IN VERITATE ET CARITATE

i don't know why, but when i think back on my old school days, there is always a bittersweet feeling sitting heavily in my heart. and i felt the exact same way when i stepped into the old school last weekend.

it was grey and dismal looking in some ways - the ways that had remained constant for the last 10 years. elsewhere, there are new floorings and buildings. where we used to queue up for Assembly every morning on a grass patch (and where i had played touch rugby with a papaya, smashing it further with every throw and drop... where i had gathered for photographs... where i had stood looking up at 3 mischievous boys dancing to "That Thing You Do" on one school occasion), there is now that rubber asphalt... dunno-what material, the same as is used on running tracks.

my classroom looked like how it looked before we painted our walls. we were the only class that had decided we wanted to paint our walls a shade of light CJC-blue with turqoise shell motifs and proceeded to get permission to do it back in 1997. i still have one school T-shirt covered with paint and one black NIKE shoe with a drop of blue on it.

but the walls are blue no longer but the normal shade of white. potato's class... i don't know, probably is the same. i only went up to look at the Arts floor to remember how it felt. strangely, it felt the same... that saturday, i felt nostalgia at something that is now a page in my history, but i also felt the same raw excitement i used to feel at 18... when life was all promising and filled with hopes of unknown but indefinitely better things to come... when even bad days take on a tinge of romantic darkness. the air smelled the same... it was musky with old furniture and yet breezy with the windows overlooking what used to be the soccer field.

actually, i didn't see the field. because the doors to the classrooms were locked. but memory serves me well. i remember that one afternoon we were sitting in class, listening out for the final match that was being played between CJ and another JC. every now and then, we craned our necks to check on the game being played 5 floors down. when we dared to, when the teachers weren't looking or during intermittent bursts of shouts, we ran to the windows to see what was happening. that went on through Chinese class, with potato in it, but he probably couldn't care less, and it was finally at GP that Mentor Danker had pity and actually released us early to go watch the game.

i ran down to catch the game. because Mr Animal Rights was playing and because i loved the rowdy atmosphere of a 'live' soccer game. we lost during the penalty shootout. the guy who missed the final shot burst into tears. he literally cried. poor thing.

i don't know why my memories of CJC remain so fresh and vivid in my mind. i don't know any other period of my life when i remember things so clearly. i can almost smell the scent of adventure when i recall those days. i can taste the hot air, i can remember exact words that were said on different occasions ("The ARTs faculty stands at the top floor because WE LOOK DOWN ON EVERYBODY ELSE!", said Arts valedictorian on the last day of school) and most of all, i can feel every single tingling sensation i ever felt in those days. the bad and the good. the worst and the best.

my old school was silent last Saturday. there was no rowdiness, no noise, no nothing, no life. but it brought back all the promises, hopes, dreams, wishes, thoughts, fears, anxieties, exhaustion, ecstasy and life that i ever experienced.

gosh... next year would be the 10th year out of school. potato doesn't care... and i guess many others wouldn't. but for me, those 2 years in that grey school were 2 of the best years of my life. not because of what happened then but because of who i was in those years. someone who dreamt BIG and lived BIG. i loved every single bit of the environment, with all its crap and nastiness and i loved every single bit of who i was, somebody who lived to the best of what i wanted to be.

youth. fly. i flew.