Alright now that the obligatory comic-booky stuff in this post is outta way......we can get down to other important topics.......two surprising and kinda bizarre things happened to me recently.......kinda shocked by both actually...I'll talk about one first and another one at a later part of the post....

First of all.......I got up tuesday morning last week and read a new sms on my phone.......it was from one of my Primary school classmates.....she smsed me to inform me that My Primary 6 form teacher Mrs Raja,who was in her seventies had died from cancer in June.....

Now Mr Raja Singham( which literally translated to "Lion King" in english) was my form teacher and the fiercest and most widely feared teacher in the whole of Bukit Panjang primary school.......seriously........I seen my classmates literally jump for joy and dance in the corridors when she was on sick leave.....now...she was a large woman,(not fat ....just very well-built and solid) who practiced the use of excessive force on any students who disobeyed her....haahah.....not that she was bad mind you....she just had one goal in mind when teaching: she has never had anything less then 100% passing rate for all the primary 6 form classes she tutored,in all her 40 years of teaching and she did'nt want her record broken......and she always told us.....that she will be strict and fierce throughout the term but once the PSLE is over we can start having all the fun we want............yup this was one lady who believed that discipline and tough love was what students needed to succeed ....not praises and pleasant comments and crap...

Now personally..........I was a pretty good student back then,did all my work,brought all my books....but even I felt her wrath on many occasions throughout my time in primary 6.......hahaha.....I still remember this one incident during one of my compulsary mathematics suplementary lessons........everyone who has had wrong answers in their maths workbook had to do their corrections and line up to show her the corrections one by one.......

so I was one of the last few......and I stood in line in complete and utter fear.......as I watched many who came before me get slapped,pounded on their back, had their maths workbook thrown on the floor,etc........I even remembered what happened to my classmate Najip,who was the biggest guy in class(weighing like 80kg).....he did some stuff wrong and Mrs Raja grabbed him by his uniform,shook him vigorously and shoved him onto the wall behind her............I distinctly remembered that I was amazed that a woman in her late 60's could shove a 80kg guy off his feet in one sweeping motion....I also vaguely recall the sound of warm piss trickling down my pants.....hahahhaha.......when it was my turn...i placed my maths workbook in front of her,stood to the side and kept damn quiet........anyway my work was quite messy(she made us re-do our corrections over and over again if we still got them wrong) and i saw her looking around the page to find my latest corrections.......so being the kind soul I am.....I pointed it out to her.........and next thing I knew.......she gave me one tight slap and shouted:" DO YOU THINK I'M BLIND??!".............and I just stood there comepletely frozen and speechless....hahhaha.....damn was that traumatizing.....hahaha

A lot of people hated her in class....but I did'nt.........she wasn't my favorite teacher by any means but her methods however tough they were... worked......everyone passed their PSLE in my class.....and at the end of the day that's all that counts......I also remember she was really really nice during the weeks after my PSLE.......personally I like to remember people for all the good things they've done rather then the bad things........because it's pointless to just focus on the negative while ignoring the positive.........Mrs Raja was an influential figure in my primary school life and one of the more memorable teachers I've met........so I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to her family and just ay RIP Mrs Raja Singham........

Alright!!! Now lets get on with the SPOOKY part of the post...........let's talk about childhood fears,crazed clowns,sentient dolls and other eerie things that go bump in the night.........

Now ever since I was young ....I've been exposed to horror movies,ghost stories and stuff like that..........my mum was a big fan of horror movies and stories and at a very young age.......she had already introduced me to the more sophisticated and classic horror movies like "Psycho" with Norman Bates and "The Exorcist"......I could watch any horror films I wanted if I did so under her guidance and promised her that I would'nt get too afraid and start letting my imagination run wild......

So by the time I was in primary 3 or 4.....seeing stuff like Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm street) ,Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th),Micheal Myers( Halloween), Jeff Goldblum's the fly, The Exorcist, Stephen King's Carrie, Stephen King's Pet cemetery and stuff like that did'nt scare me at all........I watched them a dozen times and they went from mildly frightening to becoming mildly amusing with each viewing or sequel that floowed them......

It's even worse nowadays......the english horror films today are a joke........someone tell the people at Hollywood that CGI blood,violence,corpse and monsters are not even the least bit scary....cos everything is so damn fake-looking..........I think the korean and Japanese horror films are much better then the American ones this days.........I seriously wanna watch a solid horror movie that can frighten or disturb me for a while......it's been a long time since I sene one like that........it's no use ....recently I 've watched some of the new American and Hong Kong horror movies at home, at 2-3 am,with just one single light source turned on..........but it just ain't working......just dun have that weird,scary and exhilirating feeling that makes you afraid to go and pee in the middle of the night in fear that something will appear in the reflection of the mirror or some monstrous hand will pull your ass down while your on the toiletbowl....hahhaha

But back then when I was like in Kindergarten or primary 1-2........there used to be some characters that really disturbed me......frightened me......and they're the kinda things that you can easily see around you in your normal day life but twisted into something indrediby dark and taken to a horrific degree.......and I dug deep into the recesses of my memory to recollect who this charcters were....so without further ado here is a small list of the only characters that I was Ever scared of........

1.) The Clown Pennywise from Stephen King's IT....

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Now that is one Muthaf*cking scary ass Clown...........Pennywise Appeared in a two part TV movie adapting Stephen King's book "IT"......and he was actually a demon who preyed on young children in the guise of a clown.........the clown was some sort of flesh suit tha contained his normal form I think..

So anyways he goes around this town killing kids and then there was this small group of kids who banded together......went into Pennywise's sewer hideout and managed to take him down (If I remembered correctly...Pennywise's one weakness was to metal) and then decades later......when all this children are now middle-aged adults........they start dying one by one......and they slowly find out that pennywise is back and out for revenge against all of them...

I still remembered the opening scene of this movie......it is literally burned in my head.......hahahah......the movie begins at this small town....the kind with nice picket fences and clothesline hanging all over the backyard.........and with small girls skipping (a horror movie cliche) and kids running around playing......then as the camera pans to the backyard...we catch a brief glimpse of this clown-like figure partially obscured by the clothes on the clothes line that's blowing in the wind.......and a second later...he's gone........in the next scene...I can't specifically remember......there's this kid playing ball or something and the ball rolls near the gutter of the pavement.........so the kid bends over to pick the ball and he sees Pennywise eye-shadow covered eyes staring back from him from inside the gutter........the clown talks to the kid briefly and the next moment....he pulls this kid down the sewers throuh that tiny-ass gutter in the pavement..........that's some scary shit when Your 6-7 years old......hahhaha

I never ever understood who the hell thought that clowns would appeal to kids.....does middle-aged men in white make-up,eyeshadow and lipstick,fake hair and frilly costumes seem like the sort of thing that will appeal to a kid?...hahaha...I really hated clowns back then....pasty-faced weirdos...hahaha

2.) Chucky from Child's Play

Ok,Ok.......I know......Chucky is one big Joke right now.......he hasn't been scary since like Child's play 3 and the last two sequels "The Bride of Chucky' and "seed of Chucky"....he's a shadow of his former self and nowadays you'll laugh at him rather then get frightened by him.......but back then he was one scary-ass doll......

This Image above? That was the first time I ever saw Chucky.......I still remembered I was in Kinderaten......and I went to visit my grandmother in Bukit Merah......and there was this video rental shop across my Grand Mother's block......after visting, me and my parents took the lift down......and then this Malay guy came into the lift.......he was clutching a video tape of Child's Play 1 featuring that exact same image above on his chest...........and for the duration of the trip in the lift...I could'nt take my eyes off that picture.......it was one of the scariest thing I ever seen at that point......where they made an innocent,common play-thing for children like a doll into something so damn scary-looking.....

The image stuck with me for a pretty long time.......until I finally watched Child's play one.....I recall being scared,yet excited as I watched that flick for the first time....it was good,scary an entertaining......the next two sequels were'nt as good but actually chucky was still one scary sonnuvab*tch.........then "Brice of chucky" and "seed of Chunky" came out and the whole franchise went to hell........Chucky became a parody of himself.....nothing scary at all...

I recently watched "Seed of chucky" and its not a horror movie now.....its a freaking comedy!! Watched it at 3am...and laughed throughout the movie....at how dumb it was....Chucky and tiffany had a kid........this kid looks like Gollum in an orange wig,has an english accent ,thinks he's japanese cos he has a "Made in Japan" word stamped on his wrist....and he has sexual identity problem since he did'nt know he was a guy or a girl cos he's a doll and they ain't make private parts for dolls........oh and he hates killing!!...in the end he embraces his destiny as a killer doll and burns this woman while dressed as a blonde woman........oh and in the end he kicks Chucky's ass Bruce Lee-style with some generic ,Huang Fei Hong music playing the the background......many of my brain-cells died watching this flick...

The producers don't get it lar.....Chucky is scarier when he looks like a normal doll we can see off the shelves of Toy's R us.....they tried to make him scarier by giving him bulging eyes and titching up his face and instead it loses that psychological element that is scary......cos you can't see ugly dolls like the current chucky being sold to kids.....but when you see a normal looking doll like the chucky in the first few movies that you can identify with.......and to see this harmless play-thing that all little girls have ..perverted into a pyshotic killing machine controlled by the soul of a murderer cum satanist...that's scary..........the small pitter-patter of little feet as chucky runs around the room......slashing people's knee caps or suddenly coming to life without batteries in him and biting a woman's ear......that's what I'm talking about!!

Haiz....so sad that my favorite killer doll is such a wuss nowadays.......I even used to have nightmares about Chucky coming after me and my family once a year...from k2 to primary 2 I believe......on those days I awoke from this dreams, I was always on my best behaviour cos I was so thankful that Chucky did'nt get me....hahaha......now those days are long gone....strange...cos now my dreams seem to involve only Japanese nurse and strippers....

3) Dolly Dearest

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Dolly Dearest is the last horror movie I've seen that really scared me........it's about this family who bought over this doll-making factory and this land that the factory is built on is inhabited by an evil prsence cos the bones of satan were buried in that piece of land......and a whole factory of dolls come alive and start going on an all-you-can-kill buffet ....basically if you thought chucky was bad.......this movie is like Chucky x 100!!

Haiz...watched this when I was primary 2.........saw some advertisements for the film and was looking forward to it.......but my mum was damn sleepy and tired for that day....so she went to sleep first and she asked me if I dared and wanted to watch the film by myself.....I said "Yes".......me and my dumb mouth.....

After the film finished at 12am.......I sat there stoned....walked into my room......and basically lay on my bed for hours having what I would describe as a fever dream.....where you're not really sleeping but sorta having hallucinations of killer dolls coming after you....after lying on my bed hallucinating and in cold sweat...I got up from my bed at 4 am I remebered ...walked into my parent's room and told my mum I was sick...hahhaha.......had a high fever for the next day and my mum did'nt let me watch any horror films for months after that...

I can't remember much of this movie...only that it was damn scary at the time........I think that high fever killed some of my brain cells that night and surpressed many lingering memories of the flick.......but I could remeber this scene where the caretaker of the doll factory was alone in the factory and he starts trying to be funny...he tosses his house keys to one of the finished dolls on the work bench and says"You know...maybe after this...you and I could have some fun back at my room".........he goes on to pick up his keys and the next thing he knows...the dolls stabs him and starts darting around the place.....then the whole factory full of dolls come alive and basically rip him aprt....they stab him...they sewed his flesh with the sewing machine.....and other things that I have surpressed in my mind..hahah

I really want to watch IT and Dolly dearest again.....to see if they're still as scary as I remebered...haha...would be fun......back then clowns and dolls seemed so damn freaky.......nowadays though,like me...my fears are more practical.......fear of failing exams, fear of the unknown as to what the future holds,fear of ending up as a brain-dead corporate wage slave for the next 3 decades of my life......hahah.......being afraid of killer clowns and dolls seem soooooo much better comparing to the kinda fears that I have nowadays.........cos the fears now are so much closer to reality and thus much,much scarier......

Anyways you know earlier on,in this post...I mentioned that there were two bizarre things that happened and one of them was the Passing of my prmary 6 teacher.......the other was that I just found out last sunday that my sec school friend Sulaiman got married.....A Shotgun marriage......as it were...

Haiz.....we had a gathering last sunday and there were like 8 of us and I think all of us unanomously agreed that if there as one person among us that was crazy enough to do something crazy like that........it would be Sulaiman....

Now Sulaiman is one of those infamously memorable friends in you life that you can never forget.....cos of the crazy-ass stuff he has done......probably the crudest and funniest person I ever met....the only person to make me laugh out loud on a regular basis back then.....you know nowadays I'm so much more mellow and toned down then back in my secondary school days.......nowadays my jokes and stuff are like only M-18 at most while back then they were edgier,cruder,spontaneous M-21 or R stuff....but even back then my brand of humor could'nt hold a candle to the kinda crazy,over-the-top stuff Sulaiman used to do...seriously .....he is the MASTER of crude humor....

There were like 30 over guys in my sec 3 /4 class back then...Everyone had a niche or specific brand of humor they were good at....some were good at making fun of teachers, some did great physical comedy, one guy who watched too many Jean Claude Van damme flicks used to do hilarious impressions of Animal-styled Kung Fu (he would do snake-style kungfu on monday...monkey-style on tuesday, tiger-style on wed...so on)....

For me? My speciality was Impersonations and rascist jokes....I used to do this spontaneous stand-up impersonations of my principal and teachers.....a group of 10-15 guys will be sitting around me.....and I'll start coming up wif this spontaneous on-the spot parodies involving me doing 2-3 different voices of different teachers having a bizarre conversation (kinda like Who's line is it?) and I'm proud to say....I told the best Indian Jokes BAR none.......seriously I have a degree in Rascist jokes specializng in the mocking of indians back then.....

but like I said.....all of it was done in good fun...for entertainment purposes only.....nothing hurtful...some of best friends back then were indians...we did everything together...eat,study,play.......truant....hahahah.....but you know I really love indians now........heonestly...I mean they are so important to Singapore......without them who will be there to clear our rubbish,scrub our toilets,collect our dirty dishes,work in construction sites for minimum wage?....yup they're a unique bunch......do you know how much money they save the army in Camouflage cream alone? My goodness......all they have to do is take off all their clothes during night missions and they're completely invisible to the naked eye...hell they'll make perfect soldiers.......cos no way is the enemy gonna see them in the night without the help of infra-red goggles or heat detectors........freaking ninjas I tell ya!!!...oh...and their sweet coconut oil-flavored scents...oooh dun get me started!!.......hahaha...sorry old habits die hard...

So anyway......despite all the crap....me and the other guys always knew when to joke and what was appropriate.......we could be serious when we wanted to, we made sure that we don't make fun of anybody's personal stuff, we did'nt do anything that was in bad taste,nasty or just plain mean to anyone.......we knew when to stop or when to go futher with a joke.....usually when we disturb people we don't laugh AT them rather we get them to laugh WITH us....but Sulaiman was on an entire level above us...hahahha.......he specialized in Over-the-top crazy stunts, crude and sometimes more tastless humor...no one was safe from his mockery.....his friends,his sis,his own mum....hahhahah.......truly a classic charcter...

Seriously some of the stuff he's done is so crude yet twistedly funny that I still remember them vividly......off the top of my head...here's a small list of crazy and (possibly distasteful)stuff he's pulled back in our sec school days......in no particular order

1.) There was once.........sulaiman came into the class.....tearing up.........his eyes were red...and he went over to his desk and he just laid down on his desk sobbing.......

Some some of us went over and asked him what had happened.

He replied" My Mum.........she has cancer....the doctor says she has only two weeks left to live"

Then he continued sobbing and the rest of us gave the usual comforting speeches.....a few weeks later, he informed us that his mum had passed away......flashforward months later to Hari Raya......and he invited us all to his house.....

When we went to his house....we saw this lady cooking Mee siam in the kitchen and I asked Sulaiman:"Who's that?".....he said"Oh...It's my mum."........then all of us looked at him,stunned and I said "I thought your mum had cancer?"....

He looked at all of us and burst out laughing:"Wah Lau....You all believe Ar?!BWAHAHHAHA!!

Damn man...only he would do this kinda stuff.........using his own mum as the punch line of his prank on the class...haha.......unbelievable....

2.) Some of my classmates had printed out an A4 sized "I'M AN ASS" Sign and started pasting them on the backs of fellow clasmates......so after school Sulaiman and a few of us were just playing around with the sign right outside the principal's office.....there was this super geeky sec 1 kid that walked pass us and Sulaiman took the sign and pasted it on his back...

The Boy took off the sign from his back...looked at it and headed straight to the Principal's office.......

Sulaiman ran after him......went straight into the principal office and he was pulling the sign away from the kid.......and from outside the office all of us could see him.....it was damn bizarrely funny....he was in the principla office grabbing the boy by the collar and shouting:"Kanina you wanna give it back or not?!"......and he struggled with the boy until the sign was torn into pieces....

Then the indian cleaner lady who was inside the office shouted at them:" AYE HELLO......THIS IS THE PRINCIPAL OFFICE FOR GOD'S SAKE LAR DEH!!".....and all of us burst out laughing.....hahahhaha...he would have been dead if the principal or even the freaking vie-principal was in the office...

3.) It was Teacher's day and there was a concert for all students.........singing,skits,dances the usual........so my class,4E3 sat right at the front of the stage........and there was this particular performnce on stage...

It was a chinese dance performance...with the female dancers......twirling this sticks with long ribbons on them.....throwing them up and catching them and other stuff..........so Sulaiman was wight in front of the stage.......there was this female dancer that was right in front of his view...he waited for the part where they thre the sticks high up in the air and at the moment he shouted loudly...."OI CHIO BU!!"

The girl was distracted and turned and she could'nt catch the stick in time...so it fell on the stage floor...and sulaiman and the whole hall of students burst out laughing at her......hahha

yup.....and here you thought I was mean......HAH!

4.) Sulaiman had been absent the day before and when he came back to school the following day, my form teacher, Mrs Ramu called him to her desk demanded a reason...he said he was sick....so she asked him to produce a letter from his parents or an MC to her ....

He walked straight to the back of the class where I was sitting.....sat beside me......and he began digging in the waste paper basket behind me........he took out this crumpled piece of foolscap paper....and spread it out on the table......one side of the foolscap even had stuff written on it!....he borrowed a pen from me and wrote "Dear Mrs Ramu....My son was sick yesterday and cannot attend school" and he passed me the letter and said"Aye Barry.......sign for me as my father.".........at the stage I burst out laughing at the sheer craziness of what he was doing....

After I signed he took that crumpled piece of Foolscap ,walked to the front of the class and handed it to Mrs Ramu, telling her that it was a letter from his parents.....she took one look at the damn foolscap crushed it and shouted at him:"YOU THINK I'M SOME KIND OF IDIOT?!"........one look at her expression and Sulaiman burst out laughing (for an example of how his laughter sounded imagine the Joker's laugh from the Batman animated series).......and the whole class just erupted in laughter at his completely insane antics....

Seriously I still laugh at this incident whenever I think of it......classic sulaiman..

5.)This incident happened during Hari Raya......a group of us went visting our friends houses....and so we were taking a train.... anway Sulaiman turned and saw this Malay teenager with different colored socks.....

He turned to us and loudly exclaimed:"Aye Guys.....You wanna see Clown or not??"

Then he turned and pointed straight at the girl and burst out laughing.......the girl just looked at all of us stunned and left the train at the next immediate stop.....hahhaa......now u understand what I mean when I said that Sulaiman is THE MASTER.....hahhaa..he does many distastful and kinda mean spirited stuff that none of us would ever contemplate of doing.....

So I thought he was crazy.....but really I did'nt know he was THIS CRAZY as to get a girl pregnant and get married..........but seriously all of us were taken aback by the news........

Personally i think.......that the saddest thing is to bring a child into this world and not have the capability and resources to properly provide for him.......I think all parents spent decades slogging is so that their kids will have a better life then theirs.....get opportunities they never got,get to do things they could not do.........cos I'm sure EVERY parent would want their child to have a better life then theirs..............I've always thought that before you bring a child to this world...you had better be damn well prepared for the added responsibility, the sacrifices you have to make and make the neecessary savings.........so that your child will be well-provided for and get all the opportunities you never had.......otherwise that kid will just suffer.....

Now in Sulaiman's case......I seriously dunno what to think....I was talking about him with my friend Sakthi.....Sulaiman has an ITE cert so after he passes out of army, he still has like 6 long years to go before he can get a degree and find a better job.......he'll be almost 30 then.....the alternative is to start working after NS but then he won't get any decent paying job..........plus Sulaiman himself is a big kid at heart so.........we both don't think he's father material.......but he's a good pal and we wish him nothing but the best.....cos his life and how he lives it is pretty much outta our hands.........I just hope when I see him years down the road the situation would have worked itself out for the better.....who knows maybe having a kid will teach him greater responsibility and stuff.........hahaha.......sure as hell hope so....

Well Enough Rambling.......I got my own life to lead........from the date of this post...it will be exactly one month before I enter NS on september the 10th..........all my sec school friends have already been inside for a year and will be passing out when I only reach the halfway Mark for my tenure in the army...what a depressing thought....hhahaha.............but I think I'm just about ready for NS.........looking forward to getting it over with!!!!!Time to serve my nation!!Time to become a man!!........time to...watch my DVDS now!!.....hahahha........ until next time......