23 January 2006

Parade Ground at Night

I am staring out of the window at the office. It is busy hour at Paddington. Can it be any more grey? London is horrible when it is grey and cloudy and at times like this, I wonder what the heck am I doing here.

Nani just posted a comment that she had an old GP essay of mine “What will I miss if I leave Singapore?” You don’t know how excited I am to hear this. I don’t have a single article, writing or poem that I scribed during my younger days and it would be interesting to find out what did I say I will miss. Probably if I am being PC and trying to score points for my essay, I would say I will miss my family. The truth is, except for my sister and her family, what I miss most are my friends and food.

The Parade Ground was very different at night. In the mornings, it is the focus of assemblies with over 400 blue pinafore girls singing the National Anthem and School pledge. Come noon time, it would be full of Netball girls trying to sink a ball in the basket or the earnest NPCC and NCC girls practicing their marches with their thumb-tacked shoes. The space underneath the trees would be home to Band Girls practicing.

At this time of the night, it is quiet and cool – cool enough for Anita and I to lie down gazing up to Shang-ri La hotel all lighted up like Christmas tree. We had a busy day, organising a farewell camp for the Sec 4s (ceh! When it’s our turn, no one organised anything for us!). I can’t remember now what did we rambled on. It was just so peaceful and perfect.

I cannot remember when the last time I did stare at the night sky like that. The only other time that came close was during my hostel days when Chek Yin, Sock Chen and I joined the Astronomy Club (total membership : two guys) at the Tennis Courts. We lied down on the turf at 3.00 am in the morning and stared in fascination at the stars above. They even told us how to spot satellites. You have to look very hard – it’s important that it is quite dark with no nearly light pollution. If you see a shining star which is moving very fast in a constant arc, that would be satellite.

Like all my blogs, I will end with a food memory - after spotting a few satellites, we went back to our rooms and cook roti prata. *hahahah*

12 comments:

yuRa said...

i oso want to read that article. it would be interesting indeed to see whether or not the things you said you missed will coincided with what you do now. : )

cey! band girls memang macam tu! asyik nak shade ajer! mana ada rugged.. haha

oh, the parade square. i passed by rgs the other day and the urge to get to step on the parade square again was unbearable.

oh aku rindu!

siapa tak pernah baring on parade ground shouldn't call herself rgs girl. there lies tears and sweat .. and air liur basi! hahah

yuRa said...

satellite tu bulat bulat ada rupa macam roti prata eh? hahahha.

apa da? anti-climax!

boonie said...

oooo i remember that the astronomy phase of you girls .. i think i did that once but could not quite figure out what's the fun of lying on hard cold cement floor next to block H .. squinting my eyes searching for dots in the strangely orange coloured sky!

H106 - my very first year in Singapore.

Nani said...

For some of us, it's not just baring ok..it's even `roll over the ocean, roll over the sea...' hah hah hah. I can't stop smiling now becoz I remember Ms TY Ong(who later on became Azman's colleague at Springfield) calling me and Ayu for a nice talk...for having fun at the parade ground.

True, the parade ground brings back fond memories especially of the NPCC drills and Marathon Nites - we stayed up a large up of the night on the last day of the annual camp to what else...talk

Nani said...

I must say that I truly miss RGS... the buildings, the parade ground, the places we used to hang out and most importantly, the people...

yuRa said...

*sob* *sob* so touching ah, nani...

errp! what kind of fun did we have that merited a nice talk from tyong??

Nani said...

We were enjoying some jokeslah..well, she had to do her job...if she'd been a student, maybe she'd join in too, knowing that the jokes are worth rolling for, hah hah hah...

melayudilondon said...

alamak! kalau nice talk tu, dah lali for me. i dunno how many "nice talks" I had from various teacher. Suzana pun bikin "nice talk" kat I. hahahaha

yuRa said...

shikin! biar betul! siapa yang nak nice talk to you and what about??

can't imagine what warrants nice talks more than cos of rolling on parade ground! *smirks*

Nani said...

Well Ayu, at least rolling on the parade ground over thrilling jokes is not as bad as girl and boy rolling on the floor in the classroom like some students did. My colleague caught some students doing that before... so you can continue rolling wherever you want as long as Edwan redha...heh.. Please forgive me...

melayudilondon said...

aiyah..usual things abt studies lah. kan aku gila ECA then? hahaha
one teacher gave me a talk in front of Class 3/7 and then Suzana gave me a nice talk abt that. hahahahahaahah. aku buat muka sardin je.

yuRa said...

nani, waah .. agaknya time class HSB tak? diorang buat live experiment? hahha

shikin, siapa teacher yang takde tact tu? kasi aku nama dia. ni mesti mau kena bedal, man!

suzana had to add salt to wound, eh? muahhahhah what a cute story! one of those to tell alia about how pai kia you were! muahhahha