Thursday,
19 June 2008.

10.03 AM

At 5.30 PM, I'm supposed to go to the Police Headquarters in
Bedok.
I am about to be charged with 'Criminal Intimidation'.
It's a serious charge,
and I could be put away for years.
Not sure if I'll be caned as well (it's more painful than kinky).


Got your attention?
Good. Now shut up.

How did it come to this?

In 2005, after working a short while,
I joined the Institute Of Technical Education (Yishun).
The course I took is Communications Technology.
Biggest mistake of my life.

Let's see now,
there were quite a number of 'mature'
students in my batch.
Seeing how we had to support ourselves,
most of us worked part-time and as a result,
missed a lot of lessons.

However, despite
the fact that my attendance was bad,
I still kept getting A's and B's
for the first 2 terms.
The reason?
I actually bothered to study.

Now this pissed off the
Course Manager greatly.
So much so that
when I was in her office,
she told me that
there's no possible way
for someone who skips classes
as much as I do,
to get good grades.
At least, not as good as those who attended regularly.

I didn't think much of it at the time.

Why did I have to work?
Because it was so damn hard to get
financial assistance.
All that talk about the school
helping out students so that
they won't have to work
is... rubbish.

I'm a Pakistani Singaporean.
What that means is that I
do not get any subsidies.
School fee... books...
nothing.

But I digress.

So yeah, I'd been getting
A's and B's for the first 2 terms.

For the 3rd term,
I still did pretty good,
except for one module.

C Programming.
I got a C for this one.
What was that?
Why didn't I study for this module?

Oh hey guess what?
It was an elective module.
That's right.
Elective.

So of course, a lot
of students skipped C Programming lessons.

Too bad for us (myself especially),
they made it a non-elective
when the term was just about to end.
The Head of Electronics would
later lie about this happening to the Director Of Student
Affairs (I can't remember the exact title,
but she handles, well, student affairs)
one year later.

Because it occurred suddenly,
most of us were unable to study for it in time.
And yet, I still managed to get a C.

Overall, my GPA was still above
3.5, the maximum being 4.0

You need at least a 3.5 to
get into a polytechnic in Singapore...
to get a diploma.

Yep. The education system blows.

When the 4th and final term came,
I was prepared.

I attended the so-called
'elective' modules.

But I still got C's for 2
'electives'.

Web Programming and Structured Cabling (they called it 'Project').

Now for Web Programming,
I wasn't able to complete
one project.

Getting a C for it seemed
pretty unreasonable,
but I accepted it.

Now for Structured Cabling.

This was a module which
was held once every 2 weeks,
and only required you
to complete projects,
and hand them in on time.
No exam.

Throughout the term,
we had mini-projects to do,
and one major project near the end of the term.

Now keep in mind
that for the core modules
which had exams,
I had got A's and B's.

When I found out that I had got a C
for Structured Cabling,
I knew that the lecturer had made a mistake.

Because of this, my GPA had been
reduced to 3.355

After 2 years
of hard work and having used up
all my savings for the course,
I wasn't going to just accept it.

Nonetheless, I wrote to the school,
and all I sought was a reasonable explanation.

All my projects were handed in on time.

A meeting was held
which included myself, the Head of Electronics,
the Course Manager, and the lecturer himself.
This was held well before the appeal
window had closed.

At first, his excuse for giving me that grade was that
the projects were handed in late.
After I proved him
wrong, he concocted another excuse.

Apparently, my projects were sub-par.
I found this odd because
during throughout the term,
he would inspect every
project carefully and the students
would ask for his opinion
before handing it in.

He produced my project papers
which were criss-crossed with red ink.

When I asked to view them,
he said that they had already been destroyed.

The Head Of Electronics,
backing his lecturer,
told me that I could appeal.

But with the projects already destroyed,
it would have been pointless.
The "independent marker" (Head Of Electronics words)
would only have been able to rely on
the lecturer's word.

I kept protesting until they decided
to hold another meeting.
It was at this meeting that they decided
to let me re-do ALL the projects
at once.

They thought they had me,
but I remembered exactly how to do them.

After about 4 hours,
I had re-done an entire term's work.

And what did they do?
My projects were not graded at all.

During this time,
I had kept writing to the Ministry of Education,
which kept routing the letters to The Institute Of Technical Education Headquarters.

Shortly after the appeal period
had closed, I got a meeting with The Director Of Engineering.

During the meeting,
he had told me that should I let the matter
rest, when the time came for me
to apply to get into the polytechnic of
my choice next year, he
would use his influence and contacts
to get me in.

I accepted and thought nothing more of it.

But when the time came for me
to apply to get into the polytechnic,
he made himself scarce.

He refused to return any of my calls
and the only response I got
after sending multiple letters
was that my case had been referred to another department.

What case?
Hadn't it been resolved yet?

So with the polytechnic admission period coming up,
I had no choice but to keep writing to the Ministry Of Education
which, of course, kept referring me back to The Institute Of Technical Education (ITE) Headquarters.

The guys at ITE of course, kept dragging their feet.

The polytechnic admission window
had come and it was about to close.

As a last resort,
I contacted the teacher
who in charge of The Fitness Club (a CCA)
when I was a member.
His name is Mr. Mani.

If you got an A,
0.2 points would be added to your GPA.
For a B, 0.15

It would have been just enough for
me to qualify to get into the polytechnic.

I spoke with Mr. Mani
on the phone and he agreed
to back me up, that I should have
been graded a A or at least a B, if the polytechnic
called him up and asked him for verification.

You see, my CCA grade was not even
included in my GPA.

So I went ahead and applied
online to get into the polytechnic,
and under 'CCA Grade',
I selected 'A'.

ITE finally decided to hold a meeting with me...
after the polytechnic admission period had closed.

And now, the meeting.

The participants:

Myself,

My friend (he had been to every single meeting with them, except for the very first one),

Director Of Student Affairs,

Jessie Ong (I can't remember her title),

Mr. Teo (my former 'form teacher'),

Mr. Mani,

the Course Manager,

the Head Of Electronics.

Keep in mind this case had remained unresolved
after a whole year.
Wouldn't look too good on their records (especially the record of the Head Of Electronics)
now, would it?

The meeting lasted several hours.
Several hours of those 'people'
repeating the same things over and
over again...
that nothing would change except for one thing.

Yep. One thing.
The would change my CCA grade to P.
How many points would that give me?
ZERO.

What?
Zero points for 2 years of active participation?

Mr. Mani had told everyone
at the beginning of the first term
that all you had to do to get basic
points was to visit the gym (which I did nearly everyday).

To get leadership points,
you had to join his 'Gym Committee'.
Which I did.

And all that... for zero points?

At the meeting,
Mr. Mani changed his story
and denied saying that he had agreed
to back me up if I claim that my grade
should be a A or at least a B.

He lied and said
that I called him up just to
confirm that I was in the Fitness Club.

He stuck to his ridiculous claim
even after I pointed out that
it didn't make sense for me
to call him,
and get him to verify that I would
be getting zero points.

The others then proceeded to let me know
that to get at least one point even,
I should have taken part in competitions.

What competitions?
No one mentioned anything
about that throughout the year.

Mr. Mani had plenty of chances to let us know...
but kept mum.

In fact, he had even told us
once that he had requested for us
to take part in a competition,
but the school had turned down his request.

When my friend and I pointed this out,
he kept repeating over and over
again "what competition"?

As if we were supposed to know
what competition he had tried to get us to take part in.

On top of that,
they later revealed that even though
I was in the Fitness Club,
I could have taken part in other clubs' competitions for the points.

Confused yet?

No information was given out at any time throughout the 2 years about this.
It's not even in the brochures
or on any of the ITE websites.

And, a Fitness Club member is supposed to take
part in, say The Archery Club's competition just to get points?

Does that make sense to you?
Because it sure as hell makes sense to ITE.

So after hours of protesting,
they finally admitted that Mr. Mani
had made a mistake in giving us misinformation.
But nothing was going to be done about
giving me the appropriate grade.

Also, regarding the C grades I got for Structured Cabling
and C Programming,
they refused to do anything.
To rub it in,
the Head Of Electronics
had the nerve to tell me that I should have studied harder.

Later, during the 'second meeting', he also lied about
how the elective modules were made non-elective.

He spouted garbage about how I
took the elective module and didn't do well for it.

Again, disregarding common sense.

Why would anyone willingly take a module,
choose for it to be graded,
and then do badly for it?

Never mind that,
the Director lapped it up like
a hungry fat kid eating candy.


And he said that they had got an independent marker
to assess my grades and that he came to the same conclusion.
When asked to produce the results,
the suddenly became "confidential".

And the Director, smiling,
told me that "it's Singapore".

After one whole year,
I couldn't take it anymore and was cursing
in general.
It was not directed at any of them.

I was careful about it because I knew
that under Singapore Law,
just using vulgar language
could get you in prison.
Seriously.

During the meeting, my friend and I joked
with each other and were actually laughing.

During a break from the meeting, Mr. Teo
spoke with us and told me
that I should keep my temper in check.

We explained to him
that my cracking jokes was a release.
It was better than being violent or something.

He said he understood where I was
coming from, but that it wasn't in his
power to change anything.

During the break,
most of the participants actually left.

The meeting wasn't over
but I guess to them, it was.

Jessie Ong came over to where we were...
and we proceeded to have another meeting outside the conference
room (but still within the General Office).

We were later joined by the Director,
who had left in her car, but later returned after
Jessie called her, and said that
the meeting had not yet ended.

The Head Of Electronics also joined us.

Like I had mentioned earlier,
he spouted garbage about how I chose
for the elective module to be graded
and then did badly for it.

This was when he said that the results were
"confidential".

Hold on.
Confidential?

It wasn't confidential when he showed
me the initial results during
the very first meeting last year.

So how did it morph into something confidential?

And he smiled.
I warned him not smile again.
And he of course, smiled again.

I didn't know what to do, so I stood up to walk towards him.
There was no intention to cause harm to that
cowardly idiot
because if I had wanted to do something,
he was so close that no one could have stopped me.

In fact, all my friend did was tug a little bit on my arm,
leaving my other arm free.
And still I did nothing.
He and the Director would later
lie about this to the police
and told them that I had wanted to hit him.

After realizing that the meeting had turned out to be pointless,
I wanted to storm out.

That place had huge, thick glass doors
which would return to the closing position after you opened them.

So, being frustrated, I just swung open the door
as hard as I could, so that I could get out of there
as fast as possible.

I had take one step forward when
I heard the glass shatter behind me,
as my friend was walking out.

Video footage will show that
it was clearly an accident.

The Director called the police,
and told them about what happened.

It was determined that it was an accident,
and I was free to go.

As I was giving my statement to the officer,
my friend had spoken with them,
and asked if they would press charges.

They said they wouldn't.

3 months later, my friend and I found out
that right after I had left,
they immediately filed a police report
stating that I had threatened to harm them and
the school.
They also stated that I directed vulgar
language at them.

In Singapore,
using vulgar language on Civil Servants
is an offence.
I did not know that.
Damn.

They also accused me of deliberately breaking the
glass door (somehow, I doubt they'd produce the video footage proving otherwise).

In other words,
'Criminal Intimidation'.

I was summoned to the police station,
and the investigating officer,
after hearing my side of the story,
let me go,
but told me that it would be up to the
prosecutors to decide
if I would be charged.

Ah yes, the prosecutors.
They wouldn't be speaking with
me at all.
They'd be relying solely on
the officer's report.

My first statement
did not contain all the details,
especially the part about
my friend and I telling Mr. Teo
about how we were joking
and that he understood.

It's an essential piece of information
because it proves that they
were making a false report.

Out of spite?
To keep their records clean
so as to keep them in the running for promotions?
I don't know.
But that's what they did.

I only remembered that part much
later,
and called the officer to tell him about it.

Now my friend is a former prison
and police officer.

After I told him about how I
had informed the officer
regarding the conversation
with Mr. Teo and us,
he told me that
for the officer to amend my statement,
I would have to be there to sign it.

Not only did the officer omit
that fact, I am now convinced
that he left that part out.

Initially I was wondering
why those people from ITE weren't
charged with making a false report.

Now I know.

It's too late to do anything about it now.
I am officially being charged
and today is probably my last day of freedom.
Sounds dramatic.
But yeah.

I had informed the Singapore newspapers about the
rubbish ITE was pulling (this was before the police report),
but was ignored.

There's no reason to believe that they would report it now.

My rich brother,
who was adopted by my late uncle when he was a baby
and inherited his fortune,
abandoned me before
even knowing what I was being investigated for.

He didn't want to know the details.

His exact words were "take some responsibility, you fag."

Guess all that inherited cash went to his head.

After that, I doubt any of my relatives (most of whom are well-to-do)
would even believe me.

My life... sucks.

I am currently working as a TA (Technology Assistant)(hey, I wasn't
the one who came up with that stupid title).

I am being transferred to another school
because my current school
decided that I wasn't competent enough to handle my duties.
I was actually backstabbed by my superior
because we had an argument a few months back.

I knew she was upset,
I just didn't know she'd do what she did.

But that's another story.

Time to recap.

I'm about to be charged,
and am facing likely possibility of doing time
in a maximum-security prison.

I've just been fired from my school.

And yet, the part which saddens me the most (shut up, I am allowed to be emo
at this point, dammit!) is that
the teacher that I had fallen for,
doesn't give a damn about what happened to me.

It actually hurts the most.

Yep.

Ah well.

See you when I get out.
If I ever get out.

Well enough of that.

Spread the word.