When Nostalgia Hits, It Sure Hits Hard!

The past few months I've been attacked by bouts of nostalgia. The reason? My alma mater, MRSM Balik Pulau, will be celebrating its Silver Jubilee this year. That means, it's been 19 years since I've first stepped foot on MRSMBP soil.

Together with this celebration, a few of my fellow batch-mates, or fellow Batch '89ers ("89" denoting the year we entered MRSM, and not the year of SPM) felt that a reunion was long overdue, so we decided to organise a reunion dinner on 26 July 2008 in Penang.

What brought on these influx of memories is that ever since we decided to have this reunion, we've been meeting up more often, and our once-dormant yahoogroup has been beseiged by a deluge of emails in the past few months. And as usual, this leads to talking and reminiscing about the good old days.

While I have reminisced about MRSM days here and here, there are so many more memories which the 89ers were a part of.

For instance, only the 89ers were a part of the original batch which came in in Form 2, and had only 121 people, 25 of which were girls.

And only these 121 souls had homerooms with a maximum of 3 girls in it, with some sports houses having only four girls maximum representing it. My sports house, Suria, had only 4 girls, and the sad lot of us had to represent the house in all sports from athletics to team sports. Needless to say, the Suria girls were always near the bottom, if not there already.

And only the 25 girls knew how it felt to be teased mercilessly by most of the 96 boys, which only led to these girls learning how to stand up for themselves and holding their own against these boys. However, instead of declaring outright war against these boys, these 25 girls decided to stand up for them in Form 3 when the boys threatened to leave the MRSM en masse, for reasons only we know, and persuaded them to stay. This strenghtened the bond we have 'til this day.

And, I believe, only the 89ers had the highest number of kerja bakti "volunteers" (which nearly every original 89er was involved in) and JDM "participants".

And only the 89ers were the source of much rantings and frustrations by teachers, with many of us going through punishments which if were done this day, would probably be the cause of many lawsuits against the teaching profession. Hee. However, rather than complain to our parents, we were ashamed of our actions (rightfully so!), and opted to do the punishments quietly, hoping frantically that our parents wouldn't be informed. Unfortunately, that remorse lasted only briefly, and we were then back to our hantu ways, figuring out new ways to aggravate the teachers and wardens.

Side Note: Such punishments included:

1. Having chalk, markers and/or whiteboard dusters being thrown at us, sometimes all in succession. This was normally if the student was sleeping in class.


2. The 4 steps of not knowing the answers to teachers' questions: Step 1 was standing, Step 2 was standing on the chair, Step 3 was standing on the table, Step 4 was standing with a table on your head. I think my highest level was Step 2. There was an implied Step 5, which meant leaving the class immediately. Step 6 was when the teacher had to look for the student who used this as an excuse to go missing entirely.


3. Washing the school bus. A form of kerja bakti, normally reserved for groups of boys in trouble for different offences.


4. Raking the long jump box and pulling weed from the field. Another form of kerja bakti for lesser offences. During the jarum mas season, this kerja bakti became quite the profitable activity.

And only the 89ers were notorious for the co-op incident, which had probably contributed to any high blood pressure our teachers may now have. Which, rather unfortunately, our then vice-principal remembers to this day.

And it was only our batch in Forms 2 & 3, who lived in the same dormitory block, where the boys lived downstairs and the girls upstairs. And it was only these girls who were regularly entertained by the guys bellowing songs like Cintamu Mekar di Hati and Right Here Waiting at the top of their lungs downstairs. Heck, we never needed to buy radios and cassettes at the rate they were "serenading" us.

And it was only our batch whose football team was both the Penang Under-15 and Under-18 champions. The Under-18 girls hockey team was also the Penang vice-champions. And it was our batch which had a representative who made 4th place in the Men's Junior Open category in the Penang International Triathlon in 1991.

However, among the good memories, there are also some sad facts. Unfortunately, some of our friends are no longer with us, namely, Azman Yazit (Man Dayak), Husaini (Hussin), Rahman, Fadli Ayob (Korok) and Khairul (Romeo). Al-Fatihah. Semoga Allah mencucuri rahmat ke atas roh-roh mereka.

What I can say for my batch is that even though it's been nearly 16 years since most of us had last met, it's as if we last met yesterday. Every memory is as fresh as if it just happened, and most of us still look essentially the same, although some are *umm* a bit more vertical than they were before. Heh.

Whatever it is, this batch shares a special bond. Even now, whenever any of us is in a fix, rest assured, help is on the way, no questions asked. The good thing is, I think I bond more with them now then I did when I was in school.

To all 89ers, I'm glad I got the chance to know you. I'm glad we grew up together and managed to be friends although we were all from different backgrounds. I'm glad we can still maintain a sense of loyalty to each other, although so many years have gone by. I'm glad no matter how much we fought or argued back then, that only served as a bond to strengthen our friendship further.

And finally, I'm glad we're all sisters and brothers from another mother (heh!).