introductions

My name is Visakan Veerasamy, and in this blog I am going to be brutally honest with you, and more importantly, myself.

I'm 19 years old this year, born and raised in Singapore. I am a genuinely rational and intelligent person. There are many, many things that I am passionate about, proud to have achieved and look forward to accomplishing. I am a musician, an activist, a writer. A friend, a lover, a fighter.

For 13 of these 19 years of my life though, I have been defined by something which I have rarely considered to be of much importance, which is my formal education. Regardless of all my hopes, dreams, talents and aspirations, I am constantly reminded by my family and the System that I am ultimately defined, during this phase of my life, as a student. Let me give you a brief history of my experience with the Singaporean education system.

I went to Opera Estate Primary School, which was a pleasant neighbourhood school. I would consistently top classes without studying or paying attention in class, but I never thought much of it then. In Primary 3, I transfered to St. Hilda's Primary School where I had qualified for the Gifted Education Programme (the entrance test for which I did on a whim rather than any ulterior motive). Over the next 3 years I would find myself challenged and inspired, but I still didn't develop any study skills and frequently got into trouble for not completing or handing in my assignments. I made friends with kids fronm everywhere, and was just starting to realise the implications of being labelled "gifted". I didn't study for my PSLE, and got a T-score of 245. (A* for English and Science, A for Math and Tamil) I can still remember my dad slapping me when I showed it to him, because 245 was not going to get you to Raffles Institution.

I went to Victoria School instead, and those of you who know me personally will certainly know that I consider it to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was a wonderful experience. The GEP folks at MOE put me on a probation status-I would have to deliver the results that they wanted, or I would be asked to leave the Gifted and rejoin the mainstream. You can imagine what happened. I still hadn't developed any study skills, having invested far more points in improvisation than preparation. I flunked Secondary 1 (GEP), and was promoted to an average Secondary 2 class. I figured that I would be aceing "normal" work, but it wasn't the case. There was simply too much content that I was unfamiliar with, I was far too complacent and hanging out with the slackers at the back of the classroom did not help.

At the end of Secondary 2, I chose a class with 7 subjects instead of 8, thinking that the free periods would be pretty awesome to do homework or study. It turned out to be a poor academic decision; most of the guys in my class were people who were academically weak or had no discipline, and none of us ended up doing any homework. (It didn't make sense to do it if everyone else didn't, and the class was going to get scolded anyway.) We would do crazy things like climb out of school to go play LAN at Zion at Roxy Square, and had all kinds of fun. We just never really paid our studies much attention.

(to be continued)