Plight of the Average S'porean Guy...

[TopSage]

As a Singaporean, I enter one of the most competitive education system in the world. Not that I'm stupid, I'm juist average. Average struggling to be better. Granted, the smartest ones got ahead took the places in the best secondary school leaving me to school in the less ideal environment of a neighborhood school. I had to struggle in a bad environment where students have no dream no ambition and not infrequent to see them join gangs. Who can blame them? They already believe their lives will amount to nothing. Against the odds I struggle, teachers who give up on the students given the lousy environment, and surrounded by students who already gave up on themselves. Claw my way to JC, competition gets tough as the students from better secondary school have better background and discipline. Work hard. Finish "A" levels. Drafted in army - told to die for country.

Results come out. Okay average results. Hopes raised for a better future. Still serving my country, I applied for a place in the uni. Rejected by all of them. Went to appeal in my No. 4, saw the campuses filled by foreigners from China, Vietnam and India. I believe they are probably smarter than me being sourced from the top 0.1% of the China & Indian population of 1.5 billion combined. How can I a neighborhood boy compete for places with these top brains from foreign lands. I'm just an ordinary boy trying his best. Why is this chance for a better life taken from me?

ORD from, army, those friends with poorer results than me but richer parents all went to Australia or Canada to study. They say cannot survive without degree in Singapore. So I don't have degree, still must survive. Look for job, job pay pittance. Sometimes work under foreigner. Hop around for a while found out what the word 'survive' means. Survive means just keep yourself alive ....but nobody can stay alive without hope for better days ahead. To buy some hope, I indulge in 4D everyweek end. That is the best hope for me.

In the end, I realise that is the life of a typical Singaporeans. You see those long queues at Singapore Pools - they exist because of the simple fact that a person can't live without hope and he will grab any he can find ...even if it is false hope.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that the system is particular harsh on me. It is the same for all average Singaporeans born in poor families. I'm not allowing these challenges and obstacles they artificially put in my path to crush me. I'll press on but I won't forget those who made life tough for me and many others.

Singapore will always be my home and I'll not let those who are harsh to me force me out of my home. I'll fight to reclaim my future and have my freedom:

Cry Freedom Singapore
Five stars arise, our thoughts idealised
A nation is born, our allegiance sworn
Born to a home to call my own
That is all I've known, where I've grown
Out of the poverty, I came the farthest
My future was bright till they shut the light
Betray us locals and deepen our plight
Our future's bleak, yet we cannot speak
So I end up struggling, fighting to eat
The less I have, the bolder I get
With my hands, I wave our flag
Democracy, Equality and Justice
Ideals I will die to protect...

 

[hockbeng]

I believe they are probably smarter than me being sourced from the top 0.1% of the China & Indian population of 1.5 billion combined. How can I a neighborhood boy compete for places with these top brains from foreign lands. I'm just an ordinary boy trying his best. Why is this chance for a better life taken from me?

THEY MAY BE THE BRIGHTEST FROM CHINA/INDIA ....WHATEVER. THAT DOESNT MEAN SPORE OWES THEM A LIVING. THE PRIMARY JOB OF THE GOV AND MOE IS TO EDUCATE SPOREANS TO THE BEST OF THEIR ABILITY. IT IS NOT OUR JOB AS TAX PAYERS TO EDUCATE THE POOR BUT SMART IN THE WHOLE WORLD.

 

[cooleo]

>>To buy some hope, I indulge in 4D everyweek end. That is the best hope for me. <<

Sorry to burst your bubble. In the long run, buying 4D is a deadend. You are better off saving up, dumping one lump sum into an NYSE stock.

Alternatively, you can try to be like Leongsam and peddle online sex ad banners.

 

[Char_Azn]

I'm an average Singaporean, I didn't even manage to "claw" my way into JC, I got into Poly in a course that I didn't even liked coz my results were not good enough for the one that I chose. I ended up dropping out of Poly midway and went into the Army, Mono-Intake coz no cert, stuck in a Hokkien peng unit. I didn't come from a very rich family. My parents have enough money to pay for one of us for overseas studies but since my younger bro is the more scholarly one, we decided if one of us have to go he should be the one. So like most of my peers in the army I had to start working once I ORD and got stuck in a shitty pay job. I don't mind telling you guys that my first pay was 1.2K a month when I first started work.

I supported myself through private local institutions. Spending all my extra money on my school fees. 6 yrs later I graduated with a degree, upgrading my job and pay along the way as I worked my way up from a Diploma, higher diploma, degree, I changed job accordingly getting higher pay as I go along, picking up industry skills along the way and spending whatever I could on industry certifications.

Fast forward 10 years later, I am now in a job that puts me in charge of many countries, have the chance to travel the world for work. Earn enough to take a month off every year to go anywhere in the world to eat wind

As far as my experience goes, upgrade opportunities are everywhere and job opportunities are aplenty. It's about whether or not you are willing to invest in your own life. I hear pple complaining about their predicament all their lives but not a lot of pple actually go about trying to do something. I work in the IT industry and my industry was one of the first to see a huge influx of FTs way back in 2000 when I started working. I had to compete with them when I had little to no qualifications. I could just as easily have found a cushy low paying job doing little but getting a stable pay all my life. Yet despite the odds, I decided to invest in myself, to improve the quality of my life.

This is why I usually have very low tolerence for pple complaining about the government, complaining about FTs yet never go out and do something about it. Ultimately it's up to yourself whether or not you want to see an improvement in your life. No government in the world can do anything about it if you don't. Even with all the FT gone it will not make a difference. It is up to you whether or not you want to be average all your life or do somethign to make a difference.

 

[patrickv]

i have zero tolerance for pap dogs. no need talk grandmother story. a dog is a dog is a dog.

 

[cass888]

i have zero tolerance for pap dogs. no need talk grandmother story. a dog is a dog is a dog.

The real dogs are the DOGs of the SDP, followers of the dog himself the MONGREL who bit his masters' hands LOUDHAILER chee soon juan.

 

[nayr69sg]

Wah Topsage go from CNA market talk to Sammyboy????

I had plans to write a book titled "Fight Flight or Plight : The Singaporean Story".

Well now that I have migrated at least i have taken the first step to that goal.

 

[TopSage]

Wah Topsage go from CNA market talk to Sammyboy????

I had plans to write a book titled "Fight Flight or Plight : The Singaporean Story".

Well now that I have migrated at least i have taken the first step to that goal.

Where did you migrate to and for how long? Don't mind me asking. How's life there?