My Classmates
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| We are a noisy lot, that is what our teachers say about us. This is largely due to Ah Keong. He is the noisiest of us all. His voice is like that of a bull frog but volumes louder. It seems that he cannot talk softly. Actually he does not talk, he shouts. Perhaps his living with his family of ten children has something to do with it.In this noisy bunch lives a boy who hardly ever opens his mouth. This is Padma, the boy who sits next to me. He is such a gentle and soft creature that one would think that he is a sissy. This is not so. No one dares call him one for he is a member of the school's Karate Club. Then there is Doris, our class monitor. She sits right in front of the teacher's table. She is such a model student that all the teachers love her. We all love her for she does notboss us around. She has given up doing that long ago. All she does is to make sure that the teachers have sufficient chalk and that the classroom is clean. Right at the back of the class sits our class sleepy-head. Mat seems to need more sleep than others. He catches cat-naps in between lessons. The astounding thing is that he can fall asleep almost instantly. The moment the teacher leaves after a lesson, Mat's snores start up and we know he is at it again. Remarkably he wakes up when the next teacher arrives. Every class has a clown. Our class has Jack, otherwise known as "Jacko The Clown". He is always up to some prank or other, putting tails on the boys' pants, frogs in the girls' desks and powdered chalk on the teacher's chair. So when we hear a girl scream or see men-teachers strolling around with chalk on the seat of their pants, we know that Jacko has struck again. The other classmates too have their own unique personalities. Each contributes his or her part to our class. All in all we are a group of young children who perhaps are a bit noisy at times, but on the whole are well-behaved and pleasant to be with. | ||||||||||||||||||
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My neighbours
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| Many of us live in housing estates. I live in one myself. The one thing about living in a housing estate is that we have many neighbours.Next to my house on the right lives a family whose parents seem to be always scolding the children. I do not know them very well because they always appear angry. Never a day passes without hearing the children crying and the parents shouting at the top of their voices. On the other side of my house, however, lives a very quiet and polite family. Mr. Verghese is a quiet man who seems to manage his family very well. Though he has four children, which is one more than the other family, I never hear him scold his children. So his children never cry. What a wonderful family they are. Further down the road is a family whose radio is switched on most of the time, except late at night. His immediate neighbours must have a tough time putting up with the noise of the radio. Then there is a family whose members seem to live in a world of their own. Many times we have met along the road and not once has any of them even nod his or her head in acknowledgement. They are not blind or deaf. Yet they can walk straight past as if I am not there at all. I would not say that they are unfriendly. I guess they are simply not interested in knowing their neighbours. On the opposite side of the road live Mr. Lim and his family. Mr. Lim is a bird-collector. So everyday a dozen or more birds sing melodious tunes right beneath his front porch. It is preferable to the blare of the other neighbour's radio. However the bird droppings can give off an awful stench. These are some of the neighbours living near me. There are others that I have yet to meet. However I am careful not to intrude on their privacy. The friendly ones smile or raise their hands. The not-so-friendly ones look away. I have to live among them, friendly or not. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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