Objects: The Schoolbook

When I was about 9 years old,I had a rather strict class teacher named Mrs Lim. She was a petite, squat lady with short hair and thick glasses. Her clothing was rather old fashioned i.e. 1960's-cut dresses, flat shoes. She'd walk really fast through the corridors in a stomping fashion in a great hurry.

Back in the day, we wrote down our tasks in an A1 sized note pad bound in brown paper which we called 'Exercise Books'. Depending on which school you were from, the brown cover had the school badge printed in black ink. When we'd finish one (which was quick as they were rather thin), we'd staple the end cover of the old book to the front cover of the new book to create a compendium of previous notes and exercises.

These would be carried in our schoolbags to-and-fro; uniform blue dwarves (that was the color of our uniform) hoarding sacks of potatoes to school. If any one of us students came to Mrs Lim's class without our homework, there'd be hell to pay. No one escaped from not bringing homework to class as she'd call us one by one to her table so that she could scrutinize our unearthly scribblings. It was rather terrifying.

"Tangkachi! What kind of writing is this? Like 'cacing'only!!" (Cacing meaning 'worms' in Malay)
"What is this?? You call this writing ar??!!!" *Slap*


Thus came a couple of weeks of holidays where I was quite happy to enjoy it at home not doing very much except watching video re-runs of the 'Never Ending Story' and annoying my sister. As all good things come to end, the days whittled away leading to the unenviable task of packing our bags for school. First thing to go was the exercise book which I'd worked very early on so that I could enjoy the hols. And since it was done some time ago, I couldn't recall where I'd left it. Panicking, I looked in every possible nook in the house, including under the couch, on the glass table etc. I just couldn't possibly go to Mrs Lim's class without my homework! After much scrambling around, I was resigned to my fate. It was a hot Sunday, that afternoon and feeling drowsy, I fell into a deep sleep.

I dreamt that I went downstairs to the living room to the low glass coffee table looking for my exercise book. This time with a sure feeling, I found it - sitting right under my mom and dad's papers.

It was late evening when I woke to this revelation. Exactly as my dream instructed, I went down stairs and into the living room and lifted the stack of papers on the glass and table.

Lo and behold, there was my brown exercise book.