As I woke up this morning, I really didn't have much inspiration on what to write. Mondays are my worst days, and coupled with the fact that the world is battling a pandemic, things literally can't get any worse.
Suddenly I heard a bell. Probably someone moving around hawking goods that very few people will be interested in, but those bells transported me a few years back in time. Back to when I was a Secondary school student, or what is called Middle & High school in the West.
I attended a boarding school, and for people who are wondering what the experience is like, try eating a lime. Like putting all of it in your mouth and chewing it all up. How does it feel? Yeah, that's more or less the experience.
Only years later will you remember the experiences and laugh about them. At the moment, you'll be crying and plotting your escape out of the place.
Back to the story: the first bell on Monday went off by 5:00am. That was the 'waking up' bell, but no one ever woke up at that time.
The serious students were awake by 4:30am, reading one or two things or just getting ready for school. By 5:00am, they were leaving for our Morning Prep, which was an hour reading time before breakfast.
The unserious students, a.k.a me and my gang, woke up by 5:30 - 5:55 am. Did I say woke up? I meant we were either woken up by the belts of our seniors, or by the buckets of cold water poured on us by the Hostel Master, the teacher in charge of the Hostel.
After that, it was a race against time to leave the hostel at least by 6:05am. 6:00am was the official time for morning prep, but most times by 6am I was putting my trousers and shoes on at the same time.
If you failed to leave early, you would fall into punishment. Ah, punishments on a Monday morning. Nothing spells bad luck better than that. I can't count the number of times I had to run in dry gutters to escape being caught by teachers who were on duty that morning. Why?
There's a science to it. The rush to avoid being late creates a lot of adrenaline rush in your system. All of your senses are heightened to the max, like you literally become a moving sensor or a real life werewolf.
Unfortunately I went to a school were teachers were allowed to use canes on students at will. And these were teachers who needed to see therapists, because they were incredibly sadistic in nature.
By the time they combine their anger at, I don't know, life choices that brought them to the state of having to handle miscreants like me and the annoyance of a Monday morning, that cane would normally be really painful. And then when your senses are magnified thus, you can see how your receptors for pain will go into overdrive when the cane lands on you. Like I said, there's science to it.
And worst part of all is, after they'd flogged you, some would still go on to take your name down. And then you'd be flogged in the assembly. Once you're flogged on a Monday Morning in the assembly, your week is basically messed up.
I guess that's ten minutes
I'll be back some other time to recount more experiences in my "School Bells" Chronicles.
Is that still allowed?