~JcZw

A totally random post:

One of the most humiliating experiences I had as a kid occured when I was in Primary 5. Just after streaming. On the second day of school.

In front of all my new classmates! Horror of horrors.

It wasn't the usual "forgot-your-textbook-and-get-thrown-out-of-class", nono, not even the notorious hokkien huay guan teachers (which actually weren't that bad) were that mean on the first few days of school haha... It was far more mundane.

It was when my form teacher asked me (who, by virture of my height, or lack thereof, was sitting right in the centre, right in the front of the class as per normal) to help her lower the OHP screen. I was so taken aback because no teacher ever asked me to do this before. To me, the Lowering of The OHP Screen was only done by a privileged few who were, invariably, tall, garang, loud, and male, 4 qualities of which I only had the latter one.

So up I got, slowly. Slowly. Walked to the front of the class wondering why no one was saying anything. Maybe they thought it was normal, maybe they were just being polite. But I kinda knew what the outcome was. It's a simple fact that until I went to St. John in sec. 1 I was a very very unfit little boy. I could run my (then) 1.6 km faster than anyone in the class save for one boy from atheletics, but I couldn't jump, an occasion which this task called for.

So there was I, all alone, a tiny fellow all of 1.35 m (I still remember my height cos I was shorter than the shortest girl in my class, who's height was 1.355, a difference which she never let me forget) against the towering OHP string, wondering why they didn't make longer strings which reached the ground.

Up I leapt. My hand brushed the string. And again. I am so sure that it was the passing wind of my hand which caused the string to move. By now the titters behind me were fast becomig audible. I'm pretty sure I was vasodilating with agitation and embarrassment, but thinking that what one arm couldn't accomplish maybe the other could.

Up I went with my left hand. Missed. Flailing about in mid air was hardly the most glam of positions. I can only imagine what it looked like from the seated audience.

I tried, I really did, but the whole thing ended with the arrival of my teacher who said "okok, I've got it, thanks" and oh-so-casually drew down the OHP screen. I went back to my seat smiling bemusedly with my classmates barely concealing their mirth. Such is the quality of the things one finds amusing in primary school.

While we're on that, I always sat in front of my class all the way until sec. 4, except for the first few days of sec. 3. After that in JC I had an aversion to sitting in the front row and usually relegated myself to the back or to the second row heh. I'm still shorter than all my guy primary school classmates, and mostly shorter than the general population of males in Singapore my age. But I'm now taller than my teacher (and hopefully most of the girls in my class)

But it was nice, for that short while, for someone to actually believe that I could do something which I never believed myself to. I also dunno why I'm writing this. Maybe there's some deep moral which I could learn from it. But until then, Biochem calls to me =)