i) 1 lower salaried Dad or if you can't get one you can try the
following alternatives:
- Dysfunctional family
- Terminally ill dad or mum
- Drug addicted mum or dad
- Alcoholic mum or dad
- Abusive mum or dad
- Sick sibling (Family must be poor to use this ingredient)
ii) Juggle school work and a part time job to help ease the burden
on your family
The above two are a must have otherwise you will suffer from
elitsitis.
Otherwise, you can try this too:
I'm assuming if you have the first ingredient, you will in most
probability end up in a non-elite school.
So, with the fact that you're in a non-elite school (neighbourhood
school, politically correct known as government aided schools). You
will have your non-elite peers(ah bengs and ah lians, though I
haven't seen this species for a long time) to hang out with
influencing you, taunting you, tempting you. You get the
point.
As you spiral down the cracks, you look for ways to ease your
problems. And your main issue is your problem with your family
finances, you start to look for ways to survive tax
increases(oops.. too young to be taxed), I mean to get by
daily.
So, either you get out of their elite uncaring face, jump onto the
very efficient MRT tracks or rise above all this. You're gonna end
up the same way as your folks did or maybe get to the middle
class.
This is a personal thought. I didn't include rising to the ranks of
the elites because it seems that the days for poor, uneducated
peasants from their ancestral hometowns rising to become
philantropist and tycoons are like what, 40, 50 years ago? The
spirit of entrepreneurship? Welcome to meritocracy.
**The writer is from a neighbourhood school who's now in a screwed
up technological university (But that's a story for another
day).
