We Will Honour Yet The School We Know

I have been feeling very guilty about my lack of blog posting. I know we are supposed to be 'blogging guilt free' and supposedly I am more productively using time which would otherwise be spent blogging, but it truth, it doesn't sit well and I can't quite pinpoint why. Maybe I don't feel like sharing at the moment? Or is it that I have just lost interest in life? Like, nothing's worth blogging about?

And yet, of course , it is.

Like this last week for instance. Surely I couldn't let the start of the BA's time at my Alma Mater go unmarked? I dutifully took photos as she waited nervously in the kitchen for Grandma and Grandad to pick her up and take her down for her first day. She had been in to an Orientation on the previous day; but that was in casual clothes, the only other students being other newbies and consisted mainly of a lesson in how to use the school's IT network. Thursday was the big day and she posed patiently for photos, her lovely smile masking that deep, overwhelming dread you get as you stand on the end of the jetty and look down into the murky, seaweedy depths below, knowing that the push in the small of your back is but seconds away.

She shed a few tears before I left that morning. She shed a lot more that afternoon in my office after school when, as I rushed down the stairs from a meeting to gather her up and ask her the inevitable questions, the relief and loneliness poured out of her.

It was a fine day. She had been given a buddy who was very nice and whose group of friends were very welcoming. She had people to sit with at lunchtime. The lessons were fine. She had endured the first of hundreds of assemblies in our old Hall, where my Bestie's name gleams dully down from the dark, aged wood of the Honour Roll; where dust motes are caught in the light, streaming from the huge, rear lead light window.

But it was all a bit overwhelming. My Baby Angel has been a central player in a close knit group of very social friends for a long time now. Her old school was smaller and has less history; it has no 'Great Hall' as she calls it: it does not have the ghost of her teenage mother lurking in its hallowed corridors. For the first time in a long time she was completely alone in an unfamiliar environment. And she smiled at everyone the whole day. No wonder the tears flowed when the pressure cooker lid lifted.

I was supposed to be going up to our Year 12 camp that night. 2010's Year 12s are a group I have known for 3 years and I have taught many of them. I was going up for the 'Red Faces' Concert, usually an hilarious occasion, but the BA hugged me desperately and begged me not to go so of course I cancelled immediately and we spent a bit of time twined together on the couch that night.

The next morning there were more tears and an inability to eat breakfast so I promised to pick her up after school, as she finishes after we do. I dropped everything at 3.03pm and with the anticipation of a mother, awaited her arrival at the school gate.

She waltzed out about 15 minutes late, all smiles, announcing that she thinks she might like to do 'Drama Studio' this year!

So in a quick answer to all of your very thoughtful inquiries......she's doing OK!! So far......

This morning it was back to feeling sick and shedding a few tears. Dearest Grandad was so concerned about her that he stopped enroute so they could both have a coffee together. Unfortunately she doesn't drink coffee yet! Tonight when I picked her up again she was fine; and tonight we have been learning French irregular verbs on flash cards!!!!

Already we are seeing value for our $$$$$$$$$$$$