Of Days were the those - 'O's

Thinking back to those days where the sour smell of school uniforms fill the air, i was still a boy in secondary school, figuring out my role in life and deciding between football or basketball

School was a great place to be, not for studies but more for the friends. Being in a class full of only boys in a co-ed school has its significance. In my time, Design and Technology(D&T) was taught only to boy in sec1 and sec2. This resulted the formation of all boys class in sec3 after streaming was completed, the girls were deemed to lack the foundation knowledge that the boys were taught in sec 1 and sec 2.

And so, for a couple of years, there would always be this notorius all-boys class among the express stream, some even labelled this technical class as the "normal of express"..
Not that we really care

In a way, people have always had an expectation from us, we were expected to be a hard-to-manage class, we were expected to not to well, passing was a benchmark that others set for us...

Perhaps i'm bitter, but trust me, i really am not. I still remember how when i was in Sec 3, my class of boys were split into different classes for our Mother Tongue language.. why? No one bothered to say why, maybe they felt it was a waste of resource to place a teacher in the class, maybe maybe...

And so, i ended up in this "commerce class'' with some of my mates. Oh well, i applaud the teacher for telling us this (translated) "If you don't want to pay attention to the class, just sleep or do your own thing, don't disturb". And disturb them we did not. Chinese classes became a short nap or extra time to doodle on the textbook or create fanatasies on how the D&T project would turn out

When i got a surprise B4 for my 'O' level chinese, my chinese teacher in sec 4 (yes we have one for ourselves now), commented that "people like you should be happy with a B4, don't waste your time".

To me, it was simple, i did not study for the exam and i got a B4, so why not try again and i might be lucky and get a higher score? Try i did. I finished my secondary school education, with about 20% effort put into chinese studies and walk away with a B3

I also remember how our physics teacher, in the last leg of our preparations towards O levels, told my face in his face that "no more time, don't ask questions". Wow, for that moment we understood as a class, her duty was to vomit the content in our face, and all we had to do was listen, no more time during class, therefore no questions, i wonder if physics taught her that
As expected, i spent months after the examinations wondering if i would pass Combined Science (physics/chemistry) and was lucky to get a C6.

I also remember how our Maths HOD, we incidently was our A.Maths teacher, told us specifically that "you know how many A1s i need to cover a failure from your class so that the overall aggregrate is a pass?" Eh sir, we don't know, but maybe if you bother teaching us how to calculate, we would be able to give you an answer.

Most of the guys in my class went for A.Maths Paper I. Some didn't.

I skipped the Paper II know that my Paper I score likely be disgraceful. Oh well, an A for A.Maths, Absent also being with A

Despite the lack of confidence from majority of the teachers that my class could do well/decent in poly, i'm glad to say most of us are quite ok with life now. Special thanks must be given to the selected few teachers who with treated us just like any other student and gave us a chance to learn

Glad that some of my classmates now are in local university, completing their degrees, majority are armed with at least a polytechnic diploma, others have made headways in other academic and non-academic areas, air steward for the national airline, overseas undergraduate who plays football and coaches in aussieland, animation designer, army officers, club bouncer, photographer, undergraduate in Southhampton with job awaiting him...

And more importantly as people, we have survived and may we thrive