After a long absence, I've finally come back to planet vanderia.

It has been two weeks since school started, but I'm already feeling the pressure (Pressure = Force/Area). Its a strange feeling, that I'm so near the completion of my polytechnic career. It feels as though you could almost touch the sky. If things go according to plan, I'm looking forward to getting that diploma and moving towards a new study environment, hopefully with some of my best loved friends.

Various universities have already arranged for talks in the upcoming week. Competition is stiff, and everyone in Singapore, JC and Polytechnic alike, will be vying for those few spots, hoping to add one more school into their future resumes. The paper chase is essentially, one of the most important aspect of our lives. Sometimes I feel that everything in our life is so structured. Studying for 20 years of your life, then slogging it out for another 30 years of your life, and then living off respirators for the last 20 years of your life in dettol smelling hospital beds.

A lecturer remarked today, that there is a difference between studying and learning. Personally, I don't think that school leaves us with any choice between two. For learning to take place, one must first possess the desire to learn and a conducive environment. With all the neverending deadlines, expectation by the society and our families to do well, students nowadays are faced with a lot more stress than they are supposed to handle. Stress, is the major factor in affecting our desire to learn, creating a hostile environment, one which many would call a "dog eat dog" world.

My lecturer also said, grades aren't important in learning and that many students nowadays only care about studying. After all thats been said and done, grades still matter in Singapore, to a large extent. To get into a University, students either have to have good grades or have truckloads of money. For the poor people like us, what other choice is there, other than to study hard, study smart, all for the benefits of getting good grades so that we may continue on our structured journey through life?

You may think I'm bitter, but this is from what I've experienced in life thus far. Life is a box of chocolates, open it and you will find that most of them are rotten. I have friends who worry about results all the time, so much so that it becomes an obsession. Truthfully, I do have that kind of mentality once in a while, but I don't want to be remembered as that type of person. I am a radical, a non-conformist. The paper doesn't matter at the end of the day, because I would be just another one of the many who have the same qualifications. Ultimately, you are only accountable to one person, and that is yourself.

;I CREATED A SHEEP!
12:37 AM