Great spirit or mediocre mind. Which one are you?

Yesterday there was this supposely inspirational talk at Eusoff formal dinner. While... I think I have a mediocre mind. That's why I wasn't listening to the talk. Anyways, today morning over breakfast, I don't know why our talk went into academic grades. But we where talking about this girl who had to S/U one of her A- module to sustain a 5.0 CAP.

So I commented that that is a damn stupid thing to do. Getting 5.0 CAP and 4.5 CAP, it's still a first class hounors. Then I said, getting Bs you still can get a second class hons which is relatively good and evelyn agreed. And Yanting said, satisfying which what you currently have and not moving forward is a thought of a mediocre mind. I said I would be satisfied with getting Bs which I think it's relatively a good grade (provided you see how scary the bell-curve of that module is) and Yanting rebutted. You got you B because of moderation. Which means, half of the cohort is better that you, what is there to feel satisfied about? It's not the grades, you can be getting 27/30 which is obviously an A but get a B because of the bell curve. You yourself is contented with the 27 marks, but as compared to the cohort, you are lousy, half of the cohort own you.

And then I was wondering, why the hell is there a bell curve here?! Competitiveness... Why does the education system wants to achieve by being such acedamic oriented? The country looks at grades, the society looks at grades, you look at grades, everyone looks at grades, but who knows how much effort you had put in, how good your results are supposed to be. This place leaves no room for error. One mistake and out you go.

I am hitting the bare minimum on the B bell curve, but I am contented, cause I am getting the results I wanted, but not the grades....Hiaz... maybe I have a mediocre mind. I don't belong here...

Recently, Ms Chua posted something on facebook:

"Que Sarah, sarah, whatever will be will be, the future not ours to see, what will be will be."