Thursday 11 June 2015

15 Things Year 12 has taught me

Note: Let me start off by apologising for being away from the blog-o-sphere for so long. I had school, revision, exams the whole shebang but I'm BACK and hope to produce more great content for you all.
This was originally written on my other blog- you can check it out here 
After writing  about 15 things attending an all-girls school taught me (check it out here) , I thought since I’m going back to school tomorrow I should write about the 15 things Year 12 has taught me,so here it goes:
1. Freedom is Sweet
Free periods, are literally a God send. You can sit in the café area, eat and do nothing (oh actually you can revise and do homework because that’s what we all spent our time doing), it’s great. Especially when you need to catch up on sleep, or just don’t feel being in a classroom. (Ok I really don’t understand the concept of attending school) but FREE PERIODS=ETERNAL HAPPINESS.
2. Freedom can turn Sour
So you are sitting there in the common room, you know that you have coursework due in a week, you have to give in your EPQ and you’ve only written the intro and you have 5 million tests to revise for, but are you going to do anything? OF COURSE NOT. It is in those very moments that having deep discussions about religion and politics, painting your nails, watching vines and buying all the food in the café area seem like much more pressing issues.
3. Looking nice becomes the least of your worries
You start off every term fleeky; eyebrows on fleek, outfit on fleek, life on fleek BUT by the end of it, you’ve worn the same shirt 3 days in a row, you haven’t brushed your hair and resemble a wild animal, and you generally look like hot mess. But, fear not young ones, because everyone else looks like a mess too (apart from that one person, who always looks great, but as every science and maths student knows we forget about the anomalies because they ruin the data… or something like that, ahhh GCSEs were so long ago).
4. You make friends with the most unexpected people
In my case pretty much all my friends take science, so whilst they laughed about some Chemistry related joke, I could only watch and die a little inside because come on guys I dropped science for a reason, and this sucked for a while , but then I made friends with people who did my subjects, were in my frees and my lessons and they are fab. And for the record we have much better conversations than your conversations about covalent bonds and hydrogen, so there!
5. Class discussions give you headaches
I’m tired, I’m hungry and we are spending 30 minutes having a debate about whether or not Freud is the Darwin of Psychology and you know what I just want to crawl into a hole and never hear the words ‘opinion’, ‘discussion’ or ‘Freud’ EVER AGAIN.
6. After mocks, you have heard pretty much every failure related quote known to man                                                    
Mocks in January are not fun, but once you finish them things start to feel alright – that’s until you get your results back. Knowing that many people are gutted about some of their grades, teachers find it necessary to do the whole, ‘try, try and try again’, ‘the real failure is when you stop trying’, ‘failure is the opportunity to try again more intelligently’ and then there’s my absolute favourite- YOU ARE NOT YOUR GRADES ( Yeah, that’s uplifting, unless I get an A, then sorry I am an A).
7. The closer you get to exams, the more dramatic everyone becomes
I include myself in this tbh. I cried, felt like Carol Ann Duffy despised me and thought that life was pretty much over and although it was sad at the time, looking back on all the conversations where people would say ‘you know what I can’t deal, I’m just going to become a slug’ it was actually hilarious.
8. You realise just how hard learning a language is
Just because you were an avid Dora the Explorer fan as a child, and have been studying Spanish since Year 7 doesn’t make it any easier. Subjunctive, preposition, past participle- Bye Felicia. (but s/o to my Spanish teachers for keeping me sane this year).
9. You have a closer relationship with food
Ahh, how could I not have a point dedicated to food? The 6th form common room is basically food paradise. You have about three lunches every day; one during your free, one at break and one at lunch and in year 13 you have more free periods so I’m really excited about that (might have to turn my locker into a makeshift food store hmm…),
10. ‘Why am I here?’ becomes a regular thought
You sit there in your frees, break and lunchtime and you have one of these weird feelings where everyone’s noise merges into one and you think, of all the places in the world why on earth am I here?
11. Assemblies are used to  remind you exactly why you are there
To thrive, to succeed, to get rich so you can go on holiday to Bora Bora (this has to be one of the best things a teacher has ever said). It’s like teachers know that you are silently pondering why you should attend school the next day, so assemblies become mini Ted Talks/ Inspirational speeches.
12. There’s always that deception person
Let me explain, this scenario has probably happened to you at least once
You: ‘ I don’t really get this topic, doubt I’ll do well in the test’
Deception: ‘You don’t get it, I have NEVER got it. It’s so hard, you’re lucky you will probably get it eventually, I’m screwed. I might as well not even sit the test. I might as well never come to school ever again. I might as well just move to another country. So sure I’m getting a U’
*Gets tests results back*
Deception: What did you get?
You: D, what about you?
Deception: Oh, 100%
You: *cries all the way home*
IF YOU SAY THAT YOU’RE RUBBISH AT A TOPIC AND MAKE ME THINK THAT WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER, IN TERMS OF FLOPPING THE EXAM, THEN DON’T COME AND TELL ME YOU GOT 100%, LIKE THAT IS COMPLETELY DEFEATING THE OBJECTIVE OF FAILING TOGETHER. WHY DON’T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS?
13. If you start the year loving a subject. You’ll hate it by the end
Ah, my friend sent me this one, and although I can’t testify to it personally, it was tear worthy and a tiny bit funny sometimes, to see people who previously loved their subjects give you the look of death when you ask them about it three months down the line.
14. The jump from GCSE to A levels/IB is lethal
Right let me tell you a story: During P.E in Year 9/10 we did high jump and only God knows what was wrong with me that day, I jumped over the poll and instead of landing on the mat, I landed at the very edge, rolled over and crashed on to the floor, that’s what the jump from GCSE to A levels and IB is. But you know, we laugh to hide the pain.
15. You realise just how much will-power you have
Year 12 is basically over and we are still alive, and operating (although, you may have broken a few cogs along the way) but yeah we are still alive! Year 12 shows you just how strong you are, because there are so many times when giving up seemed like the best option but you still hung in there. So to all my fellow Year 12s I’m so proud of you and I hope we all go on to BOSS Year 13.
Is there any point that you can really relate to?
What has Year 12 taught you?
Feel free to comment and share :)

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