A Choofully Happy Teachers' Day

Her eyelids were blanketed in a sheet of splotchy sunrise, with as many hues as the colour gradient scale on Adobe Photoshop. It was fascinating that my Literature teacher, Mrs Choo, used similar shades of cherry-rose on the whiteboard, on her lips. It was as if it was deliberate display of ‘meraki’ (the essence of oneself that is put into one’s work) – she reflected her passion for teaching us the substance of unseen prose and Wyndham’s “The Chrysalids” onto the very canvas of her premature sagging skin. Her lanky frame of something that could not have been beyond 110 pounds was a juxtaposition against the weight of her wisdom and depth of confidence.

That very confidence that was easily spotted as she sashayed down the corridors with her signature flowy apparel that would totally give try-hard aunties at bargain shops a run for their money.

There was simply an heir of awestriking grace she upheld in every step she took – she was extravagantly glamorous – much like the Elizabeth Taylor of the entire staff room amongst little pipsqueaks that paled in comparison with her ageless spunk. Most importantly, as students would wait in anticipation for this goddess of guidance to save them from the trenches of an A2, the click-clack of her heels, was accompanied by her signature fragrance that served as the precursor for the transmission of empowering greatness unto us.

If I had to choose one literary device that she embodied initially, it would undeniably be a hyperbole.

She delivered words with so much sass that all her extremities could never be taken seriously. Metaphorically speaking, she was our school’s popularized gossip satellite. There were so many instances where she resurrected the stagnant pond of boredom within my class with her enthusiastic announcement.

“Girls! Girls! Hurry up and close the doors and windows! It’s time for gossip time!” This line was an invitation to the gossip slumber party of a fifty-year-old wild-child and 32 demure girls. I dropped my heavily annotated notes and raised my sunken shoulders to receive the honour of exclusive gossip.

Undaunted by awkward judgements, she would tell us “you know ah girls, Mr __ ? Wah that guy ah so un-gentlemanly! That time he slammed the door in my face then never say sorry! Wah I tell you girls ah, never go for guys like him. After that, Ms __ and I came up with this great comeback! We just told him eh why you always wear the shirt so tight tight one? Is it coz you wanna prove that your boobs are bigger than ours?” The sizzling burns of her comebacks and fearless divulging of staff drama made her scintillate, with all of us orbiting around her, waiting to absorb her marigold shine.

Notably, her joking comebacks were quickly neutralized by her genuine compassion.

The hues splotched onto her eyelids crinkled to make way for her pure sclera for the whole class to be enchanted by what this “grandmaster” had to say next. Her speech was underpinned with so much excitement. “Girls! I just went mirror shopping to get one nice one to put outside the staffroom toilet! It makes you look slimmer! So now the teachers can feel better about themselves!” Kindness emanated from her and diffused around just like her scent.

Undoubtedly, she was never one to retreat in cowardice and stay in the mould of rigid modesty that the Ministry of Education was espousing. Not only did Mrs Choo break out of that mould,

she also built her own to empower each of us to follow the imprints that she permanently engraved onto the grey tiles in school. Her heel marks were full-stops to our lack lustre lives as she provided a wave of hilarious anecdotes that made her so down-to-earth.

She was the backbone that made Methodist Girls’ School (MGS) a notable force to be reckoned with in inter-school literature staff meetings. She was a savage who stung teachers from other schools so subtly but effectively by conveying the excellent performance of the literature students in MGS for national examinations.

She was indeed the grandmaster of academic diplomacy.

She flailed her arms around in excitement as she related to us of the 2012 meeting. “Us, teachers all sat in a circle discussing the distinction rate for literature for our cohorts. Then, wah a representative from our rival school, told the group proudly that their distinction rate was 73%. So internally I laughed but externally, I humbly replied that oh aiya so high, MGS’s is only 94%. OMG, then I saw everyone’s shocked faces and I just sat back in victory.” The word ‘only’ must have clawed at the remnants of their pitiful school pride with heart-wrenching defeat against the reign of MGS. Competitors tried in vain to hack away the perfume that encased her brilliant wit along the aisles of this metamorphic perfume department, however, she parted the seas of competitors flawlessly with her courage to stand out.

Just as we had our anthem of dumb ways to study, she had her own idiosyncratic working styles that made all the barriers of intimidation one may have perceived as she graced the corridors with her overwhelming confidence.

Stemming from her undefeated streak at those literature meetings, lies her secret of churning out endless streams of A1’s. She was about to convey her decade-long secret to success. In anticipation, the plaster paint slapped onto the walls seemed to peel themselves open. It was as if they wanted to absorb the words of the guru and harvest them like the chamber of secrets. Chairs and tables all gravitated towards her with a magnetic pull of eagerness to discover another untold story from her. I watched as her fifty shades of red lipstick dissolved into the mono-hued darkness within her mouth. She was compelling and enchanting in every context. I gawked at her impatiently for her to utter speech. Words of liquid gold were about to erupt from her lips. Disappointedly, she broke the awaiting with “you girls wanna know what our secret is? It’s the pineapples!” There was resolute silence, begging her to elaborate. Alas, her compelling aura emanated with her continuation. “You see right, it was my idea to hang three pineapple decorations at the desks of ‘The Big Three’ of our lit department. They bring us good luck, so whenever we wanna spot topics for O levels, I’ll encourage Ms Tan to sit under one and meditate until the topic hits us!” Notably, her level of entertainment was amaranthine, just like her waterproof makeup – there is no way you could erase her unique personality that was a canopy of stories.

Mrs Choo seemed to have every bone etched with crazy self-empowering anthems, much like Demi Lovato’s lines of “What’s wrong with being confident!” Certainly, her bangles that boldly clanked, as she stomped to the deaths of attaining the nirvana of 100% A1’s, transmitted her contagious confidence to students with fragile self-beliefs like me.

She instilled confidence in me when I was deprived of colour.

She would customise stickers such as “You have seen light! A1 for Lit!” and slap my papers with cursive affirmations such as “You are officially a superpower!” Whenever self-doubt crept in, she would blast my phone with uplifting words with spams of emoticons. Obviously, her words were underlined with her consistent empowering sass. As I related to her my fear of being overshadowed by the immensely talented students in Anglo-Chinese Junior College, she texted me “Nvm u are the REAL THING. You are Coca Cola. They are Tsingtao Beer, all foamy and no kick! You are better than those minions!” She had carbonated me with all the wildfire I needed to set my path ablaze with such phrases. She started a wildfire by encouraging other women with the heart of lionesses like hers to do the same. Despite it being years after graduation, I finally understood the root of her enviable strength and confidence. She invited me into the staffroom, swiveling her chair closer to mine and looked at me with her pure sclera. I watched her fingers collapse consecutively while fixating on the deep message she was about to reveal. Her finger nails cascaded downwards with her fingers with the audacity of scarlet red, the war paint she had enamored herself with as she revealed her past of low confidence and self-doubt. Interestingly, she had dissected every page of Wyndham’s ‘The Chrysalids’ to help us score our A1’s with her history of undergoing the metamorphosis of change. Every wrinkle ceased into the oblivion, blending into the foundation that caked the corners of her eyes after a long day at work. All the pain she had harbored had been transformed into seamless beauty with the work of her hands and it was chaos that made her see light again.

They say that ‘sillage’ is the scent of perfume that lingers in the air; an impression made in space.