The problem with alma maters.. sometimes you dont know whether to love them or hate them. I spent 2 years in this institution (not asylum) doing my Form Six, half of which were spent in a chapel with 4 other girls gossiping about everything only girls could. Actually we hated our Economics teacher Mr Teh (mean and arrogant, he was a shame to teaching profession) and the Accounts teacher was sooooo boring (we hard heard her speak as she rushed through her balancings. But of course, we did not neglect our studies coz i still managed an A in Economics and one of the girls went on to be an Accountant!
Well i was back in this old familiar grounds (for my kid's meet) after like nearly.. 20 years .. goodness.. has time really flown? I hear people say that so many times but it is the first time i feel it. It looked like it has been caught in a time warp. Nothing much has changed. The red tiled roof caught my eyes first as i drove up from the highway and turned in.. the old building stretching magnificiently for like 100 meters.. it had that same old feel...the paint still that fresh primrose as i remembered it.(i wonder how come the 'tuans of Malaysia now' decided to leave this building in peace when they have more or less destroyed many other pre war landmarks)
I parked my car and walked up that long lane towards the entrace, i almost felt like that female Sixth Former out from a strict convent school into a boisterous all boy's school, feeling self conscious and anxious. For a moment, just a moment.. time stood still. I paused and snapped this photo. There. Frozen in time.
Later, i realised the school really has aged much but still well kept. Sitting in one of its lecture halls, i remembered the society meetings we had there and i remember being bored and carving stuff into those paneled tables. I wonder where they were. And then that big hall where we had our cultural dances and exchange events.. once even putting up a multiracial mock wedding for a group of Japanese students visited and I was the bride... much to the disapproval of some people who thought such things were improper..
All those old faces flashed before me.. friends.. teachers.. the stately figure of Brother Paul, the late Brother Vincent who in the timeless brothers' chambers, taught 8 of us English Lit options, the Macbeth, Tempest and introduced us to the almost schizophrenic mind of Virgina Woolf which strangely i liked. I loved the secret rooms in hidden corners of the pre war building we sneaked around to see....some swear they were haunted.. would have been a nice set up for a Malaysian version of a Harry Porter book... *sigh. Well.. all those familiar faces were gone now..and all that is left... the building and its memories in me for as long i shall live.
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