what i really wanted to say.

so ok, now that im feeling more in touch with myself, which i wasnt yesterday, i think i'll go through what i really wanted to say.

i got 12 points L1R5 for o levels. which i really really didnt expect, except a few hours before my sis actually messaged me my results, that i started wondering: what if. what if, and maybe, just maybe, i might not be to get 6 points, or worse, below ten. and so i wondered to myself on the way home, and my dad calls me just when i get home, asking me whether my mum has sent me my results, and the tone of his voice says it all. and then i see that message. and i just screamed fuck. i just couldnt, and didnt want to hold back. i really could not believe it. it was.. totally unexpected. on the bus on the way home, i had told myself, that if i didnt get below ten, i wouldnt go to the dance. and so my dad calls me, asks me what im gonna do, and i tell him that i dont feel like going for the dance. so he tells me, take the ferry out, and then from there see what i want to do. so i bath, and the song "so far away" by staind suddenly hits me. i just had to download it, to drown myself in on the ferry to central. and in the process of all that downloading, i forget about my dad's shoes which he asked me to bring.

i reach the ferry point, seeing my dad, and then i realise that he has a blister. and i forgot his shoes for him. how stupid i felt. and then as mentioned earlier, we had a chat. and then i realised just how obvious it really was that i was not going to actually get below ten, let alone 6. the amount of effort wasnt exactly very significant in affecting how well i was to do. it was simply my level of thinking. i was merely cruising through life, and im not even sure if i have stopped at this point of time. come to think of it, in my sec four life, i studied hardest for my mid years, and then my prelims, and oddly my o levels itself. and the conversatin with my dad really let me realise a few things. that one, they sent me to hongkong because they knew that i wasnt gonna make it below ten, they knew that as much as i hoped, it was really quite impossible, and in fact, they had saved me from the mediocrity of being in a mediocre junior college. when my dad told me that if i really did get 6 points for o levels, he would reconsider sending me back to singapore, and when he first said that i didnt believe it. but now, looking back, i do believe that he might actually make good his word. but he knew that i was not going to be able to get myself out of the rut i was in, and again, my parents bailed me out. my results were pretty much determined with the quality of studying and the quality of my thinking. now, fate somehow seems to make some sense.

and then i realised something else. my phone. i had actually used it as a bargaining tool with my dad, that if i get below ten for o levels, he would actually get me the k800. and he got it for me before my results came, so i thought that he really trusted that i would get below ten, or something like that. turns out that he already thought it through, he never expected me to get below ten, and because of that, he got me the phone before the results came out. why? he then explained to me. to serve as some kind of perverse reminder that i, john isaac lee, had not yet earned what i have, and that i have to keep at it. truly indeed, my parents are smart, and i really, really should have listened to them.

so now what? ultimately, my o level results dont affect my entrance into year 12 for the ibdp, so, i guess i still have another chance. what do i want in 2 years time? do i want to repeat that conversation with my dad? no. change. its a word which many of us, in fact all of us, are constantly using. change. for the better.