// a blog! bits and pieces of life

June holidays; a piece of the memory puzzle.

Once again, we've entered the second half of the year. Typically, this meant a month-long holiday. At least, for my last 12 years. Army has broken the pace of life I've had for the past 12 years; it has also devoured my dreams of having a nice long break when June sets in.

Come to think of it, I never had a real June holiday last year either. It was an extremely important year, the year of my 'A' Levels. I remember that exactly a year back from today, I would be in school, studying and revising whatever I could. When I first started the regime of making my way to school everyday in the morning, studying, going home at night, I was rather doubtful how long I could have lasted. There are simply so many distractions that would easily drag me away from the studying mentality.

But, the pressure of 'A' Levels had kept me so fervently buried into the revision. Before I knew it, I had studied everyday, up to the point of the actual examinations. Thinking back now, it had been such a long journey, and such tough struggle. Many times, I'd question myself, "What am I studying for?" I never found an answer that was self-satisfactory. Instead, I'd just pass off that thought, and try to pull myself back into reality, into the world where education was deemed as our weapon to survive.

The endless stream of practice and revision had locked me into a complete state of isolation as the final days were approaching. I had never studied so much in the past 18 years, so I couldn't really understand how it would ultimately turn out. My attempts to study for 'O' Levels had been utterly futile, and I wasn't very optimistic for 'A' Levels either. A friend once said, "It's not that easily to get 3As for 'A' Levels". I pondered upon that for a long time, and going by the track record of my seniors, it had proven true, in the context of JJC. I was beaten down, demoralised and disappointed. I had visualized a saddening scene of B's and C's in my results slip.

But I didn't want to give up. I had worked so hard, for so long, I didn't want to give up. Why can't I be the anomaly, deviating paths away from the mainstream? I had thought that way, and that gave me inspiration and motivation for moving on, for running hard. Then, the examinations came, the very examinations that we had all been slogging for. Strangely enough, the first day didn't seem as surprising as I had imagined initially. But the real shock came during the second day, where I had a terrible gastric flu. I was bloody depressed. The second day, I had Physics Paper 3 and Mathematics Paper 2. Two major papers, and I had to fall ill. It was so impossible trying to work on the questions while bearing with the excruciating pain lying beneath that skin. I went for a jab, and ended up going home that day, without any strength left to do revision. Thankfully, I didn't have papers the next day. The rest of the examinations just zoomed past. It was all so fast, and all so sudden. On the very last day, when it ended, I didn't get up from my seat in the hall. I kept seated, and started comtemplating the reality. Everything was over, everything, was, over.

Months later. Results day. I was so worried about my results I didn't had a single wink of sleep the previous night. There, sitting in the school hall, waiting for the whole event to begin, I begin to think again. "It's here already. No more running away. It's here already.. " Then, as I walked towards the table to receive the results slip from my civics tutor, I toned down my pace, and braced myself for the worst. I didn't think how decent I would have done with that unforgettable illness amidst the examination.

As I looked upon that pink slip of paper, I almost squealed in joy. It paid off. The 5 months of studying paid off. Everything paid off. The hard work and time put in paid off. Everything ended- with a smile. Although I didn't do well in Physics, but I guess given the circumstances during Physics Paper 3, it could possibly have been worse. Although there's this nagging feeling in my heart that I could have done better..