Sunday, August 16, 2009

The Miseducation of Amir Hafizi

I spent almost seven hours today, reading wikipedia.

It feeds my ego. I retain an amazing amount of information, though I do not have control over what information I remember.

Come to think of it, that was what I wanted to do, growing up. To gather information. To understand. You know those shitty 'List down three things you want to be when you grow up bullshit?'

I filled in those when I was nine.

I put down:

1. Scientist

- Because of, well, SCIENCE! TESLA!

2. Investigator

- Cause I was hooked on Arthur Conan Doyle. Loathed Agatha Christie. But loved Doyle - the man who believed in fairies.

3. Military guy.

- Cause I'd get to kill people.

Since very young, people have generally pissed me off.

When I was in high school, everyone wanted to be engineers. During the financial crisis, I wanted to be a financial speculator. However, I was told that a career in that direction would require me taking Accounts. I did not take Accounts. I took Economics.

Damn the forces of destiny!

I was in an all-boys boarding school, where almost everyone thought that we would one day rule this country as its politicians and scientists.

The formula was simple. Put the best young minds in the country together, have them grow up with each other, maybe fuck each other in the ass or something, and you create a cabal of sorts.

My school, was number four. Meaning, after MCKK, SAS and STAR chose the top 300 boys, the school had dibs on the 300-400. Based on IQ tests conducted in primary school.

Ah, my dear readers. They never took into acount the forces of chaos and anarchy that could tear your humble narrator and his peer's innocent minds back then.

I mean, we did very well in exams. That was what the boarding schools were for - exams.

What we learned, basically, was how to beat the system. In order for you to break the rules, you have to know what the rules are. You can't hit something properly if it's invisible.

Take BM essay questions, for example.

You have to do factual essays. Any formatted or situational compositions can only garner 60/100, tops. Tops.

Whereas the factual essay can get you at the very least 80/100, if done properly.

And the topic of said essays, will be current events. But there are so many current events, you say? No. There are only 12. It's simple. Anything which is deemed current events are essays that were published in Dewan Siswa magazines for the year. If it's not there, it would not be in the exams.

That's why, for SPM, all of us scored on BM papers. All of us. Only seven got A2. The rest all got A1.

That's how we did it back then. Old school style.

There were also the logistical experts.

If you are resourceful enough, you can make an impression of the exam hall keys using plaster.

Then, theoretically, you can break in at night, taking extra care not to be caught. Best to be done with a group of a few people.

After that, theoretically, you are free to push the desks incrementally closer to each other. Night after night.

AFter that, you assign roles.

There would be kids who excelled at certain subjects, and you pray to the Gods above and the demons below that they are placed in front.

These are the 'Producers'.

45 degrees to his back left and right are 'prime users'. 45 degrees to their back left and right are 'secondary users' and so on and so forth.

All this, hypothetically speaking, of course.

I always think other people are stupid, so I never relied on this. Furthermore, I had my individual plan in place already.

In my school, we were forced to take 10 subjects. Reason? Only the best six will be counted towards your aggregate.

An individual plan would be to focus on six and only six subjects. The rest can all fuck off and die.

Which was what I did.

My chosen subjects were:

BM - a cinch

English - no worries for me. Here's a tip. For English, use French, Spanish or Latin terms and sayings. Cui bono? (Spanish, "who benefits?"), cogito, ergo sum (Descartes, "I think, therefore I am"), tete-a-tete (French, "face to face". Imagine Muten Roshi's face on Bulma's tits) - the more obscure, the better. The logic is simple. If you can scare the person who marks your paper, they will give you a higher score. You terrify them, with things they do not understand. If they do understand, they'll appreciate your genius. You can't lose.

Economics - one of my favourite subjects. There will be one question every year concerning graphs (10-15 points). There is only one graph they teach you in high school Economics - the supply and demand curve, with an equilibrium point. D'oh! And there will be one question about taxes. Know how to do your taxes - simple arithmetic, really, just subtract whatever exemptions from the total earnings and refer to the table - and that's another 10-15 points right there.

Modern Maths - whosoever could not score at the very least an A2 on Modern Maths is an idiot. They should kill themselves right now and remove their filthy genes from the pool. The hardest thing they teach you in Modern Maths is the Pythagoras theorem. KAH SOH TOA. The cosine is the value of the side that is connected to the angle but is not the hypotenus, A, divided by the hypotenus, H. The sine is the value of the side opposite the angle, O, divided by the hypotenus. The tangent is O divided by A. A trapezoid and even a rhombus are two right-angle triangles connected to one square or rectangle. Pi is 3.142 or 22/7. The circumference of a circle is double the Pi times radius, and the area is pi times squared radius. Volume is pi times a cubed radius. And they only have first level differentiation and integration. Venn graph questions are free marks. Apply. It's so simple, even a monkey can answer that one.

Islamic Education - most of the answers are the same. Do good things, be scared of God, don't do bad things. Bla bla bla. Oh. "I want to go to heaven!"

Biology - for some reason, I have always excelled at biology. It makes sense.

I aced them all, except Islamic Education. A measly C3, which I thought I deserved, since I could not, for the life of me, complete the tajwid (Koran grammar) lines cause I didn't know what the fuck the verse was.

Oddly enough, one of my discarded subjects came through. I got A2 in Physics. And I didn't cheat at all. So that was all right, I guess.

C4s in Chemistry and History. Which is funny, in a way.

I got 1A for 1119, and was pretty chuffed at that, cause it was marked by outside observers.

After SPM, I realised that the only thing I needed to do was to find out how the world works, and then fucking break it.

Know all the rules, and then break them.

Remember, knowing is half the battle.