The Haunting

I’ve decided that my last very short post was quite a bummer, as Americans say, so I have posted this absurd story that is based on one of my dreams. I really believe that IB examiners ought to have given me a 7 instead of the pathetic 5 they gave me for English A1 for my pastiches alone (which I will post at some point). It’s amazing that I’ve graduated from IB and yet it continues to act as a muse. When I win a Pulitzer, a Nobel Prize, a Booker, and a National Book Award it shall be a big finger flipped to IB examiners.

Once upon a late, late night, so late that even ghosts were appalled by the time, a young woman sat in front of her computer screen and stared at the creepy glow it emitted. The light in the room was dimmed so that her parents would not realise that she was still awake and then complain about her effed-up sleeping pattern and her unhealthy caffeine addiction.

Only in IB

…is there a grade of E instead of F. E for Elementary, that is.

…will the programme be worth it if you scored enough to receive credits for your performance on the exams.*

…will you find yourself wallowing in low self-esteem years after being in the programme.

…will you get a fancy folder in which to put your fancy diploma.

Just a note

I have a very “dark” sense of “humour” that seems to come out often on this blog. So if you find yourself reading a post and saying to yourself, “My goodness, this young woman needs therapy to deal with her issues of self-esteem and inward anger” you are probably right. But that is not what I meant to write about. So I will begin again.

I have a very dark sense of humour that rears its macabre head when I write posts for this blog. From what I write about the IB, it may seem like the most horrid experience of your life. Or Hell. But seriously though, you have to understand that this was my “creative”/angsty outlet, which is to say that my experience is definitely not representative of all IB experiences. I am just one person trying to convey to an anonymous audience the trials and travails of her own experience in the programme. And also post the stuff I write that I am too afraid of showing to my teachers.

For the most part, venting my frustrations on this blog while in the IB helped maintain most of my remaining sanity. I pride myself in knowing that I never turned to drugs, alcohol, smoking, and promiscuity as a means of escape. I did, however, read a lot of depressing novels about overachieving students and wrote things on this site. Which, one could argue, might be just as bad as turning to the demon drink because reading good fiction can cause one to overanalyse. But I am rambling again.

Some of your classmates in IB who appear more inclined towards the “practical” subjects may call written works and visual arts as “pointless”, but there is a point to art. Art is a means of expression by which…oh oops, I will stop there. I do not want to get into detail as I might as well post my TOK essay on that subject.

I have decided then that I will try to be more encouraging as a survivor of the IB Programme to young’uns who have just entered the programme or are currently going through it.

But I cannot guarantee that I will slip something dark into my posts (evidence of this is above).

…ironic that I wrote a lot of essay-length posts on this blog while railing against essay-writing for IB.

On writing A “Novel”

And by A Novel I meant “fictional” memoir. Wrap thy brain around that.

Since it is Novel Writing Month, I am trying to write a chapter a day on my supposedly “fictional” “memoir” of IB. However, my poor female protagonist is not faring well at the moment as her author keeps vacillating between a Bell Jar/Catcher in the Rye type character and a sort of modern day Jane Eyre.

The Novel may as well be called The Catcher in the Bell Jar: A Goddamn, Crummy, Phony, Stillborn Fictional-But Not Really Fictional Autobiography About (a) Nervous Breakdown(s) of a Plain, Emotionally Disturbed But Overachieving Young Woman. BUT that’s much too lengthy a title, so I’ll stick with Of Sleepless Nights and Barrels of Coffee.

In the meantime, I have made up a really crummy song to the tune of Rehab by Amy Winehouse, a song which I anticipate will be in the Bottom 40 as it will only be sung by me.

They tried to make me do my homework,

But I said NO NO NO.

Yes I have work,

But then I go beserk

When I have to do my ho-homework.

I’d rather be on the ‘tube instead,

Waiting for my brain to go dead.

Cuz there’s nothing, nothing you’ll state,

That’ll stop me from doing my work laaate.

…and so on.