That's the way, Kuang-tus, that's the way

You know, if I possessed enough courage in life to do whatever I'd always wanted to do, I'd probably be detention-bound for the rest of my life, cos' one of my life-long ambitions has been to stand up and begin lashing out at an unreasonable, yet pitifully unsuspecting, teacher with all the expletives and verbal prowess that I can muster. Sadly, a clearly demarcated line exists between reality and mere imagination, for I have yet to summon that kind of courage. In fact, I doubted that anyone would ever be able to do so, either. Of course, that was before I met Kuang-tus.

Our year head was holding us back after our CTs due to apparent noise-making during philosophy. That was pretty much fine with me. I had nowhere to go after our tests that day anyway, and being held back for 15 minutes or so probably wouldn't hurt.

But 15 minutes would seem too much of a stretch when 2 indians left early after our Lit. Paper, which was right before our HCL paper (er... they don't take Chinese), cleanly (and most conveniently) forgetting our date with YH2. Plus, to lessen the numbers, Hanz left for Science remedial as well, leaving a respectable 34 people in class nonetheless. That was good enough, we presumed.

This wasn't the case, however, with Miss Sim. She completely pwned us by making everyone stay back till every single student was back in class, which was quite impossible if we wanted to go back home by 7. None of us had any feasible way of contacting the 2 indians and hanz, and they'd probably take an hour or two to get to class.

This particular line of logic, of impossiblity, apparently occured to soon-to-be hero Yu Kuangnan. He, as a loyal, outspoken member of the 2B society, started to explain the absence of the 3 students, but it was bad timing, as another student started doing the exact same thing. And for some inexplicable reason I am currently unable to fathom, Miss Sim decided to pick on poor Kuangnan.

What came next was a highly amusing break from the pressure of CTs lying upon our shoulders. To make this anecdote more interesting and accesible, I 've arranged it into a relatively true-to-life dialogue. Enjoy.

Sim: Is that how you speak to a teacher? Talk when another is talking? Raise your hand!
Kuang Nan: I believe this is not class time, and there is no need for me to raise my hand to speak.
Sim: Who do you think I am? I'm your Year Head! I expect respect! How am I supposed to know who to look at when 2 guys are speaking?! Who do you think you are?
Kuang Nan: A student, and as a student I believe I have the responsibiltity to inform you that 2 indians have left the class for they do not take HCL, and that one of our friends has Science remedial.
Sim: So, your class isn't here? Ok, you guys stay back on Monday. I want to see the whole class here, in this classroom. And I want to see you (pointing to Kuang Nan), outside, NOW!

-- Insert resounding applause --

As you can see, Kuang Nan left Miss Sim reeling in his wake, stunning her with sheer cheek and strength of heart. He didn't even get a demerit point! That's pure courage for you, m'lady. Don't look to Braveheart or any of those souped-up, wishy washy sport dramas for tales of bravery and inspiration -- look right here in school. This will remain a legend, engraved in Sec 2B history for all eternity.

And even if it doesn't, and dissolves into nothingness and void in time to come, let's just say it was comic relief for the stressed out soul, no?

Yea, that's the way, Kuang-tus, that's the way

The Teachers Must Be Crazy

DISCLAIMER: I consider it within my eternal responsibility to make my posts as readable and interesting without crossing the boundaries of morality. Hence, should this particular rant should prove boring and offensive to any one, of you, I sincerely apologize. Just had to get this off my chest.


Fairness is a personal virtue I like to pride myself for. Yet, I don't think I can say the same for the way several of my teachers mark their scripts.

I find it very disturbing how nasty things can take so many forms, and injustice is no exception. This particular dinkleberry takes 2 forms -- bias, and downright unreasonable. And my realization of this irritating fact ultimately boiled down to personal experience. Yeap, I'm referring to test marks.

Now, don't mistake me for some mugger who's sole aim in life is to get 101 marks for every form of assessment (even for CLE, which I personally find useless). Essentially, the only reason I decided to post something about this is because I strongly believe I deserved it. I mean, if, for example, the subject was mathematics or something, and I got 17.5 out of 50 simply because I neglected to mug the day before, then hell, yea, gimme the mark. Smother me in the misery. But what I despise is the feeling of being deprived of something you've earned. I hate people who refuse me, or anyone else, for that matter, the rightful fruits of their labour. So what if they're the ones who dispense these "fruits"? Who gave them the right to be unfair, go against the essential principle and facet of law -- justice and fairness?

So maybe I'm being a little extreme here. Ok, extreme or not, I believe you guys ought to be the judge.

Case study 1: A random subject teacher(that I shall neglect to mention in case I get sued for libel under the Sedition Act or something) made us all do oral presentations about anything we wanted to talk about. We could do a 2 man comedy act, a 4 man debate, a solo speech... anything. We were granted pretty much free rein to do whatever we wanted, and that was fine by me.

Me and my pal Louis paired up to do this prepared conversation. During prep time, however, we are at an absolute loss as to how to go about with our scripts. So we borrowed from two guys who were incidentally doing conversations as well. With that settled, we practiced our mouths off, and perhaps our asses as well, so much so we could practically memorise the entire thing. But then again, to play safe, we went up with our scripts, brimming with absolute confidence.

And that confidence translated into results. Superb articulation, brilliant dramatization... the list goes on. In fact, we were quite sure we did a good job, and at the risk of being arrogant, better than the group that went before us.

Then we got the results back, dribbling at the mouths and hoping for a modest 75, which we thought wasn't really beyond our reach. In the end all we managed was 73, but that would've been alright -- perhaps the random annoying teacher was just being strict.

But what made me seeth beyond boiling point, rage till every strand of hair on my body was burnt to ash, was the fact that groups who gave very obviously inferior presentations actually scored higher than us. They pulled off sub-standard pronounciation, and inadequate content. They failed to understand what they were saying, and very obviously read off their scripts for the first time ever.

If you say it's my over-inflated ego, but go ask yourself -- compare us to any random group with 78s and 75s, and I think you'll find us the better group. If you talk to us about effort, go compare with any other random group yet again, and you'll find us the ones who worked our asses off on a worthless script, then spent hours editing, cutting and practising our scripts and making sure to understand whatever we said to capture the essence of the story. Tell me -- in what way were we less deserving?

At the end of the day, I won't talk about bias or anything, for there ain't no proof. Drawing a baseless conclusion like that simply goes against the fairness I'm trying to promote. But really, how could we have received such scores when really, we deserved much better?

Case Study 2: So onto another random annoying subject. Now, this happens to be my all-time fave subject, and I always prided myself for the ability to produce model answers without relative and significant effort, and still score good marks for it. Yea, sometimes teachers do go for the scientific way of point be point with elaboration and stuff like that, but seriously, we can't score in this subject without a bit of flair involved (hehe).

Yet, as I got my CCT script back, I was shattered. The flair, the gist of my answer was there, but why was it a measly 2/10? What nonsense was that? I couldn't believe it, but seriously, to be sure, I re-read the question, then the answer. It was just a matter of pride there that kept stabbing at my heart, how a possible A+ was reduced to a C with just one question.

Here's the essential gist of the question -- Quote a point of irony in the above extract with reference to what happened later on in the play. So I wrote something that justified my stand, then wrote that later on every character had a part to play in the suicide case that came up next. And what happened? I got only 2/10.

I double-checked my answer, then cross-referenced with another friend (who incidentally got a 10/10). In fact, I saw no disparity in quality between the two of our papers, apart from how specific our examples were. And alas, that was what cost me a full 8 marks out of 30! Apparently, the exact contribution of each character to the suicide case had to be mentioned. In fact, it was 2 points for every example.

I question the justification behind this. I mean, okay, they did say "with reference to" somewhere in the question. Yet, I see no point in elucidating all the nitty-gritty when essentially the question involves simply justifying a very general irony. I had already said that his entire family contributed etc, and that really should suffice as a reference. Where is the use in adding so many examples when a simple one can suffice? In fact, wasn't concision and precision what this random teacher was trying to educate us about? If one'd wanted such a long answer, then wouldn't it be just and proper to tell us about it than let us guess how much reference? It's simply unreasonable to expect everyone to know that more examples are better, when firstly the teacher never told us anything, and when secondly what I wrote was suitably justified.

I'm really pissed off about all the unfairness that's going on in school. I think I'll go fight for my rights. Hunger strikes might work. I'll camp beside the dining hall, with Ryan right beside me so that I don't feel hungry anymore. Or maybe I'll muster up the courage to argue with my teachers. Maybe both. I don't know, but I think I'll go very far to take back what was supposed to be mine in the first place.