Basket.

Life is full of paradoxes. You meet them everywhere, lurking in some dark corner of the TS, waiting just to pounce and strike you with that sense of wonder, bewilderment and final, excruciating realisation.

If only things were that beautiful.

The truth is, life itself is a bloody paradox. No, wait, a paradox actually makes sense at the end of the day. Life doesn't. It is so senseless. You are born, out of no choice of yours, into a place which again you have no control over, to grow up in a foreign, so to speak, land which you may not even like. And this land may have a hellish education system and an extremely competitive, materialistic society where there nominally are rules, laws and methods, but which in fact is the epitome of social Darwinism and lives by the one statement: "Survival of the fittest".

Of course, I did not just describe Singapore. Of course, I am also well-known for cutting sarcasm.

So, life. Life in Singapore, life as we have known it for the past seventeen years. A life where failure is an option only on the policy papers of nameless, faceless bureaucrats of the Ministry of Education. A life where you are cut absolutely no slack by no one from the moment you step into THE CLASSROOM as a bright-eyed, innocent seven-year-old. A life where one's ability is judged by his or her ability to perform well in a set number of questions in a set period of time held in a set place on a set date in order to achieve the set targets for admission into a set number of so-called "good" schools. A LIFE WHERE YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE BLOODY COMPLETE FREEDOM OF CHOICE AS TO WHAT YOU WANT TO STUDY IN SCHOOL FOR THE FIRST TWELVE YEARS OF YOUR EXISTENCE.

"Go and get this done. Hand it up by tommorrow."
"If you don't pass... I mean, don't get absolute A++++++ for this test..."
"I am so disappointed in you."

How familiar are the above to our ears? The basic rules of the game is, study hard, go to good schools, do well there with 4 As and 2 (fine, 3 if you so wish) S Paper distinctions, go to a prestigious university on PSC scholarship, come back, get a comfortable job in the civil service and then work until you die. Those who are unable to achieve the above, you failures, utter disappointments, wastes of sperm, shall end up driving those who can around in taxis, cleaning up after them in restaurants or sweeping the pavement splattered with the dirty water their gleaming new foreign cars splash up on rainy days. Fail an exam? You are a failure for life. No second chances. Society will grant you none. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Simple to understand, simple to follow.

Please let such a thing as reincarnation not exist. I do not wish to live again.