It was the starting of a new school year again but for me also an ending. I was just waiting for the last few paperwork before I would leave for England. Out of years of routine, I still came to school. Somehow, once the pressure was off, it was a lot easier to get up early in the morning and I was even on time and smiling every day.
When I looked around the room, however, I found a few people were no longer there so I was not the only one with the thought of having a change:
- One girl had moved to Beijing, the capital. As the universities allocate a lot more spaces to the provinces or cities they are located than elsewhere and the best universities were all in Beijing and Shanghai, if one can go to school there, the competition was much easier. Peking University and Tsinghua University took twice the amounts of students from Beijing than from my province, despite my province had eight times the population of the capital. Of course, the hard part was to get the permit to live in Beijing. With everyone understood such permit, it was a very tall order for the parents indeed. But after such a move, without no doubt, both of her legs were in a top tier university now.
- One girl had moved out of the “Olympic Class” to a normal class within the school. Like me, she was from a never-heard-of-school beforehand and from her exam results, it seemed she struggled as much as I did. Being surrounded by people who were better was always a good learning opportunity and both of us were very excited on our first day in the most elite class of the most elite school in the city. But maybe it was too much of a good thing when one’s peers were not merely better in some area but significantly better in not one but every imaginable way. Anyway, I wished her all the best in a slower learning environment. Being in the fast lane is just not for everyone, otherwise, try replacing the drinking fountain with a fire hose. Just an idea.
- We also had a guy joining from a normal class. He was from an elite middle school but got unlucky in the Graduation Exam a year ago. Once entering the No.1 High School, he quickly recovered and always ranked first in the whole year outside of the “Olympic Class”. More importantly, he used his spare time to self-study so he was on the same schedule as the “Olympic Class”. I didn’t know how he managed to have any spare time, let alone taking on a challenge like that. I quickly went and shook his hands, a true warrior. Sorry I had taken your place in the past year, now here you go, you deserve it.
- There was also a guy from my middle school who had gone to study in Singapore. That was a very attractive option to most people given not only the tuition and any living expense would be paid for by Singapore government, the student would also be given a regular pocket money. It almost sounded too good to be true, being paid to study! No wonder I only heard about it after he had settled in Singapore, he was probably trying to protect everyone else in case it was a fraud.
Over the years, the one question I always wondered was that if as a drop-out, I managed to do ok by having the chance of going abroad, what would all my classmates have done shall they have the same chance? It was the first time I realized how lucky I was.