In My Life 2: The Love of CHK

Eleven years of primary and secondary school. A total of about five hundred weeks of my life spent in classrooms, Mondays to Fridays, with Saturdays being taken up by extra-curricular activities.

I cannot speak about school without speaking about something that was just as daily a routine as school was - the school bus.



Ah, the school bus. Long, ripe yellow vehicles with the words BAS SEKOLAH emblazoned in black on its side sitting between two bold lines. With a belly full of schoolchildren being eaten and regurgitated in the early mornings and late afternoons (if you were in the morning stream) or in the early afternoons and late evenings (if you were in the afternoon stream). Offensive drivers, and equally offensive fumes of thick black smoke belching from its exhaust pipes.

An unlikely setting for romance, if you will. But there she was.

I don't even know her name, to be honest. All I know was that she was the second last person to be picked up on the bus route while I was always the last. Which means that every morning at six thirty a.m., I get to trundle up the metallic stairs to the bus and stand next to the classiest girl in the bus on my way to school.

Beauty and the Beast

To be honest, I was anything but charming. In fact, I was the bus bozo. To start with, I was a fat kid growing up. Seriously. My light blue prefect shirt would always threaten to pop at the buttons. The six buttons tracking from my neck to my waist would always pucker from being stretched by the little giant it was trying to contain. I looked like I ate other smaller children for breakfast.

Add to the fact that I was clumsy, and that my bag was huge (I was the prototype kiasu student (nerd) - I carried all my exercise books and the A and B workbooks, even though the A workbooks were completed in the first semester and never used again).

I looked like a fat tortoise. If the bus driver made any sharp turns, my bag would sometimes be so heavy it would pull me to the ground.

(Falling on your behind always impresses the women.)

She was something else completely, her mixed parentage had gifted her with sweet brown skin, she had eyes that you could swim in, and she was poised and elegant and rarely spoke. Almost like a gazelle, if you will. Her speaking was done by her two sisters - the snotty obnoxious older sibling, and the snottier obnoxious-er younger sibling.

I would often be so nervous around the girl that I was convinced was the love of my twelve year old life, that I would be drenched in sweat on some days just standing near her (when her sisters didn't get in the way).

(Sweating always impresses the women.)

I spent countless mornings cursing my awkwardness as I got off the bus, squandering another chance to have said hi to her.

Rebel Without A Clue

Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Puberty happened along the way, and this clumsy, ugly duckling suddenly transformed into a clumsy, ugly swan. Hahaha!

I made a fresh start as I began my high school years, and redefined my persona as the unwitting bus heartthrob, for two years at least. It was no fault of my own - let's just say puberty was kind (initially) and made me a presentable fourteen year old. Add to the fact that I surrounded myself with an aura of cool mysteriousness, and the girls were going crazy.

We would often stop for bus changes, and instead of joining the crowd of boys and girls buying junk food or playing around with each other, I would often sit alone on the bus somewhere near the back. I would often look out the window, my arm at an angle supporting my head, as I looked faraway and deep in thought.

The truth is, my deepest thoughts were "I think I will die if a girl comes up to me and starts a conversation now!"(Way to go, all boys' school product!) so I appeared aloof and distant to ward off interest. This plan, however, backfired, and I found myself attracting the interests of giggling girls my age.

She never giggled. She was too classy for that. But I could tell she noticed me, and wanted to come and say hi. But neither of us were brave enough.

It was the last day of Form Two, and the bus route dictates that she was the last person to get off the bus before me. I was pretending to be deep in thought again, but out of the corner of my eye I could see her, as she stood by the stairs, waiting to alight. She turned to look at me, one last long lingering look, carrying with it the regrets of words unspoken.

The bus stopped and she thanked the Mr. Wong, the bus driver as she got off. With that, she was gone, and I never had really saw her again on the bus after that, when we started morning streams the next year.

I just wished that I had asked her for a name, at least.

- And even though, the moment passed me by, I still can't turn away -
Name, Goo Goo Dolls