Top 10 ways to love St Thomas's

This is for the lower six who are having difficulties adjusting to our culture. You may print this out and pass it around, if you feel compelled to do so. I don't have a creative commons license on this page, after all.

So, on with the list:

1. Pretend to listen to the Principal's speech during assembly, but concentrate on his (or Mr Chai's haircut. This prevents you from fainting in the heat.
2. Bellydance to the Negaraku played every morning.
3. Necklaces are not allowed in case of fights. That being so, twist the aforementioned tie, kad pelajar lanyard and Thomian belt and use that to choke when needed.
4. Since an integral part of Thomian culture is greeting every teacher you meet, wear big neon stickers over your chest (and tie) screaming "Selamat Pagi Cikgu!" so you don't have to say anything.
5. Use Thomian ties as pacifiers.
6. Forget free will, free thought, freedom of expression. Of course, we Thomians have figured out a way around each of those, so here's our remedy: To have free thought, we vent our feelings in blogs and Undergroundsquare. To have freedom of expression we stick Hello Kitty emblems on our undies. To have free will we strut around school looking important, when all we want to do is to go to the toilet during class periods.
7. The Devil does not wear Prada. The devil wears blazers and carries a purple diary.
8. Boys should hold seasonal peeing matches in the toilets - in accordance with the school motto 'Aim Higher' and also with the hope of winning a firefighter scholarship.
9. St Thom is the habitat of a special type of homo sapiens. To preserve sanity concentrate on task at hand and remidn yourself that sitting on each other is perfectly normal amongst this species.
10. Do not get aroused during spot checks. They will think you've got a handphone between your legs and use tweezers to extract it.

Seriously, though. It is our sincere hope that you guys see that we're not so bad - that personal discipline is just a way of life that you have to get used to. And that we're pretty open minded and (at least i) won't kill you for writing amazingly good poems about ... things.

Oh, and one last thing. If you think we Thomians are not assertive, are bagaikan kerbau dicucuk hidung (i think it goes like that) then read this blog slowly. Our arguments for money, our arguments with untransparent teachers and personal arguments agaisnt politics, the media and the weirdness of the school are all here, and its too bad Kenny's old Xanga spot got pulled down before i saved the XML files, or you'd have those to refer too. Wish all lower 6 out there the best.

Prefects

Nobody respects St Thom for our academics.

Let me repeat that, but with a different twist - since academics is the core business of schools, then ...

Nobody respects St Thom.

I hate that perception. In almost all tuitions i go i'm the sole ambassador for my school. I get ridiculed by Mr Lee in physics tuition. Paul gets belittled by Green Road Idiots (GRI? Hmm.) and he makes them all hate him when he beats them (haha!). Lately the only person to slowly change that perception is Genius Aldrin. He actually makes me proud in the way his name commands respect amongst some tuition teachers and students (not so nice is the way every other thomian has to match up to him - an impossible task). Otherwise, like Mr Lee says ...

"2 straight As! Hah! Sekolah di Bau pun ada 2 straight A!!"

*Class laughs at me*

We live in a society that places too much emphasis on academics. You study, you fight for a scholarship (which everyone knows is based on race and skin colour, not brains), you climb the corporate ladder. How sad. If you're lucky you break away and do business, but so what? Our politics and business spheres are interwined, corrupted to an extent and also very much biased by skin colour. We are proabably the only country where dark is better.

Welcome to Malaysia, third world country.

I love it and pray for it everyday.

Now you know the setting for this post. I am going to talk about a funny paradox in my school, and i wonder why i didn't write about it sooner.

The teachers want to push our academics. They are dedicated. The best students are usually prefects. They become better (responsible ... etc ...) under Ms Chong. The teachers resent the prefectorial board for eating up our potential to be superb students. And yet they themselves rely on us so much. A friend of mine, for example, has to organize English club activities, do websites for science labs, is delegated duties from under-managed teachers, and worst is that most of them only worry about deadlines. Selfish, selfish. And yet he still doesn't want to say no. The teachers thus resent the Board even more, coz now our academics are like long-dead flowers, choked by the thorns of teacher duties, competition and prefect stuff.

So let's take a look at the priorities -

1, Academics - Non negotiable. Must do well.

2, Prefectorial Board - If we drop this the famed discipline in St Thom dies out. Then we don't have disipline, and we don't have results. Might as well blow up the school, yes?

3, Competitions - No choice. This is both for the school (honour and glory?) and also for personal development, even if it turns you to an emotional wreck and gives you nightmares for weeks after.

4, Teacher projects - they delegate to you, it chokes you. Can someone please explain to me why the hell they don't ask non-prefects? Instead they ask us and then blame the Board. Seems to be a popular trend these days - blame the Board.

And i agree. It is not a baseless claim. A friend whose dad is in the education ministry says it is widely known we are a show school. We are all fireworks and beautifully kept lawns, but we suck where it matters. On the other hand, our feeder schools are as good as the mud from the Sarawak river (read:milo water) and we do a pretty good job considering, since we manage to get good passes every year (note: passes means Ds, so more Ds means more happy Datuks ... ^_^) But we can still do better - our top students are being choked. Admit it guys, our results sucked for form 6 last year. It could be the students' own fault, but to completely rule out the prefectorial board as being responsible is just plain dumb. For something as mundane as a form 6 orientation we have 2 rehearsals. For the teachers day we plan two months (or more!) in advance. Not to say it wasn't great - it was akin to the opening of the commonwealth games. I was very proud to be a part of it, as the master of ceromonies. But my god, one WHOLE WEEK spent staying back after school, and the SPs and SSPs staying until 11 the night before to do the helium balloons.

Ridiculous.