I stood on the shoulders of giants

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"Don't ever lose faith in who you are, for that's what makes you different.
Don't try to turn yourself into someone everyone else is, for if that happens, the world is a poorer place."
- Sept 2005

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kelvin
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My Story Your Song
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8 years ago I failed 5 out of 8 of my sec 3 mid year examinations. I got 0.5% for my A maths paper. I worked slightly harder and passed 4 out of 8 subjects in the year end subjects. I passed all my subjects for my sec 4 mid years but my L1R5 was a grand 32. I worked slightly harder for my prelims and i was duly rewarded with a L1R5 of 30. I worked harder for the O levels and there my story starts.

I sit down at the library this morning and start reading through my feudalism notes. As i flip through the notes tears start to well up in my eyes in the realisation that i read the wrong materials for that topic. I found what i was supposed to read and I don't understand the material one bit. I try and try and try again but it still didn't make sense. and it was plain english. if i was at home i would have flung that bloody coursepack out of the window.

Who am I kidding? Why on earth am I working so hard for? Is it to achieve my dreams of being a jet-setting international lawyer sought after by multi-national companies? or to have big and prestigious firms and banks seeking me out to offer me dream positions? Who am i kidding?

These dreams are not for me. why do i harbour the self same aspirations of my fellow schoolmates who have attained single digit scores for their O levels? Or attained straight As for their A levels? Or achieved stellar results in their first year examinations? I don't have all of that. I am a 20 pointer. An ABB student NUS law wanted no part of. What right do i have to aspire to those jobs that more eminently qualified people hanker after?

I ask myself, who am i kidding? If i was an interviewer, i would look at my own cv and laugh. that being the case, why do i still push myself so hard?

Should I just give up now and just tide my way through the remainder of the course, and to stop striving to become someone i know i cannot be? I spend the greater part of my day trying to figure out stuff that my classmates can write a thesis on. I read nutshells when people read law journals. I can't even sort out my basic facts, let alone sit an examination on monday.

But why? why do i still keep going on? Pushing myself to limits that I never ever thought possible? The amount of time i spend studying a day now is probably the equivalent of what i spend studying in a week at JC. I have been labelled as not-human and reckless as to my health.

I don't enjoy this life. But I have no choice.

I am nowhere near the standard of anyone else here. I do not have a natural brilliance with numbers, nor a flair for writing. I do not have an ability to examine a set of facts and immediately visualise a solution. I don't have the talent, I simply don't.

But what i do have, is determination. And committment. It has got me this far, how far more it will bring me i have no idea. But that is all i have to bring into the exam hall. people take out their sophisticated M16 rifles, and i take out my catapault. people cock their rifles, I load my crushed paper ball. but no matter what, i will still make that paper ball hurt.

At the end of the day, I may not get the shining results everyone else gets. I may not get the jobs or the prestigious internships other people get. But I know that what i have now, i can never have asked for 8 years ago. To get into NYJC with 20 points. To get into LSE law with an ABB. those are things which only in my wildest dreams i would have thought possible.

But those wild dreams became a reality.

And I will dream on, and I will work towards making those dreams a reality. Even if i fall short, I will still remember that 8 years ago, i wouldn't even have thought this possible.

Do you know what it feels like to have a dream? I know what that feels like. But too, I know what it feels like to live a dream, and i want to continue living those dreams. they've passed me by this time perhaps, but if i give up, those dreams will just remain as they are. far and unreachable.

I've come so far. I'm not sure how much further I can go. But i hell i am going to give it my best shot. even if it is with that blimey catapault.

kelvin was inspired at 1:06 AM