This will be a new series on student life, featuring perspectives and experiences of real students. In this first feature though, the writer imagines being a student having to write a composition titled Regret. He is going to imagine three pictures; a report card, a boy looking, well, regretful and the third being a heavily bandaged person.
For the first time in his life, he had nothing but faith to go on. He had prayed, hard. Surely, if he had been faithful enough, his prayers would have been answered somehow. Looking back, it is amazing how he could have expected any different outcome.
As he walked into the hall, there were others like him and at the same time, very unlike him. For one thing, they all wore the same uniform. They formed a long queue before a long table at the end of the hall. Behind that table, sat his form teacher whose surname he has unfortunately forgotten, as things which bring pain, sometimes are.
His teacher did not bring him any pain. She unfortunately happened to be part of a series of memories which did. So, along with the rest of it, that too must have gotten lost.
As he received his report slip, he smiled at her like all the other students did. He thought he saw a fleeting look of concern in her eyes. It could have been disappointment. It could have been anger. It could have been any number of other things which said this was a serious matter and she wondered how he was going to get out of the hole he had dug himself into. Well, in any event, that look was fleeting and it was replaced by a smile which can be described as professional.
A few months ago, he had been at the Jurong Swimming Complex. The boys he spent his days with had been studying and they wanted a break. So, they decided on a day out at the pool. This complex was different from other swimming complexes. It had long winding slides and a wave pool. It could be described as a water theme park. People went there when they were in a mood to enjoy themselves, under the sun.
So, he must have been a very odd sight to anyone who was noticing. Beside the pool his group was in, there was a plastic bench with an attached umbrella. Every fifteen minutes or so, he got out of the pool and pottered about with the stack of notes he had brought along. His notes got wet and he didn’t quite know what exactly he was reading. Still, it seemed to him that this was the right thing to do.
His friends mocked him, mostly out of good intention. When that did not quite work, their jests took a more serious tone. “Look, we can just have a good time here and now. When we get back, we can hit the books hard and everything will be alright,” one of them had said.
He forgot if he had listened to their advice.
A year before that, life was actually good and there was no pressure. He did not feel any anyway. He spent all his time training for races and that too not for exactly the right reasons. He was frequently absent from class but that did not seem to matter because everyone seemed to think well of him.
Then the new year arrived and everyone became serious. He knew he was lagging and he knew he had to do something about it. He did a lot about it. He began to pray long prayers. He moved in with a friend who said they could study together. He remembered the long chats they had and the football games they played.
He could do anything when he wanted to, he told himself. He was still saying this to himself when the important exams got nearer and nearer and his present grades showed in large red cursive handwriting, that he was truly, in deep trouble. He probably would never have been described as the industrious sort by anyone and that had never mattered before. When it did matter, he had always done well enough.
As he took his results slip into his hands, he was alone and he felt alone. He exited the hall and stood by the railing at the end of the wide side of the corridor outside the hall. He opened his results slip and saw that he had passed. His prayers must have worked because that was a miracle. Alas, those grades meant he had now reached the end of the road without a way to proceed onwards to the next higher stage of education.
His friends were in different emotional states. Some were obviously comforted by the fact that their hard work was not in vain. Others sighed but were grateful they had done enough. He found himself in the very slim minority of students who could neither step back nor forward. He was stuck on no man’s land.
After that day, he suffered for too long not knowing what was to come. Over and over again, people would ask, what his plans were. He typically uttered something; not quite believing it himself but finding himself, having to. By abundant amounts of luck and sweat in equal measure, he managed to claw his way back out of the abyss.
That was one of the darkest periods of his life. It was a terribly humbling experience. It was also the experience which taught him, that he had to do what he had to do. He never forgot the lesson.
The Brain Dojo
