Crescent, the O's, and pride

At around this date last year, I was teaching at my alma mater with Geri and Rachel Louis, calculating Sec 4s' 'O' Level scores and completing that Powerpoint presentation to be shown in the hall before the release of results, to make sure everything was right. It wasn't that significant to us because we didn't know many of the students from that batch, but it was still fun to know that we were looking at these girls' results while they were probably freaking out in panic somewhere.

Didn't go back this year, but I sure miss that nerve-wrecking, nail-biting excitement. Every year, the news stations come down, and we know we're tops again. (Together with St. Nick's. I have nothing against St. Nick's. The friends I have from there are absolutely amazing.)

Every year, they talk about our average score of 9-point-something and how we're a Band 1 school yet again, and every year we cheer and laugh and for a moment, we forget our own nervousness, and just bask in our pride for the school.

I guess I'll miss that, whether it's for the O's or A's. Sitting in the hall hearing your friends' names being called on stage and just feeling so proud of them. That crazy excitement. Insane tension. Just a tsunami of all the emotions in the world in one auditorium.

This year, the Straits Times posted three pictures of Crescentians crying upon the release of their results, with the caption " Disappointment and tears flowed with the release of 'O' Level results at Crescent Girls Secondary". (Yeah, for the record, it's Crescent Girls' School!) It sparked a huge rage among Crescentians, present and past, and they started ranting on Twitter, Facebook etc, because people felt it was an invasion of the privacy of those whose crying photos were posted without their permission, and it portrayed us in a pretty negative light. I mean, one happy photo and one sad photo, fine. But three sad photos? And apparently the other schools' photos had everyone smiling and all.

So anyway, it sparked an outrage on social media, and apparently someone emailed a teacher, who called the Straits Times, who took the photos down and replaced them with happy ones (The happy ones are so nice; why didn't they use them in the first place?), and corrected the name of our school.

In response, people who weren't from Crescent tweeted things like "Looks like the girls from @CrescentSoFly showcased the power of social media & made @STcom change their photos. Not bad. #OLevelResults" and "I'm not from @CrescentSoFly but I find it cool that those girls were so united and civilised even when fighting for themselves. #Impressed".

Yup. I didn't get to witness all this first-hand because yesterday was an insanely hectic day at the office. Left the workplace at 11pm. Credits to this junior who blogged about the entire thing!

But yeah. I'm just really proud of this school, and so glad to be able to call it my own. I'm proud of the unity and how we all stick up for one another. How the school has brought us up, how we sit like guys and change in class, how we team up. I remember when I was in Sec 4, the Council tried to introduce a new cheer to replace our old one ('Give me a C!'). My class and those around me decided that it was a stupid idea, and refused to cheer to show our disapproval. We never heard the new cheer again, and the C-R-E-S-C-E-N-T cheer stayed.

I'm proud of how the school brings us up to be gracious, yet persistent, and never to settle for anything less than the best of ourselves. I'm proud of the culture of love and selflessness. I've had friends who gave up their lunch breaks just to be with me when I was down, even if I wasn't close to them. I'm proud of our integrity, and the nurturing love. Secondary school is a time where we all fall, but we knew we were all falling together, and so we shared that understanding and helped one another get through our own tough times. I'm proud of my Crescentian friends, who have gone on to pursue bright paths, but who have all remained big-hearted, gracious and sincere.