last year of college here, and met some great friends. I also saw my first serious crush - oooh, going to school got interesting and he will always remain a mystery to me - the guy I'll never know. But it was all good fun, to spice up the otherwise mundane school life. I also took up statistics and calculus in 7th form, receiving praises from my calculus teacher (it was revision for me because I had learnt most of that in Singapore), but stats was different. It was hard at first, but once I started getting the hang of it, I became the teacher's nightmare as I would attempt the hard questions and put the teacher on the spot for a while as he thought about the question I had put forth for him...but he would always come back to me with the answer and that's why I thought he was cool.
I also found my best friend after moving to NZ. She remained in Singapore but the Es exchanged between us just kept growing in length. We shared everything with each other and got to know each other so well! Sometimes, I say I regret coming to NZ because I thought Junior College in Singapore would be a wonderful experience, but having said that, I would never mean it, never regret the move because it was only because of the distance that I got to know Pear and became best friends. I wouldn't give that up for the world.
Then along came university, a totally different experience where independent learning was a must, a massive change from always being spoon fed. That was hard to get at first, sometimes to the point of stressing out and wanting to give up and change degrees...new friends were made as well and a good circle of friends was built - the attack of the Js!! Haha.
I also met my first boyfriend then, and though it was for just a short time, it was an experience altogether - we had some indecisive times when we pondered and pondered and finally resorted to coin tosses to decide what's for dinner, and some great times when we just hanged out and talked about stuff, from what you want to be in your next life, to favourite movies. My circle of friends expanded to his friends as well.
I also started attending cell group and my circle of friends, once again, grew larger. As my circle of friends grew larger, the world seemed to become smaller as people knew people.
And now, I'm into my first year of work (earning and spending money is fantastic), I'm a fresh graduate (soon, as of May 2) and I'm 21 (still young with plenty ahead of me)!
There's a saying, "life's too short..." but right now, after my long essay on the little bits and pieces of my life, life's too long sometimes, you can't write everything down.
There are many more moments which are important, but so far, these mentioned above are on the top of my head. It doesn't mean that I do not cherish those other moments, nor does it mean I have forgotten them either. It may be stored up somewhere deep inside my brain but nothing a tiny key and a little recollection can't do.
Memories are forever, to be shared and kept.
