Nostalgia Tsai Ming Yuen
					In the main building there is now a very nice lecture hall with stadium seating.......
	It is hard to believe that it has been 50 years since I last set foot in our school. My parents used to live on Braemar Hill Road, just up the street from Fortress Hill Road and so I had pass by the school many times while riding the bus. Yes, I have noticed the new paint, the window air conditioners, and the new uniforms, and yet there were many changes hidden from the street view.  A few of us had the fortune of touring the classroom and other facilities before the banquet by arrangement through Paul Yin, our alumni president.  Everything looked so small now, the students' desks, the hallways, and especially the outdoor activity areas. Remember our student's desk top flips up to a storage area, and now it is just a plain desk with no drawer. It is so small that one cannot place an opened textbook plus one's notebook side by side. The classroom space is actually reduced since there is now a wall of cabinets at the back of the room.  I wonder how we used to fit 40 kids into such a small classroom.  But then I remember that we were all lean and fit then. I was a willowy 110 lbs then and not my porky 135 lbs now.
	On the positive side, the biggest change hidden from street view is a new annex connected to the back of the assembly hall and accessible from the driveway.  It is 6 stories tall and host classrooms, art room, dance room and other multifunction facilities. In the main building there is now a very nice lecture hall with stadium seating, although it can probably hold no more than 60 students. I believe it was build with alumni donation. There is also a multimedia room, which allows the students to do audio and video editing and broadcasting. This is apparently a hobby group under teacher guidance with donated equipment.  I wish we had something similar when we were there.
	I keep getting flashbacks on some of the more memorable moments, such as the time when we (Class A) were saying out loud the accented Z sound (E-Zet) when a certain teacher whom we try to imitate entered. His face turned crimson and I remember he lost his temper and threw a blackboard cleaner at who he thought was the perpetrator and stomped out. I forgot if there was a collective punishment to the whole class or not. I wonder if it left such a deep impression on him as well.
						I can't stop without mentioning our former neighbor the Precious Blood Girls High School, where the guys used to slow down in the hallway to ogle the girls playing basketball. We thought they were hot then, but in reality the shorts were not that revealing in today's standard. Times change. By the way, for those that thought they were discreet with just fleeting glances our female classmates now said that they all noticed the lingering and the ogling. Wonder if they felt jealous then? Hey, do you all know that the official school name is Clementi Secondary School and not Clementi Middle School.
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