Basket.

Looking at yearbook photos always gives me an oddly eerie sense of detachment and wonder. You are usually looking out for people that you know: teachers, classmates, family or friends. Along the way, you gaze upon scores of countenances, features frozen in that one exact moment in time; and you think, and you realise that behind every single visage is a thousand tales not told, a hundred secrets all the individual's own, entire worlds you might never discover. If it is an old yearbook, the feeling intensifies, because you then wonder where these people are now, what they are currently doing, how much they have changed from what they were all those years ago.

What lies behind all the expressions? Pleasant photogenic smiles, blank looks, impudent grins, corner-of-mouth sneers - why? What was going through their heads at that instant when a camera flash captured them for eternity, like a fly in amber? Were they worried about an upcoming test the very next period, overjoyed that important exams were over, or simply quietly pleased that the weekend was finally approaching? There is a story, perhaps more than one, behind every single expression put on at that exact moment. We have no way of knowing what; we only have the briefest flutter of acquaintance with these people, a split-second connection of sorts when we gaze upon their images from a time past.

I thought of this, because I had the opportunity to view my present school's yearbook today, and naturally went looking for the immortalised younger images of my students. On a rather more mundane level, I realise that Secondary 3 is when people begin to really shoot up. Most unfortunately, I personally seem to have missed that phase, because I grew at most ten centimetres between Primary Six and J2 - which is ridiculous because most people grow twice or even three times that. The result is that I'm towered over by Secondary 2 girls, and that is a really shitty feeling. Every time I think I've dealt with being condemned to a lack of height, it hits me harder than ever before.

Life would be a lot easier if we could perambulate through the minds of those around us.