Posted by Tiggy. on October 31, 1999 at 15:15:12:
In Reply to: Re: To Matches - once more with feeling!. posted by Matches on October 31, 1999 at 14:08:54:
Not sure what 3rd grade is, but I reached my peak in the 3rd year of senior school, age 14. I came top in all three English exams, History, Religous Studies, Chemistry and Physics. After that I went downhill, so I know the feeling.
BUT, doing an essay is not just so you can have it marked, it's a practice to get you used to doing essays, researching, structuring, refining etc., and to increase your confidence in these things. I know it's very Fourish to want to concentrate on the subject matter and learning about ideas, facts, theories, but the essay thing is as much a way of learning about a process. I know you don't see the point of it, but how many of the things do you have to do in the end? Not that many. Surely you can do something pointless a few times, in order to get a ticket to more interesting opportunities. And while you're there doing these few pointless things, you get to go to lectures which may be interesting, you get access to resources, you get access to people and social events and societies, you don't have to do the boring 9-5, you can do your own thing for a large part of the week and then rush off the essays just before the deadline, you get a roof over your head which is presumably already paid for(unless you're going in from home, I can't remember).
What will you do if you leave? Will it mean staying with your parents for years, not getting a very good job, doing something dull for a few years and being too tired at the end of the day to do any of your own stuff.
How long have you got to go? Even three years is a short time, and you must have already done part of that. You've got the rest of your life to go to work and not do essays.
I can't believe you've never heard of Richard Branson; I guess he's our equivalent of Bill Gates, but he's known in the States too. You must have heard of Virgin Airlines.
I meant by internal agenda, that we can't necessarily deliver when people want us to, we may have other inner priorities, like things in our unconscious that we need to sort out. For me, not doing my essays was a form of passive aggression and a way of letting people know that something was wrong. That's another bonus, free counselling! I've got an important appointment on Wednesday too - a visit to see an endocrinologist; specialist in hormones, to sort out my hormone imbalance. I've had to wait several months for it so I hope he gives me some pills.
I love fires too; it's the one good thing about Winter. We have a 'living flame' fire, a gas fire that looks just like a real fire, with the option of coal or wood. You're not supposed to, but I throw bits of incense stick on it and pretend I'm Guinevere or the witchy one, I've forgotten her name.
I thought the hair might be lightish brown, going fairer in the sun, but you didn't say if it was curly at all.