I'm...tired.

Nah, I'm not tired of living. Don't worry, not depressed or anything here.

Just feeling rather psychologically and physically tired. No urge to want to sleep though, just feel like stoning throughout the night.

Countdown, there's only 3 weeks more till the first O levels paper.

While everyone out there is busy slogging away, mumbling on how they feel absolutely unprepared for the upcoming examinations, I don't really know what I'm doing every minute that I should grasp for revision.

Yeah, constant nagging from teachers and parents. My grades aren't exactly up to standard. Sure I've secured an A1 for Chinese. But I have still have English, Emath, Amath, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Lit+SS and Media Studies. And what did I get for them all? Bs. Okay except Media. But how far can Bs technically bring me during O's? Or so my teachers will say. Even for Emath, you need to secure a 95% to be even assured an A1.

That got me thinking -- what exactly am I fighting for? Why am I pushing myself so hard to achieve something that's almost impossible for me to achieve? Whenever I think of it -- "9A1s, 8A1s, 7A1s, 6A1s! I need to be one of them!" -- why do I try?

I'm not in a state of despair, a state of loss, a state of anything negative. I'm just tired. Tired of doing homework all day and night, tired of stressing over tests everyday. Tired of lessons, tired of nagging. Tired of school. Sometimes I wish O's would just be here already, but I know I'm not prepared, at all. It's such a conflicting feeling.

It's a routine after school, I find. When I reach home, nowadays I just sit on my bed for about 15minutes, doing practically nothing. Just stoning. My mum would come into the room and ask me what's wrong, and I'll...just keep stoning. Probably that's the way I try to escape from the hectic life of a Secondary 4. Just trying to get the pace to slow down.

But I just keep trying and believing anyway. I'm not doing this much for myself, actually. More of, I want to prove a point to my school. You know how SC is very stereotypical about their students all going to top JCs? All their 10A1s...9A1s...8A1s...7A1s...all going to top JCs. I want to show them that, not all students have to go to JC. Probably then, they'll stop being so anal. I don't ask for much, just something that I really want to be. I don't want to go to JC. I don't need to get into top universities around the globe. I don't need a masters, or a PhD. I just want to live life as me. Who I am.

Our school is supposed to build women of character and relevance. But I realized, we lack women of creativity. We lack women who dare. Everyone doesn't actually seem to have a choice. Some of my friends who want to go to poly, are being forced in JCs. Some want to be doctors and lawyers, only because their parents will them to be one. How much credit is given to the arts? The entertainment? Think about it, in so many years, our school has only produced ONE artiste - Rui En - who doesn't even want to acknowledge the school as where she came from.

They always say "The As don't belong to us, they belong to you. They help you get into the JCs you want to be in". Stop stereotyping. Days are different. Who ever said poly meant students who can't study? Who ever said students who choose to go into the art schools - Laselle, NAFA - were dropouts? We want to pursue what we want to do, not what was chosen for us to do.

I might have went off-point, but it doesn't really matter to me. I needed to get these all off my chest anyways. My eyes are going dull, my brain is going dead. But like what my English teacher had said, following up the weeks to O's, we won't have a life. I guess this is how it feels. So I'll pick up my highlighter, and begin revising for the tests tomorrow once again. I'll tell myself that I'm doing this for myself, doing this for a bigger cause. But all that will really go through that mind of mine is but the word "study". Life is dead, until the 16th of November.






-Yumi.