45th anniversary for bukit panjang govt high school. fondly known as bpghs, or bp. we are bpians.
a field full of tables under tents. easily 200 tables or more. students from when the school started.
i had the privilege of being at the old premises for 2 years and the other 2 years in the new school. the new school is now more than 10 years old. time flies.
the old school has lush greenery and old buildings and dodgy looking places where the teachers or employees used to stay. small one bedroom houses in a row. they turned it into eca rooms. i tried to imagine myself in one of those - to stay and to live there, maybe with a family of three. it's only slightly beigger than the size of my room.
i remember well when i had to stay overnight in school. leadership training, council camps, st john camps. staying in the classrooms that were old with windows that open and you have to lock it with the metal thing at the bottom. wooden ones.
Seriously, i cannot remember what our classrooms look like. i shall need to dig out my phottos to remember. i remember the toilets. at the end of the corridor. a pond at a corner of the school where i liked to go to on my own or with friends to chat and to feed the mosquitoes. i know the canteen, so small that we have to have different timing for all levels. the canteen aunty's coffee and charcoal-toasted bread.
the canteen aunty and uncle saw me and even remembered that i am from jb. she even remembered i speak hainanese. so sweet.
i remember the inter-class relays where banner making and t shirt designs were a must and competition fierce between classes. banners so big that it was probably 5 storeys high. easels to support the banner made by the boys so big and strong that they could support the banners. the 5 storey high banner was tied between two big angsana trees with rope.
cheering our lungs out at nothing in particular. thinking we're the loudest but not knowing that our cheers are drowned by others much louder or the trees and grass and blue skies that suck in all our voices.
the old school.
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the new school. pioneers. the first batch of upper sec kids to conquer and place our trademark around every corner. to ensure that we exlpore every nook and cranny in the new place. to make the new smells go away with our footsteps and presence. to use all the new rooms for various functions and projects and practices on the pretext that no one uses the rooms. (have to have air con).
how i broke my foot and had to shift our whole class from the 4th floor to the first floor, next to the canteen. we're always the first to get to the canteen, piping hot food, no queues. they asked me to break my other leg after the 2 months we were downstairs were up and had to move back upstairs.
being in the student coucil, st johns, netball and drama club. finding time to play some badminton, practice for the dance competition, paint our middle eastern banner that's so intricate, i think we could have gone commercial. our musical drama - the makan place.
the dance competition. our netball matches that we never won. our st john's camp, where i cried after being put through a grueling night time runabout which the officer got quite guilty about. a 5 day trip to outward bound school in pulau ubin, where i thought i was goning to die due to high fever and canoeing for 8 hours and going through the scare of a rain and nearly toppling into the sea. a leadership camp with pitched tents in the field and going through a heavy rainstorm with the rainwater seeping into the tents and causing our little adventure in tents to be called off.
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i did quite a bit, didn't i?
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Happy Birthday BP...
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