The School Bus

I will drive pass two primary schools on my way from work everyday. If my timing is off, I will be passing them right after the school session ends. This is when my patience is often tested.

I understand the needs for parents to pick up their children due to the expensive charge of school buses or private cars. However, when these parents takes up 2 out of 3 lanes of the road, it gets pretty darn annoying. Thanks to them, my (and other drivers too) journey home would be delayed. On some days, we would be stationary for a good 5 minutes while waiting for someone to move his or her car!

Anyway, sometimes I do think of the valuable life experiences that these kids are missing.

Throughout my primary and early secondary school years, I took the school bus to school. I made friends (or not) with other children from many different schools. We had kids from Chinese, Indian, co-ed and non co-ed schools. So at times, you need to adapt and tolerate with the different type of behaviors just to maintain some peace in the bus. That was an education by itself!

In primary school, I had to walk across our big school field just to get to the bus. And if it rains, I would have to run across it eventhough I would still be soaking wet when I board the bus. Well, when you were young, you would rather be wet than being seen under an umbrella, right?

When I was thirteen; I had a crush on a boy. Yes, it was a Chinese boy. In the bus, I would always catch him looking at me and we would be exchanging smiles. Being young, we were just to shy to speak to each other. Gosh, that went on for a while. I eventually got a nice valentine card from him too! However, nothing happens after that. I guess that is why we call it a crush! :-)

Anyways, while we are talking about guys, I recently 'bumped' into another guy I knew from the 'school bus' days while I was browsing FB, boy, he sure is a lot taller now!

I also had a few embarrassing incidents in the school bus. I had a few ‘bocor’ incidents too! You know, back in those days, I just used any ‘capalang’ brand of sanitary pads supplied by my mom. I was not fortunate to use “Whispers” or “Stayfree” back then. :-(

I also had a few fights with the kids too especially with those from the Chinese schools. Over what, you might ask? Oh, silly matters really. It could be because I asked our driver to play English songs instead of Cantonese songs or I opened the window too low and they wanted it closed shut so not to spoilt their already 'gel' harden hair. :-p

Anyways, the fun part was, as it was the 80’s, while we waited for the buses; the older boys would be showing off with their break dancing skills. That was truly hilarious!

These are surely much more fun and useful life fulfilling experience than playing PS2 while your mom or dad is driving you home!