Part 11 - But I Digress...
There's been a delay in creating a new part, but it's worth waiting for, and in compensation I offer the reader this long-winded and probably unnecessary digression. The next part was to be a guest written piece by Jase, a snapshot of his thoughts as Amanda and I prepare to extricate his deepest secrets through tortuous mind-games. But I neglected to take into account Jase's notoriety when it comes to lateness. Just as he was late picking me up on this particular morning, just as on most mornings, Jase was always late handing in assignments. Not just ordinary run of the mill 'I'm sorry miss, I had it written in my diary as due tomorrow, see, right there, it's at home, I could go now and get it but I'm not sure I'd make it back to school before you left, wouldn't it be easier if I just handed it in tomorrow?' kind of late that most kids attempted. Myself, I was more of a 'skip every class before the one it's due in and write it on the day' kind of guy, something which had absolutely pissed off Amanda the other week when I pulled this awesome speech in modern history out of thin air, and came first in both classes, five marks ahead of her speech that she'd spent weeks preparing. Still stoked about that one.
Jase held a couple of records in the grade – longest overdue without penalty (legal studies), largest penalty for lateness without failing (English extension 2), and most passes with assignments missing (Health, yr10, Food Tech yr8, and Chemistry three years straight, 8-10). Hence, I should have expected no less than a week's delay in getting his assignment. Really, it boggled the mind how he didn't fail, week after week seemingly on the brink, and always tottering back safely. When I mentioned earlier that this was the final week of year 11, and we had no assignments due, nothing to do, well, assume that Jase still owed a couple of assignments to pass a subject or two. Really, if we were good friends, we would've actually gone to the library and stood behind him with whips till he finished them. But, y'know, that'd involve way too much effort.
Plus, the whole competition thing. Ranking kids in every class, that starts to get you down at a high-performance school. Everyone knew that most of us would be top of the line at any other school, but here that'd just get you somewhere in the middle. There were a couple of clear front-runners, 99.95 just waiting for them at the end of year twelve, superior degrees, high-paying jobs and boring lives in cubicles. They'd barely comprehend the fun of mediocrity. So we'd slouch off on our free periods instead of studying. We didn't aim high because we didn't like what we saw there. We didn't aim low either, because that'd be just as bad. Kind of serving our time, doing what had to be done, no more, no less. Jase was just better at knowing exactly how much he needed to do to keep running.
Jase held a couple of records in the grade – longest overdue without penalty (legal studies), largest penalty for lateness without failing (English extension 2), and most passes with assignments missing (Health, yr10, Food Tech yr8, and Chemistry three years straight, 8-10). Hence, I should have expected no less than a week's delay in getting his assignment. Really, it boggled the mind how he didn't fail, week after week seemingly on the brink, and always tottering back safely. When I mentioned earlier that this was the final week of year 11, and we had no assignments due, nothing to do, well, assume that Jase still owed a couple of assignments to pass a subject or two. Really, if we were good friends, we would've actually gone to the library and stood behind him with whips till he finished them. But, y'know, that'd involve way too much effort.
Plus, the whole competition thing. Ranking kids in every class, that starts to get you down at a high-performance school. Everyone knew that most of us would be top of the line at any other school, but here that'd just get you somewhere in the middle. There were a couple of clear front-runners, 99.95 just waiting for them at the end of year twelve, superior degrees, high-paying jobs and boring lives in cubicles. They'd barely comprehend the fun of mediocrity. So we'd slouch off on our free periods instead of studying. We didn't aim high because we didn't like what we saw there. We didn't aim low either, because that'd be just as bad. Kind of serving our time, doing what had to be done, no more, no less. Jase was just better at knowing exactly how much he needed to do to keep running.
posted by Keegan at 10:58 AM
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