plans and maps

it would have seem so easy. just follow the path laid out in front of me and everything will be planned for. dont worry about anything, everything's taken care of. well, to a certain extent that is.

and thats what the system here in singapore sounds like. everything, from pre-school to working life, has been laid out like a road map for everyone. you go to pre-school in a government-ran nursery, advance to primary school where you get pricked and poked mentally like a lab rat and then streamed into one of several paths of education depending on your ability to grasp the concept of local 'education'. after that, you graduate to secondary school, where after a few years you get streamed again. its only after secondary school where you appear to have a choice of your future. but that was during my time. now, the alternate route seems more and more becoming of another route plan. tertiary education further confines the imaginations and creativity of the 'lab rat' until you go onto university. you mug through the modules and graduate with a newly minted degree, where you prepare to face the working world. but then again, how prepared can you be for the real world? the education you'd recieved didnt teach you of what the real world would be like. algebras and science equations wont save you from greedy people who seek to flog you for all your worth before discarding your used carcass.

so now, are we all really living out our lives, or just drifting through according to what has already been planned out for us?