i can feel my stomach churning, my heart palpitating, my head so empty of thoughts- except for one: results day. funny how we all used to fear the O level exams, cause i realised what FEAR we have should be transferred to results day. its much much more scary. the day when where we would find out if our results paid off, if we reaped what we sowed, or did the fruits of our labour simply lay dead beneath the layer of soil.

i could still remember my teachers reassuring me that it was easy to get a distinction: to work hard, be consistent and just a tad bit of luck. but tonight, as i think once more, it is so much harder. so many students in Singapore, everyone wants their distinction, yet life has it that only this number of people can get it.

but by not getting an A1, it does not mean that we arent good. simply because we are perhaps, not in the top, say, 10% of our cohort, but BETTER than the previous cohort. what if all the students in my year are exceptionally bright? is it fair that anyone of us who lacks the luck has to go home with a B? the emphasis of our curriculum on getting distinctions has undermined the the fact that it is causing unhealthy competition, despite its advantage of helping the country indentify its "talents". the social gap between students who struggle to pass and those who struggle to get Bs, and another one between those who struggle to get As and those already getting them. it is almost disgusting that there is this unspoken of, but omnipresent line that divides us, sixteen year olds whose world was mostly about worrying about making the right grade, rarely about relationships between friends.

so they say," the world is never fair". but we know that the scales are tipped because of SOME people to make it tip in their favor, because they have the ability to. we can make it fairer if we try, and try hard enough to tip the scales backwards. to the student who studied hard and got an A, he would think he deserved it, that the world was fair. to the student who studied as hard but got a B, the world was unfair to him. he had put in more effort, perhaps, to get the grade he desired. COLD and SELFISH in a way, our world recognises results more than effort, one reason being that the former is much more easily seen and standardised, another being that time is money, and time wasted in identifying efforts is better spent earning money by recruiting those with results.

i agree that in this world there's got to be someone who's the CEO, and someone, the cleaner. but i disagree that being a cleaner is a less glorious job than being a CEO, because afterall, its as honourable a job as a CEO's[mayb even more so, cos you usually hear bout corrupt CEOs, not corrupt cleaners] , and, this comparison, is therefore quintessential in dealing with the issue.

this is the way the society works. the adults seem to throw it at me as a defense when i ask(when i was still a tiny person) why couldnt i be a cleaner when i grew up. i accepted it with ease and they moved on from there. yet years on, the night before results day, i find myself wondering.... what if i asked, "who made the society work this way?" i caught myself morphing my frame of mind to suit the society i grew up in, and i worried: what if next time, i became the one giving, and not hearing this excuse?

a time to reflect is definitely long overdue. maybe even to rethink.

i've made it habit to thank the auntie or uncle who clears the plates off my table, the waiter/ waitress serving me food, the sales lady, the hawker, the postman who delivers my letters. to everyone who made my life abit easier. what comes around goes around, spread the kindness.

life can be better. dont rest till the good is better and the better BEST.

i might be too young to understand the full works of the society, but i know that each society has its flaws. i dont expect to live in a Utopian society, but i want to live in one that's as close to that as it can get. i know we can.

believe it or not, after releasing so much complains and all, i am still dreading results day. o.O yikes:X lucks everyone