This is the cutest story in the world.

Recently watched this Taiwanese movie called Our Times. I urge you to watch it if you have forgotten how it was like to fall in love as a teenager - the innocent, silly, unconditional puppy love. There were soooo many details I could relate to, including the sound track, the friendship bracelets, the horrifying chain letters that scared me to death, and the way you first felt butterflies. I love watching movies like that now, because, really, it's something so pure and naive that I will never never experience again in this life time. But it happened, and has left a big happy mark in my memory.

Blame my early introduction to the Japanese Shojo comics, I was an (super) early bloomer, My first crush happened when I was in grade 5. I forgot how we met. Well, I mean, we met in school and were in the same class for two consecutive years, but I forgot how I first had the crush on him. Of course, he was one of those popular boys who was the leader of the pack, who shouted funny comments to the teachers and made the girls giggle, who was a little disobedient in class but very good at sports, you know, typical.

In our class, he was everybody's first crush. It was a funny age for us girls - we were a group of best friends who all liked the same boy and we really enjoyed talking about him among ourselves, without a hint of jealousy or possessiveness. We just brought up his name as much as we could in our conversations and giggled with red faces. We would share with each other the words we exchanged with him, and convinced each other that, "awww, I'm sure he likes you" , "nooo, he likes you". HAHAHA. I wonder if this was normal, or were we a weird group of friends.

I thought I was matured enough too, with adult sentiments and deep thoughts. I remember one of the "adult"moment I had was, if that boy likes one of my best friends, I'll generously let them be together and wish them well. Then I would sink into my own world of emotions and be moved by my own thoughts.

But he liked me. And I had a very contradicting bi-polar emotion with the fact that he liked me. On one end, I was happy and truly enjoyed how he always treated me with special attention. On the other end, I would get really angry and frustrated when he tried to express his feelings for me, I would yell at him or run away. HAHAHA. So it was a really dumb cycle now that I look back : He'd do something that showed me he liked me -> I'd get angry and run away (literally run) - > I'd later be happy knowing that he liked me - >  He'd do something that showed me he liked me ->  I'd get angry and run away (literally run), ETC. Yes, I am now fully aware that I could be crazy.

Here are a couple incidents I remember from those silly times. Please keep in mind that I was grade 4/5 so what's below CAN sound really silly :

- We don't talk too much at school, but he'd call me in the afternoons when we got home. And we'd talk for an hour asking each other "So... who do you like?". I'd go through every name in our class without mine, and he'd patiently say no to each. Then I'd say something like, "But I've already said all the names ! You promised you'd say yes if I got it correctly !" He'd always laugh and say, "but you haven't !" , "Ohhh, then who could it be, I've guessed everyone !" *rolls eyes

- He used to live right next to the bus stop that takes me home from school. I vaguely remember the road leading to that bus stop was called Sunshine Blvd or something. I always took forever to get to my bus stop via Sunshine Blvd. I wanted to wait for him so we could walk together. In order to kill time without looking like I was intentionally waiting, I'd undo and redo my shoe lace, pick on wild flowers, undo and redo my shoe lace, look for stuff in my backpack, undo and redo my shoe lace. Then he'll finally catch up behind me after what felt like eternity. Then I'd pick up my pace and speed walk to the bus stop without a word with him. Hahaha

- In Singapore, the teachers used to announce after each final exam that who ranked the first in class. I was, albeit crazy, obviously, always the first *pushes hair back. And he would always come to congratulate me, shout to everyone that I'm ranked first, and made the entire class cheer and clap, hahaha.

- We had Sports Day back then, and I was always so nervous when he ran, and so happy when he won, even though we were on opposite teams. (I was in Blue team and he was in Red)

- Our classmates teased us a lot, and I always blushed about it. There was once when a classmate was teasing something about us liking each other, K I S S , kissing under the tree typa rubbish, and I said to him, "do something !". And he said happily, "let them tease :D"

- We usually have PE classes outside, but it was raining one day and the teacher, Ms Ong, decided to do a square dance in our canteen. Everyone lined up and held hands to form a circle, but he decided to be cool and sat out. He sat on a small set of stairs watching us from afar in an obviously pretentious cool pose. To include him, Ms. Ong called him into the middle of our circle and asked him to pick a girl partner to dance with. I KNEW he was going to pick me and my bi-polar self surfaced again and got really angry. I immediately asked Ms. Ong for permission to go to the washroom in order to escape that embarrassing situation. I am sure Ms. Ong knew what was going on in our little minds, and forbid me to use the washroom (which she never does) and decided to watch me DIE FROM SHYNESS.

So as I predicted, he came to me and was about to ask me to be his dance partner, and I yelled at him, said something like , "I'LL NEVER TALK TO YOU AGAIN IF YOU CHOOSE ME." So he said okay and turned around to pick this other girl named Hui Xian, whose name I'll take to my grave, hahaha just kidding. Because I was bipolar and crazy , I got jealous that he held another girl's hand. He came to talk to me after PE and I ignored him and went into the girls washroom, he stood outside the washroom door and shouted, "I wanted to pick you but you didn't let me , now I had to pick another girl and you get mad". What can I say, he was totally legit. This incident was such a huge thing to me as a kid knowing nothing about love or myself. I thought everything about it was so "adult" and like an actual relationship. And I replayed that scene in my mind over and over again. 

- As a grade 5 kid , that was of course my closest encounter to a romantic situation. And this one : I was emigrating from Singapore and it was my last day of school. Ms. Ong organized a surprised party for me. He gave me a card that day, and in it, he confessed ! It was a pink My Melody letter paper, and I still have it. On it he wrote, "we always talked about the person we like, and I'm telling you now, I like ..." and he spelled out my name using a simple puzzle that I didn't need to solve.

On the same day he also gave me a blue music box and a rose. I didn't bring the rose back because I didn't want to freak my parents out, but I kept a pedal in my diary *sentimental

Also on the same day, I was about to leave the school campus, he shouted my name behind me to stop me. At that time, most of our classmates gathered to watch the soap drama, haha. He asked me who's the boy that I like, in public. I turned around and I was sooooo shy to answer anything, and after what felt like 30399493 minutes, he asked me if it was him, and I said yes. OMFGGGGGG it must be such a crazy moment for a child hahaha.

That's the end of our story. We wrote letters to each other after I left Singapore for a little bit, but nothing beyond friendship was written. Thanks to Facebook, we still check on each other once in a very long while, and will laugh at the past together.

It was a very special memory for me, not so much a memory of him, but of myself. It was a time when all emotion was so pure and honest. Happiness was so clean and simple, sadness was as light as a feather that could be easily carried away by a breeze, and failures could be dust off without much care. In fact, it was an age when all emotions were so surface that neither of them were distinctively defined. I was happy, and really, only happy. My world was so small, feelings were so straight forward, and dreams were so wild.