All Girls' School and Special Assembly

A Rustle in the Wind

That last post about school was just something I had to get out of my system. It’s not as bad as I’m making it sound. Sure there are times I feel that way, but mostly, life at teh new school is pleasant. There was a meeting for the new girls at lunch today, and the Deputy Principal said something along the lines of: New girls often have doubts, “Am I in the right class, am I taking the right subjects, am I in the right school.” And that’s normal. It’s a very big change and it’s normal to feel that way. Some girls may need only a few weeks to get accustomed when others may need a term. But we generally find that things settle down after a term. You’ll feel like you’ve been here since year 7, even the teachers forget who’s new. I hope that’s what will happen to me too. Onto more interesting things.

There really is a difference between all girls’ schools and co-ed schools. You know how when the school song and national anthem is sang at assembly it doesn't sound that good? The boys were singing in all different keys and being out of tune and generally just shouting/grunting it. Well we had a special assembly on Tuesday, and when everyone sang it sounded amazing. It was like a professional choir. Girls are generally netter at singing, and everyone was singing at the same key, it sounds angelic. That's just something I noticed.

I also noticed things like the fact that the wooden tables and benches in the playground/garden, donated 20 years ago, have zero graffiti on it. There's no one running around playing tips or handball, the girls sit and chat together. There are no hand ball court, no outdoor basketball court. In my old school you can hear a rumble of noise when it's lunch, with people shouting and running and talking, you can't even hear a hum at lunchtime here. It's so much quieter.

Back to the assembly. The year 7 students came in as a group after everyone else was there already. In Hurlstone we just have everyone standing and play music. Today, we stood and clapped. And kept clapping. And kept clapping. And kept clapping. We kept clapping for at least 5 minutes, until every last year 7 was in the hall. My palms were hurting by the end of it and I didn't clap hard. I heard that we get the same treatment when we graduate as year 12's. It's not a bad thing, just a weird thing to do.

So the principal talked about how good the HSC results were, and "that's the tradition you will inherit." I felt strange to hear something like that "tradition you will inherit" when I've only just arrived. I mean, Mr Norris says things like that too, "we have a proud tradition of ...", "I hope you will walk in their footsteps...", but I've been in Hurlstone since year 7, I feel proud when I hear that in my old school. But hearing it in a school I've been in for all of two days, I don't really know what to feel. There's a little bit of...oddness, there's the faint thought that their tradition is not, well, mine. I wasn't there when the class of 2010 got these amazing results. And they are very good results, by the way.

There's this thing at assembly called "doing a soapbox". A student gets up onto the stage and, to paraphrase the speaker's words, "you rant about something and everyone has to listen to you". It really was a very good speech, and she was a very good speaker. She was talking about time, and how fast it goes. How we should be doing things, trying things, and not just "standing there and waiting for life to pass you by."