The truth is that the release of the 'A' level exam results is secretly a desire to entertain a bunch of cheapskate sadistic schizophrenics who can't decide whether they want to watch the emotions and drama mama of a wedding, a funeral, or a wet market, and so they decide to screw it and have it all! Free tickets for everybody to watch a little of it!

You might get to see a hot sexy little girl in a spaghetti strap t-shirt and a super short skirt and a thick cake of make-up, crying her eyes out at the top of the stairs while the other girls bitch about how she deserves it, being oh so vain and lazy, or you might get to see a bunch of happy people making merry in a little circle that goes round and round and so can never spread around and round.

Does it change the spectator? No, no it doesn't. It simply makes you realize, that you knew, deep down in your heart, that it would come to this. This, final closure. This, hard and technical consequence of exactly how you chose to spend your two years in JC. The friendships may or may not count. They may or may not be there for you, to catch you when you fall. They don't tell you that- that nothing is definite, that there is absolutely no guarantee, no confirmation, of concrete success. They will deny this, yet the impression of such words stays, and stays long enough to become a fact.

They tell you that you will win the race if you do well in it. Well, they will say with a sigh, not really, but in a way it does dictate your place in society. You don't question them. They teach you to question them but by the time you learn to question them, you no longer want to question them. Its so much easier to sit and obey (although you do have the freedom to choose to wag your tail or not). You can do something else. Do something about it. Why don't you? You never get to doing anything else. Its so much easier to stick to a routine and complain about the routine.

You may or may not be one of those funny little identical yet unique puppets who sit for exams. Exams mean the whole wide world to you and your mother and your father and your grandmother and your grandfather. Well, they will say with a careless wave of a hand, not really, but in a way, it does dictate your place in society.

They don't tell you that its not the end of the world. So you sit for each paper knowing the excruciating cruelty and the fatal biting jaws of what you are being tested on. You may or may not know the answers. Every mistake may or may not kill you. Everyone you know may or may not be your competitors. Even so, the competition may or may not be a friendly one. They may or may not want you dead and flat on the floor, spread on all fours. They don't tell you that everything will be okay. Everyone believes that there is no second chance in an exam as major as the 'A' level exams. How harsh. How true. How true?

This, undeniable blow, this force to face the unexpected, the uncertain, and make a decision or decisions that may or may not change the course of your life forever. What have you been doing with your life? Have you been wasting your time? Who are you? Who do you want to be- that girl who weeps or that boy who screams for joy? Where are you going? They try to talk to each other, to distract themselves, but they are both trying too hard to drown out the voices in their heads to really talk to each other.

Don't ask for miracles. Even God only helps those who help themselves, or those who are unable, physically or mentally, to even attempt to help themselves.

And the numbers and alphabets that you want to receive in your result slip, or that you will receive, or that you have received... What about them? The sea of heads divides into two- Happy and sad. Child-like emotions really. We are little kids. Happy girl, sad boy, etc. The list goes on; blurs a little for the indifferent or the careless. Happy girl is a popular bitch who scored distinctions for every subject. So unfair! Did you see the way she dressed?! So what if she worked hard. Her character sucks. Sad boy is a good boy, a nice boy, hardworking and shy, with a broken home, a broken heart and a crumpled result slip. So poor thing. What happened? What do we say to him? So unfair!

The rumours go on and simplifies itself so that a muffled buzz of its countless stereotypes (popular, bimbo, himbo, blur queen, geek...) and hypocrisies are enough for the lighthearted to sigh with gratefulness that it was not them. Thank god it was not them. But do they matter? Does it matter? If it is not them today, it might be them tomorrow.

Better to do well than to do badly? They don't tell you how horrible it feels to do well when those you love and care about do terribly. How wrong it seems, to be happy, when every few steps you walk, the world of another stranger collapses before your very eyes. Its not your fault. What can you do? They tell you to work hard to secure a future for yourself. They forget to tell you that it will get lonely on top. They tell you to work as a team and do well as a team. No one ever listens until the guilt and pity and smug self-satisfaction that "I worked harder" seeps in all at once. They don't tell you that you are on your own the moment that flimsy paper is in your hands. Were you always on your own?

Results. Do they matter? Does it matter? Only as much as you want them to. Only as much as you allow them to.

May or may not, may or may not be... If everything can change simply through one's sense of perspective, in how one chooses to view things, then let us remember that we have to be brave and persistent in order to keep our dreams alive, no matter what happens. A man is nothing without his dreams. They will tell you that everybody is equal. They forget to tell you that sometimes, more often than not, you will have to fight for your own portion of equality and happiness. Is it to prove that we are entitled to them?

I know you have a little light, a little life in you left. I know you can be who you want to be- someone who can and who will make a difference in this world- no matter what the hell they tell you. But how badly do you want it? Will you fight for it?