Letter to the past

Dear Ms Joanne Lee,

How have you been doing? It has been three to four years since that day I saw you again at Saint Margaret’s Primary School’ Fun Fair in 2004/2005. Apologies for my shallow memory of dates.

It feels great to reminisce about the tall hill by the side of the school, where the old and worn out monkey bars stand. Their fading brownish paint against the white-washed school building in the background. That is the scene of old school environment that have always stayed in my mind, before renovation was done, when you were still my primary two form teacher in 1999.

The small blue chairs behind those knee-height cream-coloured tables, the tests with big green file-boxes by the side of each students to prevent any possibilities of cheating, and the steep dusty cement hill where the polka-dotted donned girls would ‘queue up’ to slide down every morning, keeping you teachers busy chasing us away. Those days of the past, in that half year of my life spent with you have been enjoyable, and has evermore made learning memorable.

Remember the mathematics lessons you conducted with the ever rowdy class of Primary 2/3? Each lesson was spent in the still and humid air of the classroom, filled with busy minds calculating the answer for 9×9. Your lessons were one of those of my most memorable, the pacifiers waited daily by your table to feed the talkative me. The girl who seemed to be a little sleepy only during the periods spent with the dreaded mathematics. The pacifiers never made it to me, only your masking tapes went onto my mouth successfully. It seems silly and rather hilarious thinking of it now, I am sure it was not as humorous to you then, I must have driven you mad. No matter how terrifying those moments were for me when I walked to your table, I will not forget those wonderful days spent in 2/3 under you.

Glad to say, the ‘innocent’ and terrified talkative, probably ‘bubbly’ girl in 2/3 has changed. I no longer staple my hands accidentally with the stapler, and wear those almost ankle-length polka-dotted dress at the start of the year. However, I am still running wild around school, and still fairly playful, looking forward to the day when I dare to slide down the cement hill again, for pitifully there are now security cameras hanging above the cement slope, and not forgetting that I have grown vertically and horizontally.

Ironically, I have fallen in love with the masking tape that is part of my baggage now. It has become an essential in my filming crew in secondary school, though now I have yet to use it in Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Film, sound and video course. Not forgetting to say, this girl imagination is still running long, with crazy ideas flowing. I guess this has been part of me since then, and certainly useful for the rest of my life in film.

Despite the busy life I am living now, I would still look at the clouds once in a while. I still remember the day when the whole of 2/3, a bunch of little girls lie down on the basketball court to admire the clouds, listening to your stories about them as the other students look on jealously, wishing that they could have a lesson spent on just watching clouds too. However happy the moment was, seeing you leaving that day was difficult. I am still keeping the story book and postcard from you!

Thank you for being part of my life, in that half a year, teaching me to slow down my steps at times to admire the clouds and figure out the shapes and animals. Thank you for trying to let me understand the complicated formulas in mathematics, and get a band 2 in that semester. Thank you for being part of my school life with pacifiers and tapes, those classes I cannot find anywhere else. Thank you for remembering me when I visited during the annual fun fair.

I learnt how much I missed you when you left for Australia for studies then, learnt how to appreciate nature more, learnt how to love mathematics, and finding the fun of it. It has since been nine years since the very day I met you, my very wonderful teacher. Thank you for bringing new perspectives, memories into my life, and showing me things that would remind me of a child’s innocence in later part of my life whenever I think of them.

Most lovingly,

Li Yu (Student of Saint Margaret’s Primary School, 1998-2003, one of the polka-dots in the crowd.)