t-minus 24.5 hrs.
i'm writing this early because i prob wont have time to do so after the last supper later.
to be honest, i have nothing much left to talk about.
perhaps we should take this time to reflect on our 12 years of education.
for me six years in pri sch and six years after that were completely different, in terms of my attitude towards learning.
in pri sch i was a freakin smartass.
actually, no. ppl called me tt because i always topped the sch. but i rem i dun rly liked to study.
i only did so coz my mum was always at home to make sure i did my homework and my assessment books.
and also took me to chinese tuition.
tt's how i managed to do well in pri sch.
if my mum wasnt around to discipline me, i forsee myself drawing comics and playing with my micro machines.
u should have seen my chinese shou ce. it's full of stickmen and fighter jets.
and pri sch exercise books were my comic books, besides those used for xi zi and ting xie.
so i did decent for psle and went to ri.
tt was the family's goal from the start.
but from then on, i suddenly felt like i was released from a cage.
studying suddenly became one of the least priorities because of the raffles programme.
taking part in as many activites as possible seemed more impt.
2d played soccer almost every recess. we played tennis with a ping pong ball and lit books at the back of the class. we stayed back after sch to play tactical ops in the comp lab.
i was only a student during lessons. even then i wasn't really paying full attention. and my mum started working and didn't force me to study.
naturally my grades dropped. sec 1 wasnt so bad - only geog didn't get an A. but in sec 2 when the rp was implemented the new system gave me so much freedom that i din really bother studying for the cts.
coupled with the fact tt my math tchr was some joker, this was when my slump in math began.
and yea, as i said earlier, i dun like studying so my science was getting bad too.
this was when benjamin was only going to do well for the languages and humans subjects.
this carried on to sec 3 and 4. the last yr will prove to be fatal because my foundation in math was already so weak, it would kill me when i went to jc.
one other reason for my reluctance to study is aft seeing so many ppl much smarter than u are and getting consistently good grades like they were still in pri sch, i resorted to being the avg student.
in pri sch, it was different. it was a competition. no it was war.
i duno why i took bio. i hated memorising for the sake of it, yet i decided to introduce some uniqueness by choosing a combi only 4 ppl in sch took.
friendship was a big influence. my consolation is tt there was gerrard in class and to support each other during crucial periods.
but fuck, im sure i decided to screw up my future with something i hated right from pri sch.
i rem when my parents gave me an encyclopedia set and i opened the human body book, i immediately flipped to the digestion system.
the first part was all the molecular nonesense and i nvr bothered reading them.
now in jc i was taking a big chance thinking that bio would still be on the gist of the human body systems.
no, instead i was presented with the syllabus outline on our first bio lecture and i knew from then on i was fucked.
if i had chosen sth else, maybe i could just focus my efforts on saving my math.
now it's like having to rescue 2 drowning ppl when ur boat can only sit one more.
in the end, the boat was punctured and started sinking.
in pri sch, our ambitions were all still naive. parents would say 'go be a doctor and earn lots of money' and then u would just follow suit.
but as u got older, ur eyes opened up, and u started to discover ur own interests and talents.
but if only the system could accommodate u.
the one thing i will never understand is why math has always been used as a standard to judge students.
it's one of the least impt subjects imho.
and it's not like i dunno how to count and do calcs. i have a dan 4 in mental arithmetic, which means i can calc 4 numbers multiplied by 3 numbers without the use of the gc.
if only the system would recognise tt certificate. i worked so fucking hard to reach tt level in the past.
but in a system where papers are worth more than gold, i was holding the wrong piece.
if u looked at last yr's admission statistics for unis, u will realise the fundamental flaw in the system.
tt any course required u to be an all-rounder in ur subs some how.
the h1-h2 system just makes it even worse, since by putting gp as a h1 they're putting ur ability to communicate, in english may i add, inferior to ur ability to calc the equation of plane B.
many ppl have failed to achieve success in their studies yet have managed to make a name for themselves.
but if u realise, rarely are they singaporeans.
i guess ppl who had succeeded are living in their comfort zones, while those who didn't make it went overseas and prob did better than they would here, but are too afraid to speak out.
for fear that lightning will strike them.
i think the lightning incident with the merlion is v ironic.
if u realise, the dominant party's symbol contains a lightning.
make ur own inferences.
i may be cynical about high achievers in my previous posts.
but sincerely i wish all of us would do well.
in fact, if this system was so elitist, they shouldn't have bothered marking our papers and instead just give every rj student 5As.
tmr i will throw my cynicism aside. if u do well, i will definitely congratulate u. u deserved it.
if u didn't do well, u could try finding my emo corner where we would hide till the end of the world.
tt will be in 2012.
my regret is not tt i had not studied enough - it's not my nature to study just for the sake of it. u got to benefit from it. tt's why i only do well in hist. somehow i wasnt really cut out for the type of structure the econs dept demanded. needless to say our tchr wasnt rly cut out either.
i regret tt i did not take some valuable advice and go overseas when i had the chance, because someone understood my character and my talent.
instead i decided to stay on and try to fit into the system.
as i will find out tmr, it was a battle long lost and with much bloodshed.
good luck everyone.
cherry garcia..
1:58 PM
