Basket.

More on the GEP issue... I wrote this in to TODAY later last night. Doubt they will publish it though.

I refer to the letter from Ms Michelle Qiu, which in turn was written with reference to your article "A gifted student? Sorry to hear that" (Nov 19-20).

Ms Qiu is obviously a person of great intelligence and fully deserving of her place in our nation's premier academic programme. This is certainly borne out by the fact that she did not find the GEP "curriculum pressure-packed". She is definitely among our nation's brightest prospects, and will I am sure hugely further the prosperous development of our great country.

However, her article does contain several flaws I wish to point out.

I quote, "You see, GEPers (as we call ourselves) are more mature than most mainstreamers, the result of being the the GEP. The mainstreamers think we are snobbish - when they stereotype us, they are being immature."

With reference to the above paragraph, she is undoubtedly right in asserting that the so-called "mainstreamers" (said, I note, like "peasants", or "serfs") are "immature" when they stereotype GEP students. However, does she not realise she is stereotyping GEP students, as being more "mature", herself? And how can she fail to realise that she is actually being snobbish, a charge she denies in the same paragraph, when she refers to non-GEP students as "immature"?

This is also not the only time she conducts such an oversight. Later in her otherwise excellent letter, she goes, "We were all mainstream students before the GEP. Most of us found it boring in mainstream classes, as we knew most of the curriculum and it was easy to get good grades. But when faced with someone at our own level, we step up our efforts to compete."

There can be no better way of saying "I am smarter than you." She can be proud of her own sparkling intelligence, but there is absolutely no need to put down the "mainstreamers" in such a manner. I believe that paragraph constituted being "snobbish".

And lastly, she crowns her magnificent work of art with, "Would we be able to do that in the mainstream, where everyone follows the trends or the person who is the 'coolest', and everybody starts gossiping if anyone talks to someone of the opposite sex?" - which is stereoptyping the "mainstreamers"! Can Ms Qiu not see the irony of this concluding paragraph?

By her previous impeccable logic, she is being "immature" because she is stereotyping here. I am mystified as to how such a savant as Ms Qiu can manage to overlook so many flaws in her letter, flaws which even I, a lowly Express stream student in my school days, was able to catch? Perhaps she could reply to my comments and dazzle me once more with the brilliance of her mind?