need help with homework.
Breakfast finished I drift back upstairs in slow motion, tripping over the cat as I do so, and try to get my brain working enough to see what lessons I have that day and to
pack my bag. I think, when I’m older, I’d
like to be Prime Minister. I could certainly do a better job of it than Tony Blair. I would make it illegal to start school until at least 11.00am. How anyone can think at this unearthly hour is beyond me. Finally, at 8:07, I manage to leave the house. My bad mood of this morning is not improved by the silent, heavy drizzle that greets me as I step out of the door. The drizzle soon turns to a downpour as I trudge down the grey, rain-spattered pavement on my way to Nicola’s house. I am greeted by the usual pandemonium as both Nicola and her sister rush around the house as though they had a swarm of wasps after them. 8:14 sees us starting the trek up to school which, although it is only a half hour walk, leaves me feeling like I have been walking for hours.
I get into my form-room and get through registration on auto-pilot. I rarely wake up before 12:00, especially on a Monday. Roll on the end of the week! The morning passes in a blur as I sleep walk through maths and history, waking up only for a brief time in drama. The teachers are all annoyingly cheerful, telling us that we should be wide-awake and ready to work after having the weekend to rest. The weekend is a joke. After working non-stop all week we are given a mountain of homework to do. I think the teachers can’t stand the thought of us having any fun , we should just be working towards G.C.S.E.s, then A-levels and then university without a break in between. I know that teachers are only trying to help when they tell us over and over again how important GCSEs are, but they will soon just be telling us that A levels are far more important.
At the moment I don’t really want to go to sixth form or university although everyone expects me to. I probably will drag myself through sixth form just for the extra qualifications and to give me time to decide what I want to do. I’ll probably take English lit., history and Biology, not because any of these subjects are ones I particularly enjoy ( apart from history), but because they are probably some of the more useful subjects that I could take.
I always cheer up at lunch, probably from the thought that there are only two more hours between me and freedom. Chemistry fourth lesson is not a good start to the afternoon, but as long as you look like you are paying attention and manage to scribble down some unintelligible nonsense about whatever the teacher is waffling on about, it is generally okay. It’s not that I don’t like teachers, even though I have to live with two at home, it’s just when their subject is, as far as you are concerned, the most boring and pointless thing on earth it’s not your fault that you can’t show some enthusiasm for it. Graphics last lesson puts me in a better mood, more because it is the last lesson of the day than because it’s a subject I enjoy, although it is probably my favourite lesson.
The walk home passes in a blur and the minute I get through the door I flop in front of the T.V. and don’t move until my mum gets home at about 5:30. Seven hours of school followed by an hour of rubbish on the telly has left me with the I.Q. of a vegetable and I’m utterly exhausted even though it is only Monday. Four more days of torture stretch out endlessly before me. Unfortunately when my dad comes in from work I have to get up to go to my flute lesson. I really like playing the flute but having it on a Monday means that I have to get through it with only the intellectual capacity of an ant. After finishing the homework that has already been set, even though it is the first day of the week, I decide to call it a night. At about ten I drift upstairs and collapse on my bed. Lying on my bed I can’t help wondering why it is that we have to go to school The way I see it my life is already mapped out for me. Hard work from the cradle to the grave with nothing in between. If these are the best years of my life then why am I spending them at school! Two years of nursery, followed by seven years at primary school, five more at secondary school, two at sixth form, anywhere from two to seven years at university until finally, when you think you are free, work until you’re too old to do anything but draw your pension and play bingo. I suppose one good thing about having so many years between me and work is that I don’t have to decide what I want to do for ages. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do and I don’t really care what it is I do as long as I earn lots of money and the job doesn’t bore me to death before I can spend it. Anyway, as I won’t get my freedom for many more years, I’d better get a good nights sleep so that maybe I might actually wake up some time at school tomorrow.
