Friday, 24th February 2017
I was a good student in primary school. Consistently ranked in the top classes, grades that never fell below a band 1/A*/merit for Higher Chinese. In fact, there was once that I scored a 30/60 for my Higher Chinese and it felt like my life was over. I couldn’t bring myself to have my parents sign the paper, but at last I did, and got a tongue-lashing so severe that my typical Asian kind of father could not sleep for the entire night fearing that his daughter was failing primary school.
I graduated primary school with 3 A*s and 1A, with a merit in Higher Chinese, aggregate score 256/300. I viewed myself as a failure, a disappointment, a disgrace to my parents. My father was clearly dissatisfied, and my hopes of entering the most prestigious secondary school were more or less crushed.
I told myself, I am academically inclined enough, and I will do well in secondary school.
Eventually, I was posted to an Integrated Programme School, where students there did not need to take the GCE ‘O’ levels to directly progress to Junior College. These schools were very limited in Singapore, and only the cream of the crop of the entire cohort could enter these schools. Did it feel prestigious to me then? Actually, yes. At least, I felt “smart enough” to tell my friends and relatives that I went to a somewhat branded school, with somewhat decent islandwide reputation. Not the best, but still, very decent.
I finished my first term in this school with a GPA of 2.2/4. I failed almost every single subject, else borderline scraping a pass. Come end of year examinations, I just barely managed to pull my GPA up to a 3.0, but I was soon to learn that throughout these entire 4 years of secondary school that my GPA would not exceed 3.3. Not so good. Not so good at all. But at least, I was average.
At the end of Secondary 4, we were given the important task of choosing subject combinations for Junior College. Think of what you want to do in University, they said. Triple humanities is a very risky choice, they said. I followed the mainstream cohort into taking a science stream, doing just well enough to take up a 4H2 combination of Physics, Chemistry, Math and English Literature. Everything was average. Things couldn’t get any worse.
But it did.
Looking back, I can honestly say that Junior College was one of the toughest periods of my life. The first year was fine – I was the chairperson of my class, my rank points weren’t fantastic but it made do, I was in a relationship and I had plenty of leadership opportunities in that year. It was the second year – the final and most crucial year, that everything fell apart. The relationship ended up in flames, I was crying almost every single day in school. My rank points dropped below 30, I ended up on the par-list and I thought to myself, how the hell was I going to pass my A levels at this rate? My report card at the end of Prelims 1 looked like a S U U E S. Wow, that was literally below 50% for every. single. subject.
Come Prelims 2, I really did work my ass off but I somehow still managed to end up with 2 ‘S’s and a U. I did manage to pull my literature up to a D, and my physics to an E, but still everything sucked, and if I were to finish my A levels with these grades I would end up nowhere.
My mind was chanting so hard to me, you are a failure, you are a failure, you are a f*cking failure. I was so sure that I would fail my A levels, but with the encouragement of some friends and a select group of teachers, I pressed on, although I honestly had no idea what I was working for. I went for consultations almost on a daily basis, I stayed in school way past my usual timing and I resubmitted my work over and over again. It was tiring, it was pure hell. After all, why would you try so hard if you’ve been failing all these while? What are the odds of passing your A levels at all?
7th November 2016, the first paper – General Paper. I have never passed my General Paper, although I’ve been told that I have a natural flair in my command of English. I’ve been told that my content was disastrous, and my formatting of essays sucked. I constantly wrote off topic, and as much as the marker would want to award me more marks for language they couldn’t if my content was absolutely atrocious. I tried so hard to keep on track during the actual paper. I tried so hard to keep my formatting and my content within acceptable range (or at least, as I personally deem them so).
Come Literature, Physics, Math and Chemistry. Chemistry is the one subject that I have never surpassed a U grade in Junior College. It was the subject I had the least hopes for. I thought, even if I managed to pass the rest of my subjects, I’d never pass my Chemistry.
November 28, 2016. A levels were over. I have graduated from this school. I will not return again until the day I receive my results. Or at least, this was under the very unrealistic assumption that I will pass my A levels.
I move on with my life, I manage to secure an internship opportunity at the prisons. Everything for a moment, went back to normal.
Come the fateful day, 24th February 2017. I dreaded the arrival of this day. When I first found out that the results would be released on this day, I couldn’t even believe my bad luck because this year’s result release date was at least a good half a month earlier than previous years. It could mean that I would need to re-register as a private candidate to retake my A levels because I thought I had screwed up so badly.
I met my classmates whom I have not seen since graduation, they haven’t changed much except for their hair. I was the only one with tattoos on my body, and some of them were interested to see them. I dressed as conservatively as I could on that day, just in case. Anyhow, my tattoos can be easily covered with a T-Shirt so there really wasn’t much effort needed to hide them.
I watched with immense pride as one of my closest friends went up on stage as she attained full rank points, and a beautiful portfolio. I felt so happy for her.
At last, the moment of (not so anticipated) truth came. I held my School Graduation Certificate in my hands, my results were a flip of the cover page away. Another friend of mine whom I have known for 6 years offered to flip open our certificates together to view our results – I told her I wasn’t ready. But at last, I was.
I flip open the file with trembling hands.
It was relief, it was not entirely euphoria but it was a huge sigh of relief. I’d gotten above 70 rank points, it was good enough for the course I wanted. I passed all my subjects with “good passes”, except Chemistry which was pretty much a borderline pass. It was okay. I was alive. It’s not the best, it’s nowhere near stellar, but it was good enough. I actually even got an A. I went from a S grade to an A grade for my General Paper.
After all these moments of self doubt, I did well enough.
I don’t think I’ll ever want to relive these JC memories of the intensely difficult moments of failing everything and feeling like I’ve hit rock bottom. I am so grateful to have survived, I am so grateful to have done decently, I am so grateful for all the support I had received along the way. Thank you.
Now finally, it is the official closure of my A level journey. It was a hell of a ride, I’ll never do it again, but hey – I survived.
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