life at njc seems to be improving and i'm grateful for even the semblance of hope on the horizon.

on the other hand, i wonder if i will ever fit in or if i want to fit in at njc - beware, school of the muggers in grey. and i am not kidding either. i'm in an arts class, which should be slack, am i right? well no it isn't because the chinese high student memorizes his econs lecture notes in entirety and people are busy copying definitions of personification and imagery which our lit teacher flashes on the OHP. so far i have shown myself to be quite an unpromising student amongst the eager muggers of njc. i for one haven't even read through the econs notes, much less highlighted them and of course i refuse to copy lit notes - i mean, LIT NOTES? are you kidding?! so the teacher stares at me rather disapprovingly, wonders why i am not copying and is probably silently thinking that i shall fail his classes because i refuse to compile notes of definitions of literary techniques [which i would never read anyway].

i shall try and curb my disgust for those who copy down literature notes because i understand people don't formulate weird theories like me. i believe that literature shouldn't be examinable, yet i choose to do it as a subject because it basically... well it's great to do lit isnt it! spend the time reading poetry and things you enjoy while people are slogging physics and chemistry formulae - in fact i have a good mind to get myself down to VJC so i can take up TSD and drop math and then i will be quite happy i think. i have this weird compromise where i go against my beliefs of people getting graded for their written opinions and views but refuse to do anything that makes lit remotely dehumanized - that is, copying notes and notes of definitions and basically copying down wholesale the teacher's viewpoint. which explains why my 'texts' are clean save for doodles and teachers probably think i will flunk lit. i of course must make sure that i do not flunk lit because i will be very angry with self - though i just said i am against lit grades, didn't i? [and of course, it is fun to prove teachers wrong]

i tell you i confuse myself enough, so there's no point you trying to understand my logic.

but today it really hit home just how scary these muggers can be. see in four pr, everyone studied hard - but they studied smart too. they knew what certain things meant. my class, does not seem to understand what the word outline means. our sweet, peachy history teacher asked us to do up an essay outline for a tutorial question. being the eternal procrastinator, i finished it just before twelve last night - hence i was extremely pleased with self and went to school with the after glow that comes about when you know you've done your homework [perhaps it only happens for me because i hardly get my work done on time or done satisfactorily, be it on time].

to my horror, people started showing each other their history essay 'outlines' and it appeared as though they either went deaf when the teacher said 'outline' or i was hearing things. THEY HAD WRITTEN ESSAYS. and when i asked, ' why did you write an essay?' they would show it to me with the bullet points and say, 'no this is a brief brief summary, in point form!' its one thing to do it in point form, it's another if you don't know what point form means - to them point form means a simple bullet in front of the paragraph.

i was indignant, yet sheepish nonetheless. i had obviously grasped the true meaning of an outline, yet because of my dear muggermates i ended up looking like a total SLACKER. i think my history teacher half suspected that i had just done my work a minute before the tutorial started [why didn't i make my writing neat just this once? why?!]. not good, this is not good at all. it seems only scgs girls seem to know what outlines really are because si hui encountered the same thing.

and then to top things off, i spent the history tutorial absent-mindedly doodling on my outline [because she had already checked it!] to find that she actually wanted us to hand it up still. oh goodness, so now i have to rewrite mine, but i don't think i shall change it except make it neater and less sketchy because - because i'm right [says in a very small voice].

during lessons, staring out of the small window which cuts the skyline makes me wish i could fly out of it. i've never held such child-like ambition before - it's a wonder i'm developing this fantasy at sixteen.

+ posted by M @ 4:42 PM