Farewell, and take care

I realised perhaps, I have never really said a proper goodbye to my school days in yj. I guess that's why I keep returning back to my memories of that place. and every time I find our old photos and remember all the things we used to do together, I will always end up saying, "Lord, I miss those days so much."

I recall vividly the day of our supposed graduation ceremony in yj. and as we sat down there in the large auditorium, as I re-hearsed the speech I was to give later, the p.a. crew played the song "there can be miracles" by mariah carey; the theme song for Prince of Egypt, and that was the moment our teachers started to walk down the aisle next to us. and as I tried to capture every moment of their walk down; the smiles on their faces, the slight hesitancy in the steps of some, as I saw all that, I started to feel tears in my eyes. for some strange reason, I felt I didn't know what to say or feel. for the past two years, those teachers have taught us, guided us, led us through all the ups and downs of our jc life. and we were just starting to get to know them, starting to be familiar with their ways of teaching, and suddenly, we realize that we were never going to experience many things we had grown accustomed to over the past two years.

no more of those famous scrambling and mad sprints to econs classes led by ms. aminah, no more of the complaining and groans of having to keep running on the tracks to practice for napfa, no more of those times of respite in mrs teo's gp lessons. no more of those gatherings during breaks, meal times, no more of sitting as a class on those yellow tables and blue chairs(right now, I struggle to remember whether or not I have stated the correct colours for the canteen furniture), no more of those hot mornings where we stand with "maps" of perspiration on our backs while waiting for assembly in the parade square. no more of those cold, cold afternoon breaks in the basement library, dwindling our free time away together.

no more of those mind-wrecking, stressful days with geography lessons, where we have to remember to buy fruits and to bring our files with everything supposedly filed in. no more of those endless "grumblings" at having to climb those steps to get to the geography classes at the fourth floor.(funnily enough, when we had to race up the same flight of steps for our econs lessons, those steps didn't seem that tedious;it was almost fun). no more of those amusing and interesting literature classes with mr sng, mr sim and of course mr spencer. no more of spencer's droning on and on about King Lear, Arundhati Roy, his nonsensical calling of almost vulgar names, his crazy antics with carol's floorball stick and the classroom's broom.I smile at how he would always tell us to write nicely in our essays, and yet he always ends up going around to explain what he himself wrote as comments on our scripts. I really do miss those warm and almost suffocating afternoons in the classrooms, hearing spencer's voice and the dull whirring sound of the fans above us, and the view we could see outside of our classroom doors.

no more of those cvd days where sharon had her most memorable moments of chopping those huge blocks of ice cream, no more of those days where all we needed to think about was schoolwork, no more of those days when every day we live in the constant anticipation of those final exams we had been preparing for, the moment we stepped into yj.

I sit here and dwell in nostalgia, knowing that I have done this for more times than I can remember, and yet somehow, this feels like the last. we all have our own lives to lead now, and all of us have our different paths to take; we all have our own memories to create.

but before we, or I move on, I just want to say, "Arigatou". Thank you for the two years in yj, thank you my dear friends and teachers for the times we've spent together. Goodbye,and do take care.

Perhaps, I will still drop by our school once in a while, and I know it won't ever be the same, but it's okay. It's fine, because we gave it our all back then. and though we could have done better, we know it was enough; our hearts were right then.

and with the help of my Lord, I will go on living with hope, joy and strength. two years down the road since that day, I feel I have truly graduated.