Brahms and Liszt

Atomac — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:10:00 +0000

At the moment my life seems to be rules entirely by lists. We have lists of things to take away, lists of things to do, lists of things we are doing, lists of things to leave behind. We even have lists of lists. To a casual observer it may seems as though we are extremely organised, but I am not so sure. I guess this all goes back to me worrying about the trip, but whereas I seem to worry about things in a completely non-productive manner Kath’s concerns manifests itself as lists. It is at the point where I believe I am listing to the left slightly (or this could be by dint of my banging my knee into one of the city of Joondalup’s pointy concrete bollards).In the world that seems a great deal more real than the holiday world of New York today saw the end of the school year and a farewell to the Year Sevens. It was quite a surreal experience. In the weeks leading up to the recent rash of graduation events a great deal of emotional capital was invested in the moment when the children finally moved on. There was the graduation dinner, the graduation concert and today’s excursion. In addition there were shirt signings, the camp and the leaver’s shirts. But, when the moment finally came, when it came time for them to go there was very little real emotion. Still it was nice. Graduation itself is a term I object to in the context of Year 7s. It is a term that is banded about and like many terms that have slipped in the public consciousness recently it is misplaced.Dictionary.com defines graduation as “the receiving or conferring of an academic degree or diploma” or “the ceremony at which degrees are conferred”. At the very least it might be described as the recognition of some type of academic achievement. In the same manner as children don’t graduate from Pre-primary, completing Year 7 is really just a matter of staying alive. Year 8 is compulsory. One might graduate from Year 10 to 11, although that is stretching it. Let’s celebrate the joys and successes of primary school. Let’s recognise the friendships. Let’s look back fondly on memories. Have dinners, shirts etc. but let’s keep a sense of perspective. I seem to have diverged from my original theme here.I need to keep my thoughts better organised. Perhaps I should write a list…

Atomac » school

Brahms and Liszt