All play and no work makes adilla a dumb girl.

Why is it that nowadays the potentials of our brain are merely judged by our ability to excel in science, and how far do we strive to get excellent grades in maths and biology and physics and chemistry tests. For people who are as indifferent to science as I am(but achieve more in other things) that sure causes much of an inconvenience.

The majority of highschools in Indonesia have more science-study classes than social-study classes, this caused by the fact that most students would prefer getting into science classes when they turn to year 11. Although fortunately decreasing over time, there is still this image that sticks to the back of people's heads that students who manage to get accepted to science classes are "smarter" than those who get into social classes. The reason is simple: in science ur brain works harder to comprehend things with logical senses. But when you think about it, there isn't any evident that social classes students don't use their logics too. For example, when they are assigned to analyse a political problem, don't they also have to come up with good logic and reasonable judgements to solve the problem?

Another thing is that social subjects could be more necessary in lives. In social we study politics (always a big and challenging issue, and when you don't know who the secretary-general of the United Nations is, that actually means ur stupid), psychology (an essential media to understand ourselves), and geography (it's always important to learn to preserve the planet we're living on). Whereas in advanced maths we ought to study differentials and algebra and trigonometry, calculating numbers which drag on and on beyond eternity, over-working our poor brain that goes withered after a while, when obviously we don't need to use neither algebra or trigonometry to count how much money we have to pay to buy daily groceries. In biology, we have to memorize how many bones we have in our bodies and what their names are, and also the names of plants and animals in latin, in which we would already forget the next day anyway. Why the hell should I care about the names of plants and animals in latin?? I'm pretty happy with the fact that I can call those four-legged creatures as 'dogs', thank you very much.

Also, being a smartie in maths doesn't actually mean that you're clever. Just because your brain works fast in calculating zillions of numbers doesn't make you a problem solver who has an outstanding out-of-the-box view about the world and is articulate in expressing your ideas. Believe me, I know alot of people who might have the top grades in science but are actually vain inside.

Last year I was nationally granted a scholarship to be one of the 60 students to represent Indonesia for a short cultural program in Japan (I don't know about you, but that seemed like a pretty huge achievement to me). Yet, my parents weren't wholly satisfied and actually said that they wouldn't call it an achievement, since it had nothing to do with science. Oh fine mom, maybe i should win an international physics olympic first to make you proud of me?? Pffft as if that's gonna happen...

FYI, I'm in science studies myself. Although i wanted to be a psychologist, my parents strictly assured me to get into science class since it is believed that it would help finding me good university. I was actually indifferent at first regarding which class i would be accepted into, but then i obeyed them anyway. And now I'm starting to think that I made a rather bad choice :s