Hazia’s Reflections

Once, out of the blue, my ex-classmate from secondary school smsed me from Austria. He said he dreamt about my 16th birthday where we had barbecue at my house. He wanted to know whether I was well - he was superstitious.

I guess you’d wonder why he would remember something like that 17 years later. Well, when you attended a strict boarding school, a co-ed weekend outing was not something that you would forget easily. I mean we’re talking about boy and girls prepping at the library on different evenings here, going out on alternate weekends, etc, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t suppressed, far from it. On the contrary, difficulties bred innovation…it took our creativity level a few notches higher. At the best of times, when the brains came together, we beat the system. It was a college to develop future leaders alright:)

Where else would you find a bunch of students whose daily routine included eating meehoon sup (noodles in soup) with their fingers…and at the famed DS (Dataran Selera) too, no less;) Not to forget, walking miles to the nearest village with our most charming behaviour at dawn, and then knocking on strangers’ doors to use their bathrooms when there was no water supply.

Part of our religious education included the ‘kuliah subuh’ (dawn lecture) at 6am every Saturday. Naturally, many of us chose to skip this ‘inspiring’ weekend sessions which led to the regular spot checks by our famous chief warden, Cikgu Shaari. Upon hearing his thunderous voice, we would jump off our beds, did a marathon to the common bathroom and hid in the toilets.

Our dedicated teachers also created a unique rehabilitation programme for the rebels. The ‘extremists’ were put through an army tight schedule with their hair shaven ‘recruit style’. Imagine the whistling when they marched from class to prep, to sports and so on.

Where did all this take us? Surprise, surprise…many of our schoolmates are in science and technology…talk about being innovative;)

Whoever said there was something wrong with our country’s education system? I begged to differ…just look at how well we all turned out:p

To ex-MRSM BPs out there, I salute you!:D