21 Years

21 years. Time really flies. A short 21 years on Earth, I have had bitter and sweet experiences, happy and sad events, fallen and got out of love, made and lost friends, gained and lost weight, got sick, got dejected... Anything you can imagine. 21 years old is a major milestone in a person's life. It marks an entry into official adulthood where in legal terms, you are free to do stuffs without your parent's consent.

Life is short. How many 21 years can we have? 3? 4? 5? As much as I would like to remember my life from when I was born till now, it's almost impossible. Now, who can tell me that you remember your life everyday from the day you were born? You might even have forgotten what you were doing yesterday at 3pm. I, for one, had a normal childhood like everyone else. I was a curious child. I love seeing things that I have never seen before. I loved trying out new things. Although I cannot remember much of my kindergarten times, it was a happy one at least. Well, I still do remember how some of my teachers looked like back in the days.

Nearing primary school was when my memory started rolling. I remember moving into my current flat located around 3km away from my old flat. It was a bare land when I first moved in. There was no neighbourhood mall nearby, there were no bus services, there was no stadium. I remember having to take the bus all the way to Jurong Point to get my lunch or dinner and taking the bus back from the good ol' Boon Lay Bus Interchange. Thankfully for myself, I had the school bus each and every day to fetch me to school. For my P1 and P2 education, it was thankfully in the afternoon so that I could wake up late each day for school. As P3 came by, I had to wake up at 5am every morning to prepare for the school bus at 5.30am. The usual me would dawdle around with my mum's nagging early in the morning (man, she sure has lots of energy!) and slowly munching on my ham and cheese sandwich.

The first time I ever travelled home alone was in my P2 times, after TAF (trim-and-fit) club in school. I remember the old school hall and the mini staircase to the top right hand corner of it which links us to the canteen downstairs, which leads us to a long covered walkway to the entrance of the school where it was a small road. Across the road, there was a small coffee shop where my dad and I would be having our breakfast or lunch and our usual fare would be the Wanton Mee. There was also a little mama shop to the left which sells drinks, snacks and some other little stuffs and to the right was a small shop that sells some of our childhood favourites like the bomb bag or little bombs (the ones wrapped in paper and pops when you throw them onto the ground).

Primary school was a good time for me to get into teenage hood and be prepared for the challenges ahead. It comes when I finally entered secondary school and had more "adult" thinkings like trying to find a girlfriend, falling in love, or whatsoever. I guess guys more or less go through this phase. Well, I matured throughout and learnt much more stuffs. It also meant a change of learning environment and subjects. I also went through a reality phase which simply taught me that I had to work hard to earn what I want. I almost got demoted to the Normal Academic stream from the Express stream at the end of Secondary 2 because of extremely poor results. Thankfully, some teachers managed to fight for me and I managed to stay in the Express stream. Interestingly enough, it was also in secondary school that I almost found another side of myself, something I thought I would never be. It didn't come true in the end.