Impression

''Impression isn't always done by someone else, it might often be given.''

Impressions, by layman terms, just simply mean the mental image that people have of you when they first see you. And impression plays a big part in everyone's life to be honest, but I think a lot of people tend to forget to zoom out and realise that they are also representing a bigger organisation of things.

Take this for example, I was in General Studies class, and we were grouped with half a class of students who were from another academic school, engineering to be precise. And during my time in those classes, all that I observed is that they lazing around, not serious, sleeping and snoozing off, not taking any effort at all. And to add on, when we had a project that took up 50% of the entire module, all that my partner did was dropping last minute bombs on me, and thanks to that, I only managed to avert the crisis, and slept at 3am that morning. And what did I get in the end? A fucking B+. 

Based off that paragraph that I just wrote, some people, might just decide to assume that they are lazy. Which is definitely true for a handful of them, I mean there was this one guy who was always absent last semester for GE classes, I've never saw him in class anymore this semester. I'm not dissing them and condemning them and say that they're lazy by the way, in case anyone would like to accuse me of. Because of that half a class, probably 13/14 people, my impression of the people in engineering school completely changed. My impression now of them are lazy people who don't give a fuck about things, and half of them are always smoking outside school, an 99% of them are boys. The impression of laziness or nonchalant-ness is not an impression that I made, but instead an impression they chose to give.

Another example, I'm from Communication school, and as you know, communication students are just born creative (nahhh, that's just bull-fuck), and people there take an effort to dress well, speak well, and do up their hair for school, or to put it simply, to look nice. And whenever I walk pass business school or the engineering block, ALMOST EVERYONE would just look/stare and start to whisper to each other once they've walked past me. YESTERDAY WAS EVEN WORSE, me and Charissa were walking past Starbucks, and these 2 people (most probably boring business students), one of them, this stupid guy, POINTED AT ME AND TALKED ABOUT ME when I was looking at them. Sure I loved the attention, but people are just plain stupid to do things like that. But, I digress. Back to the point, the impression that MOST (Not all. If you belong the the other side of the grass, then stfu good for you and move on.) people have when they see us is that we're bad influences who do nothing and have no future because we're doing communication. When they see me especially, with bright blonde hair, they'd just stare and be in awe, as if they're never heard of hair bleaching before. This happens in engineering and life science school also. This close-assed narrow minded people irks me because they're always the kind of people who tells people what to do in life but amount to little themselves. According to my friend, anything other than a T-shirt(School T-Shirt preferred), shorts, slippers, is way too overdressed in the eyes of BS students. Coloured hair, longer hair, nicer fashion bags, are just considered punk/bad influence/disgusting/superfluous. 

I have this schoolmate, who's in business school, and she hangs out with a classmate of mine. And her own classmates told her to stop hanging out with comm school students cause we're bad influences. When I hear things like that, the only impression I have are frogs in a well. 

So you see, the point isn't to rant and go on. It's to show how impression sometimes isn't made by the people around you, but something you offer to show people, and to make people feel nauseated by your actions. And all of humanity are 'generalizers'. WE LOVE TO GENERALISE, period. 

If you want to behave like a stupid, uneducated being, don't blame anyone when you're being labeled that. And don't blame people when they generalise the whole academic block, because if anyone you should blame, it's the black sheep that you should seek and vent your frustration on. Let me give you a few examples. Let's be honest, when anyone says they're going to an engineering course, how many would actually think that the individual actually has sincere interest in it and want to pursue it? Almost none, everyone would think they didn't so well, hence forced to study that. And some don't take pride in their work and hence the bad impression engineering courses and schools, in my school at least. When you ask someone which course they've gone into, and they reply 'Oh, I've been accepted to study Mass Communication/Business Administration/Applied Chemistry & Materials Science/Gerontological Management Studies', every one would applaud you and sing you praises and say 'Hmmm, very good, finally got what you want'.

Even during after 'O' levels. Chinese New Year, you visit your relatives and they ask 

Relative: Eh Ah boy/Ah girl, which poly you going?

You: Ngee Ann/Singapore

Relative: Wahhh, so clever, go into good poly, O level must be very good lah!

Change the situation a little bit

Relative: Ah boy/Ah girl, which poly you going?

You: Temasek/Nanyang/Republic

Relative: Ohhh, *pauses, don't know what to say* ummm, aiya never mind, as long as you work hard still can do well one. 

 Another example, RP. Back in secondary school, if anything, it's RP that we want to avoid, since it was the 'ITE of all polys'. Even teachers shun away and push you to go on to NP or even SP. It's not true at all that this is the case, I have a lot of friends there, and they are doing very well! Who dares to deny it seriously. Again, impression, people don't just for it out of nothing, it's given based on what people see. Even if it's just a minority, that's more than enough to slate a impression. 

But all that aside, the people I've met and known in Nanyang and Republic poly are THE BEST PEOPLE I'VE EVER MET IN MY LIFE. They're people whom I want to know and keep in life years and years from now. 

I kind of not know why I've decided to post this, I think mainly cause of the pent up frustration I have for irritating people, but also partly because I think Impression is such a weird thing. So if you don't want to be categorised as a hooligan, think about your actions.