Mama, I saw you in the School Library!

That was what Juliane texted me two days ago. I was at NIE the entire time and I didn't go out for data collection that day and certainly not at SCGS. The next moment, I received the below photo.

Juliane found me in one of the past year SCGS school magazine! "OMG, 1987!", she said. Yes, it is a long time ago haha. A bonus, at least Juliane is using the library. :P 

Memory

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.  
~From a headstone in Ireland

Chinese or English?

I was searching for something in the English papers on Sunday. However, I could find no trace of the news! I swore I read it in the papers. While trying to recall if it was the Sunday papers or maybe papers from Saturday, I flipped through the Chinese papers. Lo and behold, the news I was looking for was in the Chinese papers! I was very surprised as I thought my Chinese has always been stronger and I would be inclined to remember better in Chinese. I realised I must have read the news which is in Chinese. My mind then translated it into English so that it could be filed and stored it away as English.
I have a question for people who are bilingual.
For those of you who are bilingual, which language do you remember your things (in your mind) in?

Triggered Memory

It is strange how sometimes a comment, a word, a matter, a situation, an item, an object can trigger memories long locked up in the hidden depth of your mind.

On my way back to work from lunch with a good friend, one such memory of mine was triggered by the metal grating over the drain. I started laughing. Good friend gave me a strange look. Lol.

The incident happened when I was 5 years old. I was then staying at a private flat in the Orchard area. After kindergarten, I would walk up this steep slope, which was a one-lane vehicle exit, to reach my block of flat which was on a little hill top, accompanied by my old servant. There was this big metal drain grating right in the middle of the road, half-way up the slope. Everyday, I would walk on it.

Then one fateful day, I stepped on it and my right leg went through the grating and was stuck fast, up to my knee! My old servant tried pulling my leg out but to no avail. It was stuck fast and she was causing me more pain than anything. She called for help from the neighbours. While she was doing that, a car starting coming down the slope towards me. The day was just getting from bad to worse - my leg stuck in the middle of the road and now a car was coming. I was freaking out major time! Thank goodness, the car saw me and reversed back. Phew. Soon, I had a small crowd of people around me and I felt like the Sword in the Stone in King Arthur! They were taking turns at trying to pull my leg out. Oi, OI, Pain, PAIN, that's my leg you are pulling!!

Someone had called the fire brigade. I thought finally, I am going to be rescued. And then as if the day couldn't get any worse, it DID. I saw a fireman walking towards me with an axe in his hand. "AAHHHHH!!!! He is going to chop off my leg,", that thought went through my mind. Actually, I verbalised that thought at the top of my voice. I was screaming and crying and just refused to let the fireman near me with that axe! I was fighting my hardest despite one leg being stuck in the grating. Lol. (That's why The Shining gave me the shivers when I watched it - Jack Nicholson and his axe!) I really can't remember what happened after that, but they managed to get my leg out again, in ONE PIECE. LOL.

That day was just pure DRAMA for me. Hahaha. Well, it is pretty funny and hilarious when I think back on it now. But it certainly wasn't so on that day when I was 5. But how did I fall through if I had been walking on it everyday? You see, that day, I was walking and at the same time, reading a book! Hahaha. So morale of the story as my good friend concluded is, "Never read and walk, especially over a grating". Lol.