1991: [4][The Big Migration] -
Between the day I was born and this year, a lot of things happened. Our many good times in Texas were about to be over. No more feeding the neighbour's cat, no more playing in the snow during winter, no more target and walmart, no more cute American accents, no more misdialled 911s, no more expeditions into the nearby 'forest', no more baths in the oversized tub. No more braving the hailstones to get to nursery school, no more catfights with 'white' kids who bullied us 'chinkies' in kindergarten and worst of all, no more bubblegum. For we were about to be shipped halfway across the world to Singapore [where the start of the dark ages began]. However, I have failed to mention the stopover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in which we all became little chinese kids with American accents and fluent cantonese speech. Anyhow, Singapore. It was a whole new place at first, a big adventure if you'd have asked us at that time. We lived in Buona Vista first, then we moved to holland road near moonbeam. A whole new world, such a nice place, we were about to have a good life here, we'd felt. Oh how we were so wrong.

1992: [5][Garden City] -
5 years old, a rented terrace house with gorgeous peeling paint for our itchy fingers to rip off, a garden with snails and butterflies to catch, and an array of pets to keep. Let's see, there were the 'Holland fish', and 'Holland Rabbit' who got killed by the neighbour's savage beast of a dog [me thinks cute jack russell] and there were the 'Holland turtles' and 'Holland Cat' who ran away from us. Oh, and there was our line of 'Holland Pidgeons' who shat all over the place. The place was absolutely wonderful, everyday was an adventure for us, be it falling off the bed at night or discovering half-eaten sandwhiches stuck in the lovable squishy sofa. There were all sorts of things to please a 5-year-old. We tried to drill holes in the wall with Jonathan's brand new protractor and we'd run eagerly to see what gifts our maid [see: Santa Clause] bought for us on her off-days, and ofcourse, we NEVER missed Felix the Cat every afternoon at 4pm on channel 2. We had our little playground opposite the house and lovely neighbours who always invited us over for a snack of seaweed and to play with their daughter, Pamela and her cute little cocker spaniel. Life was pretty good. That was until Garden City. Kindergarten was alright, actually.. it was mostly games, playtimes in the playground, singing our thanks before 'tea' and nap times when we would eagerly anticipate the next person to wet the bed. Ah..yes, life was good.

1993: [6][The Move] -
My second year in kindergarten, i was already a 'senior' and enjoying it. I'd had my little adventures like sneaking our pet terrapin into school and stealing my friend's gorgeous slinky. I'd had my first [distasteful] taste of chinese and learnt how to count and read my ABCs properly. I'd even found my future husband, I'd had my first kiss in kindergarten! A hurried kiss from Christopher, my 'husband' on the steps leading out of Garden City afterwhich we'd link arms and run off to take the school bus home together. I'd had my best friend, Sophie who was destined to be beautiful and popular when she grew up. And up until that day I had been residing quite happily in our peaceful abode in Holland road. That was when our parents dropped the bomb, well, more like just lifted us up, put us in the car and took us to our new home in No. 3 Pandan Valley. What? Move? from our gorgeous house with a garden [again I stress, with a garden] to a little box in the middle of a 16 storey stack? No way! Okok, what the hell, I did like it. It lacked our beloved peeling paint and untended garden but it was pretty fine. It was new, brand new, shiny marble floors and cool new decor. It had a SWIMMING POOL! and basketball courts, soccer fields, tennis courts, BARBEQUE PITS! okay, so all this wasn't that fascinating at the time, i mean, I did attend kindergarten at this place. So anyways, we moved, big hoo-ha. Who cares? Only thing that was a draw-back was that I would no longer get to take the bus home with little Christopher. And at the end of kindergarten, after our leaving school concert [where steph was elected miss Singapore in the beauty contest and I was chosen to be the pig in Old Mcdonald had a farm *why god, why?*] I said a tearful goodbye to Christopher, not yet fully aware that i was never to see him again. Okay, okay, so we didn't cry, we smiled brightly and waved bye bye without knowing that we'd be separated for LIFE unless fate should shine on us once again. Aa-nyways, that was also the day I met Chew Jialing. You see, we were queing up to leave - the kids who lived in Pandan Valley all left in one group - and I watched in fascination over this girl's shoulder at her Beauty and the Beast Pop-up book. *gasps* What amazing MAGIC i'd ever seen in my life. Meekly, I tapped her shoulder and asked politely if I could borrow one. She smiled brightly at me and passed the book to me. "I'm! Chew! Jialing!" My was she ever cheerful. We've been friends ever since.

1994: [7][Henry Park] -
Now, 1994 was not a happy year. I was dragged kicking and screaming [in sharp contrast with my archenemy, Stephanie Chong who bounded in ready to start life] through the gates of Henry Park Primary School. It was terrifying if you ask me, [yeah yeah, so i was wimpy] i mean, meeting a whole classful of strangers for the first time. And you wouldn't believe it but right there, at the start of Primary One, there was such a thing as the 'Popular' group and the 'Social Reject' group. I reckon I made a wrong turn and befriended the Social rejects. But what the hell, i was a bit of a drifter i guess, never liked school and dead antisocial. My first friend was Jolene, or was in Alicia Chua? Anyways, I mostly wafted around [more like hid in the corner] and only spoke when I was spoken to. Then I made friends with Darrell Tan [the bad-boy i hear] by some unfortunate mistake and was destined to be his scapegoat. I often found myself outside the principal's office, mentally back-tracking [now what did I do this time?]. Anyhow, I became enemies with Weiling [she stole my silver color pencil!] and marvelled at how Daniel couldn't read silently. I also admired from afar the other Daniel, the gorgeous boy from America, so much like Jonathan, he had an american accent, two missing front teeth and a cute american-chinese look to him. I was starstuck. And then in lining up i was paired with [of all people why him?] Darrell Tan while my friend behind me got cute-boy. Dammit. And right then and there, in Primary one, I already knew that I would hate Chinese for my LIFE. Why, why in the universe did there had to be such a thing as a compulsory second language, or rather, a compulsory Chinese second language. Oh the unfairness of life.

1995: [8][A chance Encounter] -
Up till now I had not seen hyde or hair of my once-best-friend, Sophie and my only link to my ex-husband Christopher, was his cousin who was 5 classes away. Then at the start of Primary 2, there were 2 new students in 2A. Little Tan Meiqi and not-so-little Seth. Now Seth somewhat resembled an oversized sloth with thick black-rimmed spectacles. He was drawn right away to the social reject group, never again was a drop of pure-innocent-good-boy blood seen from him. Little Tan Meiqi was well..little. She was small, with cute little bangs and was oohed and aahed over by the popular girls. They took her around for recess and cooed over her, I was disgusted. Then for some unphantomable reason, an unseen force pushed me to join the choir [god i should have known how tone-deaf I was at the time] and who else should join but Meiqi. Well, up till then I tolerated her, she didn't like me much either, i gathered. And then a short while later when I came across her on the slope of Pandan Valley I decided to be a nice person and said Hi. Wow, the stuff that came out of her mouth blew me away, too much for my little 8-year old mind. As if she'd memorised this by hard, she sucked in a breath and.. "HimynameistanmeiqiIliveinblockfouronthefourthfloor myunitnumberis05-403mytelephonenumberis65432156" [numbers have been changed to protect her privacy]. I didn't know what to say. Nor did I understand anypart of the babble that she'd just said to me. Still silently marvelling at her recited monolouge, i offered to take her to see the neighbour's ginger cat, err.. Ginger. Yes, that was the cat that sparked our friendship.

1997: [10][Screaming (oops, i meant Streaming)] -
You see, since primary 2, mei and I came a long way. Apparently, I'd stolen her would-be best friend, Neo Seok Ee, and she'd hated me for it. And I, not knowing what to do with my little 8-year-old self, did the only natural thing that came to me, I hated her back. But that was childsplay, reaching a truce, we both dispelled Seok Ee and became best friends. We had our little 10 minute fights, and in my pride I'd always wait patiently for her 'sorry' letter passed ever so carefully through the class with the dozens of nimble little fingers attatched to my classmates' hands. We befriended Claire Woo and Wong Elin when I reached primary 3 and I introduced Mei to my good buddy, Chew Jialing. Now we had a little group, with Jialing often joined us on our many explorations of the condomenium. Then we were brutally separated, where I was sent to 3F and 4F, the top classes and Mei to 3C and 4C. Up till streaming I'd had the privilege of being a good student. Then when streaming came, along with the beginning of Primary 5, Mei shot past me. EM1! Wow, my admiration for her grew at that point. I mean seriously, I had to admire someone who could honestly do well in chinese. I went to 5D. It wasn't so bad, Mei and I still met at recess for our usual prawn noodles and sausages from stall two and one respectively. Mei was never hard to find, she was usually sitting at a table near stall 5, completely oblivious to the chaos around her, book that her face was usually burried in in one hand and nutella chocolate in the other. We had matching wallets, began our H.A.C.K club and started our dog-walking business [severely overcharging our one customer at $5 for each walk]. But anyways, we did have our fun. It seemed Stephanie had gotten sick of Weiming and decided to join us. Yeah, we had our fun.

1999: [12][PSLEs] -
Now Primary Six was a time to be taken seriously. However, I, did not. The PSLEs were important, but it failed to wake me up. My sister and I had a sort of mutual truce now, and she had aced her PSLEs and was then in Crescent girls school. Only in August she left Singapore to England for studies. The gloriousness of having the room to myself! And I got my dog! my loveable brown, demented cocker spaniel, coco. *smiles* My PSLES went quite bad, i got 220 out of 300 and I was posted to Newtown Secondary school, didn't matter much to me at the time, did it? That was probably the biggest mistake of my life.

2000: [13][Millennium] -
The year 2000 was the start of the new millennium. This was the year I went into secondary school, the start of the worst 4 years of my life [well sort of] in NEWTOWN. The moment I set foot in the place I began counting down to my graduation. However, this year itself was not so bad. At 13 years old I met a boy, and I don't think i've ever liked, or maybe even loved anyone more than I did him so far. Anyways, this was the year I had my first boyfriend [no, it wasn't him]. I guess i was sort of young and dumb, eager to try out new things and more than ever awestruck by this cool older guy. He was 18 years old at the time and Meiqi had scoffed at that idea. It lasted 2 weeks. Well, it wasn't that bad really, considering I was still head over heels with Mr-never-loved-anyone-more-than-him at the time. And also, at the age of 13 I was introduced to the PV guys. The cool people. They were all so.. big. But they were all very nice to me, I'd known Xin, Dinesh, Andrew, Ronald, Shane, Chandra, Robby, Lionel, Yota.. quite a few of them. And I had my good friend, Suting in school. The two of us were quite happy on our own to be lone wolves, so.. we kinda merged to none-lone-ness. Yeah, life was alright.

2001: [14][2E4] -
2/4. Secondary 2 was probably the best year of my life. In 2/4 I had the best teacher i've ever had in newtown, Mr Mark Singh. In 2/4 I made lifelong friends with Lim Yuting, and become good friends with Chilin and YingYing [all of whom I'd initially thought to be the popular girls, the ra-ra ones that i'd always scoffed at]. It turns out they were popular, but far from ra-ra. They were all down to earth and friendly. And in sec 2/4 was also the time I met my second boyfriend, or rather my first proper boyfriend. The thing was, back in secondary one I had been vaugely aware that all the girls were pretty much mad about him, although I was only dimly aware that he'd even existed. However, back to sec 2. In sec 2 it'd come to my realisation what a nice guy he was, quiet, yeah.. but very nice. We'd had a great 5 months together before it ended, quite tearfully. And that was possibly one of the worst times of my life. It wasn't him, well, it was partially, but that was my point of rebellion at home. It was my downfall i guess. In sec 2 it was when I defied my parents to the core, it was when I experimented everything from drinking to driving, from smoking to clubbing. It was quite a whirlwind of activity for me. I rather enjoyed it.

2003: [16][Here and Now] -
Mark Singh always told me that sec 3 was the defining point of adolescence. Sec 2 was the wild year, sec 3 was the point when you either went good or bad. There was to be no more inbetweens. Secondary 3 was when all the little boys sprouted up around us and became tall and lanky slightly awkward boys. I was posted to 3/1, the best class. I was horrified, to tell u honestly. All the while i'd thought 3/1 to be for the geeks, and of all 7 from 2/4 who'd made it to 3/1 only one other seemed remotely sane [apart from myself]. Sec 3 was really quite a trying period, new friends got shuffled into the group seemingly without first consulting my consent. I made two good friends in 3/1, Jingwen and Sumei. Yuting and I still stuck together, then we began to blow hot and cold over it. Sometimes close as ever, sometimes distant. Near middle of sec 3 I became good friends with the 'guys'. Basically the group of guys in my class, Jizeng, Bjorn, Daryl, Andre, Sherman and the likes. We had our fun, after school meals at Holland village [BK for lunch, Swensons for ice-cream] or Clementi [McDonalds on rich and hot days, the hawker on poor and cool days]. Then up to secondary 4 I'd felt my life had settled quite a bit. I still skipped school, but not like in sec 3. I think, i'd sort of mellowed a bit. My examination results still fluctuated, but I was quite pleased with my sec 3 finals. In Secondary 4, me best-est friend in the world, Meiqi moved to Australia to study. I was heartbroken. Then the impending o' levels smacked me around the head a bit and I was startled back into reality. This summer, when Steph came back I was reintroduced to the PV guys. A bit rocky at the start, but quite alright now. And after the terrifying days leading up to the o's I've finally come to end November, past my o' levels and the beginning of my freedom reign. I've got my friends, got my life back on track, finally graduated from that god-forsaken school and ready to pursue studies overseas. Yeah, that's my life. At a glance. =P

Stay tuned for 2004 coming soon -