Friday, November 17, 2006  11:27 PM
Pieces of jade and gold
SCGS will never be the same again.
This year has been one where changes are vast with the unexpected departures of those we will love and miss forever. I still hold the school in such high regard because those ten years of my life really played a big part in shaping the person I am today.
Our principal, Miss Heng, who has been the figurehead of the school for as long as I can remember, announced her retirement this year. For almost thirty years, she has been watching us grow in line with the school's vision of raising 'kim geks', which I believe means capable women of character (although some prefer to believe it as tai-tai's). I don't think any other person can replace her in the way she has run the school, with her firm belief of the kind of girls we would be in the future. She stressed being refined, speaking well and good grooming, and that was evident with the sudden torrent of deportment, hygiene and speech classes we would be forced to attend once the exams ended every single year.
Of course, I never had much opportunity to interact with her much because I was never the top pupil, head prefect or exceeded in anything spectacular, neither was I a juvenile delinquent that needed to be called to her office every week. The only time she talked to me was when I came back to school a few years after graduation and I bumped into her in the hallway, and she decided that I had turned Greek because of the colour of my hair.
I wonder how SCGS girls will be like in the future, without her shepherding us and countlessly stressing that the school song sung, "till the work be done" and not "till the world be done".
The second unexpected departure came two days ago with the sudden death of every single SCGS girl's favourite canteen figurehead, the meepok man. Meepok Uncle was the celebrity during recess, he was, without fail, the one with the longest queues and what everyone looked forward to as the highlight of their day. I call it the acquired SCGS girl's taste. No one I know doesn't love the SCGS meepok, and even when a non-SCGS girl says it's ordinary, SCGS girls love their meepok like they love lana cake. It's amazing how we can all eat it almost every day for ten years, and still think it's the best food in the world. When I eat at Canteen B in NTU two days in a row, I already feel like dying.
I remember praying during Amath lessons that were right before recess that we would be let out early so we could all run down to get our daily dose of meepok. And when we did, it was a mad rush of girls in a dash to be the first in line. We would race to the canteen and in our cliques, order our sprinter friends to 'chope' places for us in the queue because we all knew that in the next five minutes, the queue would be terribly long. It was also the only thing I ate in primary one, because it was the only thing my mom had taught me to order.
"Uncle, $0.50 mee-gia tang, bu yao cong, duo yi dian rou."
(Uncle, 50cents skinny-noodle soup, no spring onions, more pork.)
By the third or fourth year I was in SCGS, he knew what I liked without me having to order. He never had much expression, and I don't think I've ever seen him smile, but everytime he saw me, he would confirm that it was mee-gia I wanted, and in his gruff voice say, "bu yao cong ah?"
He had been there ever since my mom was studying in SCGS, and by the time I graduated, he was still faithfully serving meepok in the school. He was slow in movement, and his hands were callused and immune to the hot soup, but he never tired of the job he held so dear.
He will be dearly missed by every single SCGS girl.
And till this day, I only sing one school song with pride. It's also probably because I still don't know the lyrics of my JC school song.
Glad that I live am I
That the sky is blue
Glad for the country lanes
And the fall of dew
After the sun the rain
After the rain the sun
This is the way of life
Till the work be done
All that we need to do
Be we low or high
Is to see that we grow
Nearer the sky
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