Musings of A Girl Named Sharmee

A Levels in two days. No. Make that 36 hours.

I never thought I'd succumb to the stress the A levels give to Singaporean students, but I did. And it was horrible.

Knives poking my head; trying to focus on Sastera cause I love it, a big meat knife piercing my head, running to the toilet, crying to Jay on the phone, then puking my $3.00 lunch into a 7-Eleven plastic bag.

Very nice, Sham. Very nice.

I'm gonna stay headstrong until I get through this storm of information overload. God help me, please.

Remember when I said things would get better in time? Well it did. To a small extent.

I never expected to get over it. After meeting you, however, I realised there's no more butterflies. There wasn't any blood rushing up to my face, and most importantly, I could talk to you. Amazing.

Yet, the heart is still empty.

People say friends are family you choose. To a certain extent, it is true. But for me, I end friendships when I feel it is pointless and going nowhere. Why bother bickering about the same old things when you have differing views on it and no one is willing to compromise? You're not even related by blood. We have a choice of choosing our friends carefully, or get stuck with them when you're unhappy.

It's difficult, especially when I am the one making all the initiatives - let's go here, let's do this, why not we - the list goes on. It's even more difficult when your friends change and its seems that you no longer know them. You make the effort, but it comes to a point where people just start depending on only you to sustain the friendship. Change is good when you like it. But it's horrible when change makes you a withdrawn person who wants to shut off from the rest of the world.

I want to bury myself in books. So I can have the riches. Then perhaps I can enjoy life more. Then again, people are just gonna make friends with you for the money.

If only it wasn't as this complicated. And so I'll tell myself again, it will get better in time.

I'm making cupcakes as I'm typing this.

Have you ever wondered why you made a decision without actually knowing what to expect? That was how I felt when I decided to enroll into MJC. I went in knowing that I want an A level certificate followed by a university degree. I went in knowing that I'll have to sacrifice learning the way the fun way. I went in knowing that I'll have to put in ten times the effort I used to put it back in secondary school. But I never knew what to expect, really.

I've always thought JC would make me rigid. Make me a robot, even a monster, perhaps. I soon realised that no system was able to change you really are. I was still the rebel I was deep inside. Being in a JC never stopper me from doing things I want to do. All along, no one I was close to told me if I was doing the right thing - until last Tuesday when we had our last GP lesson.

Mr Nathan changed my perception on life. He was never afraid to scold us as if we were his own kids. He made me see the bigger picture - it's not all about grades.

"A gauge of me being a good teacher is not the grades you guys will get in the exams. A gauge of me being a good teacher is when I see you ten, twenty years down the road and you've had a good life doing the things you want to do."

By then, I was tearing up, but I held the tears back knowing that it wouldn't be nice to cry in front of him.

"Go chase your dreams - whatever that's left of it."

And I knew I had to go to the toilet when the bell rang. I just had the best lesson in my life and the greatest teacher along with it.