Have been very compelled to write and post lately, because somehow am in a very 'wordy' mood, fresh after the free writing essay paper on Friday. But time constrain has largely prevented me from doing so. Coupled with mental fatigue and high work load in general, I have assignments piled up till my eye lashes! More so, I have an unnecessarily huge load of revision to plough through, unprecedented amounts of text to devour and a frighteningly huge number of concepts to grasp. The mere thought of it all makes me shudder. Yes, I am becoming increasingly desperate right now, with exams coming straight at me at an alarming pace, head on.

As they say, time is of the essence. Deadlines are burning at my heels – truly dead, lines indeed. This all seemingly feels like a death sentence, lurking so close in sight, so threatening; and yet disturbingly so unavoidable. It brings a sense of unwarranted fear and worry to me. The insidious effects of stress are being to grate on me. Definitely not a positive sign, but I feel completely hapless and helpless towards my current plight, if I can put it that way.

It is like wandering around wholly unfamiliar grounds, some place you are entirely unaccustomed to. And you are expected to reach a destination, accomplish a task, find an item, hide from a predator, slaughter an enemy. You are expected to survive, to fight. It is all like a show, you are being watched, but no one is going to aid you. No one has the true ability to. Alone, you have only you and yourself to rely on.

It is like running; just running and running in no particular direction, with no particular aim in mind. Though you are expected to get somewhere. It is as though you are trapped in a dense, dark, dank labyrinth. The idea seems somewhat claustrophobic, but I guess it depicts the image I want to portray well. Running through a labyrinth. And just throw in the idea of someone hunting you, coming after you, trying to capture you. That intense fear that courses through your system, manifesting in your heart and spreading to your limbs and up your neck. And to aggravate the problem, you are completely ignorant to what is after you. You have no clue what it is, you just know you have to run. At the cusp of panic, you just do.

It is all so surreal, as though you are moving underwater, with every action moving to no distinct end. And most of all, that sense of oblivion to your surroundings is practically burning in you, burning your mind. You just feel so so lost, like a city-dweller thrown into the woods or a poverty-stricken vagabond in Manhattan. This vexatious situation is something I feel so trapped in. Confined, locked up, bounded to.

Everyone wants an unassailable start to life; a good education, stellar academic track record, inexhaustible line of achievements, admirable qualifications, a million of recommendations by mentors and fraternity to potential employers. And that resume you construct and the certificates and degrees you hold at the end of the day will be your infallible weapons, the only things you have to defend yourself against the overly-competitive community that awaits you outside the school gates. This constant hankering for academic flawlessness and superiority is indeed a societal stigma, something so greatly entrenched unknowingly in the minds and beliefs of people. It has transformed to be an innate mentality, ingrained and inscribed so deeply it almost appears irreversible. Perhaps it is a Singaporean thing. There will always be competition everywhere too.

Perhaps this is the caste system of the 21st century, for students and otherwise: a hierarchy determined by academic qualifications – the product of the result-driven society that competitive individuals have brought into being, dragging everyone else along as well. There is no escape. What talk about cultivating talent, and building character, and venturing the roads less trodden. What talk about diversifying – diversifying yes, lest firmly rooted to the rigid education system nonetheless. Much less with foreign imports that we welcome so endearingly with open arms and feign gratification.

But what do I know? At the end of the day, nothing. If I walk out of the school right now and out of this system I am tightly-bounded to, I know nothing. I am merely ingesting whatever I am told to, regurgitating whatever you want me to, and barely retaining anything else – be it beneficial or not. At the end of the day, education has changed me, most definitely. But how much am I truly reaping from it? Ten years down the road how much will I actually know about the things I am struggling to memorise and understand?

It is all talk. Just inane chatter and talk. But yes again, what do I know. All I do is babble on endlessly about nothing. Sometimes I wish I could just talk on and on all day to myself. But we have created a society where it is acceptable to shun and alienate things that are not seen to be mainstream, deemed to be weird; and talking to yourself definitely ranks appropriately high on that list. So yes, no talking to yourself. No talking. When all people do all day is talk. Cheap talk. That robs you of innocent joy and gets you nowhere.

Have been very compelled to write and post lately, because somehow am in a very 'wordy' mood, fresh after the free writing essay paper on Friday. But time constrain has largely prevented me from doing so. Coupled with mental fatigue and high work load in general, I have assignments piled up till my eye lashes! More so, I have an unnecessarily huge load of revision to plough through, unprecedented amounts of text to devour and a frighteningly huge number of concepts to grasp. The mere thought of it all makes me shudder. Yes, I am becoming increasingly desperate right now, with exams coming straight at me at an alarming pace, head on.

As they say, time is of the essence. Deadlines are burning at my heels – truly dead, lines indeed. This all seemingly feels like a death sentence, lurking so close in sight, so threatening; and yet disturbingly so unavoidable. It brings a sense of unwarranted fear and worry to me. The insidious effects of stress are being to grate on me. Definitely not a positive sign, but I feel completely hapless and helpless towards my current plight, if I can put it that way.

It is like wandering around wholly unfamiliar grounds, some place you are entirely unaccustomed to. And you are expected to reach a destination, accomplish a task, find an item, hide from a predator, slaughter an enemy. You are expected to survive, to fight. It is all like a show, you are being watched, but no one is going to aid you. No one has the true ability to. Alone, you have only you and yourself to rely on.

It is like running; just running and running in no particular direction, with no particular aim in mind. Though you are expected to get somewhere. It is as though you are trapped in a dense, dark, dank labyrinth. The idea seems somewhat claustrophobic, but I guess it depicts the image I want to portray well. Running through a labyrinth. And just throw in the idea of someone hunting you, coming after you, trying to capture you. That intense fear that courses through your system, manifesting in your heart and spreading to your limbs and up your neck. And to aggravate the problem, you are completely ignorant to what is after you. You have no clue what it is, you just know you have to run. At the cusp of panic, you just do.

It is all so surreal, as though you are moving underwater, with every action moving to no distinct end. And most of all, that sense of oblivion to your surroundings is practically burning in you, burning your mind. You just feel so so lost, like a city-dweller thrown into the woods or a poverty-stricken vagabond in Manhattan. This vexatious situation is something I feel so trapped in. Confined, locked up, bounded to.

Everyone wants an unassailable start to life; a good education, stellar academic track record, inexhaustible line of achievements, admirable qualifications, a million of recommendations by mentors and fraternity to potential employers. And that resume you construct and the certificates and degrees you hold at the end of the day will be your infallible weapons, the only things you have to defend yourself against the overly-competitive community that awaits you outside the school gates. This constant hankering for academic flawlessness and superiority is indeed a societal stigma, something so greatly entrenched unknowingly in the minds and beliefs of people. It has transformed to be an innate mentality, ingrained and inscribed so deeply it almost appears irreversible. Perhaps it is a Singaporean thing. There will always be competition everywhere too.

Perhaps this is the caste system of the 21st century, for students and otherwise: a hierarchy determined by academic qualifications – the product of the result-driven society that competitive individuals have brought into being, dragging everyone else along as well. There is no escape. What talk about cultivating talent, and building character, and venturing the roads less trodden. What talk about diversifying – diversifying yes, lest firmly rooted to the rigid education system nonetheless. Much less with foreign imports that we welcome so endearingly with open arms and feign gratification.

But what do I know? At the end of the day, nothing. If I walk out of the school right now and out of this system I am tightly-bounded to, I know nothing. I am merely ingesting whatever I am told to, regurgitating whatever you want me to, and barely retaining anything else – be it beneficial or not. At the end of the day, education has changed me, most definitely. But how much am I truly reaping from it? Ten years down the road how much will I actually know about the things I am struggling to memorise and understand?

It is all talk. Just inane chatter and talk. But yes again, what do I know. All I do is babble on endlessly about nothing. Sometimes I wish I could just talk on and on all day to myself. But we have created a society where it is acceptable to shun and alienate things that are not seen to be mainstream, deemed to be weird; and talking to yourself definitely ranks appropriately high on that list. So yes, no talking to yourself. No talking. When all people do all day is talk. Cheap talk. That robs you of innocent joy and gets you nowhere.