Blank Doll.

Damn the Straits Times. This is deliberate baiting, I tell you.

Look, obviously, I'm going to roll my eyes at the pathetically desperate letter written by some girl's mother who was so deluded as to think her daughter's absymal grades were "above average". Sweetheart, average is 2 As and even then, just merely. I wouldn't even dare tell people my grades since it's only 3As.

Besides, it's simply absurd that anyone could be so contradictory in their lament. You argue that NUS isn't being meritocratic because it's not accepting your daughter based on her grades then argue also that NUS should accept your daughter because she's a sportswoman. Somebody else then chimes in that PW shouldn't be used as you can't possibly hope that something so subjective as PW (check out the arts curriculum darling) should be assessed and adults 18 years of age wouldn't take PW seriously enough anyway. Sweetling, if you couldn't be arsed to do well for something as easy as PW then you probably aren't good enough for the working world, are you? You have a teacher and bloody friends to do a project, not a slimy boss and backstabbing colleagues for crying out loud.

Anyway, for an institution that so unabashedly claims itself to be one of the top centres of academic learning, NUS shouldn't have to settle on the merely good. Be like France, be like Japan or China, be unashamedly meritocratic and elitist. The real problem, the one we Singaporeans do not see, is that the A levels no longer function as a reliable basis of academic worth. It's too easy. You get As too easily. People in Britain are worried. We aren't. We ought to be.

End of rant. Feel free to flame my tagboard now. I practically dare you to.

Sometimes when I think of you, I wish I was stronger, older, somehow more of the man you need, if only so I could protect this innocence that you fight so hard to cling onto. Instead, I keep silent, laugh and play the clown for you.

C'est tout.