heytheremomma: Living on the Age

Left: Me, at 1 year; Right: Me again, way older

Looking at my girl growing up so nippily, I, too, can’t help but feel hoarier as days/ years fly by. I can’t whinge on turning 25 this year – a nice number to begin with, and it’s not a great numerical yet. I always aspired to be a veterinarian largely because I’m an animal lover (most, not all animals interest me).

There you have a very qualified Veterinarian in the making

I grew up living my days in the realm of my own imagination – modelling around the house in my mum’s heeled boots and retro chiffon outfits, imagining that I was everybody else but myself. I wasn’t a confident kid and often hid behind the gumshoe of my big sis.

St. Josephs' Kindergarten: I came home one day to tell my sis that I liked a boy

My first public performance as a Little Red Indian Girl

I was not at all girly – I hated skirts, pink, fur and anything that spelt “GIRL” (but I still played Barbie dolls. Brutally that is). My sister used to call me a troublemaking destroyer, and I would get behind her when she arranged her polly pocket house/ horse ranch and abolish her set-up with 1 sweep of my hands. I had collections of red indian toys, army of soliders, insect magnifiers (yes, I used to catch ants and bugs!), and melamine-laced plastic ammunitions (I used to throw them out of the window so that it would give me an excuse to go downstairs). I was hardly graceful or girly – and I never thought I would be.

When 1-piece swimsuit morphed into 2 piece bikinis

When I got older, I was schooled in a Convent school where there were only girls and nuns. I was one of the wickedest in the class, always dodging Chinese remedial lessons and driving my teachers crazy. My mum wasn’t the only family member who had to come by to visit my Chinese teacher – even my sister was called (oh yeah, we schooled in the same Convent).

Me, growing up like a tomboy

I gradually started developing crazy female hormones and being all feminine overnight was a bit uncalled for. I was quite an early developer (being in an all-girls’ school, you’d know what that meant), and I started being more conscious about how I behaved and looked in public. My world of insects, armies, guns, pants, plastic headbands and boy toys was suddenly traded for skirts, laces, floral headbands, ribbons, nail polishes, rings and dresses. Thank heavens for that, or my tomboyishness would have gotten the best of me.

Left: Simulated winter in Science Centre; Right: Real winter in Melbourne (that's a fur hood, not my hair!)

Tubes are indeed an evergreen!

Left: Natural beady eyes; Right: Never leave home without my eyeliner!

When cakes and little pink ponies are left behind in time

Slowly but steadily, boys, puppy love, sappy love notes and goodbye pecks were all a parcel of life. Jealousy, catfights and bitchy exchanges of messages were rampant and I was always the victim, never the instigator.