The first three days of senior school have been completed and now that it's the weekend, I'm begging for mercy, wondering where my 6-week summer holidays went!
For the overwhelming majority of you who don't know, I'll explain. The schooling year in
Australia starts in
late January and ends in
mid-December, as opposed to the September to June/July in most parts of the northern hemisphere.
There are
four school terms, each separated by a 2-week holiday. Each school term runs for 9-11 weeks, and my
major holiday is the
Christmas/summer period, which is 5-6 weeks. All up, that's roughly 12 weeks of holidays, equivalent to your summer holidays!
NOT FAIR T_T
Years 7-12 in my state (New South Wales) is high school, with Years 7-10 being junior school and 11&12 being senior school. In most cases, one school caters for both junior and senior, but there do exist schools that cater exclusively for the two senior grades, although these are not entirely commonplace.
People have been asking and the answer is:
Yes, I do have a school uniform.
Every school's uniform is different, mostly for identification when some idiot convicts a felony in his uniform in full view of the general public. I'm kidding, but it happens a lot.
There is only one person who I’d get dressed in my uniform on a Sunday to take pictures of myself for, and you know who you are =)
This is the
junior uniform (white shirt with school crest on breast pocket, tartan green skirt and optional tie with stitched school crest), which I love.
And this is the
senior uniform (lemon shirt with green piping and school initials on breast pocket, olive green skirt and optional tie with stitched school crest) , which I've newly adopted in the last three days and I ABSOLUTELY HATE WEARING. The colour makes me feel like walking vomit, not that I can do anything about it.
The following is a display of how much (rather, how little) my father trusts me.
Dad: Right, I’m putting your name on the label of your school shirt and skirt.
Me: Why? It’s not like I’ll be taking my kit off to run around on the top oval in the nude
Dad: Just in case, ok?
Me: *mock surprise* You’d think I’d do that?
Dad: *gives me an all-knowing stare* YOU NEVER KNOW.
Me: *a mixture of surprise and shock* Whaaaaaat?!
There may arise an instance in which I actually might get the urge rip all my clothes off and go tearing around the school premises in the nude, although highly unlikely. Imagine the dialogue between the principal when I eventually get caught.
Principal: What the hell, Emily? (not that she’d say “What the hell”, but something to that extent)
Emily: I was on fire, miss.
We also have a PE uniform that we wear when participating in practical lessons as part of the school curriculum, attending sporting carnivals (swimming, athletics, cross country) or representing our school in district competitions.
I feel obscenely ugly when I wear the senior uniform and the PE uniform. Even Gisele Bundchen would have had a nervous breakdown if Karl Lagerfield demanded she strut her stuff in my uniform. But I guess that means I’m not the only one.
In the classroom, the past three days have been AMAAZING! I have more control over my subjects I'm taking, which are:
- 3units of English: 2unit Advanced English + Extension 1; because I absolutely adore English.
- 2unit Advanced Maths; only because it’s the easiest course of maths offered at my school.
- 2unit Legal Studies
- 2unit Geography
- 2unit Modern History
- 2unit Economics
English is the only compulsory subject.
Humanities all the way, baby ;)
**
Quick word about units: as most courses are two units, two units is representative of 120 hours of classroom time devoted to the subject per year.
Therefore meaning that I'm undertaking 180 hours of English per year.
In Year 11, it is a requirement that students study at least 12 units (add them up and you'll see I'm doing 13). In Year 12, students are given the opportunity to do a minimum of 10 (essentially dropping a subject).
MY TIMETABLE IS TORTURE! Check it out.
As I'm doing 13 units of study (780 hours in the classroom in 2009), I have 8 periods a day (except on Wednesdays). Each period runs for 38 minutes – don't ask me why, I really don’t know why it isn’t possible to +2 minutes and make it a nice number. Periods 1&2 and 3&4 of each day are double periods i.e. 86 minutes of concentration that I DON'T have. I have one of the shortest attention spans known to mankind. I’m going to die!
I go crazy decorating my 5-subject binder (we don't tend to write much, and I have this tendency to squish my handwriting. Every year, it reflects my changing tastes in music. Oh, and of the opposite sex.
Last year’s cover was all about punk rock and Japanese bachelors:
This year’s cover – featuring all kinds of rock, jumpstyle, hardstyle, trance and Europeans:
See if you can find:
-
D-Block & S-Te-Fan
- A Qlimax logo!
- My surname (this one is a bit tricky)
- Defqon.1 logo! (this one is even trickier)
-
Son of Dork and Steve Rushton on bass ;)
-
Showtek!
So much can change in a year!
Inside cover and very first written page:
Random fact: I can't write in cursive, or running writing. When I do, it’s slow and really quite illegible.
I have found the inside cover to be very distracting. I think I'll stick something over it, even though it really pains me to cover up Philipp Lahm (and Josh Harnett, Jude Law, Dougie Poynter, Lukas Podolski, Mitch Hewer, Alan Smith, Aaron Johnson and Marat Safin). But I know that if I don't, I probably won't learn anything :P
Stuff that really disturbed me this afternoon:
I walked to the kitchen to grab the plums that I thought I had left in the strainer half an hour ago. My brother started talking to me as I put my hand in the sink and instead of touching a plum, my hand was wrist-deep in something slimy. I screamed and my brother dropped the plate he was eating from and it smashed into a million pieces. I found out shortly that my dad had put the plums in the fruit bowl and had gutted some octopus for dinner and left them in the strainer. Way to totally freak me out!
Don’t they look charming…
Soundtracks of my life right now:
1) Going to sleep at an appropriate hour for the first time in 5 weeks:
Castles In The Sky by
Ian Van Dahl
2) My brother yelling at me over my bed to get up for the first day of school:
Rise and Fight by
Caliban
3) Looking back at my reflection after putting on my new senior uniform:
Ugly by
Sugababes
4) Stepping out of the front door to greet a beautiful day:
Starry Eyed Surprise by
Paul Oakenfold
5) Getting lost as a result of finding my timetable completely confusing:
Walking Disaster by
Sum 41
6) Looking at the Detuschland map in my Geography classroom:
Take Me Away by
4 Strings
7) Walking into Maths, into a classroom full of likeminded people who hate maths:
Came Down Here by
D-Block & S-Te-Fan
A game and a question:
The “guess the scary-looking Chinese delicacy” game:
WARNING: should you have a weak stomach or a phobia of strange Chinese food *looks straight at
Hausgeist*, you may just want to skip this bit.
I believe you may have vomited in your mouth.
Or, you know what it is and you share my sensory enthusiasm for it.
The question:
What has been the most pathetic excuse you’ve made?
Participate in the guessing game and respond to the question in the journal shoutbox. Have an awesome February ;)
4 Strings
