First, some housekeeping:

Han is in Dublin at the moment, and is probably not ... er ... "able" to post.

We can all mess with the layout of this fine online publication. Just go to the template, and do what you will!

Now: the availabilty of certain subjects in High School can be described concisely and accurately with the following words: piss poor . I remember when the surveys came out, when we were in tenth grade or so, asking us if we'd prefer the school offering higher IB anthro or psych, and theatre or music. I don't know what was holding the school back from offering ALL FOUR. I mean, why not? Surely we had the staff and funding for it (you'll remember, Vin, how the school SPLURGED on bloody anthro texts/ethnographies. NOT cheap). Think of all the bloody fluff classes, that were basically there to cater to people who just wanted to fart their way through high school (e.g. essentials of basket weaving). I would have preferred, though, HL economics to HL theatre.

ISKL didn't put enough bloody emphasis on academics. It was always about sport and the crappy clubs. Then, for those who were lazy, there were the classes that required a grand total of TWO brain cells to pass. DON'T anyone bullshit me and say that there were students who couldn't keep up with regular classes: what the fuck do you think the LRC (and rittalin) are for?

Okay, maybe I'm being harsh. It just bothered me that a lot of people farted about.

I think ISKL was a good school - far better than any school I could have gone to in Melbourne (and I went to a private school). I'm glad I had the opportunity to do the IB, because I think that it is a very good university preparation programme. I like that we had to study a subject out of each discipline.

I look back now, and wish I had taken more advantage of what I was offered in school. I don't recall once - in all my education (13.5 years of it) - ever pushing myself mentally. My cumulative G.P.A was consistently at about 3.5 - at some points it was as high as 4.0, but any science subjects I took always ensured that it never stayed that high. I remember once asking Kev Mc what he though my GPA was - he assumed around a 3.1. That's because I never did any work. Let me tell you now - a decent writing style and a big enough vocabulary will work wonders for you. I don't know where my IB score came from. I was aiming for high TWENTIES. A score in the high 30's gave me a shock in the underpants I won't soon forget. I must be an idiot savant.

Grades, in the end, mean a fat lot of shit. The only time you use your grades after high school is university, and once you're in, you're in, and you can do basically anything. I suppose subject choice in High School doesn't really mean that much either. Subjects I chose in school didn't help me at all when thinking of majors in university. I had no idea I'd be majoring in Political Science and Classics.

I'm also glad I spent a year out of school, working various jobs and spending a lot of time alone. Even though I hadn't planned things to be that way, the self-discovery and life experience I gained in that time was good for me.