Ah finally, the last year of primary school. More and more girls were coming of age, in the classroom whispering, sharing experiences and old wives tales of how to cope with the onset of puberty.
Mind you back then tampons were considered alien and self-adhesives were just coming on the scene. Forget about panty liners for any day of the cycle, those choices just had not arrived on Malaysian shores yet. It was one size fits all, any day of the year. Simple is best. I can't imagine how girls and mothers decide these days with racks full of sanitary comforts.
Now some girls were growing like bean-poles, while others were protruding more. Talk of bras, breast and other unmentionables floated through the gossip stream of the class. This was especially pronounced during the weekly sewing and art lesson. The atmosphere was much more relaxed and chatting was tolerated. A funny experience that will surely ring true with many readers in the same situation, was that at the start of the year, the sewing project in my case was a checkered skirt.
After completion of the skirt, we had to embroider it with patterns we had learnt throughout our primary schooling. Now imagine beginning work on the skirt in February and completing it in September all the while growth hormones are working through us like Jack's beanstalk. Yup, you guessed it. By the time the project was completed, there was no way most of us could fit into the skirt.
Hmmm, I wonder what happened to my skirt? And all the other primary school masterpieces I worked so hard at and even shed tears for, I wonder whatever happened to them? Why shed tears you ask? It's a favourite story of my mother's which I recollect so clearly.
In Std 1, when the first sewing class day came round, I was crying as I dressed for school. When my father asked why, I told him it was sewing class day, and I was afraid teacher would scold me because I didn't know how to sew. Needless to say, that quip gave my folks a good laugh. Oh the untold horrors that hide in a child's mind.
But I'm no good at keeping posterity stuff. I have clutter, but things that reminisce me back to a delightful time or age in my life are few. My sister on the other hand, is a storehouse of growing-up memorabilia. She has amazed me a few times with her treasures.
I digress too much because Std 6 was a everything the final year in primary school should be. Firstly on Sports Day, only the Standard 6 pupils got to dance the Sports Day dance. Although I can't recall what dance it was, I remember it was then I learnt my first "doe-see-doe" and I was thrilled to bits to be in the mega-scale performance.
The teachers we had that year were phenomenal. I don't think there was any other year in school that we had such a great combination of teachers. They were caring and entertaining and really knew the true spirit of teaching. I can still remember some English lessons, my growing love for geography, the wonder of science and just the great feeling that year left me. Another small snippet I'm sure would turn up the noses of kids these days - Pick Up Papers time!
Pick-up Papers was the civic duty of every class on a particular day of the week after recess when our teacher would walk us round the school premises to pick up rubbish discarded by the Irresponsibles. Now that's a lesson that brings one down to earth from whatever high perch your parents had you on.
However, the apex year of primary schooling came to a close without my participation in the year end concert. Another unaccountable peculiarity.
