It was the long awaited end of year school holidays again. I chucked my school books aside the moment I arrived home, bidding them farewell till the next year and rubbed my hands together in glee. Six weeks without having to worry about whether I would wake up on time for school and the test the very next day. Six weeks to catch up on my reading and internet chatting. Six weeks without homework... correction, six weeks with a stack of homework. That put a damper on my holiday mood. School holidays? What school holidays? Holidays were meant for us to relax, not to be sitting in front of our computer typing out meaningless essays and doing past year papers when our hearts yearned to go out and catch up on activities which we have all been itching to catch up on ever since the year end examinations kicked in! This was totally unfair...
After a few weeks of debating the necessity of homework over the school holidays, it came to my outraged mind that whether I liked it or not, the homework was here to stay and be done. With a resigned heart, I flipped open my organiser to remind myself of the work which was due the next year and struggled to read my untidy scrawl.
"Commonwealth essay. 'Have you ever told or kept a secret? What happened and what were the consequences?'"
We get assigned that every year, the only constant all the while being the changing of the topics. Twirling my pencil in my left hand, I contemplated the topic. This essay topic had a great loophole. The question was whether we had ever told or kept a secret. If i devote an entire essay to telling the reader how well I have kept a secret, I would have divulged the secret, which would mean that I was answering the first part: of telling the secret. Then, I would be unable to answer the last two parts of the essay: what happened and what were the consequences, because I have absolutely no idea what would happen in the future.
I threw my pencil down in frustration, breaking the point in the process. Such nit-picking over a topic would get me nowhere. I also knew perfectly well that I cannot write an essay based on nothing: I needed inspiration. And I cannot go looking for inspiration; inspiration would have to come and find me. I crossed my fingers and prayed that inspiration would come knocking at my door some time before the end of the holidays as I decided to leave my English homework aside for the time being.
The remainder of homework was the expected fare: past year practice papers for the sciences and math, the usual reading for literature in English, collation of some sort for English, practice sheets for Music and the mandatory reading of a Chinese classic, a Dream of Red Mansions. For the fourth time in my secondary school life, I was sorely tempted to look for the English translation of the book, in lieu of my understanding of the Chinese language not being as strong as the English language. Deciding that I would eventually finish all these before 1st January 2003, I shoved all the papers related to homework under a pile of work which I had-completed-but-never-submitted,-earning-the-wrath-of-teachers-this-year and proceeded to pick up the novel I had checked out of the library a few days earlier.
The days rushed by as I learnt how to play a mean game of mahjong, baked a few batches of cookies, chatted on the Internet into the wee hours of the morning, prepared for a grade examination of the dizi (chinese flute), curled up and enjoyed a number of books while listening to music, met up with my friends from primary school, and left for a trip to Korea and back amid going back to school for co-curricular activities twice a week. All too soon, Christmas rushed past and on Boxing Day, I was forced to acknowledge the little nagging voice at the back of my head reminding me that I had a pile of homework left undone, with less than a week to finish them. I grudgingly admitted that I had my fair share of fun for the holidays and that it was time to hit the books again. So, I dug out my stack of homework.
Problem now was, I had absolutely no idea where to begin. All that I had learnt in the year had leaked out like oil from a rusty old oil tanker. To my horror, it dawned on me that I would have to do a spot of revision before I could tackle the assigned homework, which would take up some time. However, this little time was extremely precious when I did not have many minutes to spare. Indeed, the best way out of the sticky situation, or so it seemed, was, as Mark Antony said so in Julius Caesar Act 3 scene 2, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your homework." Oops, wrong line.
After some struggling and threatening, I had finally forced Inspiration to pay me a visit. With nothing left besides my English writing folder to be completed on this 31st December 2002, I was inspired to write about the hectic last days of my holidays, and compelled to supply the events leading up to it.
This is the story of my story. Thank you.
Miraculously, I wasn't hauled up in front of the class to explain away this miserable excuse of an essay. With all the arrows aimed at the teachers too! WHEE~
