Siesta Time

One of my fond memories as a child was siesta time in kindergarten!

There will come a time every afternoon when the teachers turned off all the lights and all of us little kids will help them to lay out some coloured straw mats (I distinctly remember some of the mats were red and blue) on the floor where we will all lie down and take our naps.

Too bad we all have to outgrow siestas (at least here in Singapore)…

Blue Boots

Back in kindergarten, I had this pair of blue boots that my mum bought for me that I really liked. Think I liked it because it was a special kind of footwear that could only worn when it was raining. Unfortunately, I think I grew out of it pretty fast because I don’t remember many rainy days, and I also don’t recall wearing it very often.

Maybe I would be rich and famous now if my mum had bought me yellow boots instead…

(Accidental) Snail Murderer

The kindergarten I attended (Dan and HG, you know which one) had this grass patch outside that somehow had a healthy population of snails. It was quite disgusting because sometimes when we were running around, there would be a “CRRRUUUNCH!!” sound and we would realise that we had accidentally killed another snail. Think its worse when you skid slightly after stepping on one…

Multi-Coloured Walls

I wasn’t very creative when I was young and my idea of making something pleasing to the eyes was to use whatever I had available.

When I had this assignment to colour in a picture of a wooden house made of planks, I coloured each and every plank a different colour, making use of all the colour pencils I had at my dispense in the kindergarten.

Teacher’s comment: “Lionel, your picture is very… colourful”

Writing 4 in Chinese

Even when I was  in kindergarten I was already “kay kiang”…

We were being taught Mandarin in classes and we had to learn how to write numbers. One, two and three were written as one, two and three horizontal lines, so I thought it was a cinch and decided to do some advance homework.

Apparently, “four” written in Mandarin was not four horizontal lines… 🙁

Broke my leg

No, I didn’t just break my leg, so don’t worry. This is an autobio entry for my time in kindergarten when I broke my leg while on a swing. If you feel squeamish, then maybe you shouldn’t read on.

It was an ordinary day when a few of us got on a garden swing that could seat about 8 of us. As we were swinging away happily, our teacher called for us to go back in for classes. I stuck out my leg to stop the swing and then I heard a loud ‘crack’!

Turned out I cracked my shin and had to have my leg in a cast for a few months. Putting the cast on was fun but it was pretty scary when the doctor had to remove the cast with a buzzsaw!