I remember the smell of that chemistry lab, the one that opened out to the path leading to the back gate of my secondary school. I remember the wooden test tube racks, the crooked tripods, the gun-shaped igniters, the science teacher whom I never liked. She tilted her head when she talked, left right left, very quickly, the light bouncing off her glasses. But I remember that smell. I think we were doing yet another experiment involving two mysterious solutions that produced some cryptic precipitate. I remember learning the word 'precipitate' and having to spell it out over and over again to get it right. I remember that smell came from something green on the side of a test tube, or was it something rust-red? It depends on if it Was Fe2 or Fe3.

I remember that smell. I remember the drainage hole in the floor. The plastic trays with our equipment. The small bottles on small shelves, the big barrels of 10% HCL. I don't remember wearing gloves, or lab coats, or goggles. I remember a lab partner I didn't like. I remember lab partners that I did like. I remember forgetting to bring a white flower despite reminding myself over and over again that I must bring one, and watching my classmates pluck the lilies from the school grounds. I remember trying and failing to make soap. I remember making a small blue crystal through the process of hypersaturation and something else. I remember sitting in the dark watching sex-ed tapes and giggling a lot, pretending to be embarrassed about the penis diagrams. I remember once while watching one of those tapes a classmate's contact lens popped out and the teacher made a joke.

I remember my first practical exam, and they had drawn the shutters to the labs halfway down, so that we couldn't see the previous batch, and my friends and I were on the second floor watching the calves of people moving back and forth.

I remember blue skirts and pleats and belts with metal hooks that we wore any way but the right way. I remember pony tails in hairties that had to be black, white or blue. I remember house colours, and white shoes, and socks we all complained about, because the blue logo always turned pink if they so much as lay in the vicinity of bleach. I remember notice boards, and the big green bell, and sitting cross-legged on tiled or parquet floor. I remember handheld microphones with cords, and school plays, and masses in the morning, and Friday prayer after school. I remember school bags with textbooks I brought back and forth everyday that we *had* to buy. I remember the library at recess, sitting on the carpet with the tiny bolsters flipping through old yearbooks as if the pictures of our schoolmates were more intriguing than the actual people themselves.

I remember a big room with cardboard dividers covered in black garbage bags and newspapers, me sitting on a desk covered in red dye and starch, pretending to abort a baby with a hanger before stumbling forward to expire at the feet of unimpressed juniors. I remember studying till 7 or 8 in the special use room, making mind maps that never helped. I remember hotdog pohpiah, a cup of coke and lunch under the ECA noticeboards with my best friend. I remember tables that needed to be rearranged every morning, floors that needed to be swept, lockers that no one bothered to lock, plants outside, stacks of dusty dictionaries, class prefects, subject heads, class presidents, overhead projectors, standing in rows on squelchy grass to sing the national anthem...

I remember that smell.

This is my tribute to the things about secondary school that I can remember with a smile.

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- - 2006-10-24
on faithhopetrust - 2006-10-04
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on a unique snowflake - 2006-08-20
on Envy - 2006-07-20