It's a Small World! - lessons from a Maths Enrichment Workshop

Dear Readers,

ON second thoughts, forget the Malaysian Montage post. There are certain... er... emo scenes that the members of bus one may not like to share with others, and also certain... er... confidential conversations about which we are not at the liberty to reveal any information. theokwek sends his deepest apologies about breaking that promise, but wraps with it another post about the recently concluded Maths Enrichment Workshop, where he met (old friends): Lee Voon, Marcus, Darryl, Gloria, Brandon, Joy, Si Ying, some girl who was in his group during the Creative Writing Camp in p5, a senior from his primary school who remembers his name but whose name, unfortunately, has been forgotten, etc. He also met (new friends): Jin Chong, Shankar, Chantelle, Anni, Grace, Sze Hui, etc. He has also gotten to know some people considerably better.

Well to cut the long story short, here's the essay.

Happy Birthday Mom! P.s. I love you.

Mathematified
The Straight Times Editor

It's a Small World After All

As many of you know, I’m not exactly a drama person – theatre productions rank low (or non-existent) in my schedule of activities, and acting isn’t exactly my piece of cake. Yet when it comes to describing our roles in others’ lives, a stage analogy fits the bill. In the words of the old Bard from Stratford-Upon-Avon: “All the World’s A Stage, And All The Men And Women Only Players; They Have Their Exits And Their Entrances, And Every Man In His Time Plays Many Parts.”

Indeed, such a feeling that we are somehow destined to enter each others’ lives at the right times struck me over the course of the Maths Enrichment Workshop that was planned for us Secondary Two students a few days ago.

As with many activities organized around the GEP circle, a tingle of deja-vu shot down my spine as I stepped into the hall. After four years – and counting – of combined workshops, competitions, conferences, talks, and other assorted programmes, it seems like everyone knows everyone else in this concentric small world of ours.

A fellow APCC participant from 2005 happened to sign up for the same course as me, and sitting between us in the same row was her friend, who incidentally is in the same Maths training class as my Orchestra stand partner, who was also one of the overall coordinators of the Maths Trail – the highlight of the whole Workshop. Someone in the neighboring group looks familiar, and upon enquiry, he’s an old friend from Primary 3 who went to St. Hildas’ when he entered the GEP. Now he’s in the same class, in Dunman High, with another friend from Primary 3 who entered Tao Nan School with me in Primary 4. Sitting a few rows down is a girl who was in my group during the Creative Writing Camp in 2005, and another who signed up for the same course as me happens to be a primary school classmate too…

And the list goes on.

I remember my cousin – who was in the GEP ten years before me – telling me that I should get to know all my batchmates better: they’re the people you will see around you for the rest of your life. Call our GEP circle elitist, call it antisocial, but you can’t deny that there is an intangible bond between all of us. A bond so powerful that we know half the population of any GEP function, a bond so powerful that we can go up to anyone, say hi, and make friends, a bond so powerful that within half an hour we’re cracking jokes, talking about classmates or just moaning about schoolwork to people we’ve never met before.

This batch-bond is evident in the way we spice up otherwise boring bus rides, show off our Rubik’s cubes and our skills at our Rubik’s cubes to each other, reserve queue places at the lunch table for others and fill the air with idle chatter. All the things that we would only be comfortable doing around non-GEPers after a month we find ourselves doing in less than an hour, and friendship blossoms.

Definitely not to say that we only make friends among ourselves – non-GEPers make great friends too, and in our (I quote) ‘wonderful new IP system of education’ there really is no distinction between the two groups. It’s just that we share the ups and downs of a common primary school programme, and that we know each other – more or less – inside out.

It’s a small world after all.