guai kia

Sometime last year when I was moving house, I had to throw away a big chunk of my trophies and medals - about 246 of those - because there was little space in the new place. They ranged from all kinds - from inter-class Counter Strike to Chinese Karaoke Competition to track honors at ASEAN schools' level.

Knowing my terrible ability to recall, those were memories that I will never get back ever again and I sort of regret that now. The few that I made sure to keep, I snapped pictures of in case my sense of forward-planning ever fails me again. Not every award that looked good on my CCA list made it, but each one that I kept held meaning and memories. In the coming few posts, I'll document one at a time, in no particular order.

The first one is the cutest; it's not really a trophy or something, but my limited pre-secondary school memory still vividly captures this period of time. Here goes:

I was Pupil of the Month in primary 6. It wasn't so much the award itself (9 awards x 10 classes = 90 people who received it) but it was the manner in which it came about that was interesting.

I was so proud of my very first wayang award. It was so next level wayang that the vice-principal called me out for good behaviour. It wasn't that I was a bad kid who put on an Oscar-winning performance, but I've always been extraordinarily good at attention seeking so I knew how to do some things more prominently and say some things that will manipulate people to see me in the light I wanted them to see me in.

I remember very clearly that morning assembly - I was yet again first in the entire school to sit at the assembly area because I was so badass-ed disciplined. Timothy strolled in second and shot a hateful glance in my direction. I'm beating him by two or three assemblies at this point. Plus, I'm now sitting straighter than he is. Straighter is better.

Soon, the quadrangle was filled and assembly was starting. After the usual announcements, the VP suddenly started talking about a boy who's always early for school, never talked during assembly (actually I just started to dislike people), wore his uniform impeccably (thanks mom) and stood super straight during the singing of the National Anthem and school song.

I was genuinely surprised when it turned out she was indeed talking about me even though in my mind I was all like aiya is me la say until liddat i shy. She called me out to stand beside her. Started asking me for my name, whether I was in a uniformed group ECA and like wow guys see he's not even in a uniformed group he's a swimmer they don't even wear clothes but look he's so well-dressed (again, mom).

The whole school then had the privilege of watching me stand my now legendary straight pose while I belted out the National Anthem and ACS Forever in full patriotism. Afterwards, VP wrote a little note to my parents in my little school diary on how exemplary my conduct was in school. My form teacher had no trouble picking Pupil of the Month that August.

Thinking back, LAME. This was the sort of thing that classmates who remember would have poked fun at just a few years later and if you saw it from the VP's point of view, it served her a wider purpose in trying to evoke a desired behavioral response from everyone else. Textbook VP stuff. Still, it made my month as a self-absorbed 12 year-old and led me to feel really awesome about myself. A lot of things I accomplished in the future after that was down to arrogant confidence and insistence that I'm better than everyone at everything else. For whatever reason that it happened, I'm just glad it did!