Small Talk

it is during times like this when i feel exceptionally nostalgic. when i occasionally(okie maybe more than occasionally) look back and think about the past that have in some way or another sculpted the present me.

as a typical singaporean girl, the most memorable events and vivid memories ultimately fall into the category of "when i was a student in xxx school". this is unavoidable. i mean school days are and will be the time for most of us to socialise, make friends and create memories for ourselves. memories that will follow me through the rest of my living days and friends that will be there with me no matter what happens.

however, realisation always come late. it may be an inbuilt mechanism of the homo sapiens to cherish only when its gone, to treasure only when its lost. it may also be a genetic default that the human species take all things for granted, and presume everything will stay the same. but things dont say the same. the only permanence is impermanence. nobody, or at least i think nobody, seem to take that in until circumstances forced it in.

as time pass, i shall sit and reminisce. but having to reminisce means i have seen things go far beyond the possibility of reliving. it means i have let certain things pass me by without me reaching out to catch it in time; not even let it slip out of my fingers, because i never did had it in my grasp in the first place.

i have, only just, come to know that my alma mater, dunman high, has moved from the old campus off tanjong rhu which is 10 mins by foot from my residence to mount sinai near buona vista. but has that table that i kept my stacks of worksheets and papers back then been moved too? the particular chair that i sat on? how about the easels that held my canvas when i was painting my coursework painting? maybe the swinging chair that the conductor used to sit on and the shaky lecture theatre chair followed? could they have shifted the words that spelt the school motto together with everything else? they must have brought those kois along, haven't they? things just won't feel the same anymore, right..?

i regret. i regret not having acted on impulse when i had the thought of visiting the old bue and white buildings that have housed much of my growing-up days. i regret procrastinating those pre-festive-visit-the-teachers sessions. i regret not having gone back to take a look when the bell still rung, the classrooms still flourished with energy and music still played in the lecture theatre.

is it too late?

i must do something before it really is too late. i must catch up with teachers who have so taught me lessons in or out of the classroom before they retire and i lose all ways of contact with them(whether they recognise me or not is another problem that is yet to be solved). i must touch the tables, chairs and walls before they're gone. i must sit down in the canteens and savour the oh-so-wonderfully-nostalgic foods before the vendors call it a day. i must remember every sight and sound and carefully put them under lock and key in my memories before they ultimately fade away.

i must...