Still writing about 1981. A good year. After spending a good 3 months with Mama, it was back to life and back to reality.
So there I was in Lower 6 at PFS, thinking I could conquer the world. Trying to act cool with the back-combed thick hair of the 80s. F6 was an eye opener. Over the Malaysian telly, 'Happy Days' was a hit among the teenagers. Every dude (yours truly included) was trying to 'act cool' and walk around with the hips and shoulders abducted slightly ala-Fonzarelli (The Fonz nee Henry Winkler) as if there boils were growing in the groins and armpit respectively!
Suddenly all the Malay friends whom I had known had mysteriously disappeared. The scholarships and matriculation offers came a-knocking on their doors and they reluctantly and half-heartedly accepted them. We heard that a guy who could hardly speak English for nuts got a scholarship to learn English language in US. He had to go for elementary phonetic lessons before he could qualify for classes proper. And F6 was left with predominantly non-Bumiputeras and some Bumiputeras who did not qualify for anything. Even then, some were on the appeal list and eventually disappeared like alien abduction. Some brainy chaps were quickly gobbled up by Singapore under the smokescreen of ASEAN scholarship, which I was shortlisted but miserably got rejected after the the interview.
I attended the ASEAN scholarship with my fellow student (AK, but mentor). We went down to Singapore on a shoe string budget by bus, stayed in Bencoolen Hotel, went for the interview and returned home that evening. We managed to do some sightseeing on foot, enroute to the bus station to take us to JB. I still have the poorly taken grained shots of the Merlion, Court House and Haw Par Villa. All hells broke loose when we reached JB. It was pouring cats and dogs and the rail track was flooded. As expected there was mayhem at the station. The trains were delayed and we were wet, tired and hungry (and angry). We grabbed a packet of noodles from one of the vendors. Only when we were chewing the mee, did we realise that the rather tough noodle was actually rubber band in our dinner! Or was it a special delicacy in JB? - To cook Mamak Mee with rubber band! Back to F6....
Some of the affluent non-Bumis had no time to have their children be guinea-pigs in the experimentation conducted by the Malaysian Government to teach A-levels and eventually tertiary education in the Malay Language. The kids quickly transported themselves to soils of other country gladly. That left the low-lives like us to fight it out in what was easily agreed by all my teachers in unison that beyond all doubt was the most difficult examination in the world. For people like me, born with a plastic (not silver) spoon, F6 was it - no talk for Taylors' or overseas education. STPM or bust!
They were 4 Science classes and 3 Arts classes. Lower Science 1 was offering Science subjects minus Biology but plus Pure Mathematics. I was in Lower 6 Science 3 (LSc3). There initially 4 girls in our class of 20, but the boys managed to frighten the girls off to other classes that at the end of the day, we were left with only 16 boisterous boys who were the loudest and meanest students of the whole F6. Girls actually took a longer route to their destinations just to bypass our class so as not to heckled and commented at.
After 8 months of studies in L6Sc3, we all graduated to USc3 - the same students.
By and large, we had many dedicated teachers who would go the extra mile to prepare us for exams. The teacher who took the cake, in this sense, was our Chemistry teacher, Mr Loh Huah Sin. He actually had extra classes on almost every Saturday morning and during some holidays as the examination day was imminent. And his classes were open to all students.
There was a General Paper teacher who hardly taught us anything but left us to do our own work while he marked other classes' work sheet. Cikgu I, we used to call him Lobo (as he looked the splitting image of Claude Akins of The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo), was a Government scholar in Economics from the unknown University of Iowa. He tried to encourage discussion in the class regarding plethora of topics. Invariably, we, the students will bring in the inequality of treatment non-Bumiputeras in the NEP. And he would put end to it, every time. That was General Paper for us.
Mr KKT must be good in Physics. Unfortunately, he could not transfer his know howto any own of us and we were all in the dark about all subjects in Physics including light! He tickled our funny bone with his pronunciation of tennis - as "Tennish" during his school assembly announcement. I must also KKT for 'misguiding' me to fail (first and last time for any subject) my monthly Physics test in U6. I was so distraught by it that I studied and 'over-studied' the subject on my own that in the test (Midyear exams), I managed to secure the highest mark in the U6 and clinched the Physics prize for the form.
The irony of class (L6Sc3 & USc3) is that in spite of the noisiness and the apparent rowdiness shown by the students, they must have been burning the midnight oil and the candle at three ends for this calss squandered all prizes in the Science subjects (Biology, Chemistry and Physics)and produced 3 doctors, a dentist, a veterinarian surgeon, many teachers and many engineers.
So there I was in Lower 6 at PFS, thinking I could conquer the world. Trying to act cool with the back-combed thick hair of the 80s. F6 was an eye opener. Over the Malaysian telly, 'Happy Days' was a hit among the teenagers. Every dude (yours truly included) was trying to 'act cool' and walk around with the hips and shoulders abducted slightly ala-Fonzarelli (The Fonz nee Henry Winkler) as if there boils were growing in the groins and armpit respectively!
Suddenly all the Malay friends whom I had known had mysteriously disappeared. The scholarships and matriculation offers came a-knocking on their doors and they reluctantly and half-heartedly accepted them. We heard that a guy who could hardly speak English for nuts got a scholarship to learn English language in US. He had to go for elementary phonetic lessons before he could qualify for classes proper. And F6 was left with predominantly non-Bumiputeras and some Bumiputeras who did not qualify for anything. Even then, some were on the appeal list and eventually disappeared like alien abduction. Some brainy chaps were quickly gobbled up by Singapore under the smokescreen of ASEAN scholarship, which I was shortlisted but miserably got rejected after the the interview.
I attended the ASEAN scholarship with my fellow student (AK, but mentor). We went down to Singapore on a shoe string budget by bus, stayed in Bencoolen Hotel, went for the interview and returned home that evening. We managed to do some sightseeing on foot, enroute to the bus station to take us to JB. I still have the poorly taken grained shots of the Merlion, Court House and Haw Par Villa. All hells broke loose when we reached JB. It was pouring cats and dogs and the rail track was flooded. As expected there was mayhem at the station. The trains were delayed and we were wet, tired and hungry (and angry). We grabbed a packet of noodles from one of the vendors. Only when we were chewing the mee, did we realise that the rather tough noodle was actually rubber band in our dinner! Or was it a special delicacy in JB? - To cook Mamak Mee with rubber band! Back to F6....
Some of the affluent non-Bumis had no time to have their children be guinea-pigs in the experimentation conducted by the Malaysian Government to teach A-levels and eventually tertiary education in the Malay Language. The kids quickly transported themselves to soils of other country gladly. That left the low-lives like us to fight it out in what was easily agreed by all my teachers in unison that beyond all doubt was the most difficult examination in the world. For people like me, born with a plastic (not silver) spoon, F6 was it - no talk for Taylors' or overseas education. STPM or bust!
They were 4 Science classes and 3 Arts classes. Lower Science 1 was offering Science subjects minus Biology but plus Pure Mathematics. I was in Lower 6 Science 3 (LSc3). There initially 4 girls in our class of 20, but the boys managed to frighten the girls off to other classes that at the end of the day, we were left with only 16 boisterous boys who were the loudest and meanest students of the whole F6. Girls actually took a longer route to their destinations just to bypass our class so as not to heckled and commented at.
After 8 months of studies in L6Sc3, we all graduated to USc3 - the same students.
By and large, we had many dedicated teachers who would go the extra mile to prepare us for exams. The teacher who took the cake, in this sense, was our Chemistry teacher, Mr Loh Huah Sin. He actually had extra classes on almost every Saturday morning and during some holidays as the examination day was imminent. And his classes were open to all students.
There was a General Paper teacher who hardly taught us anything but left us to do our own work while he marked other classes' work sheet. Cikgu I, we used to call him Lobo (as he looked the splitting image of Claude Akins of The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo), was a Government scholar in Economics from the unknown University of Iowa. He tried to encourage discussion in the class regarding plethora of topics. Invariably, we, the students will bring in the inequality of treatment non-Bumiputeras in the NEP. And he would put end to it, every time. That was General Paper for us.
Mr KKT must be good in Physics. Unfortunately, he could not transfer his know howto any own of us and we were all in the dark about all subjects in Physics including light! He tickled our funny bone with his pronunciation of tennis - as "Tennish" during his school assembly announcement. I must also KKT for 'misguiding' me to fail (first and last time for any subject) my monthly Physics test in U6. I was so distraught by it that I studied and 'over-studied' the subject on my own that in the test (Midyear exams), I managed to secure the highest mark in the U6 and clinched the Physics prize for the form.
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| Chalk graffiti by FG on Teachers' Day 1982. |
I remember Mr Loh Huah Sin...... very dedicated sir. Use to admire his knowledge. Never left chemistry after that.....Now lecturing and author for chemistry books.
ReplyDeleteMr KKT ...his popular answer to chase off students " Don't ask me... only Gods knows the answer."