Let this timeless anxiety begone

That was the moment I will not soon forget. The moment I had to dash to the nearest toilet like a mad sprinter chasing for a gold medal. It was the third examination day when I was in a primary school, my second primordial year in Sultan Ismail School (SIS), Kemaman to be precised.

The wild butterflies in my stomach didn't seem to calm down a bit and mixed with a very potent dose of my mother's fish-head curry the previous night, my bowel was at nobody's mercy. Lo and behold, I spent countless hours squatting on the glorious hole while having a very rare chance to enjoy a quiet and solitary moment re-thinking of what I want to be when I grow up. Luckily I managed to finish the exams like anybody else in the school.

That ticklish-in-my-tummy ordeal kept hunting me until my varsity days. Tonnes of my precious adrenalin had been untimely flushed out from the body system, in my opinion, unnecessarily. Exams always bring me anxiety, no matter how well prepared I was.

Today is the last day my eldest son sit for his PMR. I hope and pray he is doing very well. I got the feeling he will do well. Even if he is not doing well I have no qualm about that because I know he has done his level best. I can empathy on his anxiety as I've walked the same path before. The thought of my son sitting on the exam gave me a familiar feeling I almost forgot many many moons ago.

There are so much pressure in life and everybody is talking about KPI or balance score card. For my son, his school score card is just a beginning to the many many more score cards he will have in this life. Some KPIs will be determined by others and some will be determined by us, based on what the objectives are. The only problem is that KP-I will always not be the same as KP-you. When the whole system is not sharing the same KP-I or doesn't has the agreeable KP-us, then the system will have the worst diarrhoea ever.

I hope when PMR is abolished in the near future, then the butterflies will not enter my tummy anymore. But with SBA in place and I think more workload in the pipeline for the teachers, then they should get more Pil Chi Kit Teck Aun well stocked up in their first aid box. Just in case, they will have the worst diarrhoea ever :)

Occasionally when the moon is full, I still dream of sitting in one of that dreadful exams...sweating!