12A’s
during the few months i was preparing for SPM, i dont think i was ever more focused or dead-set on anything. for the longest time, all that was on my mind was doing well for SPM. and as the dreaded day loomed nearer, i remember turning down a lot of people for dinners, lunches, movie dates, clubbing, parties, vacations etc, cos “sorry ler, i just really cant afford the time right now”.
in between juggling prom organizing (omg, i still remember the horror) and housechores (housemaid had just left), there seemed almost too little time for me to study. when october arrived, i was already pulling all-nighters at Mt Kiara’s Starbucks, just going through the mountains of reference books and notes that i had yet to touch. i took 2 extra subjects, and that was pure hell cos they were both ‘reading’ subjects, and it’s not like i’m a genius in the other 10, so those months were just fucking taxing and simply downright horrible for me.
“aiya, SPM only wat… wait till you get to college!”
“hey come on man, i havent seen you in weeks! take a break, it wont kill you.”
“this is the 6th time you’ve blown me off for dinner.”
“are you SURE you dont want to go on a holiday?? you look TOO stressed!!” (said my worried dad 2 weeks before SPM)
“there is no point stressing. you’re smart and you dont need a piece of paper to tell you that.”
“believe me, straight A’s is NOT difficult! please la, i barely studied and i got 10A’s okay?” (su ann says, BULLSHIT!)
and all that was only the tip of the iceberg at the time. it seemed as if everyone just wanted me to stop studying for SPM, like it was so devastating to see someone slave over her books the way i did. but for 2 years i never studied, i’d argue back. it’s about time i put in some effort! i really need to do well.
but why? they would always ask.
because i have something to prove, i would always say.
some were smart enough to get it and leave it at that. the rest would just go, ‘huh?!’ but it’s the truth. all this while, it’s not like i’ve been working towards good results to get scholarships or to get into good colleges or anything. it’s not to be ‘better’ than my batchmates, and it’s not for my own gratification. scholarships i honestly don’t need. good colleges, i mean please, all they ask for are credits (C’s and above), not A’s. i dont have an inferiority complex, so competition among my classmates mean nothing to me. as for my own self-satisfaction — as mentioned in a quote i included above — i really dont need a certificate or a dumb piece of paper to tell me how much i’m worth.
but the thing is, everyone else around me seems to. in high school, in my class, i was always the slacker who never took school seriously. always absent, always arguing with teachers, always not doing homework, not doing projects, or reading fiction in class. the girl who wears skirts two inches too short, the girl who comes to school 5 hours late. those were the tags i was stuck with for so long, and it got to a point where even the new teachers would already know all about me and my ’shenanigans’ even before they entered my class. it was sick, it was prejudiced, and i hated it. i cant begin to count how many posts in societies/clubs and other opportunities i was passed up for, simply cos of my ‘reputation’.
they always thought i was stupid, just some flighty girl who thinks nothing of school. the nicer teachers would say “she’s very smart wan, just lazy”. but it’s fucking bullshit. i’m not lazy, i just know what is worth my time and what isn’t. and i most certainly dont think nothing of school. i just cant help it if i dont LIKE school. you try sitting in a class full of people who dont even begin to understand you or the way you think, and try being chastised by prejudiced teachers day in day out for 5 years straight. you learn to hate school, man, you seriously do. and i was lucky enough to have a mother who didnt actually force me to go to school if i didnt want to, so yes, i was absent for like 3 months (not consecutive) in my senior year of high school cos i hated school that much.
i’ve gone off on a tangent, i think, but the gist of what i want to say is there. just because, you know, i ‘never took school seriously’, schoolmates and teachers alike think the lowest of me. it’s so crappy because i know i’ve got potential, i know i’m a bright student, and shit, i score good grades all the time but do they see that? of course not!
so SPM was like my one last chance to just show them that all their prejudices were unfounded. and you know what, i did it. i fucking did it. i may not have gotten straight A’s (damn you, biology!), but i scored better than 27 of my holier-than-thou classmates who slogged for 5 years and looked down their noses at the rest of the school while they did.
in one particularly bitter exchange with one of my school teachers, she called me ungrateful. my retort to that was, “grateful would be if you people actually did something for me in the first place. i can count on one hand the teachers in this staffroom who actually believe in my capabilities, and you know what, if i ever make it big out there in this world, i’m going to turn around and say, Sekolah Sri Garden was a school that did absolutely nothing for me. it was nothing but an institution that made my high school experience one of the worst times i ever had.”
28 comments March 15th, 2006
