LestI forget: The first few years

The first year away from my home was a lot of homesickness and catching up with a lot of new things. I was not crying all nights like some of the new students but there were moments of missing home. I knew I was to be tough as I was so alone despite so many "friends". I knew I had to make great effort to cultivate friendship as i realized I was not very good at it. I managed to make firm friends with a few and my friendship last until today.

Academic wise it was a real tough playing field. I was not doing good at all in the first few school terms. I only excelled in mathematics and geography. The rest of the subjects that dealt with reading in English were hard on me. I remember my mathematics teacher Miss Ponniah very well. Her dresses were all the same pattern, sleeveless and with a flare skirt. She once told me she wanted to hang me between the two ceiling fans because i could not answer her question.

There was Cik Sharifah Zainab who taught us Bahasa Melayu and she too wore dresses. Mrs. Kang the Science Teacher, Miss Chua the English and Music teacher.

The end of the year examination results was very bad for me. I think I was placed at 23rd of 25 students in my class. I passed all my subjects poorly except for mathematics. My grandfather asked me during the term break if I wanted to stay on or come back to local school. I thought I rather be last amongst the best rather than top of the class in a local school. So life went on and I made progress as my command of English improved.

My friends and I read all the Enid Blyton's books that were in the librarary. We read Dandy and Beano comics and i guess we got through those challenging years.

I was never in the limelight at school. I was just an average student. I made top 10 in class most of the time after those 3 trying years of Remove Class, Form 1 and 2.
I did well in my LCE (Lower School Certificate) and made it to Form 4. I then decided to be in the Arts Stream where I had friends. I was officially in the Science Class, but nobody knew i was missing. I was called to the principal office and had an earful of 'encouragements' and the then Senior Science teacher Mrs Gune gave me a half day lecture as to why i shoud be in Science Class. It was the most trying time the first term of school after the LCE. I dared not tell anybody of what was going on. I overheard some of my science 'classmates' discussing me at the supper room saying that i was giving away the opportunityto be in the science class since it was the goverment's inspiration to have may science gradutes. I was also forfeiting my chances of going overseas after MCE (malaysian school certificate).

All was settled after a while. the year I was in Form 4, A first batch of Form Six students came. They were so cool and grown up and they were wearing all the latest in fashions (mini skirts). They were the big sisters and they came from all over the country. We did not make friends readily with these new seniors because they were not sharing the same dorms as we were. They wore skirts for uniform while we were still in pinafore. I think later we wore skirts after form 4.

The greatest achievement I remember during this year was when we the fourth former beat the six formers in a quiz. Narimah, mariam and me (me!!) won a general knowledge quiz against the six formers. We felt great.
The other thing that happen in that year we were joined by new students who came after LCE. We welcomed them and accepted them into our fold.