East Springians, Stand Up Together As We Face Each Day With Zest!!

Nini passed me our school's website link from MOE a few days ago and we checked it out to see what had changed over the years since we graduated.

Apparently, a lot.

They now have a softball team!!?!?! I could've been in that team!! Seeing as how I love throwing things at people.

Being pioneers of a new school did have its perks and drawbacks. Like being part of the school's musical for our official opening. Yeah, we thought we were the coolest cats on the block. We were, okay!!

Flipping through the online gallery of our alma mater's site, there were still quite a number of familiar faces in the teachers' corner. Back in our heyday, we'd snigger behind the backs of our fellow teachers and address them in names we had created amongst ourselves. It was like a secret code of sorts but you know, in a teenage mishmash kind of way.

There was our Math teacher who was also our form tutor, Uncle Lourdesamy (Emanuel, if we were to take it up a notch), Uncle Leong our Operations Manager and of course, who could forget the droolable Lance Bass Teo who was the only worthy one of ever garnering a fan club if there was any. Maybe an underground one because of his strong followship. Lance used to be a meagre PE teacher because we already had a HOD for PE. But now, HE'S the HOD. Ooooh, what we'd give to be in his class. PE rocks!!

Nini and I were never in Lance's classes, sadly, but we did have a few good dudes. Ryan Lee used to be our sworn public enemy No. 1 and we openly called him The Grinch. We even told him he was Grinchlike. For good reason. He was a total jerk slavedriver with no people skills whatsoever. That was, until he got married and had a son.

I remember him barking instructions for us to run four laps around the school compound in preperation for the anual NAPFA 2.4km run. Something we all shared the same amount of hatred for. He'd promised us that there would be games afterwards. A group of us --both boys and girls-- decided to cheat and cut across the school porch as a short cut to save time for games.

Two rounds into the run and we started cutting whatever corners there were. On the third round, just as we ran across the porch to get to the canteen instead of around it, The Grinch materialized, larger than life and wearing a vicious grin. We screamed bloody murder and backtracked. But of course, too late. We were caught and after our final lap, our punishments were push-ups and sit-ups. Served us damn right.

The Grinch managed to sidle himself into our good books later on in the year when NAPFA was over and games ruled the curriculum. Our class had this inexplicable love for captain's ball and basketball, whether it was against our own sex or against the other. For the girls, it was easy to divide us up into two groups although, looking back at the situation, it was always a Malay-versus-Chinese circumspect. We didn't think anything of it then, but now it does provide food for thought. Competitions were always friendly albeit some strong emotions expressed.

The best games were when we competed against the guys and The Grinch would automatically be on our team. Once any guy caught the ball, he'd holler, "ATTACK!!!". They almost stood no chance. Almost. You see, all the guys in class were either in the school's basketball A-Team, soccer A-Team or were mostly involved in any kind of sports. Oh, who were we kidding?? They're GUYS!! They were meant to possess some form of athletic prowess.

But whenever a girl was with the ball, Ryan Lee would yell, "Eh, eh, eh!! No touching, arhh!!"

He became our hero.

It would seem that for the teachers, we either called them by their last names --like our Malay Language teacher whose good given name was Alimah Bte Lob but we'd shortened it ourselves to just Lob-- or their first names without any formal address whatsoever. And our principal, who's no longer with the school was like a head honcho Tai Lung. We called him Bapak Yong. Or Towkay Yong.

We were so badass that while we were seated in a bus that was sending us for our Secondary 3 camp, one of the most hated teachers of the school slipped and fell right in front of our bus, we roared with neverending laughter. It was hilarity at its best because she started off yelling into the speakerphone to one of the classes or another.

We couldn't hear what she was screaming about because we were already inside the cool confines of our own bus. As she continued her tirade, she wasn't looking where she was going so she slipped from the curb. Our bus visibly shook from all that laughter as classmates shouted to each other: "Miss Teo fell down!!". And there were 4 buses. What a way to kick start camp with a bang.

It was inevitable in all our teachers' eyes. Such a show of rebel. We were all destined for jail.

Laterz...
Lenny