river valley high school

after reading blinkymummy and furfur_angel's entries on the chinese language, it brought me back to the days of my own experiences in a cina school. while i'm not going to continue the debate of the other two, i must say that i am very grateful that my parents decided to send me to a cina school, despite my initial protests.

when i went into river valley high, i was pretty traumatised by everything in general...the uniforms, the chinese speaking majority, the strict teachers...and especially the white short shorts that we had to wear. damn gross. i vividly remember that first day back in secondary 3...i was escorted into the classroom sometime in february by the vice-principal, walking in with semi-long white tennis shorts (which i had to borrow from my dad's tennis collection) cuz i hadn't made my full uniform yet, and getting very surprised and amazed that every single student stood up when a certain class rep shouted "起立!" (all rise!). wowsers...i was really impressed...anyway, during the first few weeks, i remember that no one was able to decipher my american slang...but somehow or other, the guys all knew what i was saying when i asked "so who are the cute guurrls here?". =)

victor was the class representative when i first joined, so it was only natural that he took me in under his wing...and fortunately, he showed me the ways of homework copying and fucking up our chinese lessons so much that i became adjusted to life in rv...i even got used to speaking mandarin to my friends.

sigh...but alas, we lead a life of reckless abandon...or rather, we lead a life of reckless abandon during chinese classes...so much so that we (victor and i plus billy, seow and lilian) became the first ever rv students to be forced to drop "chinese as a first language". while the other classmates were having their chinese lessons, we were conveniently told to go to the library and do self study for our "chinese as a second language" course. this was kinda like the siberia of rv, so we equally conveniently relocated ourselves to another location to play football with balls of paper. haha...we had damn good times. which is why i think we're still so close now (except for lilian, who probably felt left out in those football games cuz we didn't let her play, just in case we went for the wrong ball...haha). =)

but then again, now that i look back on it, i wish our chinese teacher hadn't forced us to drop just because we were not really up to the standard. i don't know, maybe she should have put in more effort to teach the 5 of us...maybe she could have given us more homework...maybe she would have changed the lives of 5 students...should have, could have, would have...maybe if gangsta's paradise (the movie) had come out a bit earlier...and while i'm not putting the blame entirely on the teacher, it's also just sad to know that the students are the ones who have to make way in a system where school rankings are of the utmost importance, in both the pride and budgetary sense. sometimes we should stop and think what schools are for in the first place...or is it another chicken and egg situation? hmmm...

* actually this wasn't the only time that it has happened in my life...my economics and computing tutors in njc were fighting amongst themselves as to who would get me to drop their respecitive subjects after my promos...but that's another story for another day off...oh yeah, did i mention that i'm on leave? =) *

i feel that going to river valley high knocked back the chinese into me...if you know what i mean. i was a banana without knowing it...and rv brought me back to asia. even ang-moh girls don't attract me anymore (ok...maybe catherine zeta jones lah...but who doesn't like her...even after 3 kids).

cheers to rvhs! 立德立功 化愚化顽 =)


p.s. - i'd like to wish my best friend, victor, and his rv sweetheart, cuixia, who he married this june, a very happy 11th anniversary today...九月九日，祝你们: 爱情永固 长长久久. every time i get disheartened with love, i just look at you all and realise that there's hope yet...true love does exist. =)