The first day of the very last week of school began rather oddly. However as experience has unfortunately proven many times over the past two years, odd days were a common occurrence. In fact it would be an even odder day if nothing odd had happened. So perhaps today was not that odd after all.

Anyway today first started off with a cup of milk. This is weird because there has been no milk in the house since I first got lactose intolerant at the beginning of this year. However in my sleepy haze I remembered that I had bought a carton of lactose free milk from Cold Storage the other day. So I had milk with breakfast, for once in many months.

Then today the bus came late. This was unusual because the bus usually materialises just when I'm putting on my shoes every morning and I end up rushing like hell. That was the usual routine for the past few weeks. But today this routine was disrupted and I ended up waiting.

Chapel was odd because instead of the usual random people leading worship, it was random students. Unfortunately, the quality of the worship service did not change. The sermon was weird too because it was on Globilisation and Christianity - eh? I ended up going to sleep and later was treated to Chun Wui and Gen repeating what the speaker had said - in utter disbelief. Sounds like I didn't miss very much.

PE was spent (most of it anyway) sitting around because there was a lack of rackets and available courts. I ended up talking to Mai and Cheryl, and watching the showoff between Elliot and Chun Wui versus Cielo and Gen. After a while Mong and I went to ask JLC and Jim if we could play, and so we did for a minute or two before Cheryl wandered over to join my side. So on the last PE lesson ever, I ended up playing a suck game of badminton because I am a bad player.

After school I stayed back to do work and managed to get some Econs reading done. Then I left at about 5:30 and decided to change bus at Clementi interchange. In the middle of my second bus ride back, I felt a tap on my right shoulder, so I turned around. I saw someone I didn't recognise, decked out in army uniform. I instinctively lifted my left wrist to look at my watch so I could give the unknown person the time when he said "Hey are you Year 5 or Year 6?"

Eh?

I too surprised to be suspicious in the least, so I replied that I was Year 6. What followed next was a conversation in which he said that he was a Year 7 who used to be from 6.11 and various questions about school. His name was written on a patch on his uniform, so I knew him name - but he didn't ask for mine. Which is just as well because I found him freaky. His mannerisms also reminded me of this other person from my Japanese class last time who I didn't really like. Still, I talked to him till the bus came to my stop where I got off.

On one side there is him being weird and doing something unusual. On the other there is the idea that even when one is away from ACSI, one still manages to hold strong bonds with the school. Students past and present, even total strangers, are able to have a passable conversation on the school and it's activities and people. This links up again with the idea of how sad it is that this is the last week of school.

After this week ends, for the rest of my life, I will never be in a proper classroom setting with a teacher, regimented work and uniform. This week is the last week of what began in MGS some 11 years and 9 months ago, as a young girl squirming in her neon pink and blue power rangers bag and a uniform that was too big - which will now end as a young woman (dare I think of myself that way?) with a LILAC bag and a uniform which is sometimes uncomfortably tight and short. From many pairs of Bata shoes over the years to a random pair of Adidas shoes that fell apart on me, I now will leave the School Life shod in black converses. My hair which was short when I was in primary school, was longer as I got to upper primary, was then short and allowed to grow every year from Sec 1 to Sec 2 and Sec 4 and Year 5. Now as I prepare to leave, it's grown really really long.

This all feels so scary.