wandering the greenwood

 Yesterday (Friday the 20th of October, 2017) was my last day of high school.

It's weird because I've spent so many years (thirteen in fact) knowing this day would come but it has been so far away I stopped believing the day would come. I mean, I still have plenty of exams to go (6/8) and I'll be back at my school for those s well as a couple of other errands but. I will never have to wear a uniform again. I'm an adult in a week and a half. And that is mind-blowing. It may be logical but it doesn't feel real.

The day itself was actually (and surprisingly great). I was up early to get breakfast at Maccas on the way to school, then I got a t-shirt signed by half my year level and a couple of people below me. I was starting to appreciate what this precious little time meant when we had a final assembly and a guard of honour. The teachers stood on either side of a walkway through the crowd and we had to walk through and say goodbye to all of these people who had taught us invaluable throughout our years at high school. And I was fucking bawling. I wasn't worried about not seeing my friends, but I was scared shitless that I'd never see a couple of my teachers ever again. There are two in particular whom I've been terrified of leaving but when I went to say goodbye to them, they both expressed that they want to remain in contact. It's always struck me as unfair, as these teachers have a massive impact on my life, but they have another hundred or so students every year, I can't expect to leave an impression. Well apparently I was wrong there.

After I stopped crying, I eventually went to my friend's halloween birthday party which was honestly amazing, especially as I'd already blown off so much steam.

I've only cried one time since and that's because I have a friend who has been part of my squad for years and whom I adore, but he's in the year below the rest of us and isn't graduating until next year. So on my shirt, he signed his name on my t-shirt as 'the one who is being left behind.' So I texted him half the day.


This is messy and gushy but I will cherish these memories. So this is the end of my annoying posts about school. 

 listening to John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme and trying not to cry is such a big mood. I just simply cannot cope with school. I feel like I'm constantly on the verge of either crying or vomiting.

And I feel so weak for it because everyone graduates school so it shouldn't be such a big problem and I've been through some shit in my life, this should be easy. But it's not. My first exam is in four weeks which is far, far too soon but my last is in two months which is too far away because it means that my life is going to be like this until then. Meanwhile, every time I get upset, my dad wants to have a two-hour long conversation about what I need to do to stop feeling bad and how I should let him help me.

And my theatre teacher said that when he was in high school he only cried once. Me? About every fortnight, if not more often.

I have a test today and a test on Friday and two tests on Monday and I haven't even looked at the other days but there are three more tests in that week. While I need to be dazzling a uni with my (probably nonexisxtent) writing skills.

My dad tells me that life is always going to be like this and I know that's just him trying to help but that makes me want to die.

I don't have ti,me to be this sad. I have too many tests and assignments to have time to be allowed time to be stressed about them. I'm only happy when I'm not me.

Last week I got my score back in my maths test and I got 35%. To understand the situation, you'll need some background. so:
- I do the second maths stream called maths methods, we call it math for short because
- it is hard as balls. The sort of thing where your friends ask "why the fuck did you choose that?" because they are worried for your health. Most people drop it after the first year, and I rather wish I had
- in year twelve in Victoria (my state), 30% is a pass. Their expectations are very low, I expect by now they're just hoping we finish it.

I am very pleased with my 35%. It is better than I have done on other tests and better than I expected (especially as if I failed, I'd have to do more work for a subject I can barely tolerate). Most people do it to go on to do sciences in uni. I am more of an arts/humanities person so I don't know why I'm doing it anymore but here I am. They ended up boosting everyone's marks because they realised in hindsight how difficult the test was. Actually, my 35% was the average mark and my teacher said it is normal for the average to be below 50% for these types of tests which is ridiculous. If you design a test for a class you teach to be too difficult for 50% of your students to understand even half of it, you're doing a bad job at either teaching or designing tests.

I am not planning on taking my maths methods anywhere and like I said I was pleased but my father? oh boy.
He's annoyed. And not just because I didn't do as well as he would have liked but because I'm fine with not doing as well as he would have liked. He's convincing me I'm not doing enough work, and it makes me feel guilty, like I'll never do enough or be enough and honestly I've felt like that for too long, I'm sick of it.

I know that's probably not his intention. I expect he's just hoping it motivates me to suddenly care more for that specific subject and be proud of putting all my effort into it. Meanwhile, I devote more of my time and energy to the subjects I adore like theatre and studio art and German or the ones I at least hope to do well in like English literature. I'm fine with doing mediocre in methods and doing far better in my other subjects, and I've told my dad this, yet he wants me to be unhappy with this result. I'm not put out by his comments but i keep stewing over them, on his assumptions and motivations. This won't even help me in life, it is just him wanting my values to be the same as his, and they are not. For while we often have the same interests, we just as often come to different conclusions (as the radical nb child of a liberal cishet man).

My education is not a competition. Nor does it have bearing on how I see myself. I do not care that I may be doing worse, better than or equal to my peers. My education is something I love and am forever grateful for. And I resent anyone who tries to change that for me.

Today I went to Swinburne University on the other side of the city with my dad. I'm so glad I'm in a better headspace after friday, I think I got more out of the trip than I would have if I was still freaking out about it.

I'm planning on doing a Bachelor of Arts with a focus on German and potentially screenwriting. At Swinburne, they have a big emphasis on their media bachelor but the writing course is focussed on novels and they don't have German (only two do) so I doubt I'll be going here but it was worth a look.

I wish I could look at the astronomy courses they have because. I love space. I would learn science for space. But I'm not very good with science or maths. And there's no way I could do a Bachelor of Science, I'd go crazy. But still. I wish I could just take astronomy classes. Perhaps next time I'll at least look at it.

Alternatively, I talked to two philosophy professors and I'm really keen to study it. I'd talked myself out of it ages ago, convincing myself that I wouldn't like arguing and debating and deconstructing arguments but honestly? It sounds amazing. Like I honestly do that in my free time anyway, I may as well learn to do it right. I wonder also if I could be suited to politics, but I fear they'd be entirely capitalist.

I'm not particularly worried about getting into a career - in fact that's not my intention at all. I think I could work in retail forever and be happy so long as I could read good books and learn more. That said, if I could put my skills to use to earn a living, that would be amazing. I'd love to be an actor or writer or artist. But making money is not my endgame.

 I am in my second week of my second last term of high school ever and the prospect of next year looms over me. And though I am told many times by well-meaning adults that I shouldn't worry about it, I feel nauseous whenever I think about it. The sarcasm and self-deprecating humour of the internet is no exaggeration of what teenagers are like. As we discuss upcoming tests and how they impact our final score (and, as the world seems to stress, your options for the coming years), friends swap half-jokes about our inability to cope and how much we want to die.

Ultimately, it is not even the fear of rejection, or a fear of making the wrong decision; it is a belief that if I don't get in to the course I want, it will be my fault. I should have studied harder. I should be studying harder right now. I should have been stronger and done more and talked to my teachers more and slept less. It is the understanding that no matter how much work I do, it will not amount to nothing if I do not get in. And all this anxiety and self-hate will be for naught.

I understand that this is toxic. Anyone can see that. But between getting my homework done and distracting myself from my problems, I do not have the time or energy to fix it. 

Usually I would try to take something away from this. I find a problem, I find the cause at the root of it, usually something massively cultural or radical or unrealistic. But I don't know what to put this down as. School has not prepared me for making my own decisions, merely to be subservient? We need to take the mental health of students (who are notably minors) seriously? I'm not sure. But I am exhausted and need to study for a maths test and map out which university open days I want to go to this month.