My parents were not familiar with the local school system, though they knew some brand names here and there, they were understanding and supportive and never pressured me into anything (except, well, to do my best.) Therefore in a very unlikely situation not experienced by most of my peers, my biggest source of influence then turned out to be my tuition teacher. My teacher is a kind and patient man who taught me since primary 3. As I sought for his advice, he told me earnestly to consider Dunman High as he believed in the school's emphasis on character development, and how he felt that it will provide a more condusive environment than the top schools that have a reputation for breeding elitism. I believe the focus here shouldn't be on slamming other schools - if so you're totally missing the point - he actually said that to a 12-year-old who never noticed throughout her primary school life that her spectacles were always too low on her nose ridge. Did I even understand half of what he said?
Nonetheless, I took his words seriously. Although I did consider a number of schools, his frequent mentioning of Dunman High kind of rubbed off on me, and piqued my interest on the school a lot. I dragged my mum to open house - we didn't even have D'Carn then, mind you. We were given a card with six grids which required us to reach six checkpoints while completing a school tour. I exchanged my stamped card for a dark green towel with the school crest embroidered on it. I visited the CCA booths in the hall and the seniors at the choir booth gave me two leaf-shaped cutouts of thin foam sheets, with my name written on it in fat marker. What did that have to do with choir? I remember how one of the seniors at the booth encouraged me to try out for an audition, and how the people manning the booth were so warm and welcoming. As compared to what we had in the following years, school was probably bare and unhappening on that open house day in 2010, but I was absolutely sold. Somehow, something about the campus and its people compelled my (simple) mind towards Dunman High.
Afterward, I would google the school on google maps and try to find it on street view (taking virtual tours was so the in thing then, and Mountbatten MRT station was still a concrete mess on the photo stitched together by the google car), or that I would flip to the school's page on the secondary school guide so many times I lose count. Little did I know that six years later, I will still be holding onto the towel and choir programme booklet received that day, together with the programme booklets from every year that followed, more towels from different orientations that I went through, as well as a lifetime of memories.
Afterward, I would google the school on google maps and try to find it on street view (taking virtual tours was so the in thing then, and Mountbatten MRT station was still a concrete mess on the photo stitched together by the google car), or that I would flip to the school's page on the secondary school guide so many times I lose count. Little did I know that six years later, I will still be holding onto the towel and choir programme booklet received that day, together with the programme booklets from every year that followed, more towels from different orientations that I went through, as well as a lifetime of memories.
Sometimes I am still amazed by how I managed to get accepted into the school. I remember that day when I gingerly approached the Music Atrium for my audition, only to realise that I was supposed to prepare a choir piece beforehand (I found out from the girl before me who was holding her choir file and pacing up and down the aisle.) I remember as I entered that small music room and saw Mr Tay for the first time as he asked, "So what do you have for me today?" It would be somewhat inappropriate for me to say uh, whatever I remember form a song that I have not touched since I walked down the Victoria Concert Hall stage like four months ago, so instead I lamely blurted out "Let There Be Peace On Earth, I think..." Mr Tay's eyes would flash of familiarity as he muses, "Blimey! That's a classic and well-known piece."
I would pray so hard for the ground to swallow me up then. I totally could have went with the obscure Japanese piece instead. To be honest, if I have a chance to travel back in time and listen to my singing, I am very sure that I might have single-handedly destroyed any peace left on Mother Earth. Thank God Mr Tay decided that an exorcism of the music room could wait, as he went on with the aural tests. When I was released, I remember walking out the Atrium with my mum thinking that that did not go well at all, and suddenly Mr Tay was running after me shouting, "Wait! What piano grade did you say you have again?" which I'm sure was a euphemistic expression for "did u say u learnt music b4 but still gave me dat kind of performance lolololers".
Sometime later, my parents will debate over whether or not to show me my acceptance letter which they have kindly intercepted. On results day, I was still very nervous, and it was eventually let known that I scored just slightly above the aggregate for that year. Even though my scores did not surpass the 260 mark, it was a cherry on top knowing that I made it not only with my skills and also my own academic effort.
Coming into DHS, the school gave me a lot of experiences which challenged me and made us all grow up from immature 12-year-olds to the young adults today.
Life was pretty good at the start. I was still that small, puny classmate and all my friends associated me with the word "cute" (totally in the physical and not characteristic sense.) Exams were manageable, and I got to know many of my classmates as time passed. We had a lot of stupid fun at the Kallang skating rink, watching movies on class outings, doing history homework on the bed, eating french fries dipped into vanilla cone at Kallang McDees. I do know that these are just innocent fun by naive youngsters who have barely grasped the complexities of priorities, expectations, and sense of purpose in our education. But I do believe that those days were worry-free for a reason, because only while we are young are we allowed to not give a damn without riding out the consequences.
Therefore, life was not a bed of roses for very long. I had my first "boyfriend". There, I said (wrote) it. I never told anyone. It's in inverted commas because I still think I was far too young to take this relationships thing seriously (not based on what I have thought of it to be as an 18-year-old, I suppose) and obviously I didn't think it was for real. I can't even remember how we actually got together. And the whole time we were together, we didn't even go out or what - we just always took 158, the whole length from school to the old Serangoon bus interchange. Honestly, I don't know why this part of my life exists. I don't think I could have withstood the pressure of "omg, she's dating a year 4?!"
Whether I like it or not, he (and the hurricane he carried) forced me to grow up from this point in time. Though it wasn't love, it was still something, and it was enough to make me feel guilty about doing all these behind my parents. I know I was really distracted by it, maybe I started caring more about my appearance, and I know I really screwed up my studies in the easiest leg of my school life. Top it all, there were some really nasty things going on in our relationship. His best friend burnt bridges with me for reasons beyond my comprehension, turns out he himself also kind of unloaded some emotional problems onto me when I said I wanted out - you know, it's probably a weird mess because I was simply just a year 1. Today, we are friends again. But I wonder how much of the past we have simply swept under the carpet, and I wonder if he knew he kinda changed my life forever.
By time year 2 rolled by, I experienced turbulent times again. I never realized how much emotional turmoil friendship problems can cause until it happened. Truthfully, those times were hard because I constantly questioned what was wrong with me, my values and my personality, and that... I trust her so much. I understand if the me then was simple-minded in her thoughts and immature in her actions. What I didn't was that I never had any malicious intent, neither have I talked about others' behind their back; yet the people I trusted the most turned against me, and people I did not expect became my strongest pillars. Whatever happened to me wasn't retributive, but somewhat intentional, and that hurt a lot.
I'd say that those times of turmoil were pivoting events which changed me. Fortunately, life allowed a smooth parting of ways as I channeled all my time and energy into grasping all the opportunities into making my school life worthwhile instead. Some people leaped on the chance when they were fresh students, but I started to pay more attention into academics and CCA only later. Given a chance to remake choices in my life, I don't think I would let life take its course any other way. Granted, it can allow me to erase bad memories. But I am glad that if I did spend my days in a blur, I spend those days in year 1 when everything was significantly less critical, for the misgivings I had early on had a subsequent impact on how I managed my decisions and pathways in later years. It allowed me to become a more conscious human being to my class, family and community.
It then became my personal belief to make sure that I will not leave school without any regrets. In many ways, year 3 and 4 were great years - I received the best set of results in my 6 years of school life, and I was very humbled to have been given opportunities to lead the CCA, to explore my interests, to try out (scarily) new experiences.
Those were times when I was challenged endlessly. Times in choir wasn't smooth and I had year ones who began to openly hate the CCA under our administration. Their offhand comments on hating to come for CCA sessions were daggers to my heart. It's hard not to but I always blamed myself for their receptiveness (/lack thereof) towards choir sessions. If I did my best and they still hated it, then it must mean that I haven't done good enough, right? I admit, I did let their lack of approval get to the better of me. It was too easy to blame them for being immature and childish, the real problem must be us, we are too strict, we are are reeking of unpleasantness, we are making everything repetitive and boring, we were too this, we were too that... right? I remember constantly being at the edge my seat waiting for their reaction toward choir activities, that for half of year four I never ate lunch before 1.45 pm Friday practices because I was too nervous about how practice will turn out, and partly because I wanted to change their (supposedly bad) image of their seniors by turning up the earliest and setting everything up before the rest arrived. I never realised what over-worrying did to me until I went through costume check that year and to my horror, found the gown I've always worn a size too big for me. I never realised, until my friends began to let me know how unhealthy my train of thought became. It took awhile, but we eventually found the resolve that we have today. Yes, some of them became good friends of mine later on. :)
Those were times of unbelievable tiredness. Especially when senior high came by, academics suddenly became so much tougher than we can expect. DESU grades were all but common, and the sciences became so tough for me to handle. I remember when I misjudged my time preparing for my first exams and in my race against time I really, truly, majestically pengsan-ed as I realised the teachers were not kidding when they said you cannot do last-minute cramming in SH. Then I somehow overdid preparations as I became so lethargic from pulling 12-14 hour mugging marathons. There was this day when I suffered a nosebleed in the middle of a Bio lecture and went to the toilet to wait it out except that, well, it kind of never stopped flowing. I remember Xin Min and I idling in the toilet as blood kept dripping out of my nose for an hour. Mr Low even waited it out with me at the sick bay as he took all the effort to kneel down in front of me so that he could conveniently pass me squares of tissue paper as I sat with my head bowed. (I laugh as I think of it, it was so awkward to have a teacher kneeling in front of you because that can't be acceptable in about twenty-five universes. He was so visibly nervous because he had never seen that much bloodied tissue in his life. Also he kindly informed me that I might be dying when I started to pass clots as big as the size of my thumb.)
Even in year 6, things did not get better, and might have taken a turn for the worst. Yeah I broke down in school. That day, I was even more aggravated by the fact that I could not be at ease with myself, because I felt like a hypocrite. For believing that results are not everything and hard work will pay off in the longer road, yet it seemed like I gave more than a damn to the superficial. I decided to resolve that not as times when I surrendered, rather it was just a lot of stress pent up from a long, long time. I thank the heavens that I met Mrs Bok who straight-up told me I was weak for easily caving in to my triggers, but in the most caring way, aptly told me that I should get out of school immediately, buy something I like to eat on the way home, and not touch anything related to A-levels for two days.
Those were years when I learnt more about myself. On one fine day when Ms Tham did voice training with the year three batch as the juniors had other school activities, she singled me out, told me that she has noticed my unsightly out-jutting chin for years and held my head in place. In that moment, it seemed like the planets aligned as I made sounds that even shocked myself. That was when I found my choir voice, and it is a personal moment that I will fold into a origami and tuck into the cavities of my heart forever. As a under-performer (methinks), it made me feel like three years of tough times in choir did not go to waste, and more importantly it translated into lessons of resilience and responsibility. I had the chance to perform at Esplanade Concert Hall, I went on a science trip to Taiwan where I skinned a whole lab rat, I went on tour with Choir where I carried the trust of Ms Tham and the choir for a solo line in cold, faraway night in Hong Kong. I found my interest in politics and current affairs as I started taking an interest in world history and news, and broke into the MUN circuit. I never thought highly of my curiosity in contemporary issues and debating skills until I accidentally did well in GP. In JH, I was always a mediocre student in my class of level-topping english literature students, so to have my language being regarded as "good" came as a shocker to me. Making me begin to think of studying law in the future - not even set in stone, but I'll try, and who knows?
Those years, I had the best memories. Going for SYF after failing my first auditions as a year 1. Going for SYF with SH Choir and beating all the odds against us by getting a distinction. (Honestly, I was more impressed we met the 6.30am meeting time.) Going for a geography competition where we sang choir songs, cut pieces of wood with a flimsy saw, make mini-trees, sing lion king to my dog and chomp down pizza as we realise we are screwed over time, rushed our work till almost midnight... and won 2nd placing. When school throws so much shit at you that you either become very creative or lazy in generating gift ideas that you come up with incredibly retarded ideas like a cabbage, a basket of apples, a large inflatable ball, gummy bears in milo dino, what. Lying in the middle of the field at 8.30pm when we all admitted defeat at the end of Prelims. Having a 10-people strong SH choir batch and 18-man choir who I know will have my back forever.
Time changes everything, even you and I have changed. Funnily enough, it was toward the end of my school life that past wounds began to surface and I faced the unfamiliar notion of forgiveness. Two very different characters who did things I could not fathom yet only time has taught me, neither did they. I was surprised to say the least, I realised that they too held onto the past, except that I always thought that they had forgot about me in their lives. I have long lived out the hurt, and I only wish that they would have moved on as well.
In recent times, the school has rolled out many changes, and I must admit that even I joined Team Skeptics. Decisions were seemingly profit-driven in nature, suggesting that corporate image and publicity were more important than values we used to hold dear. Two viral articles condemning what the decisions of the school. General dissatisfaction all around. Some decisions did impact me a lot as a student in that it drastically reduced my enjoyment in school events, some that were personally very important to me like my last choir concert in DHS. But let's be real, there was nothing we could have done to change the course of events. We are a stakeholder of the school but we are all but a stakeholder. Perhaps, if these string of events taught me anything, it would be that many things in life will go against how we planned it all out to be and we will never have a choice. It is up to us if we wanted to wallow in what could have been, or work around the constrains and make things as good as it could be.
Dunman High gave me many things. She gave me a lot of facilities that we were so blessed to have in our education. She gave us the best canteen vendors who were so friendly and sold the meanest 八毛 milo, salmon don and Ah Ma rice. Operations uncle who would use their keys to open the front gate so that you don't have to take the long way to the side gate. Printing shop aunties who efficiently photocopied so many things for us. Teachers who taught me more than their academic subjects. Choir who in summary convinced me that I will join a choir for as long as I can breathe. ISAC who gave me some of my most stressful event-management experiences that has stretched me immensely. Friends who I know I can count on to buy insurance from me when I call them out of the blue 30 years later. (Right? RIGHT?) People who constantly told me I am worthy when I felt that I was never good enough. People who believed in me, even when I did not believe in myself.
These are lessons that I will carry with me always. As we move on from this safe haven, I feel more uncertain than ever, but I feel stronger than ever too.
On October 14, I became an alumnus of Dunman High School. I must say, from a kiddy 11-year-old to an angsty, groning, difficult 18-year-old, I really found a home in 10 Tanjong Rhu Road.
I would pray so hard for the ground to swallow me up then. I totally could have went with the obscure Japanese piece instead. To be honest, if I have a chance to travel back in time and listen to my singing, I am very sure that I might have single-handedly destroyed any peace left on Mother Earth. Thank God Mr Tay decided that an exorcism of the music room could wait, as he went on with the aural tests. When I was released, I remember walking out the Atrium with my mum thinking that that did not go well at all, and suddenly Mr Tay was running after me shouting, "Wait! What piano grade did you say you have again?" which I'm sure was a euphemistic expression for "did u say u learnt music b4 but still gave me dat kind of performance lolololers".
Sometime later, my parents will debate over whether or not to show me my acceptance letter which they have kindly intercepted. On results day, I was still very nervous, and it was eventually let known that I scored just slightly above the aggregate for that year. Even though my scores did not surpass the 260 mark, it was a cherry on top knowing that I made it not only with my skills and also my own academic effort.
Coming into DHS, the school gave me a lot of experiences which challenged me and made us all grow up from immature 12-year-olds to the young adults today.
Life was pretty good at the start. I was still that small, puny classmate and all my friends associated me with the word "cute" (totally in the physical and not characteristic sense.) Exams were manageable, and I got to know many of my classmates as time passed. We had a lot of stupid fun at the Kallang skating rink, watching movies on class outings, doing history homework on the bed, eating french fries dipped into vanilla cone at Kallang McDees. I do know that these are just innocent fun by naive youngsters who have barely grasped the complexities of priorities, expectations, and sense of purpose in our education. But I do believe that those days were worry-free for a reason, because only while we are young are we allowed to not give a damn without riding out the consequences.
Therefore, life was not a bed of roses for very long. I had my first "boyfriend". There, I said (wrote) it. I never told anyone. It's in inverted commas because I still think I was far too young to take this relationships thing seriously (not based on what I have thought of it to be as an 18-year-old, I suppose) and obviously I didn't think it was for real. I can't even remember how we actually got together. And the whole time we were together, we didn't even go out or what - we just always took 158, the whole length from school to the old Serangoon bus interchange. Honestly, I don't know why this part of my life exists. I don't think I could have withstood the pressure of "omg, she's dating a year 4?!"
Whether I like it or not, he (and the hurricane he carried) forced me to grow up from this point in time. Though it wasn't love, it was still something, and it was enough to make me feel guilty about doing all these behind my parents. I know I was really distracted by it, maybe I started caring more about my appearance, and I know I really screwed up my studies in the easiest leg of my school life. Top it all, there were some really nasty things going on in our relationship. His best friend burnt bridges with me for reasons beyond my comprehension, turns out he himself also kind of unloaded some emotional problems onto me when I said I wanted out - you know, it's probably a weird mess because I was simply just a year 1. Today, we are friends again. But I wonder how much of the past we have simply swept under the carpet, and I wonder if he knew he kinda changed my life forever.
By time year 2 rolled by, I experienced turbulent times again. I never realized how much emotional turmoil friendship problems can cause until it happened. Truthfully, those times were hard because I constantly questioned what was wrong with me, my values and my personality, and that... I trust her so much. I understand if the me then was simple-minded in her thoughts and immature in her actions. What I didn't was that I never had any malicious intent, neither have I talked about others' behind their back; yet the people I trusted the most turned against me, and people I did not expect became my strongest pillars. Whatever happened to me wasn't retributive, but somewhat intentional, and that hurt a lot.
I'd say that those times of turmoil were pivoting events which changed me. Fortunately, life allowed a smooth parting of ways as I channeled all my time and energy into grasping all the opportunities into making my school life worthwhile instead. Some people leaped on the chance when they were fresh students, but I started to pay more attention into academics and CCA only later. Given a chance to remake choices in my life, I don't think I would let life take its course any other way. Granted, it can allow me to erase bad memories. But I am glad that if I did spend my days in a blur, I spend those days in year 1 when everything was significantly less critical, for the misgivings I had early on had a subsequent impact on how I managed my decisions and pathways in later years. It allowed me to become a more conscious human being to my class, family and community.
It then became my personal belief to make sure that I will not leave school without any regrets. In many ways, year 3 and 4 were great years - I received the best set of results in my 6 years of school life, and I was very humbled to have been given opportunities to lead the CCA, to explore my interests, to try out (scarily) new experiences.
Those were times when I was challenged endlessly. Times in choir wasn't smooth and I had year ones who began to openly hate the CCA under our administration. Their offhand comments on hating to come for CCA sessions were daggers to my heart. It's hard not to but I always blamed myself for their receptiveness (/lack thereof) towards choir sessions. If I did my best and they still hated it, then it must mean that I haven't done good enough, right? I admit, I did let their lack of approval get to the better of me. It was too easy to blame them for being immature and childish, the real problem must be us, we are too strict, we are are reeking of unpleasantness, we are making everything repetitive and boring, we were too this, we were too that... right? I remember constantly being at the edge my seat waiting for their reaction toward choir activities, that for half of year four I never ate lunch before 1.45 pm Friday practices because I was too nervous about how practice will turn out, and partly because I wanted to change their (supposedly bad) image of their seniors by turning up the earliest and setting everything up before the rest arrived. I never realised what over-worrying did to me until I went through costume check that year and to my horror, found the gown I've always worn a size too big for me. I never realised, until my friends began to let me know how unhealthy my train of thought became. It took awhile, but we eventually found the resolve that we have today. Yes, some of them became good friends of mine later on. :)
Those were times of unbelievable tiredness. Especially when senior high came by, academics suddenly became so much tougher than we can expect. DESU grades were all but common, and the sciences became so tough for me to handle. I remember when I misjudged my time preparing for my first exams and in my race against time I really, truly, majestically pengsan-ed as I realised the teachers were not kidding when they said you cannot do last-minute cramming in SH. Then I somehow overdid preparations as I became so lethargic from pulling 12-14 hour mugging marathons. There was this day when I suffered a nosebleed in the middle of a Bio lecture and went to the toilet to wait it out except that, well, it kind of never stopped flowing. I remember Xin Min and I idling in the toilet as blood kept dripping out of my nose for an hour. Mr Low even waited it out with me at the sick bay as he took all the effort to kneel down in front of me so that he could conveniently pass me squares of tissue paper as I sat with my head bowed. (I laugh as I think of it, it was so awkward to have a teacher kneeling in front of you because that can't be acceptable in about twenty-five universes. He was so visibly nervous because he had never seen that much bloodied tissue in his life. Also he kindly informed me that I might be dying when I started to pass clots as big as the size of my thumb.)
Even in year 6, things did not get better, and might have taken a turn for the worst. Yeah I broke down in school. That day, I was even more aggravated by the fact that I could not be at ease with myself, because I felt like a hypocrite. For believing that results are not everything and hard work will pay off in the longer road, yet it seemed like I gave more than a damn to the superficial. I decided to resolve that not as times when I surrendered, rather it was just a lot of stress pent up from a long, long time. I thank the heavens that I met Mrs Bok who straight-up told me I was weak for easily caving in to my triggers, but in the most caring way, aptly told me that I should get out of school immediately, buy something I like to eat on the way home, and not touch anything related to A-levels for two days.
Those were years when I learnt more about myself. On one fine day when Ms Tham did voice training with the year three batch as the juniors had other school activities, she singled me out, told me that she has noticed my unsightly out-jutting chin for years and held my head in place. In that moment, it seemed like the planets aligned as I made sounds that even shocked myself. That was when I found my choir voice, and it is a personal moment that I will fold into a origami and tuck into the cavities of my heart forever. As a under-performer (methinks), it made me feel like three years of tough times in choir did not go to waste, and more importantly it translated into lessons of resilience and responsibility. I had the chance to perform at Esplanade Concert Hall, I went on a science trip to Taiwan where I skinned a whole lab rat, I went on tour with Choir where I carried the trust of Ms Tham and the choir for a solo line in cold, faraway night in Hong Kong. I found my interest in politics and current affairs as I started taking an interest in world history and news, and broke into the MUN circuit. I never thought highly of my curiosity in contemporary issues and debating skills until I accidentally did well in GP. In JH, I was always a mediocre student in my class of level-topping english literature students, so to have my language being regarded as "good" came as a shocker to me. Making me begin to think of studying law in the future - not even set in stone, but I'll try, and who knows?
Those years, I had the best memories. Going for SYF after failing my first auditions as a year 1. Going for SYF with SH Choir and beating all the odds against us by getting a distinction. (Honestly, I was more impressed we met the 6.30am meeting time.) Going for a geography competition where we sang choir songs, cut pieces of wood with a flimsy saw, make mini-trees, sing lion king to my dog and chomp down pizza as we realise we are screwed over time, rushed our work till almost midnight... and won 2nd placing. When school throws so much shit at you that you either become very creative or lazy in generating gift ideas that you come up with incredibly retarded ideas like a cabbage, a basket of apples, a large inflatable ball, gummy bears in milo dino, what. Lying in the middle of the field at 8.30pm when we all admitted defeat at the end of Prelims. Having a 10-people strong SH choir batch and 18-man choir who I know will have my back forever.
Time changes everything, even you and I have changed. Funnily enough, it was toward the end of my school life that past wounds began to surface and I faced the unfamiliar notion of forgiveness. Two very different characters who did things I could not fathom yet only time has taught me, neither did they. I was surprised to say the least, I realised that they too held onto the past, except that I always thought that they had forgot about me in their lives. I have long lived out the hurt, and I only wish that they would have moved on as well.
In recent times, the school has rolled out many changes, and I must admit that even I joined Team Skeptics. Decisions were seemingly profit-driven in nature, suggesting that corporate image and publicity were more important than values we used to hold dear. Two viral articles condemning what the decisions of the school. General dissatisfaction all around. Some decisions did impact me a lot as a student in that it drastically reduced my enjoyment in school events, some that were personally very important to me like my last choir concert in DHS. But let's be real, there was nothing we could have done to change the course of events. We are a stakeholder of the school but we are all but a stakeholder. Perhaps, if these string of events taught me anything, it would be that many things in life will go against how we planned it all out to be and we will never have a choice. It is up to us if we wanted to wallow in what could have been, or work around the constrains and make things as good as it could be.
Dunman High gave me many things. She gave me a lot of facilities that we were so blessed to have in our education. She gave us the best canteen vendors who were so friendly and sold the meanest 八毛 milo, salmon don and Ah Ma rice. Operations uncle who would use their keys to open the front gate so that you don't have to take the long way to the side gate. Printing shop aunties who efficiently photocopied so many things for us. Teachers who taught me more than their academic subjects. Choir who in summary convinced me that I will join a choir for as long as I can breathe. ISAC who gave me some of my most stressful event-management experiences that has stretched me immensely. Friends who I know I can count on to buy insurance from me when I call them out of the blue 30 years later. (Right? RIGHT?) People who constantly told me I am worthy when I felt that I was never good enough. People who believed in me, even when I did not believe in myself.
These are lessons that I will carry with me always. As we move on from this safe haven, I feel more uncertain than ever, but I feel stronger than ever too.
On October 14, I became an alumnus of Dunman High School. I must say, from a kiddy 11-year-old to an angsty, groning, difficult 18-year-old, I really found a home in 10 Tanjong Rhu Road.
