The Long & Short Memory..... by Wong Poh Lam

According to the experts, as you age, the first thing that goes is your mid-term memory, then you start to momentarily lose your short-term memory (like what you just had for breakfast!). But, your long-term memory usually stays with you. Of course, all these are in relative terms, meaning that we all lose much of our memory 'recall' function, it's only a matter which part can be recalled better than the others.

Which also means that it may depend upon how much you input along the way! If you didn't store much, then you may not have very much to recall anyway. Obviously, what you did input must have been categorized by your CPU (brain-lah) as various degrees of importance, and that's why we can remember (recall) the more significant moments, just like Sek Yee and Khad have about that day in history 45 years ago! [You may have noticed that I still call her 'Khad' instead of 'Kat' because that's what's in my long-term memory!]

As I now try to recall that day (heck, that year!), these are some of the things that are still lingering in there:


Mr Waryam Singh was our Form Teacher in Lower Six, no?

Yes, Sek Yee, Fook Leong & Poh Yik were there, and we later became the 'Gang of Four'

We were not the first year to be co-ed as there were already (albeit limited) co-ed 6th Form classes 2 years ahead of us, but it was the first time co-ed for all of us 'boys' (Actually, you ladies didn't come in on the first day but later, right? Or has my recall function gone awry already?)

For those of us who had been Andersonians all along, it was not such a 'culture shock' as we had familiarity on our side

Lecture from DSS notwithstanding, those of us who were gentlemen (ahem!) knew how to behave, while those who were not (like Sek Yee!)


If we had 1 thing in common, I think it was that we were all from relatively poor families - it was our common perception that all the 'rich' boys went to ACS or St Michael's

Lots more memories (see, sign of old age!) but later (remind me if, and when, I forget).....

Regards,

pohlam