Enjoying the silence

We took a class photograph for the yearbook today, and as we assembled under the white tents at the outdoor terrace (really, it's just a glorified rooftop spruced up with random miniature landscaping articles), it started to rain very heavily. It poured, in fact. At this inconvenience, I wondered why no one had thought of taking the photographs in the hall, a drier and much more spacious venue.

We squished ourselves into neat stepped rows, much like agricultural terracing, while pondering how we were ever going to do an informal shot when our bodies were so tightly compressed together. With what seemed like a deluge outside the tent with puddles of water rapidly pooling around our feet, threatening to ruin our futures when our children would go "Look Daddy/Mummy! You're all wet!" when peeking at yearbooks, I felt Saran-wrapped in a claustrophobic bubble designed for posterity's sake.

I can very vividly remember each class photo I've taken. There's something about the gathering of individuals and sharing a common identity that takes on the form of a common space and manifests into a moment immortalised and a memory seemingly tangible and indestructible, you know that sort of thing. Almost like an opening into a higher consciousness.

Anyway, on a less cryptic note, I'll be reading out the National Day message tomorrow! (Am lovin' the subtext.) And surprisingly, I was the last one to know. I happened to be enjoying the last few morsels of milk chocolate during recess that jeremy bought from marks & spencer when a teacher came up and called my name, and at that moment in time I realised that I was done-for and my academic life will be over etc., but he handed me this script and spoke as if assuming I was expecting this. Later on, people started telling me they had already known yesterday (probably during rehearsal or something). Hm. "First Knowing". Hmph.

But reading from a script is fun! And I can adopt the persona of the minister of education and act all higher-than-thou and have uppity pretentious elocution and enunciation! Cool.