I am such an insecured person, I've realized, during a dinner with my secondary school friends last week. It was a Saturday night with Thai food. The day I got my 'O' levels results was the day I knew that things hadn't been going correct. I flunked all my papers except my languages and scored something like 32 aggregate score. All my other friends have done their best and done well, and they were rightly promoted to the polytechnics they yearned to be in. I was sort of, left behind. It was nobody's fault but mine. The disappointment I heard in my father's tone when he called home to ask about the results was painfully evident and the almost defeated expression on my mother's face when she knew I've screwed up etched in my mind like a bad song that stick in your head. I was lucky; having had scored such lousy grades, I was given a new lease of life, a new chance to prove myself to well, myself. I was given a choice to either retake the big O as a private candidate/ITE. I chose ITE without hesitation.

When I told people who cared enough about my choice, no one really took it in a good light. You know how everyone assumed that ITEs were schools for people who couldn't study or just didn't wanna study. I had the exact assumption too when I was very much younger. But I realized that it wasn't so much about the school or the perceptions of other people, it's what I was willing to do for myself. I sought advice from my teacher from primary school and I argued. She wanted me to retake my Os but I insisted on going to ITE and it was the first time we have had any disagreements over anything. I was deeply affected, for I didn't think I would be strong enough to take that leap of faith. At the end of the day, I really didn't know what I was going to get.

Anyway, I went through 3 years of ITE education, basically on my own and it turned out to be some of the best years in my life. I put in effort, I wanted to prove everyone wrong, and I did. I scored 3.5/4, I went to Higher NITEC which would eventually, on a struck of luck, led me on the way to polytechincs. I was one of the 3 in my class of 20 who got the rare opportunity to get into a poly and for that, I'm grateful, to God, to whoever's out there.

Coming back to my insecurities, I felt almost inferior whenever I would hang out with my secondary schoolmates, simply because I think that I might never be as good or as accomplished as they are. They have completed their time in the polytechnic and the guys are in NS and the gals working. I know it's stupid to make any comparation and it's absolutely pointless to feel all those insecurities but I sort of drowned in the petty and meaningless pool of inferiority each and every time. I hate feeling like that. It's so stupid and I've changed and I've come so damn far but why, why do I always feel like that? I am my own person in my own right after all...