CLibra’s Blog

August 27th. GCSE results day

Everybody my age has been looking to today with a blend of excitement and apprehension. I’m pleased with my GCSEs, my first real qualifications. I’ve left school with 13 GCSEs, all graded A*-B; 3 A*’s, 9 A’s, and 1 B. Additionally, I’ve managed to land myself a merit in Critical Thinking from the college and a selection of academic awards. Not bad, hey?

This is the end of an era for me. Compulsory education is over and I’ve made the most of it. This summer has been a transition phase, as I’ve stopped being a pupil at high school and thought about my future. In a few days, I’ll start my life at college, where I’ll be doing AS levels; I intend to study Maths, Physics, Computing, French and Spanish, as well as my additional studies of Creative Writing & Japanese. It’s gonna be a fun time for me, but I know that I’m gonna need to develop as a person to succeed in the next two years of my education.

And after that? It becomes a little foggy. I know I want to carry on with the two things I enjoy the most – computing and languages – but I don’t want to have to give one of them up. Perhaps a dual honours degree scheme, Computing and Language Studies? And then afterwards, who knows? Google HQ in Paris, perhaps? CERN? Teaching English as a foreign language?

Life’s about to get a lot more exciting, independent, and uncertain. And I’m going to embrace it.

Now that High School is over, this is the longest summer that I’ll probably ever have. The question is, what shall I do with it?

Apart from the obvious, yearly necessities, such as a hot days spent in the shade of the woods, taking the train to the beach, and afternoon celebrations based on the fact that it isn’t raining, I’d like to expand my horizons this summer, ameliorate myself. I want to use these 15 weeks before I start college to focus on gaining new experiences, turning what’s usually a lazy holiday into a summer that I won’t forget.

So what should I do?

• I’m going to read a lot more. Constant studying of texts that I hate has given me little time for reading for pleasure, and there are lots of books that I need to get through.
• I’m going to work on writing more. I really should, because I enjoy crafting worded masterpieces. I should write more poetry and more blog posts, perhaps branching into journalism as well.
• Exercise. I’m not an unhealthy person, but I realise that I need to exercise more. Perhaps early morning runs before the heat kicks in? Swimming to cool off? Or, my favourite sport, Tchoukball, which I find that very few people know about it – perhaps I should spread the interest.
• I’ve discovered I have a passion for capturing moments through photography; as such, I could combine photography with creative writing and web design to make an online portfolio of creativity. I find that my skills generally lack an artistic side, as I focus on foreign languages and computer science, but by spending the summer honing my creativity, I could really benefit from it.
• Science used to fascinate me, but constant molar equations has put me off it. When the exams are over, I’m going to re-embrace science, not from a study perspective, but I’m going to pursue it as an interest. I’m carrying on Physics in college, so I can use this summer to brush up on my understanding of ‘real world’ science.
• Unfortunately, having free time isn’t cheap, as I’m prone to wasting money in the summer. I’m considering the possibility of a summer job to bring in some money and give me some more experience of work, and I’m also committing myself to putting a little bit of money in the bank each month.
• Unplugging the internet, I intend to write more letters to faraway friends, especially those in France, as it’ll help me out with my language practise.
• Speaking of the French language, I love foreign ‘art-films’, and it’d be nice to have some more cultural experience from such movies.

I’d really like to use this time I have as an experimental self-improvement time; I want to deepen my academic skills, but at the same time expand on the normal sociable summer experiences. Thank goodness for 43 Things to help me along!

On my holiday in Sicily, I realised a few things.

1. A pair of Vans and a pair of flip flops are not enough. The streets are not the best to traverse, so some more shoes would have been better.
2. Being disconnected from the infinite flow of the net didn’t bother me. I knew I had email waiting, I knew I had things to do, but it didn’t bother me. I only started to want to rush to a computer after I’d got off the plane on the journey home.
3. Don’t order things from Amazon just before you go.
4. Travelling with a disabled person is very easy. Kudos to the support that Parlemo airport offer for the disabled – it’s meglio than I had expected, with special shortcut corridors and check in areas, a dedicated attendant, and a lift for wheelchairs, it really caters for the less able people among us.
5. Learn the dialect. I’ve always understood Sicilian dialect, but opted to use standard Italian instead. I wish that I’d spoken more like a local.
6. Cultures don’t lock each other out. In Agrigento in Sicily, there are Greek temples; it took me a moment to comprehend why there are Greek temples in Sicily, but I grasped that Sicily didn’t just drop out of the sky, it’s an amalgam of some of the world’s most influential places, and in being so, it’s entirely its own.
7. Driving is amazing. Seeing the mountains all around you, the bleakly beautiful countryside, softened by the Mediterranean sea, is really something. Navigating the roads is easy, and it’s impossible not to enjoy it with the countryside – you even ignore the bad Sicilian driving.
8. Respect. Out there, respect is key. Most of the world now confuses respect with fear – we respect people because we are afraid of what they might do if we don’t; in Sicily, there is still true respect. And d’ya know what? It really shows.
9. Time is irrelevant. People and places don’t change, Sicily retains an eerie immortality. I guess people just ignore the superficialities that we have over here, they stay themselves, per sempre.
10. I love being Sicilian. The lifestyle is so genuine, sometimes overpowering, but always itself.