Tap tap tap

Read my post on 12th January 2010. O level results were out. I was expecting Cs and Ds. Lawrence Gan called my name along with a few others: Evelyn, the twins, Yu Le, Crystal.........the high achievers. I was genuinely surprised- I wasn't expecting that. Never in my two years have I ever been considered the same league as them.

And results came out, and stunned me totally. Not only have I scored well, I scored perfectly. Perfect. A single straight row of As, single straight row of 1s. I remember seeing my name there up on screen.

That set the stage up for my subsequent expectations.

I went to VJ, survived pretty well, got into peer mentoring, H3, became known as the girl who does well. Would do well.

I am not that girl, you see. I work hard, but I've not done well long enough for me to feel sure about myself. I've not done well long enough to know that those results are not the result of a lucky break. I haven't, you see, and people believe otherwise. After all, all my VJ friends have seen me cope pretty well. But that's only the last 2 years. All through secondary school, it wasn't this way.

And all these constant repetitions, they've swayed my consciousness. Through mentoring, you start to believe that your answers are right. Through the tutoring I'm doing now, you've just got to trust yourself that you have the right answer. It gives yourself this false sense of security that you've got it under control. And it's creeping over, taking over your mind.

A levels was the biggest exam that I have taken. Omnipotent. It would be foolish to think that I've mastered or conquered it. The syllabus is such that you'd never reach the top. Your grades are just a reflection of how close you are.

This is directly antagonistic to my past few weeks of tutoring, when the tutor becomes the ceiling for where the student has to first reach. It's an evil barb, but its just the way it works. You guide the student to go higher, but your ceiling can't be too high.

It really is time for me to let that go, and become the student once again this Friday. Alright I'm ready I'm ready I'm ready! I want to be up there on stage but as it always is, zero expectations zero disappointments. Oh god I want to be up on that stage so so so bad.