exam fever

It was a maths (called arithmatic those days & i can't honestly say i know the difference!) test & i scored 47 out of 50. it was the 1st of hundreds of test/exams/assessments i was to toil for before the final one nearly 29 years later. that's an awfully long time span to be bury oneself in revision books & past-year papers, but yup, there's no other way to decide who deserves the A's & who gets the diploma.

preparing for an exam is a sobering experience, because you think you have so much to cover in so short a time. humiliating as well, because you've come to realise how little you actually know about the subject. suddenly, a feeling of inadequacy overwhelms you & the possiblility of failure becomes real. this does not just apply to school/college exams. i remember i had butterflies in my stomach the morning i was to take the driving test. in those heydays of my youth, i can easily devour 3 roti canais before you can say "teh tarik", but that fluttering in the tummy & the audible pounding of the heart, plus the mind-clouding road signs/hand signals/3-point turning manouvres sure play havoc with the appetite. in the end, half a canai & 2 sips of the tarik is all i can handle. talk about supreme anxiety. & this is just a run-of-the-mill driving test.

so as the year runs it's final stretch, i can relate to the thousands who will begin the exam season with the UPSR tomorrow, to be followed in rapid succession by PMR, SPM & STPM. in this era of endless "kelas tambahan", intense private tuition & unreal, astronomical expectations, it is baffling how much responsibility is being burdened on those young shoulders. i wish them all the best for their undertakings, & hope that, at some stage of their student lives, they remember occasionally to stop & smell the roses.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, & it will be given to him." James 1:5

note : not exactly the top prize, this modest cup was one of several trophies i had won for extra-curricular activities - i represented my form 2 class in debate & we were runners-up to the 3rd formers. it's special because it was the 1st competition in school that i had won anything. it was also made of real metal. today's students are more rounded in the sense that these activities, now termed "co-curricular" to emphasise it's importance, are made compulsory in many schools.