expectations

My sis went back to hwachong for their awards presentation day today :) she received 2 awards: the Commendation Award for getting 7As for A levels, and the Outstanding Student Award for simply being awesome x)

I'm really proud of her.

She was like any other normal student in Singapore. She's not exceedingly smart, but she made it up with her hard work. She has never topped her class before in primary school, but she got a PSLE score which could have made it to Nanyang. She went to St. Nicks instead, and like several others in my class, she got 2 points for O-levels. She then went to Hwachong.

I've never seen her play computer games before. She never owned a facebook account until one month ago. Her highest grade for promos was a C, and even at Prelims she never got higher than an E for GP. But she mugged her way to 7As (Math, Chem, Chinese Lit, H3 Chinese Lit, GSC, HCL, PW). She got a merit for the Hwachong diploma, and was awarded a scholarship to Fudan University in China even before her A-levels results came out.

I'm really proud of her (:

My grandpa was over the moon this evening when my sister showed him her awards. Everything we get some kind of achievement, we would show it to our grandpa. He loves us a lot (: I remembered him saying just now, “周家也总算出了一个优秀学生，一个状元啊！哈哈！”

On the other hand, what happened to me?

I started primary school by topping the class in p2 and 3 (p1 cmi, top scorer xiang peng was in my class). Grandpa was elated when I was admitted into GEP in P4. In P5 i brought back this huge trophy the size of my torso for winning a chess competition and grandpa took a picture of me posing with it. In P6 i remember I got this gold medal for coming in top 40 out of over 400 participants for SMO, and grandpa was so happy he bragged my achievement to all his neighbours and friends.

And thats it. All the best things seem to have ended in primary school. Apart from a few delightful moments like winning Scrabble in sec 4 and 2nd in Musicfest this year, I believe I have been degrading all these while.

Grades in secondary school were bad. Grades in JC were worse.

I really felt like crying and hiding in a hole to reflect on myself when I saw my S for Physics and the entire paragraph of words in red ink by Ms Ong on my paper. I think half the class got an A. B is a dissapointment, and C is a rarity. And tonight's dinner with grandpa makes me very touched, and very guilty.

My entire family expects me to do well, and I'm the eldest son in my generation of 8 people. I'm supposed to do even better than my sister. It's not that this expection is pressurizing and I hate it. It is not, because I know I can do it, and the only thing I hate now is my inability to discipline myself and perform.

Grandpa ended the dinner saying, "我今年已经八十一岁了，但我一直照顾好自己的身体，因为我希望将还来能够参加你的大学毕业典礼。”

I started my education with a bang. I'm going to end it in the same manner.