Welcome to My World(part 4)

I shall leave the story about my class monitor till much later.
A month in secondary one, entered the Science teacher who was also the discipline teacher of the school. He was a young teacher in his early twenties. He was always neatly dressed and always had a smile on his face. Not the sort of smile that makes you want to be friends with him, it was the sort that makes you think that you've done something wrong. Everyone was always very afraid of him but I wasn't because my dad was really fierce. For Science lessons, we always had to be in the Science lab and the Science lab was quite a distance away from our classroom. Therefore, we were always late for Science lessons and a long scolding would follow. Nobody dared to answer back or offer explanations to him though everyone wanted to. Our poor class monitor always got the worst from the Science teacher.

Few months passed by and nobody said nothing to the Science teacher. The scolding went on and on. Some of my classmates started to hate Science lessons because the lessons never started with a happy note. I was never really concerned as Science was my least favourite subject until I was put on the spot.

Welcome to My World(part 3)

After a few weeks in secondary one, I made some friends who were very much the same as I was, the non-studying type. I was not really sure whether it was me that made them not wanting to study or I finally found a small group of friends within the same class who were just not into books. When the teachers were not in, we would hang out just outside the classroom as we did not want to disturb the rest of the class. We were never caught by any of the prefects because they never came around. I was made to understand nobody interfered with the top classes of each year. We didn't have any prefects in our class because prefects were only from secondary two onwards.
We did however, have a class monitor which I couldn't remember the name until today. He never bothered us, therefore we liked him. And he was never the 'sucking up the teacher' type which made him even more popular among the boys and the girls in the class. He was always cheerful and always punctual which was why we voted him to be the class monitor. He was always ahead of everyone in almost everything. I didn't know anything about our class monitor until one day I sat down with him and had a chat.

Welcome to My World(part 2)

Everybody went to school either on a bicycle or was driven by their parents. I never wanted to be driven by my dad, I did not want to be seen by my new school mates as a pampered child, not in the morning anyway. I was always walking to school in the morning and was always energetic in the morning. In the afternoon, it was a different story altogether as I hated walking in the sun. I would walk over to my dad's place of work, wait for him to finish and ride with him back home.
In the secondary school, I was just an ordinary boy amongst hundreds of other students. I did not stand out in the crowd at all. I was always minding my own business. I did not excel in sports during my primary education but I managed quite well academically. I wasn't exactly into books though my dad and my elder sister tried really hard and neither was I into outdoor activities. Anyway, I did score good grades in 'Penilaian Darjah 5'. As a result, I was placed in the top class. I did apply to go into one of those boarding schools, did the written tests, attended the interviews but I didn't get a place.
Being in the top class wasn't an easy thing to do. I was suddenly surrounded by these really clever students. They didn't play around when teachers weren't in, they were always flipping books, doing exercises or talking about previous lessons. In my head I was thinking "Don't these people have fun?"

Welcome To My World(part 1)

I never exactly knew why I am always surrounded by really interesting individuals. Probably because I am very plain and as they say opposite attracts, I always bump into people who have interesting characteristics.
Where shall I begin though? Secondary school? College? University? Or maybe past and present work place? I suppose secondary school would be a good place to start. I think that was about the right age when I began to take interest in other people, what they do, and what makes me feel that they are interesting individuals.
I went to a school in a very small town where everybody knew everyone. That is interesting to start with. I was never referred to by my own name, it was always so and so's son of so and so's village and people would go on describing every little detail about my dad while I just stood there listening. My dad was quite a well known figure in the town that I lived in but I'll leave that till later. The school I went to was quite big with over 1500 students, for a small town school, it was considered huge. Hence, it was a double-session school. I was nearly 13 years old when I first stepped into the school ground with olive green shorts, sparkly white shirt, a brown belt and a navy blue tie.