From primary school to secondary school and then now here I am 18 years old and in my last few days assuming position of a graduating college student.
I always thought it too rigid, stifling, just another typical place of conformity. But if I'm a head full of nothing else, I'd still be full of practicality, which could also be the factor explaining why I'm still here when a fleeting person like me would have gone on to greener pastures.
Generally,
Your EDUCATION: begins when you are young.
Your MINDSET: shaped by parents, teachers and society that is driven by pragmatism telling you the importance of a good education:
- Study, and you will get a good job with high paying wages.
- Go to University, it's where the cream of the crop goes to.
- Straight As, you're smart, its an honor.
Then there is a crazy distinction between the neighborhood schools and the elites. The excessive comparison taking place among mongering students and parents, what grade did you get? What's your score? What school is your kid going to?
I studied for the fear of not making it to University and for not getting a good paying job. For proving the people who never believed in me right. This fear did drive me to eventually obtain merits for myself, a commendable O'level grade that had many people gaping at me. (I wish I could do the same for A'levels, but it is indeed so much harder now and I may have wasted a lot of my time on other things)
Now that I'm older fear is no longer the factor that drives me. I know that even University students end up without a job, given an increasingly dynamic and ever-competitive economy. I know that education is indeed important, it gives you a safety-net to fall upon, but it is not the be-all and end-all. University is indeed a prestige, but it is not where all the cream of the crop kids go to.
I know my parents aren't the reason why I'm still clinging onto education like a flea. As I grew older, they began telling me that I could do what I wanted to as long as I could survive. Whatever made me happy, although I knew deep down me dropping out of school would have probably made them really sad.
I know now that I am studying because I want to. Because I have clear goals, and if I fail, I will try again. Despite all the struggles and the rantings I yammered on about everyday in my many years of schooling, I only remained because of the many achievements I wanted to make of myself.
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Now,
I am sitting on my swivel chair chugging a glass of coffee I whipped up for myself 3 minutes ago, casually dropping in a smattering of ice cubes and stirring a couple seconds with a silver tipped spoon. I'm contemplating watching a movie on Afdah or to just jump into the collation of tomorrow's paper.I'm exhausted.
Really, exhausted.
It has been a long week, my heart has been screaming to break the grip of my adamant rib cages and I am dying. Figuratively.
I'm so close to the end but my soul and esteem is battered and bruised. Maybe it's me, or maybe it's just me and (most) of the people I spoke to, but this year's papers are knee jerking as compared to previous years. Or maybe it's all in the mind. Perhaps the 10 year series merely looked artificially easier vis-à-vis this year's. Maybe it was circumstance-wise, that we got to do past year's papers in a calm environment.
Trying to gather myself into the arms of God and to instill hope into my fragmented little mind is breathtakingly harder to do than it is to say.
I know I always ramble on in my captions about self confidence, self-belief, some form of self love and the like, and I know that some of it has had the privilege to impact people I know and some people that I don't. I'm grateful for the power of what a few words or sentences can do, and it has always been my honor and wish to be able to possess such a power to one day change the lives of a smattering of people.
But usually, when I puke out stuff like that it is also a way to reassure myself. I see a lot of people doing the same thing and many of them seem like a self-assured lot trying to get other media users to be like that as well. Uplifting people. It's great, I love it.
But sometimes I wonder if they're really like that themselves, unless they explicitly mention that they are they'd always be subjected to my wonders. No, being positive isn't a pretense nor is it illegal. There are however, a lot of people who like to pick on the positivity of others, lacing them with a menace that would not have crossed one's minds except for the usual cynical few. Cynicism exists, judgement exists, but it's a small thing that is needless of care and concern. You do you.... :)
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I think I got off track... (An examination crime I honestly hope I didn't commit)
Right, so I'm left with just 2 papers. I'm ending this Friday, which is in 2 days, and this is REALLY the last lap now. Writing out why I'm even here in this system helps me to remind myself of my initial goals. I have gone through too much and too many years to give up now.
If I fail, at least I failed trying.
C x
