Soliloquy no.1

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

Kahlil Gibran

Perhaps this is why I'm not really that crazy about studying in places like NTU and the like, where everything just seems to be revolved around how much you know and how high your grades are. No intention to brag, but I think I've had more than my fair share of good grades so far and honestly, the only thing I think I've really gotten from them is the frustration of not knowing. Ironic? Not really. In fact, I think it's actually something to be expected. I mean think about it, what is it that you do to get good grades? Most of you idealists (and somewhat malay folk) would probably say: study lah. But seriously, at the end of the day how much of all of those pages and pages of bullet-pointed facts and explanations actually stick in our minds? Can't find an answer to that? Well think about this too: how much of it do we actually use? Like directly in our lives?

So much of us are just so obsessed with aiming for a quantitative result from our studies that we often forget to take into account the qualitative part, i.e. good grades vs. good understanding. Sure good grades are something we have to aim for, but they should be more like something of a by-product of the efforts that we've made, rather than being our final goal. They should be what lets us know that the energy we have expended in putting together all of those informational substrates have successfully transformed themselves into a far more useful and coherent end product: the ability to understand and apply the knowledge we have learned. So where have my good grades gotten me so far? Currently, it's gotten me a place (well, actually 3 places) for my name and photograph to be hung under the heading 'Congratulations on your excellent achievement!' on the 4th floor bulletin board for the IC students at my school. So is this what I want? Hah. You might as well be asking me whether or not I'd want to use fishing line for my shoe laces - kind of a cool idea now that I've thought about it - but that's exactly my point: it's cool, but useless.

I have my last Cambridge exam paper tomorrow (thank God!) and that's really what kind of got me started thinking about all this. Being the workaholic that I am, I've been studying like crazy in preparation for these exams (these past few weeks being especially hectic) and because of all this, I haven't really had time to do much of anything else. A mountain of half-read novels was (and is still) piling up in my bedside table because I simply never have a chance to read them properly to the end. For 5 days out of 7 my life consisted of eating, sleeping and studying both at school and at home (yes I slept at school too). Even going on a bike ride to the Alfamart near my house was like a vacation in and of itself for me. And there's been more than a couple of moments when this situation I was in had almost pushed me so far as to the brink of simply giving up on everything right then and there.

Thankfully, I've managed to hold on, as well as stay sane throughout this whole ordeal. Knowing me, I'll probably forget a large part of what I've learned perhaps even as quickly as the end of next month. But if there's one good thing that I've gotten out of the seemingly endless physical and mental stress of this year's exams is a promise that I've made to myself: I won't let my efforts evaporate in vain. Fortunately, after months of agonizing uncertainty and gutless flip-flopping, I think I've finally found a field of study that will allow me to use all of the knowledge I've learned so far. Hopefully, if I learn it well, I'll be able to make a future for myself that will benefit my parents and the people around me, as well as putting to use all these blasted years of insane studying. Perfecto, right? So all I need to do now is just make sure I don't quit half-way again this time. Easier said than done, I know, but hey loads of people have fought for their dreams and won, so why should I be any less capable of doing so?