Come take a stroll down Memory lane.

after a thousand-calorie (i swear, chicken wings, otah, sugar cane, mango pudding, satay, calamari and oyster omelette goes straight into the tummy) supper, i shared a cab back with Celine Laoshi, and she suddenly turned to me and asked..

"isaac, do you hate growing up?"

very. i hate it, but hey evolution is something that's irreversible, even for pokemons. As i dove headfirst into my high school yearbooks to steal a nostalgic glance at the OBESE little prudeface in secondary 1 with the high tuck school attire and very very fugly specs, or have a momentary sigh of reminiscence at the flamboyant little drama queen prince with a penchant for tucking his uniform out and playing basketball throughout recesses, i always sit down with a glass of water in my hand and recall all the good times that we shared.

(juanjuan and me sec 4 last day of school )

I do remember that high school was a period of great significance for me.





1) Co-Curricular Activities & Weight Loss

In Primary School, i was pretty much the prude little shithead that guaranteed to write your name on the blackboard if you talked. i was the epitome of a teacher's pet and i probably got to be a prefect only cause my Aunty used to be a chinese teacher in HPPS and also that her close confidante was the then-Discipline Mistress. I loved responsibility and always thought of aiding my teachers in any way possible, even if it meant screwing up my classmates (but hey, in MY defense, we were all innocent and lost, so hey, no politics then, aside from the "i don't friend you" coined phrase, which, as we look back upon, chuckle at our sillyness)

ECA/CCA in primary school? very gay stuff like Choir and Mini-tennis (tennis but with a sponge ball, how cute). Not much physical strainings except for the occasional falsetto note. I quit mini-tennis after a session because i found it quite a chore to wake up early in the morning on a thursday to hit a spongeball against the wall, tch.

(ELDDS Junior Afiqaah & Me, Speech Day Rehearsal '03)

Then came Upper secondary in Gan Eng Seng, boy, i don't know what got into me, but I gave puberty the credit. Aside from gamely learning to lower my pants level (hur) and begin to appreciate the comfort that is to leave your shirt hanging out, i decided (after being rejected by 7 girls throughout my lower secondary life) to slim down.

(Juan & Me, night basketball after Drama Festival 2003)

Yes, slim down, tough thing to do to all you beach whales out there, but hey, the rewards are definitely worth it. Aside from my Volleyball CCA (from sec1-3), there wasn't much exercise, so i decided to get serious in sec 4, where i started a basketball clique with BoonPeng, SzeHui, JuanJuan, Sok Yee & Zheng Ning (boy i can still remember their names) and played 3 on 3 every recess, and when the bell rang, i ran to the canteen to buy some protein food such as fishcakes and sausages, and after a routine of 6 months, i lost almost 15kg and i was out of the TAF Club.

(Jeremiah & Me, Graduation D&D @ Amara Hotel(?) 2003)

It was really a crash diet for me, and though i lost weight, due to it's sudden decrease in mass, there were some fat residues residing on my face. so ugh to a "dua tao".

After resigning from the Volleyball School Team due to some.. *ahem* politics and issues, I begun ensuing a life more creative and dramatic, and hence ELDDS welcomed me with open arms and begun climbing up the theatrical ladder doing the SYF as the main actor. Under the wing of Jeremiah Choy & Ms Armstrong, we got a Gold for the first time in history! It felt great to present our play again for the assembly, and i felt wanting the stage more and more.

(Vanitha & I in our SYF Costumes after performance, early 2003)

(elf wong elin and i, ELDDS SYF Victory BBQ @ Ms Armstrongs house, late 2003) PS : don't kill me elin!

Oh, i also joined the Military Band in sec 1 but left after a year coz i felt that ___________________. haha.

2) of Friends, Emotional Blackmail, Betryal & Backstabbings

not exactly gonna be divulging information on this segment, but yeah, i guess i definitely had to grow up faster than the usual. I was really a hard guy to get along with. i had this incessant need to please everyone around me, and it was just a very sad signal that i craved acceptance. i would like talk to people even if they were not in the mood and i gave them a negative impression of me.

(elf & I again at Graduation night D&D, 2003)

I do know a few people who stuck by me, whether we were close or not. Feng Hui / Fengs, Elin, Vanitha, The basketballers (mentioned above) esp Juan. yeah, and also the ELDDS team. These people were my pure source of strength to pull me through. Afterall, being one of the more prominent theatrical students in secondary school, especially a male, does draw a lot of flak and controversy. but bah, take the good with the bad, happy with the sad.

(Juan & I, last day of school 2003)

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confessions of a boy

1) i used to copy A Maths Homework every. single. day. I only tried doing it the first week of sec 3. i HATE maths. and i think it was a very wise move to drop A Maths to focus on my Music O level subject.

2) i bullied girls. a lot. but they love the attention. HA. [note past tense]

3) i had a huge crush on this teacher, and i gave her a card on valentines day, but wrote "yours truly, [friends name]". tsk. and boy did my friend get in trouble for that. OOPS.

(shion, juan & I fooling around in the Library during the mugging days pre O level, 2003)

4) thanks to the environment of the library, i finally understood the term of mugging as a group of us stayed back every day from 9am-9pm just studying for our Os in the library. Of course, the occasional round of Gunbound in the media section counted as mugging too. ha.

5) toilets weren't just used for personal hygiene and washing hands if you know what i mean. and it has nothing to do with the picture below too fyi.

(juan, me and boonpeng being TwitZX in the MalE ToiLEtZX, 2003)

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truthfully, i enjoyed blogging this entry, it was great just having a valid excuse to look at my old photos and tell a tale. not much of a legacy, no sleeping with teachers, no vandalism or arson, or pad-throwing anecdotes.

just the tale of an obese kid turned into a beautiful duckling (not swan, duckling)