(Don't) Be My Valentine

I was eagerly looking forward to Valentine's Day (for the first time) this year. Nope, not because I was anticipating lots of cards, flowers and presents from secret admirers (haha, like that'd ever happen), neither was it because I was gearing myself up to reveal certain feelings from myself to some male in school (goodness, please, no!). Rather, it was simply for the reason that this was the first time I'd be experiencing Valentine's Day in a co-ed school. After a decade in a nunnery (a ten year stint that I absolutely enjoyed, thank you very much), it was proving quite exciting, just waiting to see how this day of love would play out in a school with both genders on its grounds. I was expecting couples hugging and kissing along corridors and in the canteen, declarations of love over the PA system, shouts of "I LOVE YOOOOUUUU!" all over the place. What I got, was sadly, nothing quite as thrilling as I'd expected. Not even close, in fact.

The most exciting thing that happened on Wednesday turned out to be a dedication of a song over AC FM. Actually, it was more the message before the song itself; something along the lines of it being to a Jessie from a JC2 class, with a guy declaring that he wanted her to be his valentine! HAH! That declaration of love I'd been eagerly awaiting to hear! Honestly though, if I was Jessie, I'd probably have whacked the dude real hard when I found out who he was. I mean, being asked to be some guy's valentine over the loudspeakers in the void deck with tons of people milling around the place (all of whom suddenly stopped in their tracks when they heard the declaration) - can anything get more embarrassing than that? Poor Jessie.

Actually though, poor GUY. Imagine what's going to happen to him when Jessie gets her hands on him. Ack.

Anyway, that ended up being the only mildly thrilling thing that happened the whole day. What a disappointment. There were no hugging and kissing couples and the like - or at least none that I saw. Su Yin very nicely attempted to pose as my secret admirer by handing me a HUGE sunflower with a note signed, 'your secret admirer', complete with a quote from 'Twelfth Night' courtesy of Shanshan. They could set up a company, I tell you. We make it. Fake it. You take it. Okay, I'm not too great at the whole tagline thing, but hey, at least it rhymes. In addition to that and a pink heart shaped balloon from a very nice form teacher, other gifts received were chocolates, lollipops, chocolates, sweets, chocolates, heart shaped things and - what else? - more chocolates.

Well, I returned home on Wednesday after a long day at school, and for some strange, inexplicable reason, my family appeared particularly amusing that night. I asked my maid to kindly assist me in trying to revive Su Yin's sunflower, so she took it from me, classified it as an emergency case and began its resuscitation. After having a hurried dinner, I stepped into the kitchen, only to have her sidle up to me and ask in a low voice, "Um...cheh (dialect words were never meant to spelt out in the English language)...who gave you the flower?". It was then that I realised I'd not removed the note Su Yin had gotten her brother to write for her, posing as my secret admirer. Goodness, you should've seen me jump up in horror, flailing my arms in desperation as I tried hard to convince my maid that it was from a FEMALE friend pretending to be a secret admirer and not from a real live secret admirer. It was tough, but thankfully she accepted my explanation in the end. Then came my brother's turn when he questioned the origins of the pink heart shaped balloon, "So...how did you get it? Who gave it to you?", in that ever suggestive tone of voice. When my truthful reply came, "My form teacher.", he did look a tad disappointed - "Chey." was his monosyllabic response.

You know, I still remember last year, when I was dreading JC life primarily because there'd be males around the place, and how with me suffering from the terrible Male-O-Phobia, life was bound to be difficult. Well, I've spent about a month and a half with men in my midst, and really, these boys are nothing at all like the Mister Angs and Mister Joharis of SCGS. Things are quite different. For me, life ain't too bad because I will never have guys on my trail unlike Jessica (small, cute and totally adorable to guys and girls alike), Li Shaan (she's too pretty for her own good, haha!), Beverly (sweet and a complete social butterfly) and the typical men favourites. I'm just Lesley, and I'm glad. It's enjoyable enough for me, honestly. Still, all has definitely changed from the times of being in a single sex school. I really miss being able to talk about the weirdest, grossest things wherever and whenever we wanted, laughing with Shan during AMath over nothing in particular and having Mrs Tan MT think we were the most queer bunch she'd ever taught, being treated to a show of Steffi stuffing some very useful Literature notes into her uniform and instantly becoming Anna Nicole Smith the Second (hahaha), doing the most suggestive dances and prancing around during Drama, and lots more. Seriously, any girl who hasn't gone through life in a single sex school will have missed out on A LOT. Make that A LOT A LOT. Now, everywhere I go, I hear the F word. Seriously, it's like the new 'the'. Though I'm not as affected by it as Bev, it does kind of get to you sometimes. Then there's the whole restriction of not being able to really be yourself in the midst of members of the opposite gender. And there's the girls who are constantly running after guys - will they stop that already? Then in class, boy if we thought 4GY was noisy, we really hadn't met guys yet. A whole lot of them put together, making fun of the teacher and cracking the crudest jokes, is like a mini natural disaster in itself. When I first experienced it, I was rather freaked out, but it's a tad better now. Thank goodness that at least they're funny and not just plain irritating.

I don't know. I find that I haven't quite mastered how to communicate with males. Okay, male teachers are quite alright - I managed the two to one meet up session with my form teacher. Boys younger than me are okay - I thoroughly entertained my three younger than me boy cousins last night during our Chinese New Year reunion dinner; the eldest one better take back what he said a few years ago about wanting to flush me down the toilet bowl. But really, it's my contemporaries I have trouble with. I feel abnormal. I AM abnormal. I guess it's going to take time to get used to being in a co-ed school, and probably lots more time to find the joys of being in one. Ah well. Can't be helped.

For now, I'm just sorry that I wasn't treated to a better show on Valentine's Day. Will the guys in my JC please be more active and go embarrass some more poor girls? I mean, what better day to do that than Valentine's itself? I desperately need some excitement and entertainment. Gahh.