Get awesome blog templates like this one from BlogSkins.com televisions' life support <body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar/7370917?origin\x3dhttp://klo-fightsback.blogspot.com', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe" }); } }); </script> me speak exits


hello couch potatoes,

the plus-shaped cursor turns on channel me.

the green button takes you to the tagboard

and the brown round one turns on archives and exits.

happy surfing,

Wednesday, January 3

t.o.w. the end of high school

2007 hurh. I guess apart from the fact that I will soon be marooned on an island by the government, the other big change would probably be the end of school.

I enjoyed school. I never was the kid that waked up not wanting to go to school. Never was the kid that came home hating the life I had in school. Granted there were the down days (but who doesnt have them). School was great fun. The people made it. The friends, the teachers. I made some really great friends in there. Some I talk to after 6 years and realise that nothing between us has changed. Some I made in the middle of the 12 years and have probably never gone more than 1 week without some sort of communication with. Some I made recently and yet I know are sure to be there for me for the rest of my life. Some I lost, we don't speak anymore but I've never forgotten the many unforgettable times together. Some I regained, and it has taught me to cherish every single moment I have. Twelve years is a long time to spend considering I'm only 18. But I'm done with high school now. And I survived.

I know its tough. Believe you me because this comes from someone who felt stereotyped his entire 12 years. And stereotypes suck. It introduces us to the person that others deem us to be and defeats the trying soul that wants to break free. I have been stereotyped; labelled; ridiculed; typified. Whatever, but its high school and I guess as kids we have to move on. Because really, thats all we are. We're kids for crying out loud and somewhere along the lines the way our parents send us out into society has become the way parents send their young into war. Is it supposed to be that hard?

You know we laugh and we joke at others but there is a hierachy. The cool popular kids do it to the dumb but pretty white jocks and cheerleaders. They in turn do it to the gifted yet coloured black singers and athletes, who then laugh at the asian nerds and bespectacled geeks, who then finally take it out on the fat, ugly and unwise. Of course in Singapore its different. Colour aside since we are a racially harmonious country after all, everyone still takes part in it in some sort of absurd way because being able to do it to others automatically promotes one up the rung of social misfits and popularity.

There is something seriously wrong with this. How can we say things out loud and think that it not matters when the very words resonate and hurt the very people that may one day kill us?

I know I've been part of the system. I've laughed at and been laughed at. I've been lucky because I don't get to hear what people say about me. At least they have the courtesy to say it out of earshot. But whether done out of fun or with knife-sharp intention, it hurts. The awful thing is that the apparent cure for our own wounds is to inflict harm on others.

You know, for a period, all I could focus on was grades, college admissions, doing well for nationals and so on. But there is a silent epidemic spreading. It may still be random school shootings in the US but whats to stop the uncool, fat, bottom of the class geek from coming into school tomorrow and shooting your brains out.

Words we speak, harm. The stereotypes that we impose on others block those without the most stalwart of souls from breaking free. And yet perhaps that is the lesson to learn from high school -- To be the person you were meant to be, because anyone who thinks what you want to achieve is more than you can handle is less than the person you want to have around.

And that's why I watch TV.
kenn thwacked an asshat munchkin' at 10:49 PM