Memory Book (AKA Buku Kenangan)

When I was in Elementary School and Junior High School (pre-internet/mobile phone days), on the last grade of both schools female students usually distributed a memory book (or "Buku Kenangan" in Indonesian) to her classmates to fill. The book was usually a hard-bound diary-like notebook (the size of which was usually more or like a paperback) with a cute cover and on the front page the owner of the book would write some introduction. The idea was that before the students graduated (sometimes this meant they went separate ways), they wrote down their details for the memory book owner to keep after graduation.

The classmates would then fill up the memory book with their names, address, phone numbers, hobbies, birth date, what they wanted to be when they grew up, their motto, their fave colour, etc. It could be as detailed, artistic, and colourful as they wanted it to be or it could be very plain and short (not too many details given). It was all up to the students themselves. The classmates could pick whichever page(s) they wanted to write down their details on, so one of the exciting things about getting the book back was to find out where he/she had written down their details on he he he...Another exciting thing was that if you had a crush on a boy, you could find out more about him after he filled in his details in your memory book HA HA HA HA HA...


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So the book owner usually gave the book to her BFF(s) and seatmate first and then she'd hand it over to her other classmates. Ideally the classmates took it home with them and then return it to the owner within a day or two, though sometimes the boys would forget about it and the owner had to ask them to remember to bring it back. Some boys didn't even bother taking it home, so instead they fill it up during a break and returned it immediately to the owner.

I distributed this kind of memory book in Junior High and kept it for years, though my mom has burnt a lot of my stuff after I moved to Finland. I remember some of the more artistic classmates would doodle or draw some stuff on their page. I myself loved adding colours when I filled up someone else's memory book, so I'd usually use different pens to write down my details he he he he...I'm not sure who or how the whole thing started, but I kinda like the idea of having my classmates write their own details in a memory book. Different handwritings, different styles.


Have you ever had this kind of trend back in your days? For some reason, this trend stopped altogether in High School (nobody ever gave me any memory book by then).

High School Memory: Religion Teachers

When I was in the first year of High School, we had this super cool and fun and funny religion teacher. He was a big, tall, dark-skinned man with glasses. He had HUGE hands (he could hold a basketball with one hand) and yes, he loved basketball so much. His body did look like the body of an NBA player. He used to throw lots of jokes and each session was fun, so all the students loved this cool and laid-back teacher. Each teaching session was just as laid-back and relaxing and fun as the teacher himself.


He resigned when I was in my second year of High School for some reason (I can't remember anymore), though he did start teaching us first. In my second year of High School, I was in a notorious class. There were around 40 students altogether in a class and there were 7 other classes. This religious teacher was replaced with an older, serious guy who was rather "rigid" in teaching the class (Who wouldn't if they were compared with the first teacher?). 

He started off the first day of teaching by citing some rules and I could feel the whole classroom's spirit went down drastically. He was a systematic teacher, so he wanted us to write down systematic notes as well (if I remember correctly, the notes would also be a part of his grade system for us). He'd write plenty of notes on the blackboard (yep, back then we still used chalks and blackboards) and he also expected us to write down a weekly Sunday sermon report in our own respective churches and he wanted us to add the church's stamp on the side of each report. We had to give him this report each month or so for him to check. And of course this weekly report was also a part of his grade system. 

I remember that one day one close friend (let's call her P) who was in another classroom had forgotten to write down one Sunday's report, so frantically she asked for help. Fortunately for her, one classmate was active at her own church, so she had the church's stamp with her at that time. So P copied that classmate's Sunday report and added the stamp. Problem solved! So she thought at that time. After all, there was no guilty conscience because she DID go to her own church that Sunday. It's just that she had forgotten to write down the report that week.


After the teacher took all the reports and returned them, he asked P to come and meet him and he gave her a punishment (I can't remember anymore what it was, but it must've been related to writing more reports or something like that). Apparently the Sunday sermon report that she had copied was the sermon that had happened in the teacher's own church and he knew that P wasn't a member of the church. Doh!!!

Anyway, back to the teacher and our class...after being taught by this second teacher for a while, my classmates became more and more restless. They were unsatisfied and they wanted the first fun teacher to come back to teach us. One day out of nowhere a classmate gave me a slip of paper filled with my classmates' signatures. On top of the paper somebody had written: "We, the students of class 2-8, want to protest about our current religion teacher. We want the first teacher to come back to teach us bla bla bla bla bla..."

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I felt pressured. Even though I liked the first teacher better myself, but it was a tough call to finally sign the paper. I didn't want to be the odd one out, you know? I didn't want them to think that I was rooting for this second teacher (which wasn't true), but I did respect him as a teacher and human being...but anyway, in the end I signed it anyway. Apparently after all our signatures were there, someone took it to the headmaster he he he he...

And yep, not long after that the headmaster asked us all to come to his office separately (his office couldn't possibly hold all 40 of us at once, so first he called all the boys and then the girls). Diplomatically he reasoned with us about why the first teacher couldn't be brought back and that we should give the second teacher a chance. I don't remember anymore what he had told us, but he managed to appease us all anyway. I gotta hand it to the headmaster, though, who was able to be the peacemaker only in one sitting and it even took less than half an hour 'coz I don't remember being in the office for a long time. Actually, it was the first time ever that I had ever been in the headmaster's office ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Delayed Gratification

My parents taught me delayed gratification ever since we were kids. I didn't realize it back then, naturally, but when we were adults, Mom used to tell us that ever since we were kids, if we wanted a toy or something, she would say to us, "Right now we don't have the money yet, so you have to wait until next month, okay?" Mom told us that actually they DID have the money already back then, but they wanted to teach us the value of delayed gratification. I find that this lesson has been one of the MOST important things I've ever learnt in life. Funny thing is that I don't recall any grudge or sadness that even from a young age, I had to wait to get something. I should remember this lesson so that I can pass it on to my children one day. ;-D

Anyway, as you all probably know, I used to work as a private English tutor for kids. Naturally most of the kids I taught had rich parents or at least had parents from middle-classes families. I remember one time I asked one student of mine, "So school holiday's coming soon. Where are you going to go with your family? Any special plans?"

He said with a derogatory tone of voice, "Euuww...we'll probably go to Singapore AGAIN. SO boring!"

I was shocked when I heard his tone of voice (as if her mother took him to the local ZOO over and over again). Right then and there I wish I could have told him that I had saved money for four years by being a part-time private English tutor while I studied at the university in order to be able to go to Singapore ONCE and that I had always cherished that one short trip. However, I don't think that he would have understood it anyway even if I had told him about it. I just hope that later on life'll teach him this lesson.

It's just crazy how SOME kids of rich parents really take money for granted (I'm not saying ALL because not all of them do this). They can get anything they want without having to wait, so they feel that they have the world in their hands.

One thing I dislike about being a private English tutor was kids who had rich parents who felt as though they could do whatever they liked since they thought, "Well, my parents pay YOU to teach me, so if I feel lazy to come over to your house, it's MY choice." Some of my students came to my house since they lived nearby, and some of them really didn't appreciate my time. They would sometimes call me 15 minutes or 30 minutes before their appointed time and say, "Miss, I don't feel like coming today. I'm so lazy, OK?" GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! I had spent time preparing the lesson and writing down exercises and I had waited for them to come, and they could just do that to me? After a while, I got so upset that I charged them for the lost hour. I wouldn't have charged them if they were really sick or they had urgent matters, but if they did it just because they were lazy, I couldn't take it. I could've used that hour to do something else instead.

Plus the toughest thing about teaching kids was when they weren't motivated to learn. They weren't interested in learning English whatsoever. They just came to my house simply because their Mom told them to. This was by far the toughest kind of student to deal with. No matter how good I was, no matter how many lessons I gave them, if they wouldn't meet me halfway, everything I gave vanished like thin air.

Gee...I have rambled off topic again ha ha ha...I need to do my homework again: writing today's diary he he he he he...