Friday, January 05, 2007
went back to tj this afternoon. wanted to see some teachers before sch starts next mon. teachers like mr lee chee hong, ms faye tan, mr gan beng soon, ms betty tiew. but alas. didnt manage to see any of them at all. mr gan left for mj during dec. heard that mr kwan, my f maths teacher, is now the hod of maths in mjc. prob will go there to visit him tmr. dont know if he still remembers me. been 6 years since i left tj and he leaving for mj. glad that he's doing well in his career over there. anyway, managed to find mdm tan in The Hub today. always have no luck doing so in the so many times that i went back to tj. chatted with her for almost 1.5 hrs. was a very nice chat, talking bout the times when i was still in tj, 7 years ago when i was in year 1. but she is going to leave for moe hq in march. the next time i come back to tj, there will 1 less person that i can visit. sigh.. tj is now occupied by so many unfamiliar faces. most of the teachers that i know has either retired or left for another school. who knows, in another 2 years time, i prob will have nobody to visit anymore when i come back to tj. some may not even be in spore too. just like mr edwin lim and ms panai who went overseas to teach. coincidentally, both taught me GP in yr 1. really missed my jc teachers. they had left a deep impact in my life. still remembered mr kwan telling me this 1 day in the staff room when i approached him with a maths problem. he said that if i continue to work this hard, i will definitely do well in a levels. that really served as a great motivation for me. in fact, all my teachers in tj motivated me a lot. thanks a lot teachers. =)
tjc really occupied a rather significant place in my heart. as i saw the new year 1s going through their orientation today, memories flashed back to 7 years ago in 2000 when i was like them, going through orientation myself. was considering between tj and vj then and couldnt make up my mind which jc to go to. during the then principal, mr robert tan's tj intro talk in tk, he saw me after the talk and asked me which jc i am going to. told him that its either tj or vj and he said to me, come to tj. then during tj's open house, i was passing in front of the general office in tj when his car drove up to the front porch. he alighted, saw me, recognised me, and kept telling me to come to tj. that's the 2nd meeting with him and on the 3rd occasion which i cant rem what it is, i met him again and once again, he recognised me and told me to come to tj. togther with the reason that zhihao, yijin are coming to tj too and that i was also rather attracted by the rock wall in tj, i came to tj eventually. mr robert tan retired the year i entered tj and i never saw him again.
orientation in year 1 was one of the most vivid and fun memories i had of tj. can still remember the 1st day in tj when i am still blur and shy. can still rem my OGAs, irene, wenxiang, alvin but couldnt remember my OGL and another OGA. oops, so sorry. really had lots of fun during orientation then. sold sushi for our stall and the night before, we went to eugene's house beside st patrick's sch to prepare the ingredients for the sushi. our sushi sold like hotcakes and soon, we ran out of sushi rice. there are still demands for our sushi and so we had no choice but to approach the canteen stall to buy normal rice for our sushi. though its not the original japanese sushi rice, people still bought our sushi. and on the finale night on friday, we are supposed to have a campfire but it rained. the rain may have spoilt the fire from being lighted but it could never spoil our mood. we carried on the program in the hall, yelled, sang, played and cheered there, making so much noise that at some point, we seriously thought we will actually bring the whole hall down. luckily, the hall stood strong, even to this day. after the indoor campfire ended, we went down to the assembly ground where we sang, danced, cheered and yelled even more. when it all ended, my OG went opposite to have supper at one of the coffeeshops. supper having eneded, we made our way to the airport, where we stayed overnight, playing games and chatted. it was my 1st time spending the night outside that is not a camp or hike or anything related to scouting. it was such a great orientation. after that orientation week, our OG still met up for OG lunch and gatherings. still remebered a particular outing where we played forfeit games with awful chilli sauce as forfeit. it was at kenny rogers at tampines mall. still have the photos.. very valuable photos indeed. but sadly, the lunches and gatherings did not last long. soon we were too busy with our schoolwork that we no longer kept in contact as a OG, even when we were in tj. irene and wenxiang may be in my friendster list but we didnt contact each other for a long long time. sad..
but nonetheless, tj is still indeed a place full of fond memories. it is the place where i was called a tutorian. to those who do not understand, it refers to a person who keeps doing nothing but tutorial, someone from the planet tutorial and quoting u-wei, bleeds blue ink, red ink and black ink instead of blood. tj was also the place where i crashed the entire school server and network, causing the attendance system, late-comers system, library system and teachers signing-in system to be down. practically cause mayhem for the teachers that day, esp my computing teacher, mr edward tan (whose daughter is also in tk now), who has to fix everything as he is the hod for IT. so sorry mr tan. didnt mean to. it was also in tj that i studied till 10pm during prelims and a levels, before climbing the gate out to go home. that was the best, most memorable and fun studying time that i had in all my years of education. studied with bingxiong after sch ended in the science council room and going opposite for dinner. started doing this couple of weeks before prelims started and by the time prelims arrived, we had already tried almost every stall in the coffeeshop and hawker centre opposite tj. we were so sick of the food that we "rewarded" ourselves by going to bedok central for dinner on sat. yeap. we were in sch studying on sat and even on sun too. now you know how i got the nickname tutorian.
and thus, as i walked around tj today, looking at the various OGs in the orientation, smelled the very distinct smell of the aircon in The Hub, passed by the new and old com lab where i did my computing project and studied, the science council room which is no longer the science council room, the various classrooms where i once had hot and stuffy tutorials and the LTs where boring lectures are held, all the memories and visions started coming back as emotions welled up inside of me. many things have changed in tj since i grad 6 years ago in 2001. appearance and facilities of the school may have changed drastically but there is 1 thing that will never change. and that is that i will always be a TJcian, proud and always will be to be one. tj will always occupy a special place in my heart, never to be moved, always full of everlasting fond memories of that 2 years of my life.