I'm looking forward to reading and commenting on ALL the posts I'm missing as soon as I get home, and I'm thinking of all of you! It is beginning to feel like I've grown up with you and/or your characters.
So year eighteen - in Canada, when I was in high school, we had a 5th year - Grade Thirteen - for those students going on to University. It was - in my high school, at least - brutal. I worked twice, three times as hard that year as any year in my undergrad degree - and pulled in lower grades than I ever got in university. The teachers were deliberately hard markers to "prepare us for university".
It was the best year of my high school life! No, really. I got to take 2 Englishes (that alone was heaven) plus 2 histories, French and German - and unfortunately one mandatory Math. I couldn't wait to get to University and take ALL Englishes (does life get better?) My teachers, though tough, were amazing, especially Mr. Elliot, my English teacher. I sat enthralled through his classes. And we actually had discussions in class. I was in my element, and it lasted all through University.
Although I was mostly miserable during the first 4 years of high school, I was sad to see it end. I am nostalgic by nature, and endings always sadden me.
This is also a time of examining everything - including my unquestioning childhood faith.
Here is how i described that in poetry.
MIRACLES
Somewhere
the yellow-warm easy-love
faith has been
spilled or broken
before its first miracle.
but we
emptied half-animal
into cold white,
naked and ugly
with instinctive gropings,
how do we find
hidden with the cleansers
under the kitchen sink
the small, sealed bottle
of mountain-remover?
So year eighteen - in Canada, when I was in high school, we had a 5th year - Grade Thirteen - for those students going on to University. It was - in my high school, at least - brutal. I worked twice, three times as hard that year as any year in my undergrad degree - and pulled in lower grades than I ever got in university. The teachers were deliberately hard markers to "prepare us for university".
It was the best year of my high school life! No, really. I got to take 2 Englishes (that alone was heaven) plus 2 histories, French and German - and unfortunately one mandatory Math. I couldn't wait to get to University and take ALL Englishes (does life get better?) My teachers, though tough, were amazing, especially Mr. Elliot, my English teacher. I sat enthralled through his classes. And we actually had discussions in class. I was in my element, and it lasted all through University.
Although I was mostly miserable during the first 4 years of high school, I was sad to see it end. I am nostalgic by nature, and endings always sadden me.
This is also a time of examining everything - including my unquestioning childhood faith.
Here is how i described that in poetry.
MIRACLES
Somewhere
the yellow-warm easy-love
faith has been
spilled or broken
before its first miracle.
but we
emptied half-animal
into cold white,
naked and ugly
with instinctive gropings,
how do we find
hidden with the cleansers
under the kitchen sink
the small, sealed bottle
of mountain-remover?
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