What's my problem?

What's my problem?

I've gone through 14 years of life already. I went through a smooth 3 years of lower primary at Kong Hwa, a nightmarish-yet-kind-of-great-memories-and-somewhat-fun 3 years of upper primary at Tao Nan's GEP classes, and another 2 truly fun and rather crazy years at Dunman High.

That's actually quite a long paragraph for 14 years.

Through them, I've been put through tormenting methods of education such as Projects, and boring / time consuming CCA sessions along with other extra activities like being a prefect who did almost absolutely nothing in primary school. I've been able to handle them somewhat, but I noticed a nagging problem that I always knew, but could never overcome.

It wasn't easy for me to say no.

Teachers ask me to give them a hand, friends ask me to watch their stuff, strangers ask I could show them where the nearest toilet was... the list goes on. It never crossed my mind to reject a single one of these requests, seeing as they couldn't really require more then five minutes of my time.

Which was why I said yes.

Then these little things grew somewhat over time. The first significant one was probably around primary 4. I was asked by my teacher to apply for a prefectorial position. "Oh ok," was my nonchalant reply. So after a 5-10 minute interview with a teacher who's name I can't recall, and another two weeks of waiting (or not), I was in.

I really didn't care much, it just meant that I had to wear a tie everyday unlike every other normal primary school student. Then I started to get a peek at the tip of the iceberg. I remember the amount of time I spent just waiting at the staircases during recesses listening to shouts of my friends playing a floor below, while I just stood there making sure no one passed.

There was even a time when I stood along with 6 other poooor prefects in a row under the hot sun for five whole hours. Why was that? We were told that we only needed to wait for two (which was kind of a stretch already actually). Oh. Oh I see. So the VIP was caught in a traffic jam and called to say it was late. It's just too bad. And what did he do when he passed by? Oh dear. I think he didn't see us. At least the teachers did. I know. They looked at us and laughed.

One day, I'll buy myself a gun and hunt him down. Now back to the post. Alright. That's fine, since it's all over now. Why not move on to something more recent? Let's say... Last year.

During the end of year CCA trainings, I was suddenly pulled aside by Zhi Kai and swept towards the committee, asking me whether I could be the so-called "Level Head" for my year. Sounded kind of ominous, looking back on it now. It sounded different then - like something that I should not reject, seeing as that they had confidence in me.

Which was why I said yes.

It wasn't a big mistake, if any of you remember my post about my CCA a few months ago, but there were also sacrifices made, mostly of time. I often needed to stay back after PTs for meetings that seemed to drag for decades, and felt more pressure to attend my trainings and help out in any way possible.

Another case was Student Council. Every one of us was sitting happily (not really) in class when she suddenly dropped the bombshell. The Student Council was looking for interested people. She asked a few of those "duh" choices, then suddenly my name was called. Noooo way. You're not gonna convince me for that. Takes way too much time.

"Ok lor."

And once again came the interview. Hey, it was kind of obligatory, since I'd already filled in the form stating that I was willing to help my school etcetera. And yet again after months of waiting, I got in. Surprisingly, the only one in my class. I learnt the meaning of regret anew once again, but I guess I'm a sucker for punishment.

One more: Orientation. I put my name under the sub-committee list, because although I thought it would be fun to take part in the preparation, I didn't have enough confidence in doing the "big" stuff that went on behind the scenes. I was approached and asked why I didn't place my name in main comm, and whether I could handle it if I was slotted there.

Oh, I did a little compromise this time. Rather then a straight-out "Sure I'll do it!", I just said that I might be a little short on time from CCA and did not have enough confidence, but will try my best if I happened to end up in the main comm. Which I did.

There have been many more times when my self-induced pressure caused me to agree to doing things I normally wouldn't have or want to, but the night isn't long enough. Some of you may notice this trend, but I'm guessing most of you don't see it at all really. Some people mis-intrepret this as kindness.

But thinking about all this, this problem of mine has given me so many more chances that other's have given up. Being an SC, for one, definitely gives me a much stronger sense of fulfillment after every activity. And for my CCA, I've a whole post dedicated to it (dig through my archives, you'll see it).

So really, as far as I'm concerned, this may be one problem that doesn't need overcoming.