9 Things That I Miss About Secondary School Life

In which stage of life are you in now? School, university, working or retired? We always heard people said that they are so eager to grow up and enter another stage in life. However, when they are already in the next stage, they start to miss the previous stage of life. Working adults miss their study time in university, university students miss their school time and so on.

It is also applicable to me. I know that some people do not like to stay at school longer and want to complete their study faster but not for me. I feel that I am going to continue study at the same place if my school offers higher level of education. However, this is life. There are always "meeting and leaving". So, let's see what I miss about my secondary school life and probably you too.

*Disclaimer: The contents here are based on my experiences. Your experiences in school and university might be different from mine.  I just want to share my views on things in secondary school life that are not really in the university life. 

Parents send to and fetch from wherever you want to go
Every morning I do not need to worry about the weather or if there are many cars when on the way to school because my parents will send me at the front gate of the school (not applicable to those who use bus or stay at hostel). Besides, I do not need to worry about Grab fee every time I want to go out. Just inform my parents that I have something to buy and they are willing to bring me to the shop.

School assembly every monday
I miss the moment when all of the students sing our national anthem, state song and the school song. School assembly is the time when you can get the information about events or anything that happen in school.  In university, the only time I sang all the songs was during the orientation. No more after that. There is no gathering of all the students except for orientation (only freshies and some seniors) and graduation (only graduated students). If you want to know about any information, you need to login into the university portal and read the announcements on your own. There is no one to inform you directly anymore.

Sleeping time
During school time, my sleeping time is 10pm. If I sleep at 11pm, it is considered as late. However, in university, sleeping at 12pm is considered early. Sometimes you do not even have time to sleep if the assignment submission is just around the corner. For those who like to sacrifice your sleeping time just to play game, I advise you to really utilize your night with sleeping because when you complete your school, it is one of the things that you are going to loss.

Free food
One of the difficult question for university students is "where to eat?" I encounter this problem since my foundation until now. After that question has been solved, another question comes out. What to eat? After few years eating the same things, you will feel do not want to eat anymore but you still have to eat to survive. During school, all the food have been prepared after you came back from school. Although your mom cook the same thing also, it is still taste nice because it is your mom's cooking. The nice thing is that we can eat how many time we want without thinking how much have we spent today as it is free food.

Using Bahasa Malaysia as the main language
This is the main thing that I miss. During my school time, our main language is Bahasa Malaysia (BM). Although I am not a Malay, but BM is my mother tongue and I use it since my childhood. At my hometown (east cost of peninsular Malaysia), no matter where we go or what races are we, all of us use BM to communicate with each other. It is so different in my university. Everyone is using English as the main language even if they are talking to a Malaysian. For me, using English to speak cannot give the same effect when using BM. I feel better and seems like most of the burden have been released when I told someone about my problems in BM but not when using English.

Eating Pantai Timur food
I really miss Pantai Timur food. It is so difficult to find nice Pantai Timur food with cheap price at the place where I am studying. I am having problem to adapt with the eating style. At my hometown, we always take heavy breakfast. Eating rice such as nasi kerabu, nasi dagang, nasi minyak and many more for breakfast is a common thing for us. I totally cannot feel full when I eat bread only for breakfast. The seller do sell noodles (I do not like to eat noodles) and fried rice but usually the food court open around 8am. If I have 8am class, then my choice is either biscuit or bread. I also miss budu, tempoyak, sambal hitam and other kind of sambal. I prefer to have sambal to add the spiciness to the food rather than the food taste spicy itself because I can adjust the spiciness to the level that I can accept. Some people will think that I can just go find restaurant that serve Pantai Timur food, Actually, I cannot really find it near to my university . I need to go to the place with someone and usually need to use Grab. I can say that almost all my friends in university are not from Pantai Timur and the food that we like are different. So, at the end we just eat fast food because that is the only food that usually suits everyone's taste.

Celebrating independence day
The celebration of independence day during school time and university is so different. I miss the moment when all the students at school gathered for independence day celebration. We sang few patriotic songs while holding Malaysian flag. Based on my experience, there is no celebration that every student must join in university. There will be announcement about the celebration but it is depends on you whether you want to come or not.

Free accommodation
I think everyone that continue their study far away from their house will miss this. It is not applicable to those who stay at their parents' house during their university life. The rental is not cheap especially if you are studying in the big cities and in private universities. Sometimes the rental do not include the WiFi which is one of the important things for a university student. When you stay at home, you do not need to worry about paying rental every month. You can use electricity and water as mush as you want but if you rent house the amount that you have to pay depends on the usage. You use more, you pay more.

Spending time in the library
I was a librarian during secondary school. Apart from my class, library is one of the places where I spent most of my time at school. I like to go to the library during recess time to borrow books. Since I was a librarian, it was easy for me to borrow or return books because I could do it on my own. Library is the place where I can read books without noise. There were a lot of books that I like and I always excited to borrow new books that were just arrived. However, it is not the same in university. I can count how many time only I go to the library. This is because the library is quite noisy. Since the library is very big, the officer cannot really monitor the students. Usually ground floor would be quiet but always full, but the others are quite noisy. Apart from that, most of the books are in English and I do not really read English books.

If you already completed your study in secondary school, do share what you really miss in the comment section. For those who is still in school, just go with the flow and enjoy your school life. No matter in which stage of life are you, it is normal for you to miss the moments in other stages but make sure you keep moving forward. Remembering the past but at the same time keep moving forward is good rather that remembering the past and stuck in the memories.

See you guys in the next entry. Have a nice day😊.