I was rumaging through my pile of old stuffs sometime back in the holidays when I found my old school rules handbook. Having not attended public school for quite sometime, I had forgotten how it used to be back in those days, and this small book of rules seems a bit too comical to me now than when I was still wearing uniform.Back then, the school disciplinary system works on the demerit rule, where if you commit an offense in the rule handbook, you will be given a demerit, and you were give ten demerit points to deduct with. I don’t have a clue what will happen to us if we were to hit the target..er I mean the limit of ten demerits but from what I heard from some kepoh, someone got eight demerits due to gambling activities in the school, and that meant calling the parents and temporary suspension.
Apart from big offenses such as gambling, extortion and having sex in the washroom, some of the rules that can win you a demerit seems kinda mundane, and well, hilarious enough to think back. here are some that I recalled. Hear me out.
Never ever, never ever bring, own, borrow, steal or have any association with liquid papers a.k.a. blankos
This is something usual, as all schools banned the usage of liquid papers. If you are caught having one, you will be handed a demerit form straightaway. You cannot hire a lawyer, you cannot defend yourself. The constitutional law do not apply for students in this case.
Why so severe? My guess is that, apart from fearing that the students develop an addiction towards liquid paper sniffing, the school authorities are afraid that we might paint the walls with every single brand of liquid papers in the market, which is all the same. Ball pens, markers and highlighters works as well, and they are legal. We can practically wave them in front of the prefect and nothing happens. Trust me on that.
Which reminds me of one funny incident in my Form 5 year somebody scrawled “FUCK YOU!” with LIQUID PAPER on an assembly bench, effectively passing the message to every single person who the attend assembly that morning.The teachers were so highly agigated that they put a bullfrog into shame. Whoever wrote that piece of art, I salute her.
Your uniform must be well beneath your knees and loose enough not to reveal your body figure.
Bad girls don’t give a damn. You want knee length? Sure. You want it loose? Sure. We can always wear colourful bras, or better yet, nothing at all. Surely your innocent white blouse could do nothing. We can flaunt all we want. So, in future, please devise rules that does not allow this kind of loopholes.
After I left the school, I went back to have some of my certificates verified and that blardy headmistress wants me to GO HOME and change into a more DECENT outfit. Guess what was I wearing? LONG JEANS and SHIRT. What did she want me to dress in? A burkha?
You can only wear hair ornaments in blue, white or black in colour
Blue? What blue? Baby blue? Midnight blue? Electric blue? White or black? Or the spectrum in between them? Geez. I am kinda lousy at this. Ask this kinda question to a prefect and she will be dumfounded. Heck, the will even ask you to cut your hair botak, for the care not, what with a noose around their neck, they could strut around the school as if they own the place.
On the other hand, I am afraid that they couldn’t stand the horror of seeing students decorating their hair with a basket full of fruit while dancing hula-hula with their loose skirt.
Do not get out of the class unless you are given permission by a teacher
You think that you can lie if you got caught, saying that teacher so and so give you the permission to go to the loo? No mam’, you couldn’t. Cos’ every single teacher in the school are given TWO permission cards with lanyards and if you are given permission you MUST wear that card around your neck like some sort of ____.
Say, if they are no teacher in the class and you just need to go, walk to the nearest classroom where there’s a teacher and ask her for the card. In the meantime, be careful or you will be DEMERITED once you got caught leaving the perimeter of your own classroom. So, if you’ve got diarrhea and the nearest teacher is like, ten rooms away, then God bless you. And if the whole class got food poisoning and there’s no teacher, then God bless the janitor.
Believe it or not, two of my friends were given demerit just because she stood near the door! Poor girl. She cried all her way home.
Do not go to the toilet when the teacher is teaching
There was never time for toilet. (when there’s no teacher we can’t get out either, remember?) If we develop gall bladder in our later years, remember who to blame.
Do not do your homework in the library
This is something I recalled from my years as a librarian. We are suppose to prohibit the students from doing homework in the library, by hook or by crook. I never did it anyway, it was too immoral. Someone would have to do the dirty job for me.
Beside, if they couldn’t do their homework, why are they in the library? To talk? To eat and drink? Or sleep? Its just so senseless that I could barf.
That’s all that I could think of. Maybe I will add them later when I can think of any.
