~Tonight~ || Giyushino

hi guys

uh..i know it's been quite a while, not so, but still.

So yeah, I live in sg. And sadly, the education system here is kinda harsh. So just let me rant for a while, pls. For some reason I want to talk about it, so here I come. :)

Basically the system goes like at first, we have to attend kindergarten and then we move on to primary school, where we study from the age of 7 to 12. After that, we have a major examination (at the age of 12) called the Primary School Leaving Examination to determine which secondary school we go to. 

When I took the exam, the scoring worked on Achievement Levels (ALs). There were four subjects, Mathematics, English, Science and Mother Tounge (basically a second language). If you scored between 90 and 100, your score would fall into the category of AL1. 

From 85 to 90, AL2,
80 to 84, AL3,
 75 to 80, AL4,
64 to 74, AL5,
45 to 64, AL6,
 20 to 44,AL7,
below 20 is AL8, which is as good as failing. The highest you can get is AL4, which is AL1 in all four subjects, and the lowest you can get is AL32, which is AL8 in all four subjects. 

See, the problem in this is, if we don't score well for this exam, the opportunities we get later are less. Secondary school goes on for four years, and then we go to either polytechnic or junior college after taking another examination. If you perform extremely well in the primary school exam, you can apply for the Integrated Programme, in which you do not have to take the secondary school exams-basically having a 6-year programme instead of a 4-year one. 

I performed pretty well for my PSLE, and got into a school offering the Integrated Programme. The problem is that I believe that my marks were a fluke. 

I never got such great marks. Even when I got my results, I was more shocked than happy. My score went from low to high, and I didn't believe it. Then I was like,"oh! I've become smarter! Yay!"

well, no. Sometimes I wish that I had gotten into a normal secondary school. 

When I first joined my secondary school, it was all fun and games until I realised the main difference between normal schools and IP schools. Half the topics of Year 2 were taught to us in Year 1. I had an extremely hard time catching up, because practically everyone in my school were natural born geniuses. 

I'm still currently struggling, but managing to get out of it somehow. The feeling of inferiority is not gone, and I don't think it will go anytime soon. Sometimes I just sit in my room and think..."What if I had scored lesser? Would I be happier?"

It's hard to talk about this to anyone irl because they would say that I scored so well and I'm just being ungrateful for my good marks, and that I should be happy that I got into one of the top ten secondary schools. 

So, if you are still here, thanks for listening to this tiny vent :). If you have anything to vent, you can type it in the comments, and I'll read it. Don't worry, life will be hard sometimes, but just look toward the future, kay? 

I'll probably delete this after a while, but oh well.