The Fear

So here's the thing. I have only one exam left, and it's still bad. I've figured out by now that I'm scared of exams. As in, phobic. As in psychologically-scarred-when-young-because-cat-bites-you-and-you-now-no-like-cats kinda scared. It's probably the STPM speaking again. Can't shake it off. And so but yeah, I got into university because I did a few really cool things. So what? I know you're going to tell me that academics don't matter, but fact remains, when you're in school and you're studying because it costs so damn much per semester, comments like that don't seem real. No kidding, you say. But academics do matter, especially when you're talking about an exam-oriented society like ours. (Yes - if it makes you feel better it's the same thing in Singapore). And so it's rather anal - you're studying programming, say - which is the most practical thing you'll study in my course - and then you meet people who're all about "How many marks did you get?" and "I thought they might ask this in the exam, so I worked on it!" and "Ah I didn't get full marks for that lab" and the focus suddenly becomes scoring As, instead of learning the tools for the sake of learning the tools, and/or you do things because you want to beat all the other people so you can win that scholarship/bursary/summa cum laude.

I know this is unfair of me, especially since we don't really have any alternative to exams, and marks, and bell-curves. But it's produced really strange behaviour, all around us. Like, for instance, you're discussing the application of ethics on computing in the real world, and the discussion suddenly turns into a 'how to answer this for the exam?' smooge fest. Have you had an experience like that? Have you thought it strange? I have! I find it very strange! I couldn't get my head around it! Why on earth would you talk exams, if ethical conundrums and technological paradoxes really might happen to you in your professional life, later on? Has this no relevance to your life, beyond the testpaper?

But even as I'm saying these things, a small voice at the back of my head tells me that I have no right to talk. Who am I, after all? I have no good reason to strut into classrooms, looking like I understand the technicalities of everything being taught before me; nor do I have the confidence borne from a long history of academic excellence. I am a scraper. I am a weird hodgepodge of talents that don't count in any academic assessment. I am a square peg in a round hole (or was it the other way around?) And no, I am not very useful in an exam ... in everything else, yes; in the real world, maybe - but in an exam it feels, at times, like I am a sneak. I know I should stop ranting. But it's frightening to pause and think of all the exams ahead of me in the next four years, and all the other academicos that I have to compete with. Fours years. Rather long time. Frightening indeed.

Vignettes

It is 2am and I'm filling my bottles with hot water, from the shared dispenser in Block 4. I meet Kris, who's in Comp Engineering, and there's this other guy with him. They're both buying food from the junk-food vendor.

"Wow, up late." I say, stirring my noodles.

"Yah, going back now."

"And you?"

The other guy gets his packet of chips. He pauses and looks up at us. Grins. "Oh, just got back from practice."

"At 2am?!" I say; "From where?" Kris says.

"School of music; I'm a music student."

We stare at him, blankly.

"Woww ..."

"Yes -"

"What instrument?"

"Oh, piano - "

"And the school of music is open till this hour?!"

"Oh yes," he says, "We got about 40 practice rooms in the conservatory. All grand pianos."

"Grand pianos?!" Kris and I say, together.

"Yes." He laughs.

"Is it hard? I mean - the course, is it hard?"

"Oh yes. Very. I mean - I practice until 2, right?"

We talk about a few other things, and then I gather my bottles and my mug full of noodles, and gesture towards my block. "Got to go now."

"Okay," Kris says, and then - as an afterthought: "You going to sleep?"

I don't pause: "No," I say.

"I thought so."

Kris nods, the music guy smiles understandably, and I return to my room.