Recalling back to when I first entered junior college, I remember the first argument I had with my mother about school – over the school uniform. Whenever I went to shopping malls and saw student wearing the ACJC uniform, I would always decide that ACJC’s school uniform was the best-looking one of all the junior colleges. The people wearing them would always be gorgeous and perfect, with the perfect hairstyle that best complimented them, with the perfect bag slung over their shoulders at a perfect angle, and of course, having almost perfect friends always around you. So I go back to my problem. The school skirt was meant to be altered; it was way too long. Experience of seeing all these gorgeous people in my dream school uniform told me that to make the skirt look just perfect on you, the skirt had to be at least a few centimetres above the knee cap. That way, the usually dowdy school uniform would be transformed into a fashion statement, telling the world how gorgeous AC girls could look dressed even in a school uniform.

My mother didn’t share my sentiments on this matter. Years of watching me wear school skirts un-altered; skirts long enough to be nicknamed ‘Cinderella’ by my primary school principal; skirts long to tuck my knees inside. The skirt was too long for too long. But she didn’t see it my way. You are going to school to study, not show off thigh, she would say. The skirt looks perfectly fine on you, she says, looking approvingly at the skirt that hung mid-calf. So it was after much whining and explaining, she altered the skirt, not as short I had wanted it, but it was of a rather acceptable length. She refused to venture into the realms above the knees. So on the first day of school, she was quiet as she looked out of her window.

“The skirt does look good better short. Do you want me to shorten it some more?”