Memori

I was helping at my aunty's english tuition centre this weekend, had three classes with Grade 3 and 4 students. It's was spontaenuous so i wonder if i made any mistakes in explaining grammar usage (seriously, i think i made some). My dad called it 'misleading'.

So it brought me to the Pedada shoplots that were once so familiar to me. Chopsticks the coffee shop, the coffee shop at the other end of the shop, and a few in other shoplots, two bakeries, Everise the shopping centre, many other varieties of shops around, and not forgetting, Muhibbah the mamak stalls.

I was Form Four. A few of us were taking physics and add maths tuition classes at Newton's. Every tuesday and thursday, two continuous classes of two hours each, with thirty minutes break in the middle. We were talkative, talked all the way in every class. We extended the thirty minutes break ourselves and made it fourty or sometimes fourty five, making ourselves late for physics class every time and mr kong couldn't do anything to'us. Sometimes we'd bump into our school's physics teacher on the way to dinner since he's having tuition class in the neighbouring shoplot.

I visited the bakery this afternoon for lunch. We used to buy bread for dinner when we were tired of fried noodles and kampua. I saw the egg white cake which we used to buy before. It's still there, bringing me more vivid memories about our 'adventures' there, choosing different kinds of bread everytime we came.

Unfortunately it was raining, or i would walk further to another bakery that was popular (for me) with hotdog-salad-bread, a break wrapped with hotdog and salad, obviously, i never get tired of eating it. I wonder if it's still there now. Yea i remember the name of the bakery, Ri Liang Mian Bao, i remember how the tauke or sometimes the taukenio teaches their sons reading.

I stood still, eating the newly bought bread, played with my handphone, and glanced at the road where we used to walk around. The road which we took to Everise, the road which we dared to walk in the middle like our grandfather owned the road, the road that let us continued our non-stop talking after our maths class, which was to be continued to physics class.

Glancing further away, there're more coffee shops. One incident. I helped freya to pour coke inside her tupperware and (maybe) i didn't seal it tight. Then we found out in physics class that it burst and her bag was wet with coke. Papers, pencil bag, everything was drenched. I was petrified. Her calculator was kena masuk water too. Until her calculator was fixed, my calculator was with her as an exchange just in case her calculator died. Year later when i told somebody about this, she said it may be the bubbles of the coke that made the cover burst. Yea, why didn't i think of that. So it's either i didn't seal it tight or the bubbles did this to us.

Everise, a shopping centre that we used to buy junks and loiter at. During festivals my mom would come along with dad to pick me up then we would go there to buy some junks. We hardly go there since i stopped having tuition classes after form five.

Muhibbah, i used to have supper with dad and brother after our classes end at nine. If i see my brother following in the car, i'd know that we're going to muhibbah. Dad specially like one kampua stall, and we'd order satay and salad sotong. I guessed we never changed our menu. My mom didn't like it there, she hated it when people from different stalls coming to our table and ask us to order their things. It's always crowded there, smoky and noisy.

In Form five i did not take add maths anymore so i no longer had the fun loitering around, after class. I just went to class in time and went back after that. But i always treasure the time we spent together, talking nonsence, seldom do the work that mr kong asked us to try, and copied the answers as hard as we could.

Memories, sometimes they're so real.