Sinister

I think that the following entry will anger a large group of people. Seriously, from most of the readers' point of view, it's only a trivial issue. No collateral damage. No chain effect. Probably just a personal, temporal emotional imbalance. Or perhaps I am just anal. Or that I am being unnecessarily insecure for no good reason. Or that I am just jealous? Uncontented?

I understand. When I just started to have such thoughts, I did stand at your point of view. One side of my brain sides with you guys, but eventually the other side still proves to be more formidable. So, here goes.

You know, when you are in the army (or air force for my case, but whatever it is you still know where am I coming from), where mandatory communal living involves you being exiled to behind those intimidating barbed wires together with a bunch of nineteen, twenty year-olds of varying academic intellect, obtaining a string of As for your 'A'-Levels is a big thing. You become an instant headline. The topic of the day, of the week, of the month, or even forever. Everyone in camp knows thatyou got straight As. Everyone knows that you are offered People respect you. People look up to you. People worship you.

It's a big thing, really. People will not treat you like shit. Your commanders will treat you like a proper human being. They give you dignity, they talk to you nicely in a mature fashion. Your peers will also give you superstar treatment. Okay, that's a little exaggerating, but in essence, those around you will give you respect.

You feel good being with them. Cheap thrill? Not exactly. An unscrupulous way of reassuring yourself that you're still the creme of the crop, of giving yourself a high self-esteem? Perhaps. I'm not sure.

The moment you step out of Chong Pang Camp and i) take bus number 852 and alight at the bus stop outside Hwa Chong Institution, or ii) take the train to Bishan MRT station, alight and walk 200 metres to Raffles Junior College, you won't feel the same way. Okay, I did not take the train to Bishan, alight, walk to RJC and feel different, but I certainly felt that way when I went back for my Awards Presentation Ceremony last week.

Suddenly, your straight As is nothing. Negligible. Peanuts. Just throw a pebble at any random direction and chances are you will injure someone who has the exact same grades as you.

And the chances of him/her being a scholarship holder is even higher.

Whereas your university education will most likely be sponsored by your parents.

You start to feel inferior. Thanks to the lionized persona you have built up from the worship of your peers and superiors in camp, the acknowledgment of any kind of inadequacy would represent a complete contradiction to the image that you have in camp.

Your perceived perfection has been built up to such an extent that you can no longer afford anything less than you being the best.

Take another pebble and throw at another random direction. Chances are you will injure someone who will be heading overseas for their further education. In a reputable tertiary institution of course. Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, U-Penn, LSE, NYU, Brown.

And you start to feel like a loser who will remain in Singapore like you've just missed the last train or ferry to get out of this tiny red dot to further your education and therefore you have no choice but to fucking study at NTU.

Take another 5 pebbles and throw at random directions. Chances are you will injure potential doctors, lawyers, accountants, ministers, Prime Ministers and Nobel Laureates.

By now if you are not arrested by the police for assault and hysterical behaviour, it means you're not paying attention to this entry.

And most probably you are just a fucking journalist who can't even afford to bail yourself out. If you are a advertising director, perhaps you can afford the bail, but that is if you can make it to the advertising industry.

Ice-cream with my council peers after the ceremony had me felt really uneasy about my decision of reading Communication Studies at NTU, or Mass Communication in university for that matter. Their eyes say it all. Pity, disappointment, detachment. In fact, it's not only in their eyes do I see such emotions. Most whom I have notified about my university and course choice gave me the same expression.

"Why Mass Comm? Given your grades..."

"Why Medicine? Law? Engineering? Political Science?" I would used to rebutt them. But as more and more people question my choice, my confidence has eroded. An extraordinary phenomenon it is if you know me well.

Even my mum questions me.

It seems that only people with not-so-fantastic grades venture into Communications. A pity that I have "wasted" my string of As. Disappointed that I did not live up to societal's expectations of "good grades go to 'better' courses and universities", like Medicine, Law, Sciences at Cambrigde, Oxford, Harvard. Disappointed that I have chose to venture into a field reserved for 'A'-Level graduates with not-so-fantastic grades.

And slowly they feel detached from me, because most of us high-achievers and brilliant academic performers have chose the path that the society has expected them to choose, while I insist on my own personal interest.

"Sinister" is originally the Latin term for "left-hander", which I am one, and the term initially suggests that left-handers are "evil" and "sinnful", like how you can infer from the spelling of the term, just because their behaviour deviate from social norms. "Norms" that are implemented by the right-handed majority.

Perhaps that's the way how things are working out for me now. I seem to have sinned, choosing a different route from everyone, and definitely a different route from what they have had expected me to choose.

My dreams are shaken. I feel out of place.

Suddenly I love going back to camp.