Random memories



I'm turning 21 in 2 day's time. I will officially be an adult, not that I'm not already one. 21 years in this lifetime isn't long, but I managed to squeeze a million memories into these 21 years. Theyre kind of random, just images popping up in my head, and varies from age to age, but they're all a part of me.


The List.

- Playing hide and seek at ah ma's house with my cousin with ah ma helping me by locking me into the store room.

- Ah Yang korkor throwing me over his shoulders and running around the house, both of us giggling like mad.

- Walking along the nursery at Yishun block 850 at aged 3, thinking how lucky it is to be 3 years old and that I'm going to be 3 years old only once in a lifetime and I should enjoy it. Believe me, I shocked my older self when I thought back.

- Holding Kalai's hands and spinning madly around during our primary school's post-PSLE celebrations in the hall.

- The smell of Far East Square in the morning.

- Crying in the storeroom of the restaurant I worked at,Kampong Kitchen, at age 17, after I accidently spilled hot tea all over a customer.

- Ah Yang korkor's magic fingers. He had long slender fingers, as opposed to his portly stature (post-army) and they were stretchable into twisted angles. I've always admired his fingers and for some reason, mine are stretchable like his. He loved to play with his fingers and show how stretchy they were, and I could remember.. staring at them when I was just a small little girl at the coffeeshop eating lunch with him and Leeling jiejie.. staring at them when he pillon-ed me out for a drink when I was 17.. staring at them when they were loading his body into the coffin.. and I can still picture them in my mind. Magicky fingers are in heaven now.

- I remember my first love's name. His name was Squarren. I was 12. He was 13. It was a long and complicated affair which ended too soon with the interference of teachers and parents.

- Playing with water at home with Jack, Amos and my sister. With full disregard for the furniture, we flung water at each other and made a total mess, which was later cleaned up before mom came home.

- Drawing on the walls at our old house at 800+ when both me and my sister were young girls. No spot was left un-drawn. There was even a kiss mark when we played with mummy's lipstick and I kissed the wall, and then drew a face around it.

- Mummy sits me on top of the washing machine to feed me cough medicine. When I grew older and heavier, I couldn't understand why I couldn't sit on the washing machine anymore. One day the cover on top broke into two and I was very, very sad.

- A picture in nursery at 850 that the teacher showed us; A boy about to eat an apple and shaking a pepper bottle on top of it. So.. putting pepper on apples are nice?

- Preschool at Ang Mo Kio: We were forced to sleep for awhile everyday. And if we didn't, we'd get a scolding. And the teacher would sleep with her favourite student. I remember crying like mad once because it was my birthday and I didn't want to go to the nursery.

- I changed my chinese name to "Jackal" for awhile when I was 14. The chinese teacher freaked out when she found out my real name after one whole year.

- I remember when Bob Saget still hosted the America's Funniest Home Videos segment. Which came right after Tom&Jerry's, and right before the Wheel of Fortune. That was after school when I was in lower primary.

- Some kids spoilt the curtains at kindergarden, and the entire class was punished. One kid even cried and grabbed the teacher's legs.

- Sitting on the lap of a friend at SSC when I worked there as a barmaid, and got caught by my manager. Not only did she not mind, the whole world then thought that we were a couple.

- Ice-skating with Darryl, losing contact with him, then going shopping with him later on at Far East plaza after we found each other again.

- BBQ session with the Hurricanes. We learnt the phrase "Ham-Cheese" there.

- Daidee at 346. It's a basketball court, and there was a period of time when everybody got addicted to daidee, and stopped playing basketball just to play daidee.

- The smell of K, and the look in his eyes. Loved, hated, lost, hated, regretted, remorse, loved, hated somemore. It's complicated. It's ongoing. It's gone. He's gone.

- Throwing a half-eaten burger down the rubbish chute after watching a documentary on the emiciated people in Ethiopia, who were living on rubbish and leftovers. I was still hungry, but decided that they needed the burger more than I did.

- Drawing parrots and trees on the wooden construction board at mummy's old canteen.

- Playing daidee with my cousins at ah Yang korkor's funeral. Winner stays dry, first loser drinks one whole packet of water and the 2 other losers drink 2 whole packets each. Zhizhong korkor kept throwing up water. It was funny as hell and we laughed like mad.

- Hokkien songs in daddy's car. He used to have a few cassettes and we'd listen to them over and over and over again.

- Falling down the flight of stairs at my primary school porch during recess time when I was in primay 1. A primary 5 malay prefect girl came along, pick me up and dusted me off and fussed over me, telling me I was such a good girl for not crying. What, I was supposed to cry?

- Punggol camp in secondary school. Sleeping on Dev's lap on the first night because the tents were full of mosquitoes and everybody shifted to the log area and there wasn't enough space for all of us.

- Some guy (I forgot who) sang to me from my carpark at 2am in the morning. 2am.. and the rain is falling....

- Pushing the gearshift lever of Daddy's car at the lentor intersection, causing the car to jump forwards. Got slapped for that.

- Nightmares. When I was young, I'd alway dream of someone close to me, or myself dying. I still remember some of the more horrible ones.

- Watching some of the places of childhood go one by one as we grew up. The school building. The fast food restaurant. The playground.

- Hugging mummy in the dark and crying after our electricity got cut for the umpteenth time and we had no money to pay for it. I had to go borrow some from my friend, WY, and cried in front of him when I did so.

- Almost drowning in Batam when ah Yang korkor dunked me into the swimming pool because he thought it was funny.

Memories. Not all of them are here, but it comes back bit by bit at a time. Where are your memories?