In Continuum.

We were on our way home the other day from school when Celine Dion's  "That's The Way It Is" started playing on the radio. So Felicia parked her car in front of her home's driveway while we recorded an impromptu video of us singing our heads off. It made me think about how things have changed when it comes to the stuff that classmates and I do, through every stage of my academic life somehow. Let's begin with primary school, when school was more about playing than schooling back then. It was about seeing who gets to the canteen first, although I was never too fond of the cheap canteen food there. It was about the hopscotches and the games of catching around the hopscotch courts. Sweaty and smelly boys chasing each other around, girls throwing wallets and name tags into yellow boxes on the court. Then there was that pointless game called zero point where girls would string rubber bands together into a long chain of rubber bands, and then attempt to jump over them. Games for girls were boring, which was why some of them joined us with the game of catching, or the basketball games. Then, of course, they'd complain about the boys being too rough to the teacher and we'd all get into trouble. Tell me what's the justice in that. 

Play time in primary school were pretty simple. We either chased each other, competed in a game, or explored a place. For chasing, we had the police and thief games at the sandy part of our school, the field behind our school, the fitness corner, and the HDB blocks in the neighborhood. For the competitions, we had the traditional soccer and basketball games, and then the exploration involved a bunch of different places. I blogged about the adventure to the little haunted house at the back of the school, and there was that time when we snuck up to the roof of the school because one of the metal gates were left unlocked. It usually involved the boys becoming really dirty and smelly, which was really why the girls hated the boys and, in turn, the boys hated the girls. When we were not chasing each other and getting all smelly, we'd spend some time in the corner of the school to play cards and erasers. Everybody knew about that eraser game, it's like every primary school student was given a manual as to what kind of games to play at school with your schoolmates. It was all about getting your eraser on top of your opponent's, until that game evolved from that to a makeshift game of mahjong. 

In secondary school, things changed a little bit. I jumped from those games to games that didn't really make any sense at all. Timothy devised a giant ball made from newspaper one day, wrapped with scotch tape and felt pretty solid in our hands. Initially, we limited ourselves to soccer games in the classrooms. We'd clear the tables and the chairs, and then set two tables a distance away from each other with a goalkeeper in the middle to catch the ball. Then there was a boy from another class who broke his head one day when he dived for a ball and smashed into the glass windows. So, soccer in class became strictly forbidden, which was also why we moved onto the tarmac road in front of the school. It involved two groups of boys, throwing the ball at each other. Like I said, it didn't actually make sense, but we had a lot of fun throwing it anyway. We actually started with tennis balls, but they kept flying into the crematorium next door. Newspaper balls were cheaper, though harder to make. But all of us had a fun time throwing those balls, until one of them made a dent in Ms. Liew's car - she doesn't know it yet. 

There were the other boys who were more interested in Chinese chess and English Chess. A bunch of them would gather behind the chapel and play these games, and that was also where I learned about Chinese chess in its entirety. Pranks were a big part of play time in secondary school as well. We'd shoot paper bullets at each other in class, or shoot ice and other objects through bubble tea straws. Most of the bullets were targeted at either J, D, Y, or all of them at the very same time. They were the three guys that nobody really liked. One was a fish-loving nerd who was gay, one was a christian-fanatic who goes to the toilet every twenty minutes, and one was an astro-physics maniac who never wore any underwear. Then there was the time when we'd try to drill a hole in the table with pen knives, or to vandalize everything in school in every way possible. Pens, pencils, penknives, everything. Timothy also devised plans to drench the chemistry teacher with water, burn down the kitchen, and to throw a condom balloon around in class. Play time in secondary school involved less competitions but more lame and brainless activities. But it was fun, it was really fun. Seriously, the best time of my academic life. 

Junior College sucked, precisely because it didn't have any play time to speak of. It was all about textbooks and assignments, projects and exams, politics and even more politics. We hardly had the time to do anything other than school work, and that teacher who told us that Junior College would be the best time of our lives, lied. The next time I see her, I am probably going to confront her about it, and have her give two years of my life back. But then again, she told me while I was in SRJC, when Junior College did in fact have that kind of possibilities to it. It was our honeymoon period, when we spent our time skipping classes and playing cards in the studying area. NYJC was a graveyard, it really was. Nothing ever grew in this graveyard though, no trees or grass, and no animals or insects survived for a very long time. It was a no-man's land, everything was dead and lifeless, an endless field of death it was. It was all about going to school, feeling stupid and unworthy, and then going home afterwards. There were friends, but politics clouded our relationships most of the time, which is pretty much what you get with a class dominated by girls. It was horrible, which is also why I hardly remember anything from those two years, living in a time of nothingness. 

Now that I am in university, little things seem to have grown in importance. You know, things don't have to be about competitions or silly little games. It is about having small talks with people around a table, playing Taboo before the class begins, having more small talks with people, and then making lame videos to post on the internet. Everything changes, even the kind of things we would consider as being "fun". The following video may be seen as being, well, strange. As Jeremy mentioned in the library the other day, it is not difficult to see Sarah and I in this video, but Felicia being in this video is something from another world altogether. I suppose, the fun part is the ability to let loose and be stupid in front of your friends and not feel embarrassed or ashamed. I am just glad to have these people around now, I suppose, the way that I had my friends around in the past. The little things, always the little things.