She stared at the paper, unable to believe what she was seeing. She rubbed her eyes and took another look at the paper, hoping that her eyes were wrong. Disappointment clouded her brain; her stomach did a somersault. The first few thoughts that passed through her mind were ‘How can this be true?!’ ‘This is BAD.’ ‘What will my parents say???’ ‘It’s not possible…’ ‘F***!!’ ‘Why didn’t I study just a bit more?!’ ‘This is SO embarrassing.’

Even as her brain was overwhelmed with guilt, shame and many other emotions, she managed to keep up a smiling façade and smiled while complaining about her results in a carefree and joking manner. She vowed to study harder although she knew that she would probably get lazy again and go off-track.

As she walked to her Chinese class with her friends, her brain almost burst with all the thoughts passing through. She thought of what her parents would say. Would her mom stop her from joining sports? Would she get more lectures? Would she be grounded? Even as she laughed along with her friends and pretended that nothing was wrong, her mind was breaking down. Her big ego was weighing down on her.

How could she have gotten no. 20 in class?! And that was only in her class. If compared to the whole form, goodness knows what position she would have gotten. Some people told her, ‘Hey, it’s not that bad!’ But she wasn’t satisfied. She was a sore loser, or as some people call it, ‘kiasu’. She couldn’t stop thinking about her results the whole time. Sure, results weren’t that important. But she did care.

She dreaded the day her parents would have to read her report card. She dreaded the comment she would get from other people. ‘Hey isn’t that girl formerly from a Chinese school?’ ‘Isn’t she supposed to have learnt more than us?’

She tried to block those thoughts from her head, but they kept coming back.

Lord, she prayed, I need You to push me to study. Please help me, Lord.

The more she thought about her results, the more she wanted to throw a tantrum. She didn’t understand why she cared so much about her grades. Being the crybaby that she is, she wasn’t surprised if she started crying when she got home and was alone. She hated the feeling of losing and failing. She hated crying. Bu yet she cried easily.

She consoled herself with the thought that she had managed to not act silly in front of her friends. She smiled as she thought of her sports. She would excel in sports. AND academically too. She resolved to study hard and play hard too. She decided that she would accept her friend’s offer to find out her learning style.

Even as she tried to cheer herself up, even as she made resolutions, life went on, and time kept running…

By Anonymous