The point of Project Work is...?

None!

There is absolutely no sense in Project Work. It's nothing but crap and agony. Well admittedly more agonising for those who put in as much effort but didn't do well in the end. Like myself. I was a victim of racial hatred. Ha! Kidding! The fact that my instructor was a Malay had nothing to do with the fact that I got a miserable Band 3 (as it was known then; it is the equivalent of a C grade now). It was more of a deep personal dislike. Nothing racist.

And it is not surprising that the issue of fairness has come up year after year. People are upset because some JCs have 80% of their students scoring As while others have only 1% of its students doing so. While it is commonly accepted that no teacher will have the bad sense to shortcome his or her own students (well... mine didn't but I guess I didn't give her much choice), it doesn't necessarily prevent others from doing all possible to help their students (making the students submit 5 drafts is one good way).

At the end of the day, it is really up to the teachers/instructors. And really, this is the only A-level subject that the school has, to some degree, determining power of how their students are going to fare. So it will be really dumb if schools are to stand by the principle of fairplay or crappy things like "it is the learning that counts, not the grades".

The only people who can say grades as if it is none of their business are people who really have no business talking about it in the first place. It is, of course, easy for the teachers or professors (under some of whom I have suffered terribly but this is a story for another day) to say that to the students because they are not the ones whose futures are dependent on a lousy piece of paper with alphabets on them. It is not that the students are too grade-oriented or shallow, it is the whole society, the admission offices, parents who are grade-oriented and shallow. Honestly, stop giving us the crap about looking beyond grades. It is stupid and lame.

Okay I shall digress a bit and talk about my results for the 2nd semester of my first year in SMU. They are, at best, unspiring. But still better than what I have imagined or feared they would be. Suffice to say that my entire future depended on the grades. They determine whether I can make a cross over to Law School. Imagine my horror when the first grade I got was a B for Communications 101. No words can describe how nasty the professor was (and will always be for posterity). So I shan't attempt to describe that. Let's just leave it at he hates me and I hate him (still very much) but I pretend to be subservient and he pretends to be nurturing. After I saw the grade, I immediately dispatched an email (if you can actually "dispatch" an email but I think it sounds nice so let's just leave it) to him. It was a super "fake" email in which I extolled him for being such an inspiring professor. Which wasn't entirely false since he did inspire much hatred in me. And boy guess what? He replied with an even longer and "faker" email telling me how grades shouldn't be the centre of my life and how he is glad to have me as a student. I am completely and utterly defeated. For now.

The funny thing is under the Law curriculum, Communications 101 is not one of the University Cores as opposed to all other curricula. Imagine if I were to write him an email later and talk about that. Haha!

Okay more about that later, mightily hungry right now. Lunch!

Disclaimer: Hatred is unhealthy. The author is a trained personnel and no other person should attempt to do this at home without the supervision of a trained personnel.

Chronicle of a suicide foretold a.k.a suicide note

For those of you who are fans of Gabriel Marquez Garcia, you would know where I stole the title from. For those of you who aren't, you would, at least, know that I stole it.

For those of you who happen to be reading this and know who I am (I mean if you don't know who I am, then you shouldn't be worried about me killing myself), please do not be alarmed. I may very well still be alive. Actually, there is a very high probability that I am still alive. On hindsight, the title might have been a tad too sensational. But sensational is good.

Anyway, why would I think I would kill myself? Why would anyone want to commit suicide, for that matters? Usually, it is because something important has been taken away from them and they don't think they can continue living anymore. It is pretty much the same for me. I won't go into the details. What? You want details? Hmm... no. Okay, compromise. Let's just leave it that it's got something to do with a particularly nasty (pronounced with American accent) professor. Nope, I didn't sleep with him (that'd be unimaginable).

How would I die? The easiest would be to jump off a building. But I can't bear the thought of myself crushing and splitting and spilling. That'd be horrendous. Sleeping pills then? Where can I get such a huge quantity of them? I mean it takes 50 to kill a person right? What if I don't die but because I was discovered too late (yet not late enough to kill me) I become a moron from overdose? And that I can't control my bowels or drool all over myself? Can't imagine being such a liability. Slashing wrist? That's so 60's. Stabbing? Too samurai a.k.a Tom Cruise the cranky scientologist. Fake an accident? Then I can't be leaving a suicide note which will defeat the whole purpose. And plus, if I can fake a fatal accident, I would do it on the damned professor. Yea, I am completely consumed by hatred.

Let's see, what other options do we have. Drowning? That'd look like an accident because everyone knows I can't swim. Refer to point above about accidents. Shoot myself? This ain't no America. And plus I still can't get over the spilling part. And did I mention it is just so wrong to involve innocent people? I mean you can shoot the girl who caused you much misery but not the other students who barely know you/know that you exist. So if I have a gun I'll shoot the above-mentioned professor. Ah! I've got a brilliant idea! Since I can't muster enough courage to put a gun to my head/mouth, I'll pretend to shoot other students (without really shooting them) so that when the police arrive, they can shoot me for me. What a genius am I!

Okay this is really getting too morbid. Hope my mum doesn't see this.

And writing about killing myself is so therapeutic that I don't feel like killing myself anymore. Not that I was serioulsy contemplating about killing myself. Alrightie, relax people!

Ugly is the word

I don't want to complain but why is it that the girls running for Miss Singapore Universe are so freaking ugly, year after year? Not only are they ugly but their English is so bad that they...totally sound Singaporean!

And please people, stop saying "I have a dream, just like Martin Luther King". First of all, you have no right comparing yourself to that great man. Secondly, your dream (wild fantasy, to be exact) is nothing like his. You don't dream that you are a black person and that one day, you can seat in the front of the bus just like the white folks, do you? Yea, guessed as much. And plus, it is weird to have a dream about making wildlife documentaries on copulating monkeys. It just isn't right. Forgot which one of the girls said it. They all have pretty forgettable faces. "Pretty forgettable" as in "rather forgettable" and not "pretty but forgettable".

The whole thing is a farce. I mean the contest. The girls are stupid. It would be okay if they are also pretty. You can be pretty and stupid but you can't just be stupid. Viewers like myself, no scrap that, I don't watch MSU. Viewers who are brainless enough to watch the show/contest are going to feel cheated, if that is, they are smart enough to actually realise they are being duped. For the rest of us, superior beings, we are overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. Like how we see the Africans elect murderers, plunderers or imbeciles to be presidents through not-very-democratic elections.

Could that fact that most of these "beauties" are either 1) NUS undergraduates or 2) air stewardesses be the root cause of their blandness and... stupidity? Alright, in all fairness, some of them may be real smart. Just not something that is exactly appreciated in a beauty contest. What do beauty contest winners do anyway? Tour the world and spread the messages of love? Take part in even more contests?

Why am I so irrationally angered by all this? Perhaps I am just jealous because I am a "Ugly Betty" myself? Yea, that's the reason.