Dropping Literature

With the posts of the past two days, I seemed to have found my way into a schooling theme. It's been rather enjoyable reminiscing the good old days, so I shall continue with it for a while more...


Whilst I can handle my Maths, my English Literature downright sucked. It was one of my two chosen humanities subjects during Sec. 3 and 4, the other being History. It is not that I disliked Literature. I rather enjoyed it, much more than History in fact. It's just that my essays just didn't seem to come out right. Which also meant that my History essays sucked as well.

So after two sets of examinations in Sec. 3, where I managed to pass both subjects by the skin of my teeth, I decided I've reached another crossroads. I had to do something to get out of my humanities rut. Fast.

I had learnt my lesson from my English composition debacle to know that results, and only results, count in this system (sounds a little like a football manager, hey). I had to play along. If I had gone on pure interest, I would have stuck by Literature. If I had been prudent, I would have stuck by both. But I was a risk-taker and truth be told, I wanted results (congrats, Singapore education system). Good results were easier to squeeze out of History than Literature, so I decided upon dropping Literature and spending that freed-up time on History.

Making that decision wasn't easy, for I was also pretty fond of my Literature teacher (also our class form teacher and English teacher). I couldn't bear to see her straight in the eyes when I told her about my decision. Telling my parents were way easier!

A short aside. Remember those recent reports about fewer and fewer students taking Literature in upper secondary? Well, I'm one of those dubious early pioneers (1990).

Anyway, so I stopped attending Literature classes at the end of Sec. 3. I remember we had done the text "Animal Farm" for most of that year and was just getting into the Shakespeare play "Romeo and Juliet" when I made that decision. So until today, I know the story of Romeo and Juliet rather well, but only up to the part where Mercutio got killed.

Actually, I never really stopped attending Literature classes altogether. There were three of us who dropped it. Initially, the three of us would go to the library to do other work during Literature lessons. After a while, we just stayed back. Sometimes to do other homework, sometimes to listen to the Literature class! Our form teacher, Mrs. Ong (real surname, since I'm not on my own blog and not bound by my own rules :P) was just that popular amongst us. Of course, plain listening was more enjoyable for me than having to dead-memorise the significance of every alternate line.

I still managed to make my own little contribution to the world of literature though. In my Sec. 4 year, my school put up a play of "Animal Farm" at the Drama Centre (the old one). I didn't take part as an actor though. I was a sound effects man, together with another classmate. We did sound effects like thunder (huge aluminium metal sheet), milking sounds (supersoaker into empty metal pail with microphone next to pail; This was the crowd favourite!), whips and gun shots ("igniting" small "bullets" that were actually for those revolver keychains). It was raucous fun!

Going back to the main story, my plan did work. I did find myself with more time to straighten out my History. In fact, after the mid-year Chinese 'O's, I had even more time on my hands. And I did improve my History grades.

Once I stepped into JC, it was sayonara to the humanities.

It's strange that my prolific reading and strong preference for WWII aviation memoirs only began AFTER I was done with the humanities in school.