Magical TurnAbout-- Let Me Spin A Tale, A ThouSaNd LighTs, A StaGe as Grande

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Part 1: Pondering...

End of semester.

End of 2 semesters, which are equivalent to one year of poly education over. I wont elaborate on all these “ Time passes so fast” kind of stuff because I guess everyone and everywhere you will hear people say the same thing or something similar. So what’s the novelty in it? NOTHING. So, shall just proceed by reminiscing about the days in campus.

Notice the difference? I used the word ‘campus’ instead of ‘school’. Tertiary education is no longer known as a school but something more like a campus, with all the avant-garde stuff that you wont ever chance upon in a secondary school. I’m not gonna get all waxing lyrical about these little differences that these cafes, canteens, studios, labs, radio station, multi storied library make because I guess the picture of a campus wont be painted just by the mere descriptions of it all. For everything, the visual element plays a part in bringing out what the writer is trying to convey. So, why bother painting a luscious portrait of the campus when the truth could be unveiled in a matter of “being there and experience it”?

So, that brings us to the topic of “Being there and Experience it”.

Before embarking on this bohemian path of studying in a polytechnic, I once thought JC environment would be my way. I admit that memorizing textbooks is part and parcel of my life in secondary school. The chunks of text. Blocks of historical remnants. Lines of formulas and what’s not. Tell me you don’t memorise any of these? That’s a lie. Nobody ever gets through secondary school education without the ‘memorising’ of text. Unless you tell me you are the genius and I will probe no further. So, yes. The Jack of all trades, the master of none.

And, since I’m neither prodigy nor the master of any ‘conventional subjects’, I veer towards the doors of poly education. An education, which I feel I will enjoy instead of being forced into. An education, which needs not as much tests and exams. An education that requires not only the brains and wits but the perseverance and exceptional high amount of interest. That’s an education for me.

I doubted whether I will even survive in the world of “hands-on” and projects. Considering the previous universe I came from; the “memorizing world”, where books and memorizing power (a little of understanding too… for application questions) outweigh almost everything else, I guess there’s a reason to worry.

Beauty in the eye of the beholder;