Monday, January 14, 2008 . 8:14 PM

This morning the vice principal Mr Minjut, or something like that, talked about the first-aid supplies had already run out in the third week of school. Everyone laughed. Not only because of the way the vice principal said it but because we had been sitting down for two-thirds of an hour. That was the only form of unwinding our sore bodies...
So, it wasn't actually that funny after all. Mr Minjut told us to be careful of how we played our sports. Then he started on a story of how a boy got injured. The boy's wrist bones were broken, and how he was brave enough to not cry. That reminded me of an incident i had back in primary 5 or 6.
I was somewhat fitter in primary school than the present. This was because I visited the Fitness Corner, as I called it, every recess. I could do 15 pullups; now i can do 9. Also there was more free time which is currently being taken up by school assignments like this. And lastly, my bicycle was not spoiled or stolen. I pity all bicycles i buy; my first went missing in Sec 1 and when i bought another 3 months passed and someone else stole it.
So this incident, it happened at the Fitness Corner. I swang around on the steel pullup bars like a monkey, back and forth. It was pretty cooling. Then as I swang higher and higher, taunted by friends, I lost my grip. I swung back, fell about a metre and groaned. I lay there for a few minutes, letting the blackness fade away. When i stood up my two wrists hurt. I was excused from school that day.
My worried father drove to pick me up from the General Office. At the hospital I was told my right ulna or radius bone was broken; a hairline fracture. Two trainees ( I suspected) put a Plaster of Paris on my broken area and one asked me, " How did you get this fracture?" I replied " Swinging around and doing pullups." " How many can you do?" "12 at least." The trainee let out a whistle. I guess he had never encountered such a wierd character.
As after 3 days I was already itching like mad I begged my parents to let me open it. They relented and 2 minutes later I let out a contented sigh and waved my arm around.

I went back to the hospital a week later and was given a new plastic blue cast. That would never come out unless the doctor used a special rotating circular saw to cut it open. I went home, itched, peeled some blue cast off, and drilled dozens of holes in it using a screwdriver. My arm was free again. Back to the hospital; the doctor said that I was very lucky. By then my fracture had healed and I did not need any more casts. What I learnt? Not to be a monkey.