Last night was an "OH CRAP SCHOOL IS ALMOST OVER FOR ME" sort of moment.
We got a letter from the school about a month ago, inviting us to this year's K-12 (and also T-12, or 0-12) dinner. (I can't believe I tried to replace that "got" with "received". Stupid formal register required for essay writing.) Now, I'd always had every intention of going, until I found out the dinner was on the Tuesday of the very last week that assignments are due - that is, the IB requires the marks for all internal assessments - those not exclusively marked by examiners not in our school - to be submitted digitally by Friday, so that they can reply by Monday and say which ones they want sent to Cardiff for external moderation. (If the teacher is found to have marked too generously, every one of their students' marks go down, and vice versa.) So it wasn't just a matter of "hand it in by Friday", it was "teachers must have it marked by Friday". Which meant "hand it in by Wednesday" for a fair few teachers. Problem.
Long story short, after much dillying and dallying (I can't believe I just used "dillydally". I think I just crossed the line into codgerism) I figured, screw it; let's go.
So there I was last night, feeling immensely narcissistic (second time this year. I think this means something) as I stood in front of the mirror and tried to figure out if my long-sleeved shirt should be tucked in or not. First time I'd been to a function that explicitly required a level of dress, too. Smart casual, in this case. Which, incidentally, doesn't mean "neat jeans and an unoffensive tee". I wish. Long button-down shirt, dress trousers and loafers. My lack of non-school uniform dress pants and my owning only two pairs of shoes - sneakers and black dress shoes - meant that I went in black jeans and said dress shoes instead.
But I digress. We turned up to the Prep, had a look around the building that's been built over the basketball courts and lawn since we (we, year 12 2008) had left, and hung out until dinner, where Nick and I got a chance to chat with our Transition teacher, Mrs Gunter. (It used to be "Kindergarten" = essentially day care, and "Transition"= what most schools call Kindergarten. They've since become "Pre-kindergarten", and "Kindergarten".) Meant a lot to me, as I joined Trinity in that year, 1996. I had been looking forward to doing so, but hadn't taken into account that we'd be speaking adult-to-adult now (well, adult-to-non-infant). Certainly was interesting. And entertaining! She would be an insanely popular high school teacher. I paraphrase (because sadly, my memory isn't that good):
I find it immensely interesting that I spent most of the night hanging out with my close friends at the Prep, rather than my current close friends (well, singular. Sorry, Jordan). Nick, Deacon, Matt... Wonder why that was the case; presumably it wasn't just because I can't reminisce about the prep with Jordan. Well, we were in the same year 2 class (amazingly), but I have no memory of ever speaking with him. And he left for Kings (TRAITOR) at the end of that year.
Aside: I still find it funny that he managed to come to the dinner. Apparently the topic came up in his interview with the Headmaster, who then personally invited him. So, at the K-12 dinner, we also had T-12, and one K-2, 7-12. Good stuff.
After toasts by our year 3 coordinator, Ms Brown, and present vice-captain of the senior school Virosh, we headed back to the building which housed K-2. (Uh, PK-2 now.) Because virtually drowning in nostalgia is cool, y'know? Not to mention we'd never pass up the chance to turn up our noses at any new changes to the building and be generally codgerish. (Yes, that's a word. It's a word now, anyway.) A few highlights:
And secondly, the Prep was the first place I ever encountered a common misspelling of my name: "Barnabus". At least, my first memory of this misspelling is at the Prep. To then have this greet me on my way in, then, was downright hilarious. I happened to have a pen in my pocket, so I did correct it, but for the first time, this particular mistake didn't leave me annoyed, or amusedly annoyed - just amused.
Apologies for this post being long, rambly, and sickeningly nostalgic. But I have to admit, I think I wrote this more for me than for any other reader.
We got a letter from the school about a month ago, inviting us to this year's K-12 (and also T-12, or 0-12) dinner. (I can't believe I tried to replace that "got" with "received". Stupid formal register required for essay writing.) Now, I'd always had every intention of going, until I found out the dinner was on the Tuesday of the very last week that assignments are due - that is, the IB requires the marks for all internal assessments - those not exclusively marked by examiners not in our school - to be submitted digitally by Friday, so that they can reply by Monday and say which ones they want sent to Cardiff for external moderation. (If the teacher is found to have marked too generously, every one of their students' marks go down, and vice versa.) So it wasn't just a matter of "hand it in by Friday", it was "teachers must have it marked by Friday". Which meant "hand it in by Wednesday" for a fair few teachers. Problem.
Long story short, after much dillying and dallying (I can't believe I just used "dillydally". I think I just crossed the line into codgerism) I figured, screw it; let's go.
So there I was last night, feeling immensely narcissistic (second time this year. I think this means something) as I stood in front of the mirror and tried to figure out if my long-sleeved shirt should be tucked in or not. First time I'd been to a function that explicitly required a level of dress, too. Smart casual, in this case. Which, incidentally, doesn't mean "neat jeans and an unoffensive tee". I wish. Long button-down shirt, dress trousers and loafers. My lack of non-school uniform dress pants and my owning only two pairs of shoes - sneakers and black dress shoes - meant that I went in black jeans and said dress shoes instead.
But I digress. We turned up to the Prep, had a look around the building that's been built over the basketball courts and lawn since we (we, year 12 2008) had left, and hung out until dinner, where Nick and I got a chance to chat with our Transition teacher, Mrs Gunter. (It used to be "Kindergarten" = essentially day care, and "Transition"= what most schools call Kindergarten. They've since become "Pre-kindergarten", and "Kindergarten".) Meant a lot to me, as I joined Trinity in that year, 1996. I had been looking forward to doing so, but hadn't taken into account that we'd be speaking adult-to-adult now (well, adult-to-non-infant). Certainly was interesting. And entertaining! She would be an insanely popular high school teacher. I paraphrase (because sadly, my memory isn't that good):
Well, I'm taking colours soccer now, so, you know, I'm lucky if I can get them to recognise the ball at thirty paces and have the teams go *shoom* [hand gestures for a forward-left-diagonal movement] or *shoom* [forward-right], rather than *blurg* [hands entangled].If you didn't know, "colours", or intra-school sports teams are those who didn't make it into an inter-school team. So at younger years... well, my old teacher put it better than I ever could have. But as I said to Nick after she headed back to her table, that sort of conversation would have been absolutely unthinkable twelve years ago, or even eight years ago, when we left the Prep[aratory, aka primary] school. It was cool beyond words to be able to chat to a person who taught me as tiny kid in the same way that I chat to people like my German teacher, Mr Lucas.
I find it immensely interesting that I spent most of the night hanging out with my close friends at the Prep, rather than my current close friends (well, singular. Sorry, Jordan). Nick, Deacon, Matt... Wonder why that was the case; presumably it wasn't just because I can't reminisce about the prep with Jordan. Well, we were in the same year 2 class (amazingly), but I have no memory of ever speaking with him. And he left for Kings (TRAITOR) at the end of that year.
Aside: I still find it funny that he managed to come to the dinner. Apparently the topic came up in his interview with the Headmaster, who then personally invited him. So, at the K-12 dinner, we also had T-12, and one K-2, 7-12. Good stuff.
After toasts by our year 3 coordinator, Ms Brown, and present vice-captain of the senior school Virosh, we headed back to the building which housed K-2. (Uh, PK-2 now.) Because virtually drowning in nostalgia is cool, y'know? Not to mention we'd never pass up the chance to turn up our noses at any new changes to the building and be generally codgerish. (Yes, that's a word. It's a word now, anyway.) A few highlights:
Two more things. I found two amusing ironies in the night. Firstly, at the Prep I was (and even now I remain) a total unco. I found it amazingly fitting, then, that as we were leaving the property, I walked into a low lamppost. (In my defence, I was walking backwards and chatting with Nick at the time.)Miloffeecoffee seems to still be barred from student access, and presently houses a plant-growing project. I am DISAPPOINTED. It was a circular gap in the garden near the sandpit, accessible from the path, in which we used to hang out. Well, we were kids. Play, I guess. I only found this out last night, but the name was coined by Nick, who was looking for a randomly awesome name, and snagged it from his older brother's name for "milo in coffee".
Pre-Kindergarten play equipment is actually still there! I think one or two pieces have moved, but it's amazing to see that the stuff hasn't been replaced, given that I think every other set of play equipment has been. (Well, there were only two others back then to start with, BUT DOES IT LOOK LIKE MY ARGUMENT CARES?)
And secondly, the Prep was the first place I ever encountered a common misspelling of my name: "Barnabus". At least, my first memory of this misspelling is at the Prep. To then have this greet me on my way in, then, was downright hilarious. I happened to have a pen in my pocket, so I did correct it, but for the first time, this particular mistake didn't leave me annoyed, or amusedly annoyed - just amused.
Apologies for this post being long, rambly, and sickeningly nostalgic. But I have to admit, I think I wrote this more for me than for any other reader.
