Introduction: Rationale

As I type this I think how odd it is if people should read this… my previous experiences with blogging has never landed me in a position where people actually read what I’m posting and so, presumably, this blog should attract little attention too. Yet I’m writing as though I’m addressing the general public…
I start this introduction with the intent of explaining what this blog is all about. Well I am a student from Singapore who has just finished her As recently but is keen to continue learning in the months before I enter U. This desire has been sparked off by a couple of things, namely:
My experience in the education system. Well after 15 years of education (since kindergarten) I’ve come to feel that somehow my education has been less than satisfactory. I feel that as a product of the education system I have been always subject to the demands of schoolwork and have mugged incessantly just to satisfy the requirements of each coming assignment, class test, common test, exams… And have neglected some areas which, if I didn’t have academic commitments, would have loved to know more about. So I made a promise to myself sometime during my prep for As that after I got out of the whole thing, that I was going to spend my next 8 months learning and catching up on whatever I wanted to know but withheld from myself for so long.
Actually that pretty much introduces the second and third reason. The second was that, somehow during my upper sec years I stumbled(?) upon ancient history, world history and philosophy, amongst other things, and suddenly I think it opened my eyes (cliched as it sounds) to the fact that learning can actually be enjoyable. Like for once I finally came across something that appealed to me in the sense that I wanted to know more. And I think that planted the seeds of this endeavour.
The third being that, ironically, the education system that made me swear and curse at times because of the heavy workload and lament that I didn’t have enough time to learn more, actually sparked off some of my interest in this project. I especially have to thank MOE for a sudden interest in math. I have never really liked math - started hating it when I struggled with it in secondary school - but towards the As when I was literally drowning in the flood of Fs for math some of the nicest encouragements came from different quarters that helped me build up a resolve to study ‘the (damned) subject’. And with tuition and practice and (would you believe it) practice GP essays in which I damned the discipline through and through I realised gradually that I didn’t appreciate math for the brilliance I didn’t understand but was beginning to get glimpses of. I was sorry I studied math by memorising formulas but not understanding what it was all about really and I felt that I insulted the discipline and the minds behind it. So I resolved to study it after As - I won’t return back to doing sums and sums, I still don’t like math very much - but will study the history of mathematics (on a surface level - I can’t go deeper with my limited grasp of the subject) : to find out why people over the ages have been drawn to math, how the discipline amazes and intrigues people and why it does, and why it’s so bloody important. Something that an arts student like me has never fully grasped. I mean I understand it has applications in scientific areas but I’d really like to know precisely where and how.
Sorry if I’m rambling… so this is really my rationale. I hope that I will really be disciplined enough in my pursuit of my 2nd learning journey. A part of me is afraid that the joys of being free for 8 months in December, and the tiredness that I will feel after working in the months following, will take its toll on this blog and on my learning journey.
So I hope to post regularly what I’ve learnt every day on this blog. And I am probably ambitious in hoping that this blog will be good enough such that people will actually read it - I’m targetting students, whom I really hope will benefit from learning whatever I’m learning now. I hope that at the end of it those who were like me once before, thinking that learning was solely for the purpose of getting a good job yadda yadda yadda will be inspired to learn and to discover just what an enriching experience it can be once it’s on something you’re really interested in.
One more thing before I go: I have to say that the frustration I felt about the education system is more my fault than MOE’s, although sometimes I am inclined to feel that there’s just too much homework. I don’t know about the others but I think that I actually am gifted enough to cope with the workload and perhaps if I had practised better time management and learnt to treat reading the papers daily, reading Time and the Economist and reading up on the disciplines that interest me as enriching my mind and helping in my studies by developing the analytical, time management, processing skills, amongst others, that my education works to achieve, rather than to treat it as taking time off my (precious) homework, I might actually have really enjoyed 15 years. Or at any rate enjoyed it more than I did. Perhaps.