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A letter to my 16-year-old self in 2011. There are some things I have never publicly shared… I would like to think I have grown and matured since then.

(Disclaimer: Pardon the sloppy grammar because it got tricky at some points.)

Here goes: –

Dear Wan Qi,

You have just received your GCE ‘O’ level results – you are elated, you are overjoyed, you are ecstatic. It isn’t the 6 points that you were aiming for, but it reflects the culmination of four years of hard work and bears testament to all the TYS you have completed. You are particularly delighted at your grade for A. Math, since you have always derived joy from solving trigonometric calculus sums to proving geometric plane equations. A year-and-a-half later, you will find yourself in a love-hate relationship with H2 Math. Better savour it while it lasts.

Prior to receiving your results, you had a sudden desire to enrol in a polytechnic instead. You wanted to study Biomedical Science in either NP or SP, all because you were a hardcore fan of CSI:NY. You were so fascinated at how they used forensic science to solve crimes you toyed with the idea of pursuing it as a full-time career.

Thankfully you snapped out of it. Because God knows how much you struggle with memorising biological terms and at performing experiments in Chemistry classes. Remember how frustrating it was when you couldn’t get phenolphthalein to turn pink/colourless in an acid-base reaction? Or perhaps you can recall how you broke a burette after accidentally tapping it against the sink? (This probably has more to do with being a klutz rather than being woefully abject at the subject.)

See, you were never naturally good in the sciences. You have, however, a flair for writing. Maybe even a slight inclination towards the fields of the arts, humanities and the social sciences. You wouldn’t realise it now, but mark my words: Where you will be in 2016 will be drastically different from where you have currently envisioned yourself to be.

So you got posted into the Arts stream in ACJC which is renowned for having one of the most rigorous and most comprehensive Arts programmes amongst the JCs. It is truly a blessing in disguise because you probably would have retained in J1 if you had been posted to the Science stream instead. I mean, let’s face it, you only wanted to do the sciences because it would give you more university courses to choose from. You chose to take a unique hybrid combination: H2 Math, Economics and Linguistics, and H1 Chemistry, Chinese, GP and PW. That was the beginning of a long and arduous journey to the big A’s.

At this point I must mention that June and July will be two painfully unforgettable months. The guy you are going out with will start distancing himself and will eventually end things with you. You will not be able to comprehend his reasons for leaving you – not in due course, anyway. But what I can promise you is you will get better. You will stop yearning for the past and you will become a more positive person. One day, you will look back and laugh at how silly you were; for now, have a strong heart.

Having a strong support group will help too. Flo and Mel are two of your best takeaways from secondary school. Be thankful for their presence and patience; I still am, and I always will be.

ACJC, for all its stereotypes (rich, party school, snobbish, etc.), is actually a warm place to be in. You have heard rumours about how the MGS girls and ACS boys tended to be clique-ish, yet by some divine stroke of luck, you have been placed in a class with peers hailing from a range of secondary schools. And even if they did come from brand-name schools, they are mostly friendly and down-to-earth people.

But your shy, introverted self sometimes will get the better of you so for the bulk of your J1 year, your conversations with some of your classmates will never go beyond asking each other for help on homework. You will, however, form deep friendships with Shihui, Annette, Christine, Daniel and Sunil. Shihui and Annette make the wittiest remarks; Christine has her cute quirks; Daniel is an embarrassing friend to be with and Sunil is the biggest troll ever. You will come to enjoy spending time chilling with them over nasi lemak at the pool cafe and over time, you will also witness Daniel buying his weekly indulgence of one can of Campbell soup, one plate of nasi lemak and one ice-cream (the wobbly kind) for brunch, and a bowl of yong tau foo for lunch later in the afternoon.

Also, believe it or not, GP will become your nightmare. You were trained in narrative writing in secondary school as apparently it would put you in good stead for achieving a distinction (which thankfully you did, if not my present self would not forgive you). I must warn you it is a painful transition having to put aside fluff for some good ol’ logic. You will persevere, you will start to critically evaluate issues and finally in Term 3, your efforts will begin to pay off. GP will become your strongest subject from then on.

You will also make the decision to join the Harp Ensemble. You will endure the blisters on your fingers, for your skin will eventually harden and get used to the blistering pace (pun totally intended) of playing the harp. You will eventually realise you suck at plucking the strings with both hands… Your hand-eye coordination sucks like that. Sorry to burst your bubble, but even after countless hours of practice, you still won’t produce music that’s worthy of an encore of a solo performance. For now, have faith.

What else… Mhmm mass PE sucks! You will start to fathom what exactly goes on in the sadistic minds of Mr Lau & co. when there is either circuit training or 2.4km or worse, BOTH in the same PE lesson. But after NAPFA you will get to play games, so… Endure!!

You will struggle to keep with the pace of ‘A’ level education. In fact, you are starting to feel fatigued more easily, and weekly chapel services will soon become your lullaby. Daily devotions are interesting, though, especially when members of the teaching staff share their personal testimonies of God. You might not be aware of this yet, but reading bible verses will provide you with some peace and quiet.

Oh, there is PW too. Please thank your lucky stars that you are in the same group as Daniel, Christine and Shihui. Conversely, you have all rights to bemoan your fate for also having Joshua in the team. You will eventually come to witness Daniel losing his cool against Joshua, and needing Mr Xie to mediate matters. But it will be too late then, because that will be during the OP period, where 90% of PW would already have been over. You pray hard you will never have a Joshua in any of your future group projects.

… Sometimes, fate plays nasty tricks on you. Three years later you will find out Joshua has received an offer to study Law in UCL. Law! UCL! Your childhood ambition! Your dream university! What has this guy done to deserve all the luck in the world???

It sucks to be painfully mediocre.

Well, I think I have rambled long enough! The bottomline is that JC will be a transition period for you. You will struggle a lot, you will feel like giving up, you will feel awful about yourself. I wish I could tell you to take things easy and to not worry about your future, but you will never take this advice anyway. The only prophetic message I can tell you is this: You will not end up at where you have always wanted to be, but you will (most probably) end up at where you need to be.

At this point I start losing cool creds… cos photos!!

Better leave the nicest shot for the last.

 

Love,

Wan Qi