ij continued

you continue your conversation until the teacher for the lesson comes. you are interrupted by a loud screech or to put it more politely amplified greeting of 'keeeeeeeeeeep quiet' from the teacher, or a greeting of 'good morning girls' equivalent to a chirpy bird (aka bren wan). if the teacher's a nice and friendly one, most ij girls would probably settle down in unison. however, if the teacher were to be a relief teacher or equivalent, the class will also in unison, continue chattering. if this were the case, the poor relief teacher would:

1) shout keep quiet
2) ask politely for us to 'please keep quiet'

so nonetheless we'll settle down, and the teacher will begin writing on the board (esp for math and science subjects). this is the time when the chattering continues... -> we have to exercise our reknowned 4 lungs instead of the usual 2. at this point in time, say 1% of this pronounced, continuous noisy chatter will result in the teacher leaving the class, numerous ways of doing it:

1) slamming her books on the table (for the sake of the noise it will emit) and barging out like a mad woman/ man
2) packing up quietly and just strolling out
3) shouting 'i cannot teach in this noise' or equivalent and storming out, only to come back 5 mins later.

whatever it is, the most likely outcome from this action would be a necessary apology from the entire class or just a few girls.

okay, the remaining 99% of the time, the teacher would probably: 1) say keep quiet or shut up to remind us of our noise level
2) give us a 'long talk', aka big scolding

and 2) may result in her doing 1) or 2) above, which will follow an apology. so you see, noise is a rather vicious cycle but darnit, it's quintessential in ij.

after the lesson, there'll be the infamous toilet breaks again. this time we would 1) wet tissue and throw it to the ceiling (pronounced in my sec 2 days) 2) splash water at some unsuspecting friend, this would most likely result in 3) your friend chasing you 4) splash water to your friend in the cubicle

(2, 3 and 4 are conducted across the 4 years)

in fact i still indulge in 2, 3 and 4, hahaa. i miss those days man.

oh yea, back to sec 1 and 2. in lower sec there were those library lessons. thank goodness that the internet had already been introduced before then, so we could happily surf the web during that period illegally, under the watchful eye of, my case it was tan aye leng, ismiralda. sometimes though, the it instructor had a sudden surge of intelligence to switch off the modem. leaving us playing ubiquitous windows games like minesweeper and solitaire.

not to forget music lessons in lower sec too, these actually provided many girls with music therapy. depending on who your music teacher was, it could be music to your ears or just another dreaded period. for me, there were 2 striking examples, 1 being majorie lim (relief teacher) took my class to the band room to just slack and listen to music and talk crap, we could bring whatever cds we wanted to listen. -> that's life! this is sorely juxtaposed to music lessons with mag low, i still remember her barking at us to dance to the steps of some syf dance on video, like wth? nonetheless, music lessons, no matter who the teacher was provided us with 1 positive thing - air con.

how if you had to go hand in some crap to some teacher? usually remembered last minute, leaving you running to the staff room in your tight belt (for fear of jo teo), and who can forget the wonderful mike!

then there was the wonderful slacking aka magazine corner in the library where you can just sit there and sleep with the 2 pillows. the magazines which are most read are namely 1) teens 2) teenage 3) boys school sch mag (namely sji, sji and sji) due to the fact that other schools sch mags never found their way to our lovely, homely library. who would forget the numerous keep quiets in the library by 1) ms yue 2) tan aye leng 3) librarian 4) the fat malay teacher (weirdly, i don't remember janet lim doing the above)

and yes there were school events which everyone participated in symphony. namely the IJ FIESTA! that 2 days brought so much life to our already noisy school. i still remember my first fiesta in sec 3, the different levels were bombing each other whilst waiting for fiesta to start. obviously the bombing sessions were also done during other school events like sports day and swimming carnival. i do hope they bring back the fiesta year in year out, stop giving excuses like wasting water -> what crap la... if you were to weigh the gains and loses, namely a pronounced ij spirit and unitedness compared to the paltry (aka drop in the ocean) loss in water, the ij fiesta is a GREAT SUCCESS.

the ij spirit's living on, it's stretching far and far beyond, it's never gonna die it's gonna live in each of us, and we will keep it burning burning strong, the flame lies in us all along, always inspiring us to go on - ij spirit song (pardon me if i got the lyrics wrong)

oh yes! in sec 4/5, you'll probably have 1) contemplated dropping a subject 2) being asked to drop a subject

thankfully only a grand total of 1 teacher asked me to drop a subject - lit. actually she thought i wanted to drop it and was asking me not to.. -> like ???? i guess she was right in implying i've got some lit flaire, cos i got an above average 19/25 for my unseen section. she even asked me to attend lit remedial which i dare say i attended 0. oh well, i must thank her nonetheless for giving me some determination to mug till 3am for my lit paper. the best part was when i told her i got an a1, she sort of brushed it off as no big deal. -sigh- i know ij had an 83% distinction rate, still...

weirdly, although i didn't do as well as i expected for 2 subs, overall my l1r5 was still quite alright. i still remember ms ler by my side when i opened my slip, still remember saying 'hen hao', at that point though, i was just so relieved that i didn't get 17 points or so. still remember ms teo giving me a handshake/ hug, ms shanti saying tt at least some things got in during night study and yes me and tan's walk on the roof. i still remember the times when i was scared of the dark dark school (esp at the 3rd level) and ms tan's surprise at that.

those fond fond memories, you'll linger on.. sweet sweet memories that i will never forget.