... notable events : My atypical SPM and GCE "O" levels - the untold story (PRIVATE ALBUM)

I woke up early that morning. It was the day I was to take both my GCE "O" level English language exam and my Malaysian Sijil Pelajaran Menegah or SPM English language Exam and as luck would have it, they were both scheduled for 8:30am on the same morning at exam centers across an international border.

It was a period of transitions in my life. It was my final year in Secondary School, sitting for the all important SPM, and it was also the year I moved from the comfortable world of my large dog-roamed garden and my large bedroom with a self drawn worldmap wall mural overlooking my driveway with a basketball hoop, to the tiny pigeon-holed living existence of the Singapore housing scene.

Father had moved down to work in Singapore the year before. The rest of the family had stayed put in Malaysia in order for me to finish my final secondary school year. Things were being readied for the family to join him at the end of the year, after my all important SPM examinations.

It was to have been a simple affair. Finish my secondary schooling, take my exams at the end of the year while mother and sister packed, then move down to Singapore during the New Year holiday period, just in time to apply for and get into a Junior College in Singapore for my GCE "A" levels. How complicated could it get?

Well.

As stupidity would have it, I had not had the foresight to take the GCE "O" level English 1119 in order to qualify to enter a Junior College in Singapore. The English 1119 exam, the equivalent to the English 1120 of the Singapore schooling system, was administered by a private college in Kuala Lumpur and was held only once a year and me in all my wisdom, missed it by a week. What this meant was that without passing GCE "O" level English, I would not qualify for a Junior College slot the follow year. Boy, was father angry, giving me an earful even from 370km away.

The simple plan suddenly because infinitely complicated.

Two weeks before my scheduled exam, I disappeared. After 5 years of schooling at my old school, I left it at the very cusp of taking the concluding SPM exams. A quick session with my Form teacher and Headmaster at my old school, and I was off, school leaving certificate in hand. The plan was now to get the English 1120 done and the only place to do this was in Singapore.

What happened next was a whirlwind of activity that until today, I still have trouble believing that I actually went through it all.

It was a grand adventure. In order to take the GCE "O" level English, I had to be in Singapore, but I still had to take my SPM exams. To achieve this, I started attending school at one of the top schools in Johor Bahru, traveling every morning by bus number 170 from father's rented house in Bukit Merah, wearing my old school uniform complete with my old school badge. For two weeks, passport in my pocket, I went to this school, alone, stared at, and pretty much ignored while I waited for my SPM exams to begin. My official SPM exam center remained in Kuala Lumpur but I would physically take the exam instead, in Johor Bahru. The unfamiliar surroundings was initially hard on me and I spent a lot of time just finding out where the toilets, classes, and science labs were. I was helped by an Indian boy who had lived in Kuala Lumpur before, having coming south to live in Johor only the year before. So with me in tow, he showed me the ropes, even having me over at his home for his mom's very nice Indian curries for lunch.

Meanwhile, corresponding activities in Singapore to correct my missing the 1119 exam saw me take my initial Sec 4 English exam as a "Convent girl" of a local Convent Girl's school in Singapore. Again, I was alone, stared at, and pretty much ignored, the only male in the whole school, with my own private exam room. But pass it I did, and all without even needing to wear a convent girl's uniform complete with knee high socks. With my exam result in hand, an application was made to the Singapore exam board to take the GCE "O" level English exam.

The time soon came for the exams. The exam schedules were matched and things were looking up. Studying in my little HDB room, books scattered all over the floor, listening to Zoo 101.3 the Batam hit station and sleeping on the floor on a thin foam mattress, I got ready for my academic trials.

Back to Johor Bahru I went, every morning riding the bus through immigration and customs to continue familiarising myself and generally sitting at the canteen to wait for the exams to begin. But of course, when it rains, it pours. The gods they conspired against me. From Athena in the far west to Shen Nong in the far east, they didn't like my life to be this smooth. The monsoon rains fell heavily that year and SPM exam centers on the east coast states of Malaysia were flooded. ALL SPM exams were pushed back by at least a week or two to allow for flood waters to subside.

Well.

Of course, NOW my new exam schedule had my SPM English paper scheduled at the same time and same day as my GCE "O" level English paper. One was in Johor Bahru, the other, 20km away in Singapore. How can I not love my life? I should have bought a lottery ticket that day. Would probably have won the top prize and negated the need to ever take exams ever again but naturally, even this was denied me since I didn't buy one.

So, with that looming crisis weighing heavily on my mind, I bussed to Johor Bahru as usual one fine morning, to take my first SPM paper.  It was a laboratory practical.  After getting a little mixed up, I finally found the right lab just in time and sat down as the exam began.  My desk was the only one with a pink coloured piece of paper pasted on the right hand corner.  Everyone else had white coloured pieces of paper stuck on their desks.  On theirs was their names and their school exam center number, on mine was my name and my old school's exam center number.

A couple of chemical titrations, half a dozen test-tubes and a lot of unfamiliar lab equipment later, my first exam was finally over.  My test paper was personally collected by the examiner and slotted into an individual envelope to be couriered back to my old school.  This was to be the modus operandi for all my exams here in Johor Bahru.  I would sit alone, at a desk with a pink coloured paper in a sea of desks with white coloured paper, and my finished exam paper would be collected personally by the examiner and in front of me, it would be slotted into an enveloped and sealed for courier.  Pretty neat, I remember thinking at the time.

Ok, pretty neat but what of my English paper?  There were many things I had learnt in school but being in two places at the same time simply wasn't one of them, even if they were both English language papers.

I woke up early that morning.  It was the day I was to take both my GCE "O" level English language exam and my Malaysian Sijil Pelajaran Menegah or SPM English language Exam and if luck would have it, they were both scheduled for 8:30am on the same morning at exam centers across an international border.

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I didn't get full distinctions for my SPM and make top student in the whole of Malaysia that year, I blame it on my unusual circumstances and the stress that I endured.  Otherwise by my reckoning, I would have been destined to break the all time record for decades to come for excellence in SPM results and honoured as the best the entire Malaysian schooling system had ever produced, but alas that was not to be, and we shall never know what may have been.

My friends back at my old school never knew what happened to me.  My desk with its pink coloured paper sat empty at the school exam hall while everyone else filled their desks and took their exams around it.  I can imagine the quizzed half panicked looks on some friend's faces when I never showed up for not one, but every single exam paper.  Friends must have wondered if I had simply decided to drop out of school, foregoing the SPM to perhaps follow the noodle stall uncle in his early morning rounds with his pushcart.  Over the years, I've never told them the full story, only that I DID take my SPM (thats for you guys who are reading this and STILL don't believe me), only not at my old school but in Johor Bahru.  A few weeks later, I was back at my old school for the last time, and when I finally left it again, I had my school leaving certificate with me as I headed down to Singapore for the next stage of my life.

I was welcomed into a Junior College of my choice in Singapore.  Because of the circumstances surrounding this unusual chain of events, I have not dared tell this story.  I had not breathed a word of this for years, with only my family knowing the full story, until now, many, many, many years later when most of the dust would have settled, the partial story of this is told.  Perhaps, when the grey finally not only outnumber but overwhelm the black on my head, I will tell the full story of this very colourful period in my life.