From The Beginning

On one of my first days in secondary school, in Form 1. Our English teacher's first lesson with us was to ask us to write our epitaph. When she pronounced that word at that time, I didnt know what on earth was an epitaph. When one of my classmates asked, she said it was the stuff you would want people to write on your tombstone when you die.

I nearly fainted at her request.

I thought, how inapt! (If there was such word) School supposed to be ab edifying place not a place you think about dying... or much less teachers asking you to write something like that. I told myself hush hush mummy said this is a good school so the teachers should know what they're doing.

We were all 13!! How on earth would we know what we want people to write on our batu nisan or orbituary when we were still too nervous about what the girl sitting beside us thinks about us, should you wear your hair like her or just shut up smile and make friends whatever happens. And what co - curricular activities you wanna join and with who. That was when it struck me how shallow my thoughts were.

So we went on to write coz we had to finish it before the period ends. I had difficulty writing that out, I never found English so hard before. My thoughts were directed somewhat this way...

Okay okay don't panic just write what nice stuff you want people to think about you...

Erm what if people don't think nicely about me at all

Then pretend people like you and just write what you want to be thought of..?

Okay okay I'll start with... Here lies a great girl who always gave her best...

Er no too cheesy cancel cancel. Are you sure you wanna call yourself a great girl

Sounds damn perasan change la

Um.. she was a... a... (fill in the blank later) girl who will be dearly remembered for...

Hmmm for what?

Um... for her.... contributions to the world...

Er no no you haven't even been to any other country other than Singapore and you din invent light or something

for her... dedication to... her.... dunno what

gosh this is hard la




And so on.

I couldn't find how I wanted to be remembered.

But writing that made me see the end, my end from the beginning. Its not something an average 13 year old would think about but from then on it did make me more purposeful in the stuff I do, and how much time I spend on what I thought was important. I still do it today.

That was probably the weirdest piece I had to write by far, and because it was about myself somemore must praise praise yourself coz teacher said cannot write bad stuff, it was difficult.

I did submit my piece in the end, I remember getting an A for it but can't remember what I wrote, lol.

It made me realise that one day, when I die, someone has to write about me. And stick it somewhere. In order to do that, people have to be able to see my life, and how I've lived it. And have something to say about it. Something good hopefully. Otherwise they will have nothing to write about, and that would be abit sad.

So this is to all the great teachers out there, especially my very quiet but accurate and intelligent English teacher in form one, I still remember your name, and to my mother whom I fight with the most but laugh with the most as well, one of those teachers who still believe in using the rotan effectively and can teach while on the phone and teach form 3 maths and standard 2 bm and standard 4 science simultaneously, AND teach bm in mandarin. Especially teachers who are also mothers, here's wishing and thanking all of you for your patience and endurance. I don't know how any of my teachers got about marking my work through out my schooling days, coz half the time I don't know what I'm writing...


Happy Mother's Day in advance. =)



You saw us through from the very beginning.