20 years.
1,040 weeks.
7,300 days.
175,200 hours.
10,512,000 minutes.
630,720,000 seconds.
that’s how long i have lived in this world. 
the days of a toddler]]
0555hours.
the first thing that went wrong in my life was my birthdate.
but it’s good in a way,
because you have different days to celebrate with different groups of friends.
the thing is.. i always have to explain why.
i was told i had very little hair when born,
which left my grandma in tears and finding remedies everywhere,
that explains why i have lots of hair now.
the days in primary school]]
skinny in lower primary and ballooned in late upper primary.
i cried everyday when i had to go to school.
mummy will be mentally prepared to visit me with lunchbox and sometimes the schoolwork which i delibrately forgot to bring.
the prefects always had to coax me,
and calling mummy on the school canteen 10cent phone.
when all the other kids are doing morning reading,
i was holding tissue in one hair and shaking my head whenever someone asks me anything.
until the first day of primary5,
that was the last day i cried.
korkor introduced me to the noodle stall auntie as his sister,
from then on,
i seldom bought from other stalls.
i really miss all the food there now.
the 20cents orange syrup which always had ants in it,
the skinny-as-poly auntie selling simplified yong tau foo,
the auntie selling mee siam and hor fun,
the old couple selling fried breaded hot dog and meat ball soup,
and of course the noodle and bee hoon stall which i always buy from with lots and lots of chilli!
now one of the noodle auntie’s helper is living in my estate!
on one occasion,
i left a breaded hotdog in my schoolbag for soooo long that when i took it out,
it smelled sour.
during one of the days when i was still taking schoolbus,
maggie and i did not go home after school.
i alighted at her house’s stop instead of my own,
and went to her blk’s vending machine to buy a can drink.
she dirtied her uniform and this guai shu shu came to confront us and we realise we should go home already.
the next day,
the bus uncle asked: “谁是伟良的妹妹?”
me: raise hand
bus uncle: “不要再乱乱下车了。等下放学了快点回家。“
i still remember how he look,
and his expression when he was telling me that.
i was food-poisoned in primary 4,
the night before my birthday.
i was supposed to distribute sweets like what every kid does during birthday the next day,
unfortunately,
i was bedridden that day.
i would always spend alot of my pocket money buying things from the bookshop.
mummy would check my pencilcase from time to time,
keep the expensive ones and only allow me to use when i was promoted.
we made ms felicia lum cried during one of the lessons,
when her mum was admitted into the hospital,
as the monitress,
i was pushed to apologise to her on behalf of the class.
luckily she walked in before i managed to walk out to approach her.
i ’stole’ ruqin’s colour pencils in primary 1/2.
we had identical colour pencils,
and i actually put his into my bag when mine was already inside.
when the teacher asked,
i took both out and he saw his name on one of the case and told mrs quek about it.
not knowing how it happened,
i tried denying and said it was mine.
mrs quek dragged me out of the classroom and wanted me to face the principal.
shocked,
i made up a lie that mummy was too poor to buy one and she was hugging me already.
i was so sorry,
but i really had no idea why that box was in my bag too.
deborah took my yellow colour pen.
i refused to lend her this minute,
the next minute i lost it and her pencil case appeared one.
of course i told mrs quek about it.
the one thing i remember receiving was a set of milky colour pens from jian min.
so expensive for a primary school student then.
but i was really into colour pens already.
the guys gave me a nickname of laughing buddha,
because i was always full of laughing gas,
and teacher had to stop and wait for me to finish laughing before they could continue lessons.
the teacher who is most affected by my laughing gas must be mr nelson tong.
he is so cute lahhh.
once,
i kuku-ly stapled my finger and didn’t know what to do at first.
then i finally plucked up the courage to pluck it out,
and there was blooooooood.
i made chow chea cried when i refused to 放水 in the chinese papers in order to let him be the first in chinese.
everybody crowded around him and me,
a few tables away,
was staring at him.
i never scored full marks in any exam before.
the nearest i went was 99.5marks in a chinese paper,
when i wrote one word wrong in my comprehension answer.
吴老师 often compared my chinese marks to the EM1s.
when mummy went to school to ask if i could make it to EM1,
the principal said i could,
if only mummy dare to take the risk to let me,
because of my not-up-tp-EM1-standard english.
i’m thankful to jeremy to help me flip the science textbook.
i wan’t lazy but i couldn’t stand the wormmy pictures on it.
he would always laugh and say he’s not going to help me anymore,
but he always does because he is a nice chap and he has no choice because he sat next to me.
unfortunately,
he also always bullied me.
in one of the years,
i sat beside kenneth and that was when i experienced the ‘this is my area and that is urs’ kind of games.
he hardly cross over to mine but i always cross over to his.
and he always screams “there! you crossed over again!”
that was this top class girl who all of a sudden approached me every morning wanting me to talk to her until.
we would talk until morning assembly started.
one day,
she asked me what i would do if a friend told me that friend was a vampire.
from then on,
i refused to talk to her anymore.
i continued learning swimming in primary school after terminating private lessons at clementi swimming complex.
i was in table tennis and folk dancing.
that folkdancing 陈老师 refused to let me join netball even after i handed in my mum’s letter.
mummy had to make a trip to school to talk to her and as far as i can remember,
she’s the only teacher who don’t like me because i quit her club.
i joined netball in primary 5.
even though so much happened,
i was a made a model student,
and had wonderful teachers like mrs habbit, mrs quek, 吴老师, ms felicia lum and principal ms dorothy ho.
i made friends like vic bing peiyu michelle maggie lingling wenjia vera tracy kim yanfei belinda felicia dorcas yaoliang marcus chowchea etc.
and of course the ‘brother’ whom so many girls wanted to catch attention from.
the stupid things i did.
tsk tsk tsk.
i had a cabinet-full of shinning cards,
but they were thrown out of the window by one of my parents.
i disliked eating and ate so slowly that on one occasion,
mummy smashed the bowl of hot porridge onto my head,
causing the scar on my scalp now.
i saw blood dripping onto the toilet bowl,
and mummy was crying while applying coffee powder on my scalp.
but i clearly remember,
i felt no pain at all.
i was really naughty that for less serious cases,
mummy will threaten she will call the girls’ home.
countless times mummy was holding a chopper or cane on one hand,
screaming what i don’t know,
but i will be hiding behind my uncle who was still living with us then,
together with grandma too.
and of course,
in more serious cases,
i will be hanging out of the 12th storey window,
threatened to be thrown down.
i’m really grateful i’m still alive now. :p
the days in secondary school]]
the one thing i’m really grateful in secondary school years,
is to have opportunities to take on many different roles.
welfare representative where i drew up duty roster,
vice-chair where i worked hand in hand with natalia,
chinese debating host where i still stumbled when reading the script,
chinese storytelling host where valerie and i had to act natural,
chinese singing competition host where i had to sing one line in front of the entire school,
the incharge for the one and only carnival which juying sec had where i had to coordinate every subgroup, overlook the capital, help out with the decorations and make sure capital raising was smooth,
english grammar doctor where we helped attened to english patients,
english rep where i actually stood up for the class to tell mrs choong what i thought she should change,
many events’ helpers where once i took off my very tight chord shoes during the prefects’ investiture rehearsal,
robotics team which gave me a chance to appear on the papers for the first time,
netball team which we were proud for our pride even though we weren’t strong,
tourism competition where we spent so much time together and that’s when yeewei and i saw………..
and the list goes on.
it was glorious in secondary 1,
where we won all the 4 times in that year the title of the top class.
having all the flags hung up at the back of the classroom and the while class working together to keep the class clean,
it was bonding.
i was admitted into turf club!
but i never turned up once for it,
because less than a few months time,
i lost 8kgs.
it was a memorable secondary 2.
first we were tipped off by a responsible prefect for eating in the classroom after a home econs hands-on examination,
and were punished to buy food worth a dollar and eat at the grass patch outside the classroom to finish it.
and of course,
we stood at the foyer for a week during recess time,
letting people stare and stratch their heads wondering what went wrong,
as if that $1 of food could last us for 1 week.
be it rain or shine,
we stood.
second havoc thing we did was unintentionally cheating in geography test.
the top class, us, and the second class showed strong friendship by giving tips to each other.
it was pretty blown up,
we stood together as a class holding on to the belief that One For All All For One,
in the end we were asked to write honestly in a piece of paper what our parts were in this incident and almost half the class was punished in the end.
i never regret telling honestly,
at least i atone for my sins,
though done unintentionally.
mrs nada and mrs tan must have been heartbroken.
that was when mrs nada told me in front of the class mummy really cares,
because mummy told her: “if is you, you won’t meh?!”
that’s cream-of-the-crop class for you.
林老师 left us for another class in the middle of secondary 2,
after she read out my embarrassing article，“我最喜欢的地方” in class,
and we got 叶老师.
the first relationship started in seondary 2 too,
11th may 0536pm?
anw,
a group of us always stayed till evening after lessons,
rotting in class or studying,
just wanted to spend time together.
the stupidest thing i remember was the night enxian returned from mount kinabalu trip.
that morning terrence was kind enough to say he’ll inform me if enxian do reach home that night,
but in a till-now-i-still-cannot-figure-out-why-must-use-this-method way.
that night when he sms me and end the sms with a fullstop means enxian is back,
if no fullstop means he is not.
in the end there was a fullstop so at 1+am,
enxian called and mummy stomped.
mrs tan brought 20+ of us to kukup for a geography trip.
too bad we didn’t leave any pictures then.
began falling in love with the group of now old and balding chaps.
but too bad, still loving them.
the more bald they are,
the older they get,
the more admiration i have for them.
one day it will 升华 into a different kind of liking, i am sure.
but not as yet.
secondary 3 was still fooling around.
we copied maths answers in the morning,
anyone willing to offer or did not do the questions just gather in the canteen.
but someone must lookout for mr lim because he always buy coffee from the canteen in the morning.
for the first time in my life,
i was caught stoning in class by a teacher.
chemistry lesson,
i was looking at the floor and ms wong called my name and asked if i understood.
i knew what she meant.
when the bell rings and it’s time for english lessons,
everybody’s brain will be working at turbo speed,
reps will give out vocabulary book and the class will pretend to be working on it,
and not to forget,
the little exercise book named spontaneous writting.
practising oral on this book isn’t difficult,
the difficult part is talking to the book to practise the dictation and expression which, according to mrs choong,
is important too.
but the thing is,
when the period after that is reccess time and classes behind us walk pass our classroom,
they always cannot help but laugh.
swuayly, i’m one of them sitting at the backdoor.
we went on a chiangmai 6days trip with mrs tan ms wong and mr dan koh.
an unhappy thing happened to yeewei xiaohui and i due to a misunderstanding,
which led to another unhappy thing between enxian and i,
alright maybe he wasn’t but i was,
because i hated misunderstandings and from then on,
i hated and see no more reason for explanation.
however,
there were more fond memories than unhappiness.
mrs tan said no opposite gender in the room?
who cares?
how i hope we can go on a trip again.
mr yap was hospitalised for operation,
afraid that we will create havoc in the hospital,
mr lim refused to tell us where mr yap was staying.
however,
he stupidly let the secret out anw!
secondary 4 means it’s ‘O’ levels.
natalia and i requested from mr lim to drop Amaths out of impulse,
i’m really grateful now that mr lim rejected us.
a few of us girls will be chatting away during chinese lesson because it wasn’t much of a concern to us,
then we will be called to stand up to read out or answer questions by mrs mun.
i also cannot forget the sarcasm mrs choong demonstrated when the chinese 1st seating results were out.
i liked the days where we went back for extra lessons,
i will openly ask ms wong if we could eat breakfast in class and she will agree without thinking.
and terrence will come 20mins late for mr lim’s lessons but mr lim will not mind because terrence moved house to punggol.
xuemin and yeewei had no Amaths lessons,
so if Amaths lesson was the one before recess,
they would chiong to canteen 2mins before bell ring to help us buy 幼面干 with lots of chilli so we don’t need queue up.
i miss the days we crowded along one table and the last one will help to clear all the plates.
twin and i went through funny fates before we became twins.
the last classroom on our floor was our hideout from boring lessons.
when some people 得罪 us,
we will 做法 and flush them down the toilet bowl.
we even risked our lives to conquere the PIE,
but failed.
but we still hang on and walked home from the eerie forest though.
not to forget the netball trainings and the number of coaches we had.
we never really fought for wins,
we fought for pride and laughter.
we did situps under the hot sun when the ground was scalding hot,
ran up and down the entire blk twice,
practiised shooting 200 times everyday,
ran 2.4km.
us 4 girls – xiaohui yeewei xuemin and i – will share tidbits for every training and wait for bus 242 to arrive after finish gossiping and tidbiting.
graduation ceremony was simple,
but i still cried like hell anyway.
funny thing is,
after the ceremony we still had to attend intense extra lessons.
results day was memorable in a way because honestly,
i was proud when the top scorer was announced.
but,
i didn’t do well though.
oh btw,
i never complete attending any camp over my secondary school days.
the days in tertiary institution]]
you know how lucky it is to have a secondary friend to be in the same class as you in poly?
ask me,
speaking the truth we wasn’t that close in secondary school,
but i’m really grateful to be given the chance in poly.
of course,
with other DE.family members too.
yuan.de who has her own problems but always make it a point to cheer people up.
lao.de who is forever fickled-minded and ‘anything lah anything lah!’
chang.de who is secretive in a way but easy-going and comfortable to be with.
xiong.de who gives sound advide like the quality of the teeshirt you’re considering to buy.
nai.de whom i think went through alot in these 3 years and a meanis who dares to speak up.
chao.de who is always talking about anything under the sun.
shou.de who is so skinny but always say she is fat just that we cannot see the fats.
perhaps i used up my energy in primary and secondary,
i wasn’t active in poly.
the only 2 things i did was 2 years’ BAoc.
during the period,
you do really feel the nice feeling of bonding.
AD for IEF came as a surprise,
but it came at a price of C+ for marketing.
grades weren’t my upmost concern in poly,
and i made known i wasn’t clever,
it’s just in my character to do things which i should well.
besides coping with studies,
i knew i had 3 years to adjust and become an adult.
one day it will come and from the day i left secondary school,
i told myself it’s better to start preparing now.
it’s never easy.
i know i can do it nicely and neatly.
now it’s time]]
in the beginning of poly life,
i always thought to myself: “if only time could turn back..”
no it can’t,
face it.
tougher times will come,
but memories above will be unlocked from my brain cabinet to be laughed at from time to time.
no words can describe my 20 years.
from family to friends,
unhappiness happened and will still happen,
but i learnt alot and will continue learning from setbacks.
people say treasure.
i asked what is treasuring.
does not letting go or always mentioning about the past means treasuring?
i can’t find the answer as yet,
but i always tell myself at the moment i am enjoying something to remember it down,
and not to forget i’ve had such wonderful times before.
if there were only happiness,
no one would have said ‘treasure’.
i ask to be a better person in the years to come.
i hope for eternity friendship.
i long for peace and harmony.
self-timer shot by yixuan. twist! 
the first game we played which made the entire room’s people looked at us,
another yummy cake. .JPG)
xiaohei: yawns!
