Everyone’s going to do this…

Ah the obligatory HSC post. What would we do without you? I’ve yet to read any other HSC-related posts but I’m assuming it’ll be a rollercoaster of emotions of disappointments/happiness and the possible listing of subject marks if they are actually good enough to be brag-worthy. And by brag-worthy, I mean good enough by Selective school standards and not just good enough by your own standards because these marks are not meant to make you feel better, they’re meant to make others feel crap.

Overall, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my marks and I think my parents were too. The comments of ‘can’t you lower your standards down to 80 uai’ is still to close to home to ensure that I’m not going to refrain from inducing smug-like behabiour onto my parents. But I love them anyway – they have been the rock throughout the rocky times of my 13 years of education and because they have been more or less incredibly supportive of my academic ability, this has meant my achievements have been celebrated and my failures have been comforted, not punished.

I’m fairly confident that I can get the course I want judging from my marks and the UAI calculator (which has been gospel to so many desperate Asian students not wanting to disappoint their parents with a measley 97.8 uai) so that in itself has made my day. I am kind of hoping I can get the scholarship but because I’ve been shortlisted, this would require a lot of wishing that OTHER people do miserably and I don’t want my success to be built on the opportunities of other’s failures but rather my own achievements if that makes any sense at all.

Despite my results, I’m kind of dreading the whole ‘comparison of results’ behaviour which is going to be all I’m going to hear for the next two months. Not that I feel that my results are not up to par but just that after 13 years of petty competition, I really want it to stop. I don’t want comparisons or mock sympathy that has stemmed from a tone of ‘well I suppose if you’re happy with that mark that’s good enough but I’ll never set my standards that low’. Or even worse, the suppressed glee that results from a peer performing worse than you do. By all means feel proud of what you have achieved but not at the expense of others.

Furthermore, these conversations tend to act as a springboard for others to go on and on about how they didn’t study as much and how they really were so lucky that they were able to get such a mark and omg i can’t believe my good fortune and your mark was pretty good to but i cant believe i was able to get this mark…

However, before I am seen as bitter (or worse, hypocritical) I do want to genuinely congratulate those who were able to get what they want or better and share my sincere comfort to those unable to do so. Tomorrow, when we get our UAI results, it will be the last moments of our High School lives and I think it would be best if it was finished off with happiness or a renewed determination to improve on what we have as opposed to extreme disappointment.