Fremantle Line
Potential
I woke up late again on Tuesday. Looking tired and feeling quite sick I stumble out the front door and make my way to the bus stop. School is an hour and a half ride from my house, give or take depending on what time you leave and traffic. Rush hour hits peak earlier then usual on Fridays. The morning mist is in the air, and the cold surrounds me like a blanket as I walk down the deserted street. The sun is silhouetting over the roofs of the houses behind me. I see all those workers, drones, stock brokers, cheaters, in their fast cars and expensive suits, smiling on their way to work, but I do not smile; my only urge to is after 10:30am. Surrounded by friends and people who care is a better feeling then waking up in the morning; or in my house for that matter.
I run my index finger across the tips of my lips, dry and cracked and remember the last thing my dad said to me that morning. He asked me why I didn’t smile in the mornings. Why I don’t jump out of bed with a spring in my step or like I’m on fire to greet the day before babbling on about his childhood. After the first fifty million times you here those words “when I was your age…” you tend to tune out and the answers come as a reflex. Always say yes, never argue. These are the rules to avoid five hours of verbal bashing followed by a clip around the ear.
It is repetitive and more so annoying. Annoying not because of the fact that it is repetitive, but because there is nothing I can do about it. The day I sat my first exam, my mom wished me luck, where as my dad questioned why I was still at school, motivational. Ethics I told him, so I don’t end up a drop out like him. More then a decade ago they passed the law that you weren’t able to physically “educate” your child; it just gave the parents more of a reason to have an “encounter” behind closed doors. I’d walk out the door on fire or in tears, on a good day just on fire. I count down the minutes as to when my dad decides to ring me on the bus and apologize. Rinse, wash and repeat. Please rewind and turn the tape over.
It didn’t matter in the end, I always saw myself as different from my father in any case. I suppose in that sense he had to give me a hard time, because he wanted me to do the best I could. Isn’t that what your parents tell you?
School started early today on the account of the weather; stormy conditions and a slight chance of a pop quiz. Pop quiz, more like quiz surprise. Half of the questions we hadn’t even studied and accounted for 5% of the course outline; surprise.
This was their way of testing us, obviously. The pass mark for any course is an average of 50% after being scaled down of coarse. The scaling process depending on the difficulty ranges between 10 and 15%. The only subject I felt disappointed in was English. I loved English with a passion; it was insightful although other fellow class mates found it dull. The only disappointment was the marking. Any essay would be marked out of 25 to your potential; which is really dangerous. Your potential is something you want to stay very far away from because if you do happen to open that door and find out what you can achieve, 90% of the time its always worse that what you had. They mark it out of 25 to your potential because it has been quoted by teachers that a mark of 25 is impossible to get. No student will ever get 25 out of 25 and if they do then you’re probably sitting next to Tim Winton the famous novelist. Or someone who is far smarter then you and has a degree in English literature and is redoing their TEE English course because they are bored. Would some one like to calculate the odds of that? No? Well then you can come up to the board and do it for me.
Math’s; if you weren’t good at it go down to MIPS. Math’s in Practice is what they call it. A generation ago it was called Social Math’s; which in honest opinion sounds better then what we’ve got. You don’t do math’s you just socialize. Math’s in Practice was just more essays and Math’s in theory. After studying the conventions of English texts and being faced with dismal questions they expected us to write essays to MIPS would have been a breeze.
Alright class I want you to answer this question and write a two page essay in forty five minutes, keep in mind they will be marked as though this were exam conditions and marks will be deducted for errors.
“How are individuals and or groups represented in this passage?”…
…some times you just feel like your English teacher is out to get you. Put you under the microscope and watch you squirm as they poke and prod you with open questions. Philosophical bull shit that is as useful as they say algebra will be when you go to do your shopping. Val Kilmer once said: “This is it. That moment they told us in high school where one day, algebra would save our lives.”
I’m counting down the days as to when I find myself stranded on a planet in an unknown universe.
Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. We have only four periods or in my case three. The shortest day of the week only because the school believes we need the rest of the day to study; not that any normal student would we just like to make them think we do. It provides more open opportunities.
Year eleven didn’t intrigue me in the slightest; the only reason I felt to continue was to be able to make my own way in the future. It was unclear, like the rest of my fellow class mates as to what I wanted to do after I left school. The most painful question they ask you is “what do you want to do after you leave school?” and that starts at the beginning of grade eight. The consistent pressure of meeting expectations, and only discover too late what you really want to achieve and what you could have. Your potential, leave it alone.
I began walking across the grass oval at the end of the third period Wednesday, if you have lost me so far as to what date it is I don’t recall myself. My only marker is that I was in year eleven, three months before I met Grace.
I run my index finger across the tips of my lips, dry and cracked and remember the last thing my dad said to me that morning. He asked me why I didn’t smile in the mornings. Why I don’t jump out of bed with a spring in my step or like I’m on fire to greet the day before babbling on about his childhood. After the first fifty million times you here those words “when I was your age…” you tend to tune out and the answers come as a reflex. Always say yes, never argue. These are the rules to avoid five hours of verbal bashing followed by a clip around the ear.
It is repetitive and more so annoying. Annoying not because of the fact that it is repetitive, but because there is nothing I can do about it. The day I sat my first exam, my mom wished me luck, where as my dad questioned why I was still at school, motivational. Ethics I told him, so I don’t end up a drop out like him. More then a decade ago they passed the law that you weren’t able to physically “educate” your child; it just gave the parents more of a reason to have an “encounter” behind closed doors. I’d walk out the door on fire or in tears, on a good day just on fire. I count down the minutes as to when my dad decides to ring me on the bus and apologize. Rinse, wash and repeat. Please rewind and turn the tape over.
It didn’t matter in the end, I always saw myself as different from my father in any case. I suppose in that sense he had to give me a hard time, because he wanted me to do the best I could. Isn’t that what your parents tell you?
School started early today on the account of the weather; stormy conditions and a slight chance of a pop quiz. Pop quiz, more like quiz surprise. Half of the questions we hadn’t even studied and accounted for 5% of the course outline; surprise.
This was their way of testing us, obviously. The pass mark for any course is an average of 50% after being scaled down of coarse. The scaling process depending on the difficulty ranges between 10 and 15%. The only subject I felt disappointed in was English. I loved English with a passion; it was insightful although other fellow class mates found it dull. The only disappointment was the marking. Any essay would be marked out of 25 to your potential; which is really dangerous. Your potential is something you want to stay very far away from because if you do happen to open that door and find out what you can achieve, 90% of the time its always worse that what you had. They mark it out of 25 to your potential because it has been quoted by teachers that a mark of 25 is impossible to get. No student will ever get 25 out of 25 and if they do then you’re probably sitting next to Tim Winton the famous novelist. Or someone who is far smarter then you and has a degree in English literature and is redoing their TEE English course because they are bored. Would some one like to calculate the odds of that? No? Well then you can come up to the board and do it for me.
Math’s; if you weren’t good at it go down to MIPS. Math’s in Practice is what they call it. A generation ago it was called Social Math’s; which in honest opinion sounds better then what we’ve got. You don’t do math’s you just socialize. Math’s in Practice was just more essays and Math’s in theory. After studying the conventions of English texts and being faced with dismal questions they expected us to write essays to MIPS would have been a breeze.
Alright class I want you to answer this question and write a two page essay in forty five minutes, keep in mind they will be marked as though this were exam conditions and marks will be deducted for errors.
“How are individuals and or groups represented in this passage?”…
…some times you just feel like your English teacher is out to get you. Put you under the microscope and watch you squirm as they poke and prod you with open questions. Philosophical bull shit that is as useful as they say algebra will be when you go to do your shopping. Val Kilmer once said: “This is it. That moment they told us in high school where one day, algebra would save our lives.”
I’m counting down the days as to when I find myself stranded on a planet in an unknown universe.
Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. We have only four periods or in my case three. The shortest day of the week only because the school believes we need the rest of the day to study; not that any normal student would we just like to make them think we do. It provides more open opportunities.
Year eleven didn’t intrigue me in the slightest; the only reason I felt to continue was to be able to make my own way in the future. It was unclear, like the rest of my fellow class mates as to what I wanted to do after I left school. The most painful question they ask you is “what do you want to do after you leave school?” and that starts at the beginning of grade eight. The consistent pressure of meeting expectations, and only discover too late what you really want to achieve and what you could have. Your potential, leave it alone.
I began walking across the grass oval at the end of the third period Wednesday, if you have lost me so far as to what date it is I don’t recall myself. My only marker is that I was in year eleven, three months before I met Grace.
♠ ♠ ♠
will be updated later since I am at school