“Never before has a Transition Year group faced learning circumstances such as these.”
This is what they told us. They meant COVID-19. They meant acne caused by face masks and hand sanitiser that peels like glue. They meant reminding younger students to wear their masks and blisters caused by walking a one-way system through the school, in the two-inch platforms that you just aren’t able to break-in because you only ever really bought them because they look super cute.
Between naïvely choosing Metalwork along with Design and Communication Graphics as some of my optional subjects during a whimsical, Ghibli-movie-like attitude, it probably wasn’t the best idea for one of the least practical students I know. Neither was volunteering to make posters and say a little something in French at student assemblies for occasions such as European Languages Week 2020, when I’ve never actually had any real talent for drawing, and the thought of public speaking makes me indescribably nauseous. But hey, I sure know how to put myself out there. But isn’t it important to make the effort? Vital for our character development as adolescents to expand our horizons as well as our comfort zones? I really can’t be sure, all I know is that being woken up before 11am for any occasion that isn’t Christmas, is criminal.
Transition Year began with noticing who got new haircuts, who shot up a few inches since I saw them last, and admiring how dashing we all look in our new navy jumpers, me especially. I, along with, I’m assuming, most of my Transition Year peers, am taking this year as an opportunity to branch out to new people, experiment with subject options and put myself forward for as many opportunities as possible. This is, in theory, an excellent strategy, but for the minute I am simply dehydrated, pondering if 9:40 on a Tuesday morning is too early to start crying, and envisioning what it would be like to throw a cow heart across the room in biology class.
When you’re in the middle of re-watching Gilmore Girls for the third time, wishing upon a shooting star that you’ll wake up tomorrow morning as Rory Gilmore from Stars Hollow, the harsh reality of watching your classmates sticking their fingers down a cow’s aorta and having a slightly lower chance of being accepted into Yale than Rory had, can hit like a ton of bricks. For anyone like me, who has never been the most outgoing or adventurous type, putting yourself out there can be difficult. But with enough time, water, and a list of viable excuses that you can use to avoid unnecessary plans, in the midst of the stress, uncertainty and chin-centred spots caused by this pandemic, we should all be okay.
