Childhood

In Standard 3, my friends and I (which consists of pretty much the same people today) were members of the self founded Unicorn Club. Most of our ideas back then probably came from Stef, and were executed by me.

Naturally, we each owned Unicorns, that Stef drew up for us. I think mine was this sleek black one with white hair. And maybe wings. I wanted to be different haha.

We held Unicorn meetings in class, where we made up save-the-world missions - games we played that if we won, then we'd succeeded in saving the world from disasters. Like if there was a flood crisis, maybe we'd have to do something with water. We also had a book which kept a log of our activities. I was in charge of attendance. We even had secret passwords (I remember one was Snoopy!) which we had to utter before we could be allowed into meetings.

Every recess, it would be time to transform into our unicorns. We'd spend our time galloping and playing running games at a little sheltered area near the school gate. Most importantly, once the school bell rung to signal end of recess, we had to run through a magic portal to transform back to our human selves, otherwise we'd be stuck during class. Did any of us actually stay in unicorn character after that?

That was the beginning of our totally self-indulgent and idyllic time in primary school. We ended up drawing comics, with cartoon characters of ourselves that we really identified with (they WERE us). Stef, do you still have any of those books?

Later on, in Standard 6, Stef & I ran this Pet Shop service, where we got the whole class involved in buying 'pets'. We had a book where Stef drew all types of animals and breeds, like on display in a pet shop. People could purchase them - so we kept accounts. We also provided services, sold pet food, accessories, all kinds of things that we charged people... not real of course. For example, if someone wanted to earn a little 'salary' to buy his hamster grains, he could do a 'newspaper run' and do 1 whole lap through all the chairs in the classroom.

It was pretty obsessive, like a paper version of those digital pets, or an online pet service, or even Sims. To the point that we'd update EVERYDAY, helping people choose the cheapest pet food (which ironically, we created different price ranges and brands for). It was like living in another world.

But I loved it. I miss those days.
Where are you?