Goodbye, MJ

Like many of us who were teenagers during the 80's, the passing on of Michael Jackson came as a big shock.

It felt as if something dear from our youth days had been suddenly ripped out. During the heady days between '83 and '87, his songs were very much a part of our lives.

I first heard his name being mentioned by a classmate when I was in Form 1. At the time, being out of date, I thought he was some kind of a country singer :) Later on, when my dad bought an cassette tape of the Grammy Awards songs of 1984, I discovered Beat It and Billie Jean, and was hooked.

Despite all his troubles from the 90's onwards, for us Gen X'ers we felt proud to say that we are the generation that had Michael.

My all time favourite song of MJ is "Man In The Mirror", and even today I never fail to get goosebumps whenever I hear it. It came to symbolize what I felt as a Gen X'er -- somewhat cynical and hardened but still determined to make a difference.

RIP, MJ.

Of SPM and Grades

We all read about the recent debate on students who got 15 A's in their SPM and still failed to get a JPA scholarship.

During the 80's (during our time lah, hehe), getting 8 A's was considered a stupendous achievement, and even getting 10 A's was unheard of. And during our parents' time, even getting 5 A's for their 'O' levels was considered fantastic.

I remembered back in 1988 (the year we sat for our SPM), how hard it was to get an 'A' for Matematik Tambahan. A lot of us did well in the school exams (80% and above) and still only managed to get a B3 during the actual exam.

And who remembered how many students in our batch scored an 'A1' for BM? It was actually only one!! Can anyone guess who this guy was? It was none other than Mr. Tee!

So, getting so many A's in those days were really hard. So what has really changed?

One fact that caught my eye was the statement in The Star that an 'A' can be awarded for marks between 60 to 100. That's a huge variance, if you ask me. How can someone who scored 65% be considered to be on par with someone who scored 95%?

And does the fact that students nowadays can score so many A's means they are much more clever and capable than those students from 20 years ago? I seriously doubt it.

I remembered when I entered Uni in Belfast back 1991, I had a culture shock. The professors there were surprised that the Malaysians and the Singaporeans don't really like to attend tutorials, preferring to spend time alone to study instead. Reason? They are scared of being asked for their opinion during those tutorials. Why were we scared? Because we were seldom asked to think.

Another thing that annoyed me during the recent debate was the way some of the students acted as if their life has ended with the rejection. I think I might be branded as heartless by saying this, but I suspect many of them are just disappointed that they are not getting a chance to study overseas, rather than not getting the scholarship itself. The Singapore government offers Malaysians ASEAN scholarships every year that is based on merit, and it is quite straightforward to get if you have the right grades, which all these students have. So, instead of wailing and complaining, why not apply to this scholarship instead? Is it because studying in Singapore is not as glamorous and as exciting as studying in the UK and in the US?

Last but not least, throughout all these years of reunions, we have all seen many of our friends who did not get good grades but still became great successes today. This just goes to prove that grades are not everything in life. There are EQ, a strong sense of determination, ambition, preserverance, innovation, etc that play a big part.