well, she wasn't someone i would claim to have had a huge impact in my secondary school life. in the first place, she was never my teacher. sometimes i wonder if her being my teacher might have made a huge difference to my o' level score. but that's another story for another day.
so when i heard that she had passed away about a week ago, my reaction wasn't too big. it was more of the, "may she rest in peace," silent goodbye and prayer. strangely enough though, it really hit me a few days later. after reading various tributes written by a bunch of other seniors, i realised that she was a small person with a big heart. and now she's gone.
i used to be really afraid of her. even meeting her on the staircases back up to class would send shivers up my spine. i remember she used to wear dark red lipstick and had tight curls which never fell out of place, not even after an entire day of school.
my class at that time had an opportunity of having her take us for one of those dreaded 5 hour chemistry remedials once because our own chem teacher was sick. and i still remembered all of us taking in a deep breath the moment she walked into class. the air was so still and silent you really could hear a pin drop, on the carpeted floor. the only sound perhaps, was the breathing of the aircon.
and so began our 5 hours of pure torture. to us anyway. i remember her telling us how to remember acids, bases and salts and what nots. and oh, for the life of me, i never knew how to balance an equation till i went to her class. fear does something special to you huh. then half way through moles and titration, she'd throw in her story of her german boyfriend and how she had to climb a ladder to
'kissh him' because he was so tall. and then she'll tell us not to date ACS boys because. haha. it's quite funny just thinking about it. of course we laughed along with her, which did ease some tension. but right after that, someone would get scolded for not knowing the difference between yellow green and greenish yellow.
well, the fear of her continued till we never saw her in school. and i suppose because she wasn't our teacher, we never really did notice. we did notice though, that there's wasn't this little lady pushing our class to one side because
'all you yaya papayas' were in her class' space during assembly. and how no one was there to tell us to pull up our socks and pin up our hair. well, other teachers did that, just that we never did really listen to them that much. she taught us what we need to know. we followed what she said because of fear, but now we follow because we are humbled and wiser [hopefully].
thing is, i know i'll meet her up there someday now. and i'm glad for that. i'll be able to say thank you for teaching me how to remember acid, bases and salts. if not, i really would have failed my chem. which i didnt.
ms goh, thank you from us MG girls. rest in peace.
