Those were our childhood days.... got this from an email from xinyi.. well these are stuff that i can relate to, and i must say i can recall myself doing about 97-98% of those things mentioned. how abt u?

1. You grew up watching He-man, Transformers, Silver hawk and Mickey Mouse.
Not to forget, Ninja turtles and Smurfs too.

2. You grew up brushing your teeth with a mug in Primary school during
recess time. You will squat by a drain with all your classmates beside you,
and brush your teeth with a coloured mug. The teachers said you must brush
each side10 times too.

3. You know what's Bin(1) Fen(1) Ba (1) San(1) is all about.

4. You know what SBC stands for.

5. You were there when the first chinese serial, the Awakening was shown on
TV.

6.Internet? What the hell is that? So you thought a decade or more ago.

7. You find your friends with pagers and handphone cool in Secondary school.

8. SBS buses used to be non-airconditioned. The bus seats are made of wood
and the cushion is red.! The big red bell gives a loud BEEEP! when
pressed.There are colourful tickets for TIBS buses. The conductor will check
for tickets by using a machine which punches a hole on the ticket.

9. Your favourite actor and actress is Huang Wenyong and Xiangyun. Next is
Lee Nanxing and Zoe Tay and the Aiyoyo woman.

10. You've probably read Young Generation magazine. You know who's Vinny the
little vampire and Acai the constable.

11. You were there when they first introduced MRT here. You went for the
first ride with your parents and you would kneel on the seat to see the
scenery.

12. Movie tickets used to cost only $3.50.

13. Gals are fascinated by Strawberry Short Cake and Barbie Dolls.

14. You learn to laugh like The Count in Sesame Street.

15. You longed to buy tibits called Kaka(20 cents per pack) and Ding Dang(50
cents per box), that had a toy in it and it changes every week not
forgetting the 15 cents animal crackers and the ring pop, where the lollipop
is the diamond on the ring.

16. You watched TV2(also known as Channel 10) cartoons because Channel 5
never had enough cartoons for you.

17. All that you know about Cantonese is from the Hong Kong serials you
watched on TV2.

18. Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Three Investigators, Famous Five and Secret
Seven are probably the thickest story books you ever thought you have read,
even Sweet Valley High and Malory Towers.

19. Civics and Moral Education was "Hao3 Gong1 Min2".

20. KFC used to be a high class restaurant that serve food in plates and let
you use metal forks and knives.

21. The most vulgar thing you said was asshole and idiot and THE MOST
EXTREME WAS 'super white'...you just couldn't bring yourself to say the
hokkien relative.

22. Catching was the IN thing and twist the magic word.

23. Your English workbooks was made of some damn poor quality paper that was
smooth and yellow.

24. CDIS was your best friend.

25. The only computer lessons in school involved funny pixilated characters
in 16 colours walking about trying to teach you maths.

26. Water bottles were slung around your neck and a must everywhere you go.

27. Boys loved to play soccer with small tennis balls in the basketball
court or play something that uses tennis ball to hit other players known as
"HUM TAM BOLA" during recess /after school

28. Hopscotch, five stones, chapteh and zero point were all the rage with
the girls and boys too...

29. Science was fun with the balsam and the angsana being the most important
plants of our lives.

30. Who can forget Ahmad, Bala, Sumei and John, eternalized in our minds
from the textbooks, even Mr Wally, especially a bunny on your English Pets
Coursebook.

31. You did stupid exercises like seal crawl and frog jumps.

32. Every children's day and national day you either get pins or pens with
'Happy Children's Day 1993' or dumb files with Happy National Day 1994'.

33. In Primary six you had to play buddy for the younger kids like big
sister and brother.

34. Chinese teachers were always old, boring and damn fierce looking.

35. Your form teacher taught you maths, science and english.

36. The worksheets were made of brown rough paper of poor quality.

37. You went to school in slippers and a raincoat when it rained, and you
find a dry spot in the school to sit down, dry your feet, and wear your dry
and warm socks and shoes.

38. Famous Chinese singers were only Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok and
Leon Lai

39. School dismissal time was normally around 1 pm.

40. There would be spelling tests and mental sums to do almost everyday.

41. Your friends considered you lucky and rich if your parents gave you $3
or more for pocket money everyday.

42. During class gatherings, parents always tag along in case someone gets
lost at Orchard Road.

43. You freak out when the teacher tells you to line up according to height
and hold hands with the corresponding boy or girl.

44. Handkerchiefs were a must for both genders

45. Collecting notebooks and all kinds of stationery was a popular thing.

46. Autograph books were loaded with "Best Wishes", "Forget Me Not", and
small poems like "Bird fly high, hard to catch, Friends like you, hard to
forget".

47. Class monitors and prefects loved to say "You talk some more, I write
your name ah!"

48. There were at least 40 people in one class.

49. Large, colourful schoolbags were carried.

50. You brought every single book to school, even though there was one thing
called the timetable.

i have decided to do a post about my life. my life in general, and for this reason i will be using abbreviations in order to keep the person or persons i'm referring to confidential. okayy. perhaps its not very confidential afterall and u might get a rough idea about who i'm referring to. anyway, if you are interested to know who the pple are, hey! just drop me a message and i'll be glad to let you know. thanks juan, for giving me the idea of using abbreviations so that i can more or less write in peace and get rid of all those voyeurs. cheers, darling. =)

PS: i'm gonna be VERY abstract here and so if u dont get a clue of what i'm trying to say, just take it as one of my rachel rants.

okay back to the topic.. i wonder where i should start from, perhaps the good olde primary school days eh.. i remember in primary three, someone asked me out for a movie. hahas and i'm so thankful that i didnt went. who knows what may actually happen if i go out aye. i suppose some parent will tag along just to make sure that we do not get lost in jurong east. lol. then there was nothing bubbling during the rest of my primary school days.

the next phase of my schooling career was when i became crazier. in a literal sense. if you knew me then and know me now, you would understand where i was coming from. but anyway. secondary one came The Porgie. nothing too fancy, just perhaps a little premature hunk in the beginning years. three came along The LOTR and The Monitor. LOTR came about pretty much quite sudden too, and til this very day.. i have no recollection as to why LOTR was one of the potentials in those days. this holidays came about as a surprise to me, cos i went to harvester church and LOTR came up: hi, rachel rite. I'm from fairfield too, remember me? then he shook hands with me and gave me the widest smile of his entire career. The monitor was more or less the type of material that you would want for ur finest house-ware. what more can i say about the best material used. just for the record, the idea of LOTR didnt arrive cos he/she for the matter comes from new zealand, tho i'm sure the latter must have been here before. of course, there were many other insignificant ones and some significant ones that i shant even put down, cos its just not too convenient aye.

anyway yups. so that's abt the 2nd chapter of my career. the 3rd chapter is rather interesting though as it is the time where most pple gets into a ship that either floats and arrives safely at their final destination or sinks and never to be found again. i admit that it was one of the council members of The Morning Express- MKK trilet ya. dont ask me why okay. The 3rd letter of the trilet strikes me as being wrongfully wronged and doesnt really seem wronged in reality afterall. i'm not trying to cover up for anything here but yeah, i believe all those allegations were wrong afterall. he seems like a nice member, well or so i think. after a couple of sessions with the 2nd and 3rd trilet, i've come to realise how interesting the morning express team can be. anyhoo, good news for those who know who i'm referring too! i'm only friends of the morning express team and nothing more. perhaps i could get to be on their show sometime soon. concurrently came The Chairman. this turned out to be a game that i began to play along and finally lost in the end. if only i had listened to the 2nd trilet way before it happened eh. i'm still glad that i didnt turn out to be chairwoman, cos somehow i dont suit that position. that ended the 3rd chapter of my career and i proceeded on to somewhere different. some land that i didnt expect myself to go. but nevertheless, i went.

this land was different. hard to describe and hard to adapt to.. but it was here that many more characters began to unfold. the first one was Raleigh. you might recall that Raleigh used to be my group's name from LTC. hahas but this in no means is related to the raleigh years ago.. however, this only lasted for quite some time until the korean rush came up. the next one preceeding this is a dream in reality. The Rarr.. i'll say more abt this rarr next time ya. back to work..

I BELIEVE IN A BLACK JERSEY.
I BELIEVE IN A LEGACY OF 100 YEARS.
I BELIEVE IN A CALL THAT SUMMONS A NATION.
I BELIEVE IN A TEAM, NOT OF 15, BUT OF MILLIONS.
I BELIEVE IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING

the preacher for today's sermon was from singapore. woohoo! can u believe that? a singaporean preacher coming all the way to a kiwi-church to preach. but that's his call to ministry. and to add on! (you wont believe this) his kids are fellow fairsians!! he was telling my dad of how he courted his wife at the dover estate and how his wife's family all went through the portals of fairfield.

the main point of this being, its hard to meet someone else overseas from fairfield. someone else in kiwi-land to share the same sentiments of being through fairfield. well, who knows! his kids may well be one of the kids from pri 5B or 6B right! or it might be what's his name again? that kid from pri 5B.. he was so cute counting the funds from funfair over and over again. okayy. i admit i was quite mean to make him double check over twice or thrice, but had to make sure that they gave the correct amount recorded.

yup yup. his sermon really made me feel right at home, just like being back in aldersgate again.
and just as i guessed, he used some colloquial phrases during his sermon. i bet the kiwis didnt know what it meant so he was trying to explain the terms he used. it was really hillarious!

the main gist of this being that his kids are from fairfield. seriously, its good to know someone else being in ur alma mater. i couldnt believe my ears at first, cos its very hard to find someone from the same school as you.

i'm really thankful for the pals and friendships i've established in fairfield. these are truely friendships that go a really long way and friendships that i treasure.

crapp, my dory syndrome is coming back again.

i'll be starting school officially tomorrow. back to school again folks.. yeah yeah, i know i have had the longest break ever and not to forget a wonderful vacation too. well, hard to get back to the study mood again but nevertheless i'll be different this year. start the year well and right, there wont be any problems eh. lesser obstacles to handle the better.

yay! first day of school tomorrow. started packing my little tom & jerry backpack, piling it with books. wearing the clothes that i'm gonna wear to school to sleep just in case i oversleep and have to end up running to school. arranging my shoes and making sure that its cleanly white.
nahh just kidding. i'm not doing that but just to let u know.. that was me when i was in primary one. and yes! i did cry on my first day of school, clinging on to my mothers hand and not allowing her to leave. THIS up to this day, some of my friends can remember too. can u believe it, stuff that were ages ago they can remember so clearly. *shakes head*

alritey. till next time folks! =)

the following post is due ages ago. this was actually how i spent my valentine's day..


introducing my beloved group of long time besties from fairfield. an absolutely lovely bunch of pple to be with, to share my joy. *rache pops a bottle of champagne and shares it with her mates*


these cards are from serene and derrick. loved the specially made v'day postcard, derrick.. =)


this lovely bouquet of flowers were from kenny! u rock dude.. btw, the pink flowers are suppose to form a heart shape in the middle, with an outer layer of blue flowers. unfortunately it wasnt hand-made eh. but thanks anyway!


hey everyone, this was what allen gave me. nice eh? hahas.. i'm sure u spent a lot of time choosing this one out.


serene bestie, love the little gift from u. may our friendship carry on for many years to come. thanks for the memories!


ahha, this is the specially made miniature bouquet of flowers from derrick. a wonderful job done!


and how can i forget this.. a fabulous gift from chinhuat. though u cannot really see it clearly, but its a chain for my hp. and it has my name imprinted on it. appreciate it lots..



isnt it great to be able to spend valentine's day with people u treasure and love? it just is absolutely great aint it.. i cant imagine what life would be like if i have not met this bunch of guys.

actually i do have more pictures, however it takes ages to upload cos the file size is humongous. perhaps shall upload it elsewhere. so stay tuned!

school's starting tomorrow. time passes very quickly, and just like i was beginning to enjoy my holidays in singapore, i had to fly back. same thing here, just as i was enjoying the last week of my holidays, school has to start. anyway i can only hope that my time-table for this year is gonna be good. yup yup. i've also uploaded a couple of pics which are supposed to be here ages ago.. pictures taken when i was back home.

i'm currently at Burns. i've got a three and a half hour break before my next physiology lecture. anyhoo, the anatomy lecture was packed with pple. i guess its one hot course eh.. on the other hand, the biological anthropology lecture was pathetic. i wonder if only a handful of pple applied for this paper. *rache crosses her fingers* its seriously pathetically little.

rache have decided to study hard this semester even though i wont be able to go to sg to study for even a semester cos i was born in singapore. its quite rubbish aint it. went to speak to an exchange adviser and he said and i quote, if u are native in singapore, chances are u will not be selected to go there to study. what other choice do i have but to stay here and continue with my tertiary education. sad but thats the hard facts of life. i guess when i'm back in 2yrs time, allen wont be there anymore eh.. i wonder how long more it takes before we can reunite again as one big happy family, reliving our secondary school days yet again.

(more photos to come shortly and not to forget pics from valentine's day 2006)

got one of these DID U KNOWS from the a friend. enjoy the read..

Coca-Cola was originally green.

The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start
with.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on
one row of the keyboard.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart
stops for a millisecond.

The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest
tongue twister in the English language.

If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a
sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents great king from history.

Spades - King David
Clubs - Alexander the Great,
Hearts - Charlemagne
Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to
squirt blood 30 feet.

Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear
by 700 times.

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different



And finally 99% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow.

AM I RIGHT?!!! well, u're not the only one too.. i tried that myself.. lol.

Goodbye singapore and hello kiwi-land!

i just wanna say a big thank you to the guys and a beautiful lady for the scrumptous meal at soup restaurant before i left. its really been such a great joy having u guys in my life. i'm so grateful for the pple who spent time coming to the airport and sending me off on that day.. and to those who could not make it, i understand completely! was really a wrong day to fly..
anyway i was kinda disappointed with the services. i had expected the plane to be decorated with hearts and flowers, and perhaps for each passenger to be given a chocolate or a rose. but i was so wrong! i guess it was just an ordinary flight for the airline.

so much so for a 10hr flight and 6hr bus ride. was totally exhausted by the time we got to dunners, even though i was asleep for most of the journey. headed back home and slept like a log for ages. was down with the fever and cold too.. see how weak my immunity level is.. lol

back to the present..
just came back from course approval today. settled with everything already.. phew was the queue really long esp the anatomy queue. relatively hot course i suppose. oh yeah, and the lecturers advised me against taking a 300-level paper in my 2nd year. so i had to choose another paper from a huge range. i wanted to try out physical education papers.. but unfortunately the lecture slots clashed.. what a pity! and it was not for one paper, but both the 1st semester ones as well as the 2nd semester paper. therefore it was down to psychology and biogical anthropology. of cos i picked the latter. yeah but the physical ed papers were kinda interesting and cool. just too bad it isnt God's plan for me to take that.

aside from that, nothing much to blog about either. life here is just normal. nothing interesting and nothing exciting. rachel got to do well and rachel WILL do well. no doubt abt that, anyway till next time..

three years ago, on this very special day.. i headed to school after a sleepless night anticipating my long-awaited O'level results. anyway all the best to those who are collecting their o'level results.

and to edwin: i'm waiting for ur call!

yeah i guess those that are receiving their results today will be anxious to know what they've got and whether anot those months of sweat and midnight oils do pay off. getting the results back is one thing, but its not finished yet. then comes the dilemna of choosing where you wanna go and what you wanna do. in turn which would decide what you would ultimately do as a career.

as for me, i'm fickle when it comes to future careers. seriously, i have changed my mind a couple of times already. i suppose when a person gets older, his/her thinking changes hence the change of career choice. anyway career choice is more or less also based on what opportunities you were given at that point in time. if i had not been given the opportunity of going overseas to pursue my further studies, i would not have thought of taking psychology, which in turn i would not have taken health sci. as a consequence, i would not have liked studying biology and not be what i am today.

you might say, they are just according to my plans and as such, i'm just acting on them. now i say to you, its not true! three years ago, i'd never expected me to come overseas, leave all that i had behind, to step out of my comfort zone, making new friends, adapting to a new environment etc. i'm a person that doesnt like changes, i prefer to stick to the same constant environment rather than see a change. however it is through these experiences that i learnt to grow as an individual and accept that goodbyes are just temporary. for here i am now, back here to where it all started again three years later.

i was at nus yesterday and i saw many familiar looking faces, some of them were just as shock as i were to see me there. no i did not crash anymore lectures there.. if i did, it would have been a pharmacy lecture on the chemistry of cosmetics. anyway yeah.

yup yup. i must say that this summer vacation has been the best one ever. perhaps when u leave a place for a couple of years, pple are more into meeting u up again to chat up the old times. i dont know, but i just got this feeling that if i never did left, i would never have known who my true friends really were. but now that i know, i will treasure them even more. these are the ones that stuck my me all these while.

i had a nice catch up session with mr kwok again. he is getting crappier and crappier as the days go by. hahas and also an update of the new happenings that are going on in the department. its really wierd when he says that the new pe teacher from fmss is on a slightly different wavelength from the morning express. and u know who the morning express pple are.. those that hang out in the canteen early in the morning before flag raising, drinking soya bean and beancurd. really miss those mornings manz.. anyway the main news being that there are no new additions to the morning express.

the quote of the day has to come from mr kwok!
"the morning express team is planning to watch Brokeback Mountain and then declare to the college that we are a bunch of "happy" (read : GAY) teachers!"

apparently the both of them go out together and once they came across a gay hangout. where? at the coffee outlet at heeren. hahas and according to him, there were seven to eight to other gay couples around. he said one look and they could tell who were gays.. hahas then he moved on to say that "of course i am very sure they thot the same thing when they saw the both of us, especially when i was wearing my rugby shorts!" what a sense of humour!! i suppose it would be so cool if one could be the new addition to the morning express afterall.

The greatest distance in the world... Is not standing beside you and not being able to love you. But its knowing that both of us are in love yet we can't be together.

went for steamboat dinner with the instructors yesterday. okay, it wasnt all of them.. just a few. the rest of them were either too busy or that they were busy serving the nation and could not book out. anyway had a couple of laughs over what we did in the past but the feeling wasnt really there anymore. and this, i'm sure that both mel and jeannie would agree with me. yup and mel suggested we head back to pj every morning for dou hua and dou hua sui, then get outta there. we just had to let the security guard know what we were doing in school every morning.. i really missed those days in college where we used to come to school early and how our foursome would talk and talk until the cows come home. and not to forget the wonderful ltc camp we had. those were the days eh.. now that everyone is splitted up and are busy with their own life..

i cannot help but wonder what life would be like in say, a couple of years time. would we still be as close as ever? would we still have constant meet ups? i wonder.. when someone told me that he was having meet ups with his primary school friends, i almost fainted! cos firstly, his pri and sec school were different yet they are still so close after all these 10 over years.. for me, even though my pri and sec schools are affiliated, i dont even see some of my pri school mates. that was when i thought, as long as there is effort made to meet up with the person, it really can be done.

okay, my dory syndrome is coming back again.

i've got slightly less than a week left before i head back to dunners. and this time, once i'm gone i'll only be back in say 2yrs time if i'm not doing honours and 3yrs time if i am. once again, GOODBYE is always hard. i'm not like those that go overseas to study and come back to their home country once a year, am not that rich to spend about 10k per family to come back each year. that's why i needed to make full use of my time here, but did i? no i did not! instead of spending time here with friends and family, i took up a really (in my opinion) dumb job at income. it was really a total waste of my time and i did not enjoy one bit of it there. in fact, working there was at the expanse of my own eye-sight. not only did my eyes deterioate but i had to put on specs. but its okay, GOd still loves them! the most rewarding thing i did while on vacation was relief teaching. really enjoyed the experience i had there and it is such a joy to teach.

i'm currently filled with meet up sessions until the last day in sg. i'm sure gonna miss this place and the wonderful friends past and present.

this is one incident i HAVE to blog about. kids nowadays are really cute. there was this primary one kid that keeps going to the washroom, so after a while i did not allow him to go. He started crying at his seat, i was left with no other choice but to allow him to go. also i found more nice names for my future kids: ambrose and matthias. hmm, there's this kid by the name of xavier in my class too. woohoo! finally there's a xavier somewhere, i wanted to tell him that he's got a really nice name, but i didnt anyway. he is really cute too, he came up to me:

xavier: miss cheong, can i go to the toilet to pass motion?
me: sure, go ahead but come back quickly.
xavier: ermm i dont feel like going already, no more feeling.
me: really? are you sure you are not urgent anymore?
xavier: a little bit.
me: then, go to the toilet quickly.

(and xavier went to the washroom. five minutes later... )

xavier: ms cheong, the toilet got no toilet paper.. so i washed my backside with water.
me: (at that point, i almost fainted) okay, at least you washed it clean. now, go back to your seat.
xavier: but sometimes i pee in my pants too.
me: huh? so did you pee in your pants now?
xavier: sometimes, i need to wash my hands now.
(xavier turned and his pants showed some signs that it had been soaked. and he was touching his butt)
me: xavier, go and wash your hands at the sink.

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another incident that happened in class today.

me: terrence, what's that in your hands?
terrence: i did this today.
me: keep it in your bag now, terrence.
terrence: but.. but...
then terrence gave me the really innocent look on his face and told me: i want you to have this..
with that, he gave me his piece of masterpiece. which in my opinion was really well done.

hahas, but one thing's for sure, this terrence guy would definitely grow to become very handsome. of course, not too forget xavier and jerome. hmm and javis from another class. yeah and terrence wrote in his english assignment about their wishes and dreams... that he wished to have many girlfriends. i was like laughing to myself in the staffroom. thankfully most of the teachers were at classes.

well, these are the joys and sastifaction that teaching brings. there are actually much more incidents which i cant blog down, there are just too many of them to start with. oh yeah, and its really heartening to know that your students actually remember you though you cant recall all of their names. they remember your name
your face and even bother to greet you along the way. THAT is what makes teaching such a rewarding job!