'In PJC, the topic of conversation was no longer "What did you get for your O-levels?" because: (i) People who did badly would not tell you no matter how much you asked them; (ii) People who did well would insist on telling you without you asking them.' - The Teenage Workbook by Adrian Tan, 1989.

and in the nineteen years since then, nothing much has changed. i, as a rule, don't really like to share my results with people because: (i) if my results are better than theirs, by sharing, i feel like i'm rubbing their results into their faces and i don't feel good; (ii) if my results are worse than theirs, by sharing, i feel like they're rubbing my results into my face and i don't feel good either (not sure if i used the phrases correctly, but you know what i mean).

that said, results have played a huge role in the last 12 years of my life. i've lived through the horrors of psle, the pure joy of o levels and well, the a levels (and everything in between). frankly, i don't really know how to describe the a levels. sure, i can tell you that the process was hell and the immediate aftermath was pure ecstasy, but the results day itself? it's something that i can't put in words.

but one thing i can tell you, i wasn't overjoyed. yes, i was happy initially but a glance at the results slip revealed to me the "C" grade i've got for my gp and i was... sad. angry, even. after all, what was gp? english. and what was english? arguably my strongest subject throughout my education life. i expected at least a B, despite the nightmare that was paper 1. but, i guessed it was too screwed up that the most my (awesome, if i dare say so myself) paper 2 could do was to pull it up to a C.

i soon stopped harping on it, however (though i do complain about it sporadically). why? because "...its really sad when you see people complaining about the b they got even though there are people behind them crying over the f u they got. be contend with whatever you have..." (16/10/06 entry) and yes, i should be contend with whatever i have, because many will kill to have my grades, no?

what is my point in writing this? after all, results day was long gone, no? but in the wake of the universities' acceptance letters and rejection letters, i realised something. people who complained all day and all night long about their results are the ones who eventually got the acceptance letters from the universities. they are the very same people who wanted me to believe that they "did badly" when i asked.

on the other hand, the people who kept mum, the people who didn't whined about their results, they are the ones desperately waiting for the acceptance letters to come. these people are probably clinging on to nothing but hope, nothing but faith, yet you would never realise it by looking at them, by talking to them.

yes, i understand it's hard to distinguish between "doing badly" and "doing ok," especially since one may only be a grade away from making the cut. therefore, i do apologise if anybody felt hurt by reading what i've written. that said, "doing badly" is not because you fail to get into the course you wanted, which i think is what many people judged their grades by. just as many would kill to have my a level grades, many more will kill to have their hands on an acceptance letter, your acceptance letter. so the next time people ask, refrain from saying that your results were "very bad."