The Things I’m F***ing Good At Isn’t In My L1R5 |
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Author: Lhu Wen Kai (This post originally appeared on his blog. It is reproduced with permission.) |
 I find it a li’ll ridiculous that people expect you to do extremely well for your big Os just because you’re from a well-known school or you did relatively well for your PSLE. Everyone learns differently, with various levels of intensity and varying learning methods and approaches. Throughout my 4 years in secondary school I didn’t really made an extra effort to pump up my grades nayum sayin? As long as it’s something decent, I wouldn’t push myself all the way to achieve that perfect grade. Sure, an A1 that I was expecting to get or not expecting to get feels great either way, but to me, most (not all) of my subjects are just, “subjects”. To me, these “subjects” are just theories and concepts that I don’t really have an interest in but still need to do well in them during exams in order to go wherever I desire to go. Once I hit what’s needed per my standards and expectations, that’s it. Moving on time. I choose to focus more on non-academic things, like finding and honing new hobbies, skills, developing my passions and my strengths. Like I said earlier, the only reason why I study for tests is because it’s going to take me to the school I want which is gon groom me into who I wanna be. I’d rather be doing the things I’ll know I’ll be doing in the future instead of helping lovesick Math find his x, without knowing y.    I know what I wanna be, my life is all planned out, so I focus on what’s needed to be done. I know I didn’t do well, okay let’s rephrase that, I know I did well for my O levels, just not well enough to match other people’s titanic expectations, which ironically, are rising as we grow older. My results look the way they are because I don’t mug and study like my life depended on it (because it really doesn’t) for all 8 of my subjects. A few months before the exam I told myself to focus on only the 5 subs, which coincidentally are my strongest subjects, needed for me to successfully take the next stride in my life. Some people reading this are probably gonna be like, “It’s your final obstacle why don’t you just push yourself all the way have some discipline and try to force yourself to be at least decently good in all of your subjects?”. My teacher told me once, in fact quite a couple of times, before that “If you’re gon have a few subjects with really good grades, and a few subjects with really bad ones (i.e. both ends of a spectrum), your employers will probably hire someone more consistent because it shows that you do not show an interest in the stuff that you don’t like which is detrimental to the work environment.” Well, I’m not sorry that common sense got the better of me, told me to aim solely for that 5, strive to do the best I can for them, instead of rescuing the other 3 subjects which sucks so bad “disgustingly atrocious” is a nice way of putting it, and run a highly plausible risk of flunking the whole exams altogether. Maybe my teacher is right, companies wouldn’t hire someone whose results slips doesn’t reflect consistency, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t hire someone that consistently suck would they?  Now back to the point of this article. The thing I hope people understand before judging someone based on a couple of numbers that’ll be obsolete in a few years time is that, the phrase “statistics don’t lie”… wait for it… is a lie. Better run before the police comes chasing me for revealing this colossal mega secret like how the paparazzi chases Kim Kardashian’s colossal mega ass. Anyway, as I was saying, remember, “Do not judge me for my choices if you don’t know my reasons”. I understand the rationale behind studying all 8 of my subjects, but I prefer to spend my time on the things I have a talent for. Maybe to you getting a bad grade means I’m going out with gangs, doing drugs, smoking my ass off. Let me tell you then the only thing that’s smoking, is, my, ass. It might not be exactly like that but I got your drift. I’m not spending my time wasting my life away, watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, or sleeping or using my comp that kinda life-wasting things people who insults others usually end up doing 10 years down the road. No.  I explore my strengths, for example visual design. I don’t have a diploma, neither have I studied it before. I help individuals and companies design their Keynote presentations, and judging by their feedback I do an amazing job like, ooof, if I’m not wrong, all the time? What was I doing in my free time, you know, the time when I’m smoking my smoking ass off? Playing, experimenting on this amazing software called Keynote where it all began. I might not have the resources, but I would really love to learn and apply my experiences into real world contexts instead of spending all my efforts on my studies y’know? Plus, it helps with school. When I was in Secondary 2 I had a psychology blog, pretty well read (to me at least), 300+ hits per day, which contains psychology theories I derive by observing people. Since then I started to like writing, spend a lot of time practicing, and got many chances… to make mistakes. If I didn’t do badly for my English in the first half of Secondary 3 I wouldn’t have attended this remedial lesson by my English teacher who introduced me to humor writing. And upon finding out about it I’ve been obsessed with it and try to incorporate into my writing style for every article I write. And because of this hilarious skill I got accepted into GiveMeFootball’s writing academy, because of a humor banter style piece I wrote about diving in sports. In a more academic context yes my English grades increased so much it makes whoever’s controlling the MRT fares jealous. Also, because of my absolute love for Media Studies (a subject I focused on because I knew I was gon’ do something in the media industry someday), I got exposed to videography, directing, producing etc. and I immediately knew what I wanted to be in the future, and all of a sudden I got my life plan all sorted out by the end of Feb 2013. I doubt I would be so sure of my identity, well I mean, I know my identity, Lhu Wen Kai with the smoking ass, but identity the sense of my ambitions and careers if I didn’t play with the cameras day in day out, vlog on my YouTube channel and letting myself do all sorts of weird stuff there, I wouldn’t be given an opportunity right now to be an “independent producer” (I still find the title a li’ll too fancy for me but what evs I’ll take it with pride) and be given a platform to put all the creative ideas I have stored in my mind for so long into real life (more details in due time).  This is feeling like a resume for some reason. It feels great to be able to pen this down into words. How-ever you view this article, the main thing I hope people realise is to not judge a person based on their L1R5 because behind their apparently not-good-enough-for-society-grades, they make choices that gives them opportunities for achievements your narrow mind haven’t got a chance to see, yet. People decide their own future, make their own decisions and dictate how their lives wanna go. If you don’t comprehend, or don’t bother comprehending, seeing things from their point of views, try and understand their choices, then the most stupid thing to do really is to compare yourself with them and bring them down. You may have won me in my aggregate, but what about in life? Because the things I’m f***ing good at isn’t in my L1R5. Lhu is a 16 year-old humor blogger, graphic designer, sports journalist, and filmmaker residing in Singapore. He blogs at http://LhuWenKai.com |
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