Just when I was grumbling to myself about not taking enough pictures of the school ground when I had the chance, I FOUND SOME! YAY. Today, I am going to introduce to all of you the place I spent a lot of my early teenage years at.
For 10 glorious years of my life, I was in the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) Katong. From I was 7 to 12 I studied in the Primary school, sadly the building is no more after undergoing a major revamp, and from 13 to 16, I was in the Secondary school lovingly nicknamed the Convent by the sea.. because it is. The East Coast Park was barely a five-minute walk away.
The school building, which held a million memories to thousands of KCians (that’s what we call ourselves) throughout the years, is going to be demolished really soon and for the past week old students have been going back for one last visit. I didn’t get to because of work, but I’ll live my memories through what pictures I have in my possession.
TEN THINGS I MISS ABOUT KC:
1. The service corridor (the picture above) is usually out of bounds to students. Yeah right. Our classroom doors are usually locked because of reasons. Keys had to be collected in the office first thing in the morning by the class chairperson (I was one in Secondary 2, yikes). Because we moved around a lot, we’d leave one of the windows of our classroom open for easy access if we forgot something and the chairperson isn’t around to open the doors. We had to CLIMB into our own classroom to get our stuff, and if we get caught by the prefects or teachers, we’d be damned.
2. We were experts in changing clothes without revealing much skin because after sweating it out at PE, we’d turn the fans at full blast, closed all the doors and change in the classroom. All 41 of us. Some idiot will hog the standing fan. Always.
3. This is also the time when someone will ask if anyone had pads. Someone usually had, and the scene of flying pads would ensue. There was once an ungrateful receiver announced, “I asked for a pad, not diapers!” Hey, better be safe than walk around with a stained pinafore.
4. Oh, and walking ahead of your friends during the time of the month and gesturing at the back of your pinafore without saying a word. Everyone knew what you meant. All hell will break loose if someone says, “What’s that spot?” Even when there wasn’t any.
5. Being threatened to be sent to the world map (a.k.a. the foyer) for detention. That’s one or two precious hours of your after school life.
6. The green plate stall Mee Soto every Wednesday. The chilli that goes with it numbs your tongue, but you keep going back for more.
7. The war zone of the Girl Guides room. Each Uniform Group (and Chinese Orchestra) had a room of their own. Our Guides room had a peculiar smell and is never, EVER clean no matter how many troops we sent in to clean it every semester. I’ve had to go in there countless of times to get stuff and navigating through it was like stepping around a land mine. Things EVERYWHERE.
Not the clearest picture, but this was our Guides room. Yep, told ya.
8. Book and Music Week preparations with the CLASS. I have to emphasize CLASS because I absolutely hate getting involved with Guides during BMW. BMW is a week of no lessons, just a week of reading, reflections, book reviews, concerts and more concerts. In Secondary One my class put on a KILLER show about interracial relationships. Plus, we were the only class who performed the angklung for the entire school. That was awesome. With Guides, there were just so much work to do, decorating the school, hanging art work.. building ladders and swings…. why can’t the other uniformed groups do it?!
9. Climbing the main school gate during Guides camp. We were even TAUGHT how to do it properly, without a misstep and slipping and cracking open our skulls. Every Guide back then knew how to climb the school gate, hands laden with plastic bags of food and other goodies.
10. The people. From Uncle Lim and Aunty Shirley at the bookstore and the drink stall uncle and aunty, to the teachers… especially Mrs Sng, because nobody would want to walk past her with a loose belt or a non-existent badge or a pair of socks that gathered round your ankles. And of course, your friends. The people you meet there are your friends for life. KC was a small school, everyone knew each other. If not by name, by face. Each of us had an invisible KC girl branded on our faces since we stepped through those gates. That brand never faded.
Many had reservations about my parents enrolling me in a Convent, with us being Muslims and Convents are.. well, aren’t. They worried about how I was going to be influenced by their teachings, etc. Yes, we started the day with prayers. In Primary school we had to report to the assembly hall after recess to say Grace, giving thanks to the food we ate. We also had Catechism every Fridays and school-wide mass every semester. But we non-Catholics were never forced into doing anything that was against what we individually believed in. We still had Chemistry classes, dreaded Mathematics lessons; loved when the bell rang for recess… and especially when the final bell rang; tried to sneak out of that one-hour assembly period once a week, every single week.
It’s been 6 years since I left KC but the KC girl in me never left. People aren’t generally surprised when they inquired which school I was from. “Oh, you were a Convent girl. No wonder.” Um, okay. WHAT DID I DO? My mum said she enrolled me in KC primary because she heard that the kids from the school was renowned for their English among other things (like.. being an all-girls school). My kindergarten teacher who wrote that I needed to speak more English in my report card would be pleased to know that my English has significantly improved since, and my ability to jabber in full, proper Malay has effectively gone down the toilet.
These were many generations of KC girls.. we had one thing in common: we were GUIDES.
People can say what they want, but I will always be grateful to my parents for enrolling me in KC Primary (heard it’s tough to get into these days). It was the first step to being exposed to a culture that I will never get to experience elsewhere. When I have a daughter, she’d go to KC like I did too, and she won’t hate me for it. The friends you make in KC are friends for life. And when you meet another IJ girl (there are 11 other CHIJ schools in Singapore) out there in the big bad world, you identify yourselves with them and become instant good friends and all the rivalry between the CHIJ schools back when you were a student forgotten.
