CG 17/87, TJC

Most of my TKGS cohort went to either TJC or VJC after our 'O'-levels. I chose TJC because of 2 reasons - 1) CP is its alumnus and 2) it felt more 'homely' than VJC during its Open-House. (I had gone for the Open-House of both TJC and VJC, after which, I felt that TJC was like UK compared to VJC which was like America.)

I enrolled myself in the Science course in TJC, taking Biology, Physic, Chemistry and Maths 'C'. And I was allocated to be in Civics Group 17, CG 17/87. We had about 15-20 persons in each CG.

Half of my CG 17/87 classmates were from TKGS, and in particular, Sec 4DScience. I think 4 of the 中文协会 girls from Sec 4DScience were in CG 17/87! Only the boys (I think there were about 5-6 of them) and a handful of girls were from other secondary schools. So you can imagine how 'exciting' the class was, in terms of meeting new friends.

My lessons in TJC were just so-so most of the time. In fact, I didn't quite enjoy them. It was common for a few of us to come together privately before each lesson to discuss the tutorial homework etc. The idea was to check and confirm our own understanding and have a 'common' understanding of the concepts and earlier lessons etc so that we won't be caught off-guard or 'embarrassed' during the tutorials.

During these discussions, I would actively contribute ideas and suggestions and many times, I was even able to and had to, correct my classmates' understanding (because my understanding was 'better' than some of them, mah). But then, when it came to the tutorials, the reverse happened. Somehow, they were better able than me to present their arguments and answers in a way that the tutors preferred. And so, to the tutors, it almost always looked like my classmates knew the answers while I didn't!

I felt so sian about this, I even suspected that the tutors were biased (somehow, it was obvious that they prefer some of my classmates to me, lah!) and so, even though we (my classmates and I) spoke the same thing, my classmates' answers were 'more correct' than mine.

Amongst my subjects, Biology was my forte. I loved all the Bio drawings that we had to do all the time and the hardwork we had to undertake peering into the microscope to look at cells etc. It was all very fun and very 'real' and related to our world. I was so motivated during Bio lessons that once, one classmate wondered aloud, "Why do you like Bio, ah? So messy all the time!"

I think she was referring to the dissection works which we had to do as part of our practical tests. These sessions were generally alright for me although I think many of the girls were a little squirmish about pinning down the animals and opening them up. We did it to the rat, cockroach and a few others. I was quite 'steady' in most assignments but I fumbled when we did it to the frog - I had forgotten to tie the aorta of the frog before snipping it (we had to look at the heart or something), and the dissection try was flooded by the blood that oozed out furiously the moment I cut the blood vessel!

Luckily, I managed to quickly cleaned off the mess with the help of my partner, before the Bio tutor walked past my tray! I think he would have given me a nasty time had he seen the poor frog submerged in its own blood!

Other times during Bio lessons, we had to draw what we saw of the specimens under the microscope. Hahaa, it was funny to see how worried some of my classmates would sometimes get when they couldn't make out what they saw of the specimen under the microscope! One girl, whom I heard has become a medical doctor now (!) often had to run to me to frantically 'copy' my drawings because she wasn't sure what she should expect to see!

It's a real pity all those Bio drawings which I had so painstakingly kept for years after my 'Al'-levels have, by now, been disposed of. I wish I had been more firm to resist those pressures to throw these away. Anyway, I scored an 'A' grade for Biology at 'A'-levels and I take comfort knowing that I had a great time learning Biology.

Chemistry was, to me, nothing more than a challenge to memorise and memorise more. Whilst I understood many of the properties and principles etc, I didn't enjoy them as much as I think I should. My Chemistry teacher was a rather weird young woman, who couldn't un-twist her tongue when pronouncing 'r' in words, called Betty XX. She couldn't accept my habit (when doing the hydrogen test for oxygen using a lighted satay-stick) of aiming the mouth of the test-tube at my left while holding to the lighted satay-stick with my right hand. I did this because my partner sharing the lab table with me was on my right. But this teacher never failed to 'suan' me about it anyway. My grade for Chemistry was a below-average score of 'C' at the 'A'-levels. ('C' is for Chemistry, right?!)

Physics was yet another headache for me. I simply couldn't understand how the concepts and formulae should apply in the situations given, and I was always 'lost' in lessons. I couldn't understand the objectives of the many experiment set-ups that we had to do in the Physics lab - what was I supposed to see?! I remember once, there was a set-up incorporating both a pulley system and a hose attached to the tap - I eventually managed to set up the appartus with the help of my irate tutor but I had not even the faintest idea what it was all about?!

It was quite stressful going for the Physics lessons. Things got so bad that some time in the 2nd year, my Physics tutor suggested to me (amongst a handful of girls he had 'counselled') to drop the subject for 'A'-levels. Mainly because of pride, I flatly refused to do so.

Eventually, to my tutor's relief and my own relief, I passed Physics at the 'A'-levels, albeit with a grade 'D'.

I was no better in my Mathematics. In fact, I dreaded going to Maths tutorials. What on earth are those d(y)/d(x) and so many other weird, weird forumale, differentiation, integration etc etc, for??! How on earth will we ever apply these in our real world? I think the operations like +, -, x and ./. will be sufficient for our daily needs, correct? Why do we need to torture ourselves, all entangled with such d(y)/d(x) thing??!

Anyway, I just never understood these. Even today, these Mathematical concepts remain elusive to me. And so, I eventually stood out from amongst my CG 17/87 classmates in Mathematics by my score of a grade 'C' at the 'A'-levels. To me, this is already a commendable personal achievement, particularly since I had no private tuition of any kind for Mathematics or any other subject. So, I am far from being shy that I didn't manage the 'A' grade that almost all my classmates secured for Mathematics.

I will always remember the nightmare I had a few weeks before the 'A'-levels' - I dreamt that it was the Mathematics exam and somehow, I couldn't locate the classroom where I was to take the examination (in TJC, we used both the hall and some classrooms for exams)! After some delay, I managed to find the correct venue but right after I found my seat and sat down, my mind suddenly became a complete blank! The cold-sweat, the chill and the shudder that had jolted me out of my sleep remains very vivid even today.

At the end of my 1st year in TJC, I scored a disappointing grade for my GP. I was quite disheartened at first, but when we had a change of GP tutor in the 2nd year, I became more optimistic and enthusiastic about GP. The new GP tutor was an elderly lady called Mrs Biswas. She encouraged my CG to read widely on current affirs and to tune in to BBC. And I did these conscientiously every day. The BBC channle became the default channel on the pink Sony walkman (that HA sold to me!).

Eventually, I improved in my GP discussions and essays and managed to score a respectable 'A1' for GP at the 'A'-levels. I was the only one in my CG who did that.

I remember that the topic I wrote for my essay in the 'A'-levels was "What I would miss most of my country if I were to be away for a long time", or something like that. I wrote extensively about the various aspects of our lives in Singapore - the family, friends, things we do together, the festive celebrations, the cultural variety, the food we enjoy, the transport we use, the daily sights we see, the common sounds/noise we hear, the weather we have in Singapore, the excitement of the occasional unexpected things etc etc. I guess the examiner/marker must have felt the real-ness of the heartfelt essay I wrote that day.

Tutorials for Chinese were rather 'standard'. Discussions were dominated by the Mandarin-speaking crowd in the CG. For essays that we wrote, I usually managed average scores even though I had felt that some of them really deserved a much better score.

At the end of the 1st year, we all sat for the 'A'-levels for Chinese. The idea was that if we secured a sufficiently good score, we would be allowed to drop the Chinese subject in our 2nd year, hence free-ing up our time to better concentrate on our 'core' subjects.

For this 1st-year sitting for Chinese, I surprisingly scored an 'A1'. And, it turned out that I was the only one in my CG who secured that score at this sitting! The best score secured by the 中文协会 girls in my CG was only an 'A2'!!

I was so elated that I kept smiling at everyone I saw the afternoon the results were released! "Yeah! Now I won't need to go for Chinese lessons anymore," I gleefully told myself.

My excitement was shortlived, however, because somewhere along the corridor outside the teachers' common room, I met my CL teacher. She called out to me, and told me that it was incredible (yes, she really said 不能够相信) that I had been able to score an 'A1' and that I had been the only one in my CG to have achieved that!! Although her words were said in a very plain, matter-of-fact manner, they were a very cold and an extremely wet blanket to me. Couldn't and shouldn't she have simply congratulated me instead? Anyway, I was more than glad to be out of her class from then on.

It was a bit of a dilemma after I earned the 'free periods'. Basically, this was because those 'free periods' were in-between lessons anyway, so it wasn't possible to knock-off earlier from school. And because I was not as 'into' the TJC band as I was in the TK Band during TKGS days, it felt a little awkward to 'idle around' during those times. Luckily, I had for company a classmate in my CG, Jolie, who decided to drop Chinese even though she had only scored a B for it. So both of us usually spent our 'free periods' reading or doing homework in the study area under LT1.

Sadly, I didn't feel any real sense of attachment to TJC. The 2 years I had spent there flew by before we could even get to know the place well. This is a great contrast to the 4 years which I had spent in TKGS - in TK, my friends and I became a part of one another and of the place. In TJC, it felt more like I was a visitor only. The many, many more fellow students in TJC (compared to the cohort we had in TKGS) remained strangers to me by the time we left TJC.

R is an exception, I guess, but that's another story altogether.