D' old autograph book

Remember the books we used to pass around the class, only during the year when everyone seperates after streaming, or go different ways after the PSLE. Some call it, "My Personal Data". Others call it, " My Profile". Some who tries to be more unique calls it "My Crime Record".

We pen down the most trivia information about ourselves; from favorite food and colors to a breakdown list of friends under the categories of Best friends (which should be without 's' actually, but we still decided to add more than one in there), Good friends and Enemies.

The funny thing is, Best/good friends weren't really just friends whom you're really close with. It usually includes one or two 'bestest' buddies, and when there is a third, it usually is someone you have a crush on. (Gotcha', didn't I?)

It is common to see girls taking days to complete an entry, with colors and designs, folded edges that says "Don't open" (and when you do, it just says "Told you not to") and beautiful drawings. And guys. . . simply wrote it in 15 minutes and one color. f l a t. They don't even include poems!

Speaking of poems, autographs often ends with these 'meaningful poems', or rather, rhymes on friendship. Things like:

Birds fly high, hard to catch
Friends like you, hard to forget.

OR

Xxx and Xxx sitting on a tree
K. I. S. S. I. N. G
First comes love
then comes marriage
Then comes a baby in a carriage!

Ok, whatever that means. Least by 12, we kinda know the sequence of how the life cycle works. And when we write, we would usually write on a page nearest to your best friend. If you can locate the page next to your crush, all the better! ;)

Funny how these autographs book came about. It's interesting to see what goes into our heads back then. And when you flip open this dusty lil' book of yours again, it brings memories back to life, doesn't it? I was looking through them and as I read each entry, it brings back the noise in class, the mischievious boys playing rubber, girls talking about friend-ing you and her-not, discussions on where to play block catching after class and finally, squabbling boys and girls (Remember how girls pinch the boy who sits by the side whenever his arm crosses the 'borders' of the table. We draw a clear line not to allow one another cross paths, eh?).

This is why I always liked diaries. It keeps a timeline of events occuring at different points in life. You get to keep track of when are the turning points, when were the highs and lows and the feelings that you've experienced. Even the handwriting explains quite a bit on the emotions during that point of time when the entry was written. Unlike a physical diary, online diaries has taken away all of that; the emotions, feelings and thoughts.

Even with a paragraph of an elaborative description, it never explains the trains of thoughts and feelings well enough.