The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

MinnieM123

Premium Member
I had my 30 this year. :depressed: Didn’t go. Haven’t spoken to those people in 10 years. Went to the 20th. Prior to that hadn’t spoken to any of them, but for some I went to college with and post grad, for 20 years. Figured if I actually cared for any of them we would still be in touch.

Amen. You know who your friends are, whether from high school, before, or after that. When I graduated from high school, I never looked back. I have one friend still from jr. college, but that's it for the school crowd. (Basically, everyone moved on and away, in some cases, with their own lives after graduation.)
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
What kind of annoys me about this reunion thing is that all who are invited are in one of the following groups:

1. The band
2. The popular kids
3. The smart kids (me)

If you weren't in those groups, forget you! Less than half of the class is invited in spite of many of them being on Facebook (some of my mutual friends have not been invited even though they went there). That's just...sad.
I wouldn't go. The point of a reunion is for all "groups" to go. Seems like the organizer is still too high schoolish.
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
I played Eliza Doolittle in our high school production of it when I was a senior. I have great memories of that. The kid who was supposed to play my father dropped out a few weeks out and the local sheriff, who was the father of the guy playing Professor Higgins, stepped in to play the role, and there's a scene where he comes to Professor Higgins' house and he slaps Eliza on the butt. So the sheriff says "I can't do that!!!!" and the kid who played Colonel Pickering says "Sure ya can! See? like this!" and he smacked me so hard I was crying, but I was laughing, too. (You had to know the kid...he really didn't mean anything by it...he was a jokester and we got along really well.)
And then when we performed it, the scene where we were at the race track, I had to shout "Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin' ****!!!" and I was known for being quite a prude..and right after that line, there was a scene change AND I had to change my costume FAST....I had several of those. So I shouted the line, and ran out the door to go change and on my way out the door, I heard the guy I had a crush on ask in shock "Did SUSAN just say a bad word????" It was always so funny to see reactions when I did something people didn't expect.
Well it wasn't really you that said the bad word, it was Eliza.;)
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
It actually differs quite a bit by country. I know some countries have no kindergarten system and don't start school until 6 or 7. Here, they start on their 4th birthday, but it's not required until they are 5. But they do 2 years of kindergarten. The cutoff date is December 31st. So say, like my son's birthday is December 3rd. So he started on December 3rd, and that was considered 1 full year by the time school ended in July. But my daughter's birthday is in May, so she started in May, finished out that school year, but that didn't count toward her first year. When she started the next school year in the fall, that was her first year of kindergarten. They call that grade 1, and they go through 8 years, so grade 8 here is 6th grade in the US. Kindergarten is mostly play...they learn the sounds letters make, they learn colors, shapes, numbers up to 100, but don't learn to read, write, add, subtract until grade 3 (1st grade...6 years old) Then they spend a couple of years only doing the basics....reading, writing, basic math. Then they start adding subjects in grade 5 (3rd grade), like science and history and geography. Then in grade 7 (5th grade) they start learning English. There ARE schools who start with English already by at least grade 3, but ours wasn't one of those. At the end of grade 8 (6th grade), all kids are required to take an end exam, kind of like an elementary level ACT or SAT. Their score on that test (plus advice from their elementary school) will determine what type of school they can go to for secondary education.

It's divided by level, so you go to a school and all the kids at that school are at your level. It prevents teachers from having to teach to the average while some kids struggle, and some kids are bored. So there is practical education which is for kids who just aren't book learners. They start right off learning a trade. Then you have kids who can handle a bit of theoretical education, but are better with the practical side, that's VMBO-Basis....very basic education. Then the kids who are a kind of a mix....half theoretical, half practical = VMBO Kader. Then kids who are fine learning from books, but they are pretty average = VMBO GT. I believe all of those are 4 years....I know all the vmbo's are, but not sure about Practical. Then you get into the more advanced kids...HAVO...that's for your B average kids...they do well in a regular school setting, but they are not necessarily Univerity bound....they might be more community college kids, and that's 5 years of high school and then they go on to college. And then you have kids that are really easy learners, always get an A in every subject, like my daughter, and that's VWO. That's 6 years. It's basically an AP (advanced placement) high school. You CAN stream from one level to another once you finish a level by adding a year. So, if you start at VMBO GT, you can move on to HAVO when you finish your VMBO program, but then you do 2 years of HAVO instead of just one...or you go from Havo to VWO by adding 2 years. So you'd take 7 years to complete to VWO level instead of 6, or 6 years to complete Havo level instead of 5. And then you can do a more difficult college, too. You can not go to University with a VMBO or Havo diploma. You would have to move on to the next level of high school until you complete VWO in order to go to University, but you can get there....it just takes longer.

I know Germany starts high school a year earlier than we do here, because a friend of mine moved to Germany and her son started high school that year, and my daughter, who is older, was still finishing elementary school. And I know they also divide their high schools, but I don't think they have as many levels as we have here. Her son is going VWO there, but I'm not sure how many years he has to go and if that's different per level.

Personally, I really like the division into levels. You don't have the issues with it moving to fast for some and too slow for others. Everyone should be more or less the same level, and they get along better because they also have more in common with their classmates. The more serious students are with the others like them. DD's class has only 20 kids so they are all pretty close. Also something different over here is your class stays the same. You are with the same kids in every single class. The kids that you start bridge class (junior high) with are the kids the same 20 that will be in your senior year classes, and you won't have anyone from a different class in any of your classes. So there's no "he's in my chemistry class....I could ask him what the homework was". If he's in one of your classes, he's in ALL of your classes, if that makes sense. But I'm not sure how that works elsewhere in Europe. And there's no such thing as electives. At least not until at least 3rd year of high school...then you choose a focus and you can drop certain things. Like you can choose to focus on the arts or more on the sciences. If you want to be a doctor, you'll have to have more sciences, and should you want to do something with music later, you focus more on the arts. What you choose will affect your career, because if you choose not to take chemistry, then you won't be able to have a career in something that requires that. So like...if you want to be an astronaut, you'd better take physics and high level math courses, where as a doctor, biology is more important. Basically, they specialize a lot earlier here.
Sounds like a well thought out system.
 

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