The cool kids, the not so cool kids and the…nevermind.

David has a very skewed perception of the typical junior college student but lo and behold, that perception is something I agree with. And whatever perception of poly kids is skewed and yes lo and behold, something he agrees with (or does he I can’t remember?). As much as we don’t like it or as much  as we do, there will always exists this social hierarchy, this social disparity, the almost polarization of the savage society of the teenagers.

 

He always thought that the jc kid was one always complaining about school, willing it to end but secretly wanting it, but still going with the flow because he has no choice and is enthusiastic about school activities. I for one fit every single criteria that he proposed so am I a typical JC kid? As much as I would not want to be called as such and as much as many of us prefer not to be labelled such a term, 1.5 years on in the school has moulded our brains and our education into one that we cannot escape from and am entrapped by. As much as we hate it,  we are forced into it just because we are.

 

Then so many of us attribute it to the ’system’…i hate that word. The word tells so much of a person and his cowardice. I may have used the word before but not lately because we keep blaming the system, talking about how trapped we are within that system that we pretty much are resigned to that fate within it and not do anything about it. Truth is, boys and girls, there is no system. There is no invisible, intangible yet omnipotent being around us that strikes fear in us more than God’s wrath. You know it’s wrong when you’re more scared of failing rather than doing potentially graceful and rewarding things in your life. And what’s worse is when you totally give up on the system, you get out of jc, you get out of poly or the worst- get out of Singapore. Ask yourself, what are you running away from?

 

Then again, you might be running to something so that would be something beneficial for you so….ok i’ll give that to you.

 

Then I thought about the poly kids. As I was watching the lip dubs from TP’s mass comm, an annual thing that they do, it was all very fine and dandy but there was something painfully obvious that might be absent in jc’s, well at least those reputable ones. The fact that the diversification of characters still remain, the fact that in each class there are the cool kids and the not so cool kids and the….whatintheflyingfkareyoudoingthere kind of kids. Those kids who totally look as if they are out of the element and bandied together to form the powderpuff gers.

 

TP is really a prime example about how each different school, each class interact or react differently to the school environment around them…their interpretation of the campus lifestyle.

 

This however is sorely lacking in the JC because JCs…like it or not stratifies everyone. once you’re inside you’re branded a despicable word like “mugger” or “closet mugger” or some other word obviously coined by a jc student for a jc student. characters are more of less the same (you dispute this, you think about it properly) throughout the class but there may be exceptions within the school…those who stand out but still, at the end of the day fall under the same category as the rest.

 

Almost two years in, we’ve lost ourselves in a sea of words and the elliptical orbit of education. And then there’s another aspect to all of this, who ARE you real friends, and who ARE people you will keep in touch with once all this is over? But that is another rant for another day.

 

So who is the jc kid, who is the poly kid? We’ll never find a common banner to march under, nor a motif capable of depicting the respective plights but there will always be the different clothes we wear underneath that tell others who’s the cool kid, the not so cool kid and who’s the….nevermind.