p a p e r d o l l

I went to the new R*ffl*s J*n**r C*ll*g* (hey it looks adorably undignified with all the asterisks!) a couple of days ago. To share my experience as a student in the Un*vers*ty Sch*l*rs Pr*gr*mm* (haha this is fun) along with a fellow student, an associate professor with twinkly eyes and a cheery woman from the office.

After the official business, I walked around. I looked into the classrooms where students were doing their homework or playing musical instruments. I watched the literature week performances taking place in the concourse. I bought mocha milk from the drinks stall auntie (same one) in the canteen. I asked the bookshop auntie (same one too… uncle was nowhere to be seen) for PE shirts. It was very nice wandering around.

Had chats with Mrs P*rry (so very likeable), Miss J**nn* L** (still full of energy like she was), Mr S*wd*n (who’s now a grandaddy and cannot pretend to be young anymore but has lost weight and does look younger) and M*ss T*ng (who has very short hair now), in that order. We talked about how we were and how other people were and they all expressed nostalgia for the old campus. I must say that I’d been putting off the visit to the new grounds because I thought I’d be jealous of how it was new and big and hence the toilets wouldn’t be as smelly as they used to be in the old campus. Recall the need to hold your breath when you walked past them, let alone use them. Shudder. Well, new’s usually better than old, isn’t it?

However, I have to agree with the teachers -the old space was nicer. It was cosy. In being charmingly inadequate in its facilities, it was quite perfect. Recall waiting in the itty-bitty dug-out concourse for assembly, sitting in the canteen which always had a nice wind blowing through (hold on to your short skirts!), checking out nice legs (beep beep, my fellow admirers of the boy with the legs) in the spectators stand, enjoying the air-conditioning in the container classrooms, “consulting” the clever(er) classmates’ practicals while perched on the creeky wooden stools in the labs. There was also Gimmo a walk away. And laid-back chic Holland V a long walk or a short bus ride away. And gelato at Guthrie House a walk (to the Red House) and a bus ride away for the lazy afternoons before PE class. Those were good times. So no I do not envy our juniors, though I still think it would have been nice to be the class which had the first year in the old campus and the second in the new.

These couple of days, I’ve been cleaning out my room. (To the sounds of Jazz Piano- A Smithsonian Collection. Excellent album.) Throwing away a lot of things. Filing and rearranging done and to be done. And I find myself constantly sitting in the middle of a phenomenal mess (order in the making) looking at or reading over things that bring back memories. I feel like I’ve come a long way to be where I am now. I like it.