Reality Bites

But really ... - 10/2/2001
this is a useful activity. With so little time to verbalise all that I feel, this tip tapping is a way of reminding myself that I have a past and a memory ... and one that is useful when mined.
The KIDs have been into JC admissions ... I suppose after the intial shock (or euphoria - trying to make this all-inclusive) of the Prelim results and the promise of moderation, they're thinking about what to do with their future.
Can't say much about the way I did mine way back when. Knew that I didn't want to follow the crowd in my class and "go to NJ" and knew that I wanted to do the Humanities Programme.
I suppose some of the kids are irritated that I keep going on about RJ etc ... but really were the best years of my life. For the following reasons:
1. Learnt that reading a book is more than flipping through MAD Magazine
2. Learnt that project work and long research papers can be fun
3. Went to the USSR just when it broke up
4. Got to know v. nice and intelligent people
5. Was given the freedom to play my guitar and sing
6. Fell in love
7. Fell out of love
8. Got inspired by Mr K.
9. used to hang around in school until way late (11pm) and then eat supper at Ghim Moh ...
10. Got fit and Did well for A levels ...
Mind you, not all of it was smooth sailing, esp. when I first got into AO1A. All the kids were like brains dripping out of their heads, GEP kids and like they already knew each other since they were 10 (pioneer batch of GEP ... so they had to do stuff together a lot). But learnt how to hold my own and also became good friends with all of them. Learnt that even very brilliant and knowledgeable people are v. human and can learn stuff from the Guitar guy.
Was a really strange bunch ... two of them left for Universities in the US even before the middle of J1 (some score high in SAT thing) and we would also have these endless quirky discussions like - why do you say this chair is a chair ? How can we define it as a chair without compromising on its "chairness"?
But I kinda miss them now, except for HS who's back in RJ teaching ... I think we're pretty spread out. Lawyers mostly, though we do have the "youngest SAF Officer seconded to the Admin Service" - was my Sec School classmate and "clawed" his way to the top (can gossip bec. he's way too important and busy to be fiddling with the OD) - spent much energy and effort defending his Machiavellian ways ... and he used to send me Christmas cards every now and then ... but I suppose I'm no longer useful to him.
Ah well ... all this is getting nostalgic. Anyway - really hope that some of the KIDS will go to RJ and just forget their self-consciousness and insecurity.
Just got back - 10/3/2001
From Teck Hin - the 24 hour coffee shop at Clementi Bus Interchange with Ms Tan. Had an interesting conversation about chips on shoulders. Told her I never was pressured because my wonderful mom never really minded what I did. Which was excellent. She however, kept bringing up the fact that she used to keep comparing herself with her elder Bro ... (who was top RJ Arts student 2 years before us ...)
The psychology of the Open Diary has uncovered another side to me I guess. Writing in a Diary is supposed to be a solipsistic activity. You write for youself. Then the Open Diary - writing so that people will readit - does lend a certain "thinking about" to what you want to put down. I suppose it's like one of those personality tests where the column of characteristic which you don't think you're like, is the personality you want ot keep hidden. And then there's the Open Diary that gets these messages, which you tend to want to respond to when you write your next entry.
But then, respond to what?
Let's respond through narrative, telling a story - a personal recount about RJ since we've already begun that line ... not doing any selling ... just remembering.
Of all the lousy excuses to want to switch classes, one of the lousiest is to claim that the girls in your class are really irritating. BUT THEY WERE (at first). With all this cliquishness and strange insider jokes, i did feel rather out of place for the first weeks or so. but then, there is a lousier reason - to want to be in a class with someone else. So my plan was simple. I had enough grounds to want to opt out of the Humans Programme, because I didn't like the people and had an incentive because there was this "interesting" object of desire (OOD) of the opposite sex in another class. And my logic worked in detail as well ... there were 3 classes of that Science Combi that I was going to try to switch into - the first 2 were for all the 6 pointers and the 3rd, for the rest. Since I was transferring, I would be put into the 3rd one which was where OOD was.
How cruel the world of school administration and heartless Principals. Yes they granted my transfer to the Science stream ... but no ... they put me into the 1st class (with the NERDs ...) and no I did not get added opportunities to meet my OOD. So how ... after one week in Science stream transfer back.
An example of how the new found freedom of JC life can infect an individual.
But a nicer end to the tale. Did get to know OOD better. She was initially in my Orientation Group and just had this broodiness about her. She would be very "rah rah" in front of everyone, but strangely enough there was a cynical and dark reserve about her. And there would be these short moments of intense conversation between us. Out of nowhere she would talk to me about the most private of things and then we wouldn't talk for like 2 weeks, then I'd get a note about "how only I could understand her ..." She was quite poor thing also ... didn't have a place to stay (major complex family situation ...) Was a period in J2 she was staying in school (secretly of course). Then I had to write a song about it - Started "I live downstairs in school ..." - and sing it at the Arts Fest ... she wrote to me before that (cause she'd heard about the song - though had actually refused to listen to it) - told me how profoundly it had affected ... that a song would be written - and refused to attend the actual performance though she was on Student Council duty - she stood out in the Lobby - but after the song came backstage bec. she had heard it through the "sound proof Audi - and gushed in an embarrassing (really red) manner -
Strange times to remember -