Wow. No more school. For real, this time. What’s that? You want me to tell you all about my life, my internet friend? I know, I know, long time no speak..
Okay.
I’ve had my last A-level exam, I’ve returned (most) of my books, we’ve had the leavers’ ceremony, we’ve been to the pub with our teachers afterwards. I’m a little numb from it all, really. Apart from the yearbook and the OG tie..we’ve only got our own memories and anecdotes. Seven years. It’s a long time. For our leavers’ statement (which wasn’t even included in my pack), I mashed up my personal yearbook entry and my UCAS statement, cobbling together an irony-tinged last-minute bit of prose, written at some ungodly hour the night before two and a half weeks after the deadline:
A seven-year relationship is difficult to summarise, let-alone forget, and as with all experiences there have been ups and downs. At times my patience has most definitely been strained due to my insistence on seeking out extra-curricular activities to occupy my time: with Amnesty, hosting the Charity Gigs, Young Enterprise, Schools Without Walls, the House Reading competition (unbeaten 5 years in a row…), countless school plays and the Junior Drama Society among others, I’ve certainly been kept busy – and away from the sports field! Although I may lack a legacy, I certainly know my liason with the RGS will stay with me forever. I may have occasionally let the pressure overwhelm my emotions, but if you don’t crack the shell, you can’t eat the nut.
I hope the RGS will miss me as much as I will miss it – take from that what you want! Nevertheless, I’ve made some friends I hope I shall never lose contact with, certainly my time on Facebook to the detriment of my work has seen to that! Whether or not the school has made me who I am is left open to debate, and I’m sure I will have to fend off the stigma of being a ‘posh Surrey private school ****’ all my life, but I certainly wouldn’t have been content to go anywhere else.
With my A2 grades, my leaver’s hoody and my yearbook, my year is finally at an end, and I shall walk out of the RGS gates for the final time, free from the daily grind that, dare I say it, brought an enjoyable, community-feel to the centre of Guildford. What do I do now? Well, I hope to study English at RHUL, with aspirations of becoming a broadcast journalist As Tom Stoppard said in a 1988 Guardian interview – “I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon”.
To try and stem the tide of sentimental emotions and the inevitable “what am I doing with my life?”/”I’ve-made-all-the-wrong-university-decisions-and-achieved-nothing” breakdowns, I’ve been to A Midsummer Night’s Dream post-exams party, a Superheroes-themed party…
I got invited to Centre Court at Wimbledon (debenture seats – thanks Tim & Mr. Scott!) to test out my new camera, eat strawberries and cream, watch Djokovic get knocked out and Federer beat Soderling… and now I’m packing to go inter-railing with these people for three weeks. Oh, and I fixed my iPod by uploading 13368 songs individually to target the problem. Yay! In case you didn’t catch the embedded link, you go here for updates now.
It’s a hard life, eh?
Actually, I’m knackered. And so is my bank balance.