Highlights and notes follow:

Page 1/Page 11 – Even though this was barely 3 months after we joined, I see Debbie, our 1L class rep, as well as Eisen, the neighbouring 1K class rep, in the bottom picture here, on the right side of the photo. This was some sort of class fundraiser thing involving a famous Chinese actor, Leon Lai, who was promoting the National Kidney Foundation in Singapore.

Page 3 – I never got to participate in this, of course, but this is the Secondary 4’s awaiting their results from the national test to determine which pre-University school they qualify for. Secondary 4 is the equivalent of Grade 10 in the west, and Pre-U runs from Grade 11 through 12 in Singapore.

Page 6 – We indeed had three of those five teachers, the three new GEP (Gifted Education Program) ones listed there, as our teachers. 1997 was the second year that the GEP was being held in Dunman High, so they were probably still bolstering their numbers at this point, or replacing teachers that ragequit on the initial batch (who were in Secondary 2 at this point). 😛

Page 7 – Ah, the advent of the internet age. I don’t actually remember that computer lab at all. Nor the bulky computers. I am really interested in the first picture, not due to the TV but due to the chalkboard, the side notice board, the tables and chairs, and the metal cupboard off to the left — our class had all of those too and it’s super nostalgic. And look at the clock – it’s 7:55 am. Way too early for classes! (I think I have daily schedules from back then somewhere, and I’ll scan and share them if I find them).

Page 8 – I had no idea that we had visiting students from Japan, although this was January of the year that we entered high school so we might just have been too overwhelmed at the time. Also what, Dunman High offered Japanese as a 2nd language? I wasn’t too interested in second languages back then, so I probably wouldn’t have done so anyway (I could barely struggle along in Chinese classes back then), but I don’t remember that as an option. Also, why put quotation marks around “Dunmanians”? That’s what the term was for Dunman High students and everyone knew that.

Page 10 – I dimly remember this. I don’t remember actually participating a ton in it though. ECAs are Extra-Curricular Activities, basically a compulsary student club that everyone had to join. In reality I remember choices were very restricted though, at least for us in Sec 1.

Page 14 – Prefects were basically the discipline reps, basically a form of student council in a school structure that didn’t actually have a student council. Each class had 2 or 3 prefects, I think.

Page 15 – The GEP interview there was with the first batch of GEP students, basically our seniors one year older than we were, the 2K/2L classes that we would inhabit the following year. I remember Amelia’s name, she would come hang out with one of the boys in the other Sec 1 GEP class sometimes. The Individualized Research Study (IRS for short) is a thing in the GEP that we did every year in both primary and secondary school, basically the equivalent of a summer vacation project that you see in anime, except it was something you worked on the entire year and had to produce reports on and such, as well as some sort of final product.

Page 18 – Hah, Knowledge of E Mail, Structure of Home Page.. what. Early days of the internet, indeed. I don’t remember any of those courses, on the top OR the bottom of this page. We probably did some version of the top one anyway (though what even are those Multimedia Software programs?) as computer classes in general do ring a bell, but the bottom one doesn’t jog a memory at all. As GEP students I believe that we operated on a bit of a different schedule/requirement level and so were left out of a lot of things.

Page 19 – Again, something that doesn’t ring a bell at all, so I don’t think this was even an option for us when we were in our second year.

Page 20 – I spent some time trying to puzzle out what this event was and had no idea as well. The Chinese words say 德明校讯 is just Dunman High school news, I think. I like this page for the clear shot of our school gym as well as a random classroom though.