I'm sitting on my bed, trying my best to consolidate my thoughts to produce something someone deemed as 'reader-friendly' 'interactive' and of high level of 'audience awareness'. Alright the 'high level' was self-perceived though...
I have never been to the ParentTeenCentre despite having spent more than 15 months in this very school. By the way it's located right under the staff room, if some of you might not have noticed till now. Yes Mao I'm talking explicitly about you here. Those suffering the same fate as me were present, and all seated (not very) comfortably around a trapezium-looking table made up of three triangular tables adjacently joined together. Exercise your imagination skills to figure how they looked like. So it was like a mini conference, attended by eleven people - ten of which looked more like victims while the last remaining one was the commander - dictating everything we did - which muscle to move, which to not move, and to a certain extent, our breathing rate!
It was much of a monologue actually. Most of the time the commander was giving orders and warnings of our bleak tomorrows should we not start our preparation NOW. All we could do was to nod in agreement (I mean, dare you not agree to the commander?). As for me, I did what I do best - STONE. Most of the time I was staring at her but exactly how much attention I was paying remains a question.
"And now you'll meet Mrs X, the counsellor, and arrange a conselling session with her, alright? It's a compulsory couselling session." said the Commander.
Counselling?! Can you just tell me how on earth will my grades soar from an S to an A just by talking about things so unrelated to my studies? Look here, I'm not discreditting any benefits one can get from conselling sessions. If you are troubled, and see no light to light up your path, and that you just keep sinking into the core of this vortex spinning up and suffocating you, it might work well as a breather by spilling your problems to someone else. After all, a burden shared is a burden halved, that's what people say. That's two thumbs up for a consellor who is able to help a person through turbulent times even. Their empathy with us is appreciated and their effort put in understanding what and how we think is even more commendable.
But that doesn't provide a reason for making it COMPULSORY for us. Their 'rationale' was that we should talk to someone about how we feel after getting horrible results so that those negative thoughts will be overcome by a most positive outlook, which in their definitions definitely mean START MUGGING 100% FULL TIME. If you ask me, the hidden reason for them to try to get into our minds is to eradicate those things that stand in our way in getting the A's and to seal in a whole plasticine worth of 'Drive' and more 'Drive' so that we will be 'driven', in full force, to getting phenomenal results that mean miracles.
I'll tell you why I'm against the idea. For one, I am not as they thought, 'troubled and couldn't get away from the horrors from those terrible results'. Neither am I 'pessimistic at the outlook of my studies' and 'unclear of where I'm currently standing because the future before my eyes is bleak'. Even more not 'thinking of giving up on everything and face the worst case scenario'. While it's undeniable that some of us might have such pessimistic thoughts once in a while when things get too tight on our chests, there are more of us who possess the intellect and rational mind to take every obstacle coming the adult way.
Moreover, all those 'problems' that they want us to share are, I would say, virtually non-existant anymore. To tell you we felt nothing about the gruesome result slip coming into picture and still lived our lives happily every after is a LIE. Who said we did not sulk over the revelation of the TRUTH? We did. But we are no kids in this matter. Kids DO cry when they fall down, but after some tears shed, they got up on their own two chubby little feet, and what do they do? They start walking again! What makes you think we aren't comparable to even the youngest of children?
Yes, we fell. We fell hard, and it hurt. Yes, we got so upset and we cried. But that was eons ago. We have already bandaged the wound, and are standing up to prepare for another marathon. Seriously I do not think this is the time to remind us of the agony all of us went through when we fell, by asking us to recount the entire story of us falling flat on the ground.
I'm not trying to run away from anything by denying visits to the counsellor. What I'm saying is, I think I've done well in managing my thoughts and emotions, so would you please, just let me have things done my way, since there's nothing wrong with me anyway.
At this juncture, the last thing I'd ever want, is to be forced to scrape that newly-formed membrane and expose the wound that's silently healing beneath.
