and it is a depressing sight when you see seniors reuniting for one last time for their a level results and after collecting those damned slips of paper, go their own separate ways without even bidding goodbye to one another, classmates of 2 years; surely there has to be sentiments more than that? it's such a gloriously screwed up system, where ns forces you to go in as soon as possible, without being able to be with your friends for a day or two after the horrors of 12 years of education system.

What an apt and astute observation, Pak.

I must admit, that I, too, was one of those guilty of leaving without a farewell, of slipping away silently, returning onto that fasttrack to wherever I am heading to, like how everyone else zooms off towards their destinations, whether to graceland, or to doom's door.

It's a big thing, the A levels. Scratch that. It's an immense thing, a terrifying crossroad that determines where you will head off to for the rest of the better part of your life.

It's overwhelming, how those alphabets and numbers on those slips of paper spell out your fate.

It's incomprehensible to those who have never been through it, to hold your fate in your hands, to hold your own creation, to be forced to accept whatever has descended. The feeling is overwhelming, the finality of it all is terrifying.

In the midst of everyone's fears and uncertainties about the impending future, hanging in the balance, farewells do not come. They are washed away by the waves of uncertainty of the future, as everyone stands, reeling, from the consequences of the paths they have so consciously or ignorantly chosen in the past year, or even years, unable to react.

We forget, that farewell has finally descended. The larger, more terrifying concerns of the future override friendships forged.

You're right, Pak. It's sad.

But that's the way the world is.

Ultimately, you go it alone.

Learn to live with it.