Now I know...
When I was still a uniformed minor, I remember how the teachers in school were so anal about the regulations involving the students' general behaviour and the school attire.
And I didn't know why. I thought trying to enforce such rules was a failure in itself since it's fifteen sixteen year olds we're talking about here, not some preschool kids who would sit quietly and listen to instructions and not rebel. No matter how hard they try to make the system tiptop, there are, for sure, people who will find a way around it and rebel more.
Colouring hair was so cool that even the guai kia in me succumbed to temptation one fine day in school and decided to go with the norm. I went to dye my hair a colour that is obviously believable enough to be considered as "natural hair". I can't deny that at that time I didn’t think they should make such a fuss over dyed hair.
And I will never believe that eight years from then, I have sorta taken an opposing stand. I seriously think dyed hair looks odd on a uniformed student. So do piercings, long hair for the guys, additional accessories like caps and fanciful earrings and untucked shirt. They just look very wrong on uniformed students. They just make people scrutinise them even more and label them as hopeless kids.
I was at a fitness corner after my jog this afternoon doing my cool down exercises. Close to the fitness corner were two basketball courts where three groups (or more, I don’t know if they know one another) of uniformed kids of both genders congregated.
Untucked uniforms, trail slippers (walao which era liao still use trail? Now I wonder if they also have long wallets and sharp combs like those lians back in those days), dyed hairs, mixing around with many more unidentified noisy objects (probably those already dropped out of school, I dunno for sure, and if abbreviated, it reads UNO), flirting openly and making everyone within a radius of 10 metres know that they are actually flirting, wearing caps (cap with uniforms… yuck), making a public nuisance with a loud spew of vulgarities every few seconds or so with the holy birth hole as the number 1 mostly used word, and other what have yous. And it didn’t look like they were even slightly embarrassed about these things at all.
As an onlooker, I thought that was pretty unsightly. They looked stupid and were definitely making a fool of themselves. The atrocious behaviour was enough for a complaint to be filed against them, afterall they were wearing their damn school uniforms. Change out of those ugly uniforms if you’re going to do all that please. Such boldness. And at the same time, stupidity.
I know… I know I don’t have the right to say anything about them at all, afterall it’s their lives blah blah blah BUT remember as ex uniformed students, we were also subjected to the same kind of scrutiny and bias should we make a fool of ourselves in school attire last time. The public eye was all around us and it seemed like it was always there watching our every move. So it’s just too bad for uniformed kids ain’t it? Perhaps who knows they will be the public eye for the students ten years down the road when they grow older and become more sensible?
"Tuck in your shirt!- the discipline master would announce especially on the first day of school on a new year.
No coloured bras!
No dyed hair!
No feelers aka ah lian hairdo!
No long hair for guys!
Skirt must be at knee length!
Pants must not be baggy!
No multiple ear piercings for girls!
No ear piercings at all for boys!
Fine, no piercings at other unmentioned regions for both sexes!
No indecent behaviour in public!
No public nuisance!
No playing soccer at the voiddeck!"
And I didn't know why. I thought trying to enforce such rules was a failure in itself since it's fifteen sixteen year olds we're talking about here, not some preschool kids who would sit quietly and listen to instructions and not rebel. No matter how hard they try to make the system tiptop, there are, for sure, people who will find a way around it and rebel more.
Colouring hair was so cool that even the guai kia in me succumbed to temptation one fine day in school and decided to go with the norm. I went to dye my hair a colour that is obviously believable enough to be considered as "natural hair". I can't deny that at that time I didn’t think they should make such a fuss over dyed hair.
And I will never believe that eight years from then, I have sorta taken an opposing stand. I seriously think dyed hair looks odd on a uniformed student. So do piercings, long hair for the guys, additional accessories like caps and fanciful earrings and untucked shirt. They just look very wrong on uniformed students. They just make people scrutinise them even more and label them as hopeless kids.
I was at a fitness corner after my jog this afternoon doing my cool down exercises. Close to the fitness corner were two basketball courts where three groups (or more, I don’t know if they know one another) of uniformed kids of both genders congregated.
Untucked uniforms, trail slippers (walao which era liao still use trail? Now I wonder if they also have long wallets and sharp combs like those lians back in those days), dyed hairs, mixing around with many more unidentified noisy objects (probably those already dropped out of school, I dunno for sure, and if abbreviated, it reads UNO), flirting openly and making everyone within a radius of 10 metres know that they are actually flirting, wearing caps (cap with uniforms… yuck), making a public nuisance with a loud spew of vulgarities every few seconds or so with the holy birth hole as the number 1 mostly used word, and other what have yous. And it didn’t look like they were even slightly embarrassed about these things at all.
As an onlooker, I thought that was pretty unsightly. They looked stupid and were definitely making a fool of themselves. The atrocious behaviour was enough for a complaint to be filed against them, afterall they were wearing their damn school uniforms. Change out of those ugly uniforms if you’re going to do all that please. Such boldness. And at the same time, stupidity.
I know… I know I don’t have the right to say anything about them at all, afterall it’s their lives blah blah blah BUT remember as ex uniformed students, we were also subjected to the same kind of scrutiny and bias should we make a fool of ourselves in school attire last time. The public eye was all around us and it seemed like it was always there watching our every move. So it’s just too bad for uniformed kids ain’t it? Perhaps who knows they will be the public eye for the students ten years down the road when they grow older and become more sensible?
Labels: kids, public, school, singsociety, uniforms
posted by ; khsrL at
10:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home