I Miss My Old School

I Miss My Old School

I miss my old school so much. It was like being in a nature’s sanctuary aged only 9 years old. The school holds a nature’s charm wherever you turn your eyes to. When I woke up in weekend mornings, I lazed myself to feel the morning breeze gushing through the window of my room.

The boy’s hostel building has 3 levels. In my block, we shared the room with another 3 friends, so that made all four of us in one room. We usually cleaned the room by turns. You could disturb the wardens anytime because they stay at the warden’s house ground floor and first floor.

My hostel block, the Dewan Selera (DS) and the sick bay are just 5 minute walk from each other and it was so convenient for me, because every important place in my life there is very near. The Administration and the classes are very near as well, like 7 minute walk from my room.

I like to take a stroll to the Dewan PUSKEP, the abseiling sites and the cafeteria. I have tried abseiling there and it was a great experience. We have our own abseiling facility and that’s a great thing to have.

Here in TGB, the prayer hall is a separated building, and man when it rains, you are going to take a longer walk if you used the roofed pathway to go there.I think it is a good idea having the prayer hall at the first floor, and that is because it saves the school’s space and it is near to the DS.

What I miss the most the cafeteria. It is situated outside the school compound. Outsiders could go there and dine in too. When I go to Pengkalan Chepa MJSC, the cooperative shop is next to the school’s entrance, so everybody can shop there. Eating at my school’s café while looking at the camping site could really relax my mind. I remembered the café very well, where you ascend the seven step staircase that brings you to the café’s light brown floor, the brown-coloured counters and the white fence, the rows of white plastic chairs with the embossed KL Tower. I still remembered I always asked the uncle to serve my hot tea in one of the football-shaped mugs. There were two wash basins and the menus are there shown on the yellow-coloured banner.

The café is an open air, and my friends and I would go there during break time and enjoy the variety of foods such as fries and glutinous rice. Here, the locals have glutinous rice for breakfast! The cook prepares Western food in the outer stall in the café. There were Western, Thai and  seafood. Written on three separate papers were Chicken chop, sizzling mee, wantan mee (notice the mee, instead of noodles) fish and chips and we would like to remind you that we were in one of the most remote places for a MJSC. Being like hundreds of kilometers from the nearest Roadhouse Steak, those Western menu were something that were handy. I always filled up the longing crave for Western food there like fortnightly. The gate for outsiders were black in colour and for mjsc’s residents, the gates were brown. Once in a while the public yellow bus will zoom on the main road heading north.

Here in TGB the café is beside the boy’s hostels and we could only see students dining in and on weekends, parents would eat there too. When we eat there, it’s facing the warden’s and the BWP room. I always dodged when the wardens are there hanging around the room. It was like a scanning session, where they would look at the attires and all.

Going for meals after the school hours is an easy thing to do; we did not worry if it rained, because the pathway is roofed. I think my old school’s DS is not a very bad place at all The DS has another level, and the surau is located at the second level. You would find the green chairs, the yellow plastic table clothes made a nice colour combination that blends well with the surrounding. If you look up the fluorescent lights, they are decorated with white flowers. In the middle of the DS is a free area, there is a long table for 2 wardens to dine in. Usually the wardens will sit facing the tv, and backing the DS food counter/ there are two counters to take food from.

If you don’t like the food, well there is a PUM shop just beside the DS, that sells burgers in the evenings. You can just grab a few burgers, at a hefty RM 2 per piece.

The fluorescent lights are decorated with white plastic flowers. The was basins are like beside the DS, there is a water cooler and a fly trap, you know the electric fly zap that electrifies flies so you can actually hear the ‘Pffzzzz !, Pfzzzz !’ and that was why nobody sat under it.  In front of the shanks were framed mirrors. The frames are dark yellow in colour and there were smudges on the mirrors. The DS workers wore light blue clothes and surprisingly on these tables I could not see leftovers like fish bones.

If you are aware, the colours that are used in my old school are nature colours, you could not see red or orange used. In TGB, the Laksmana Hall is lined with red colour, and you could mistaken it with the Stadthuys Church in Banda Hilir.

I remembered one time when I was in form 2, I had fever. My temperature was reaching 45 degree celcius and the time was like 11 pm. The warden got me into the grey college van, rushed me to the old and gloomy district clinic for treatment. I disliked going out in the unearthly hours, considering the voodoo stories you occasionally heard there in Lenggong.

Once when I was sick here in TGB, we went to the Emergency Unit and it was very different from the clinic, because we went to the Jasin hospital which was like 10 minutes away. It was much comfortable as the hospital is air-conditioned and brightly lit.

When it was outing time, my family and I would go to the historical and royal town. I just fell in love with the town and if you go there before 10 in the morning, all you could see operating were the market, a few shops and 7 Eleven. There is a TUDM fighter jet coloured light and dark green beside the market, and a fountain. Across the road there is a tourist information centre and a red London-style phone booth. In Malacca, we got the red double decker London, the hypermarkets and the Eye of Malacca. If I could change something in TGB I would like the administration office roofs to have a Malaccan identity, like a bullock cart’s roofs. It would be nice if we take pictures in front of the office.

          This year, 2009, is the final year and my family seldom comes here and I am allowed to buy things in Jasin town with my friends. My parents trusted me so I could do many things on my own now. I found Anis Zahirah, my junior, joined us here, my junior and she is an LDP member. It was a nice feeling getting to keep in touch with the happenings there from my former school again from her. Of course, I do have other juniors too that I don’t mention here.

The most memorable thing happening to me was when I joined the TGB’s scout team for the MRSM Scouts Jamboree held at my old school’s camping site, on October 2009. The jamboree gathered all scouts from all MJSCs including Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. We went there and I got to meet again my old friends, my roommates and my best buddies. There I was representing a different school and we competed on different sides.

Here I would like to thank my former teachers, my ex-homeroom advisor Miss Aiemy, Miss Fadilah, Miss Hafinas and Ustaz Hazmi who have taught me well in Lenggong MJSC. To my TGBian teachers, Ustaz Azizul, Miss Zakiah my homeroom advisor, Mr Zulfaka and all teachers, I soar higher because all of you held my hands up. Thank you MJSC !