1. I was packing up some of my old primary school exercise books to be sold as old newspaper when I stumbled across a few book report exercise books.
2. You see, in an attempt to bolster the language standards of the students, the school made us go to the library once a week to borrow books. We are made to borrow at least 2 books, both must be of different languages.
3. Then, after we read them, we are made to write book reports. Mostly, I write about the sypnopsis of the books I read and sometimes, I was too lazy to borrow any books, so I just simple made up some story and wrote some bullshit plot about the book.
4. Nothing the teacher won't mark since the book I made up has a nice name and its written by someone who has a respectable name like H.J. Robinson or Ahmad Ibrahim Said.
5. As my english is one of the best in school and the English books in the school library lack any good English stories other than Jungle Story or something like that, I rarely borrow any English books. I normally go for Mandarin and Malay Myths since the library has a huge collection of it.
6. So, my English teacher was annoyed at my empty book report exercise book so he made me borrow an English story book, if I am not mistaken, was Tarzan and Jane. I was supposed to write a book report on the story.
7. As I was quite busy then and I was also annoyed at the teacher for telling me to read such a mundane story, I wrote the few sentences below immediately in class and passed it up.
"The aforementioned book relates of the dynamics of interbeing and monological imperatives in Tarzan and Jane: A study of psychic transrelational gender modes. Its a very childish and mundane book filled with extremities and impractical situations where luck always seem to save Tarzan from impending disasters. "
8. I was Std 5 back then and after reading what I wrote, I can see her stunned face and I just went back and sit while my tablemate was chuckling away at her looks.
9. I subsequently got it back with an A+ at the bottom. I was never told to write another English book report again.
10. I used to really hate writing assignments but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
Labels: Musings and Thoughts
