Recently i discovered and became marginally addicted to this site at xiaxue.blogspot.com. It has been voted best blog in asia or something, and reveals thoughts of the writer which strike a cord with many people from Singapore(myself included).
Apparently, the writer of this blog is a polytechinic grad, and from her representation of other people criticising her choice of education, i infer she was not happy with her decision of going to a poly. She cites a myriad of reasons such as the lower prestige level(or lack of it), a limited opportunity to engage in the learning of "useless subjects" as American history or current affairs-which she realises are ironically the topics of discussion that seperate the featherbrained masses from the intellectual elite.
Though i wanted to respond to her thoughts on the site, i realise there might be little point in doing so as the writer would probably be swamped with responses of the same aganda as mine.
So instead of putting my words on her blog, which are already inundated by well-meaning words of wisdom, i place my thoughts here for my own cartharsis.
I wanted to tell her that going to a poly does not determine anything else other than a piece of paper. The ingredients to a success does notneed to conform to following the standard receipe in the book. In fact, should one deviate from the normal procedure, it is more likely that the person develop his or own "speciality". Is it not true that culinary chefs create better food with their own experimentation? Applying this her, she has certainly managed to create a niche for herself(with her award winnning blog). OK i digress with my analogy but still you get my point.
Have her more "accomplished" counterparts in the local universities carved out anything in comparison?
Sure, it would be quick to judge an individual based on a scholastic label. But is sad to say that many do so. Questions such as which JC are you from in Singapore or which Ivy are you from in the U.S are all but too common.
Which begrets another question. Why was i also guilty of perpetrating the stereotype? (until i came to college)
To find some answer. We need to go back to 2001, the year which i took my O Levels.
I had scored a disgraceful 22 points for my sec 3 end of year exams. Now surely, that would have certainly disqualified me from JC. And even worse at that time, i loathed the people who populated the polys.
My reasons for that were myriadfold. One answer was the environment and company of students it had. I am the kind of person who believes that the calibre of the environment strongly influences the decisions and mindsets of an individual. It was too obvious that the majority of the folks from poly were if you'll say "plebian peasants"? It was not that any of them were stupid, but i guess a shortage of bright people. In which case, i assumed there were smart people, but insufficient to harness a simulating, intellectual atmosphere. My worst fear was that if i joined their ranks, surely my beautiful mind would be wasted and sooner or later degenerate into barreness of mediocrity. And in the words of my brother who correctly summed it up by saying " there are smart people in poly, but not everyone is smart".
Naturally i turned my work efforts to a JC and observed that each JC had an identity. I noticed too that kids from certain XYZ JC's were little or no better than the polys in terms of the simulating environment i was looking for, despite scholastic acheivements. It was then pretty obvious that i started to be attracted to the school of Prometheus flames and the instituition of dauntless heros. These schools, perhaps gave me the glimmer of hope that the life of the mind existed.
Unlike the writer of xiaxue.blogspot, I cannot say I am a ostensibly bright and talented young individual. Hence my need to stay in the company of bright individuals within a simulating enrivonment.
