Strolling through the hallways at dilapidated Unnamed High School (UHS) in a city in the United States Midwest, IB Grad endured multiple horrible flashbacks of ToK, English A1, History, Physics, Math, Biology, and ToK. Harassment of IB Student was common practise among non-IB students, or so she deluded herself into thinking when she had been an overstressed and paranoid IB Student. When she visited UHS this past week, she was struck by how annoying high schoolers are and gives her former teachers multiple props and imaginary accolades for putting up with annoying students such as she and her peers had been.

She was ever amused to be able to be strolling freely through the hallways without being apprehended by security guards, or Dementors as she is quite fond of calling them. How shocked and embarassed the Dementors were when they saw the “visitor” tag stuck to her shirt.

Though she loves her eccentric professors, she missed her weirdo high school teachers. (Note that weirdo, when used by IB Grad, is normally meant to be a compliment). When she sees her teachers, that part of her that secretly wants to be a teacher is awakened and then immediately suppressed by IB Grad’s Ego when she suddenly remembers that she does a piss poor job of explaining stuff and has little resilience when faced with the task of controlling disrespectful and cocky high schoolers. She would also be too lax with grades, which benefits no one especially if they are doing a crappy job.

What struck her like a brick that suddenly appears as one is strolling casually through a garden (as her history teacher was fond of saying), was how much she did not miss the oppressively over-heated and smelly atmosphere of UHS. Peeeee yoooo.

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.

The darkness and the concentrated glow made her eyes hurt, but she continued to stare at the blank Word Document in the misplaced hope that her commentary on Mirror by Sylvia Plath would write itself. In the glare of the computer monitor she saw her face reflected, a “terrible fish” rising towards her hourly. Immediately she felt depressed by the realisation that she could be the woman in the poem driven by her own sad vanity. She became even more depressed when her tendency to connect to the speakers in poems hit her. Then she felt even more depressed than she already had been feeling when she realised that she had only written two words in the Word document: her name.

This of course inspired her to write a pastiche of another poem by Plath called “Whiteness I Remember”, a poem which she, a perverted teenager, hilariously misinterpreted as being about sex the day before her English teacher made fun of a former student who had thought the same thing.

Darkness being what I remember

About Plath:

She began to type.

darkness and the black words

She gave me.

She smiled smugly to herself and examined her progress with utter satisfaction. Having just seen a video biography thing on Plath’s life (an activity she justified because it was related to literature and totally NOT something to do to make her feel productive), which was graciously provided by the Internet, IB Student tried to read her pastiche in the voice of Plath, weird Boston accent with British affectations and all.

Just then, the alarm clock set at 4 am made her tremble as it set off. School would begin just 3 hours and 45 minutes from that moment. She would be late for English class for sure if she continued to procrastinate.

Figurative tears began to form in the wells of her symbolic eyes as she became overcome with despair at her failure to write academic papers. The young woman then left her room to get something to eat from the oven. Predictably enough, as she flung open the oven door, a ghostly figure flew out from the oven and stood beside her. The ghostly figure was no taller than herself, and probably no paler (IB Student never saw sunlight as she was often trapped in her Cave, the study room, to do her work) also.

IB Student jumped in shock and screamed in utter vulgarity the following question:

“Who the FUCK are you??”

“You moron”, the ghostly figured uttered in frustration. She slapped her forehead. “You devilish leopard”.

“Say what?”

“Never mind.” They stood awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, IB Student clutching dearly to a pan nearby. As if pans could fend off famous dead poets made of supernatural substances.

“I would think you would recognise those words from one of my poems and thus find yourself recognising me”.

IB Student was still perplexed by both the surreality of this exchange and the ghostly figure beside her. The ghost saw confusion twisted on IB Student’s face, so she continued to give vague hints as to her identity.

“Balloons”.

“Inflatable?”

“The Moon and the Yew Tree”.

“Wands?!”

“Spinster!”.

“I am?!”

“What?”

“A question?”

This awkward word association game went on for some time until the ghost relented and just outright told the young woman what her name was. IB Student set the pan down and glared at the ground.

“I really have gone insane”, she whispered to the air.

“Yes”.

“Oh. OH!” her face was suddenly alight with the realisation that the creator of the poem she tried to analyse was standing before her, albeit as a ghost.

“CAN I ASK YOU QUESTIONS IS THE LAKE TO WHICH THE SPEAKER REFERS ACTUALLY A LAKE OR IS IT JUST MEANT TO BE A REFERENCE TO THE STORY OF  NARCISSUS AND ACT AS A PARALLEL TO THE VANITY WHICH PROPELS THE WOMAN THE MIRROR CREEPILY WATCHES EVEN THOUGH IT CLAIMS TO BE UNMISTED BY WHATEVERS AND ACTUALLY CAN YOU JUST WRITE THIS COMMENTARY FOR ME I AM NOT A LITERATURE PERSON AND WERE YOU REALLY AN ENGLISH MAJOR WHY DON’T WE READ ANYTHING BY YOUR HUSBAND TED HUGHES WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF THE MYTHOLOGY THAT HAS SURROUNDED YOUR LIFE AND BEING CAN YOU WRITE MY COMMENTARY FOR ME PLEASE MY ENGLISH TEACHER HATES ME”

After that humongous block of text and the multiple run-ons that accompanied it, IB Student took a breath (finally).

The ghostly figure was so infuriated that she sat down and flung out a pen or something like it and began writing a poem on invisible paper. “Post-post modernism sucks!” she scribbled.

“Oh that’s right. I’m dead. No one really listens to me yet they hear words nonetheless, some of which I’ve never said or intended to convey!”. She sighed and put the chopstick down. An expression of perplexity coloured the dead poet’s face, as if she were trying to remember something of vague importance. “What was I saying? Oh that’s right! I am not here to write your commentaries, [OMISSION]“.

“But SP! I need your help. I suck at this literature essay writing thing!” IBS pouted and crossed her arms.

“Look kid, I have been dead for over 40 years now. I’ve spent the last 40 years stewing under my own dour air from within this oven. I don’t have time for this shit”.

“That does sound depressing. But I thought you were suffocating under the glass constrictions of a bell jar, which acts as a metaphor for the depression the protagonist of your only published novel slips into along with the social constrictions imposed by conservative mid-century America, not an oven”.

“Though that in fact was partly my intention in writing my first and only published novel (I had written another one, but in one of my rages I burnt it), do you not agree that my method of death was itself a poetic act? The oven represents domesticity, and in choosing to kill myself through the oven, I have shown how asphyxiating purely domestic duties are to women”.

“I would only agree if I were myself a severely depressed poet in the early 60s with two young children and a philandering but also brilliant poet husband who is quite fond of writing about nature in a dark way”.

“Or an oppressed housewife with a chronically unfaithful but sexually magnetic husband”.

“Oh, I’m no Betty Draper either, nor one of the oppressed suburban housewives in Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique suffering from the problem that has no name, nor a so-called ‘free woman’ in Doris Lessing’s epically long novel The Golden Notebook, but really no difference there if you think about it…” IB Student smiled imperceptibly at her pseudo-intellectualism which deluded her into thinking that she actually understood the latter literature which took her an entire summer to read, so bleak was it in certain parts and also very very long just like this story is becoming.

“Now, what were we discussing? Oh yes, I’m terribly sorry but you will never finish this essay of yours if you continue to hallucinate poets dead and alive”.

“You mean commentary”.

“Yes, that. Say, why can’t you just call it a literature essay?”

“Because in the programme I’m in they are fond of renaming things to make them sound fancier. Our history essays and lab reports are called Internal Assessments.”

“Bullshit, that”.

“Indeed. So what was in your journal?”

[OMISSION]

…….

Just then they heard the voice of a man with an Irish accent. The young woman eyed in the distance a tall figure who was either her only male literature teacher or a renowned Irish poet.

“Why, you’re not dead!” IB Student exclaimed.

“But I am old and am practically digging my own grave,” winked the Seamus Heaney of imagination. The world heard the collective groans of students at this terrible pun.

“This is the end of the story because I cannot think of anything more to write” concluded IB Student.

…….

The moral of this absurd, disorganised story borne from the loins of my perverted figurative muse? Do not write essays at 3 or 4 am in the morning for that is when the body is at its lowest metabolic rate and you will for sure feel either suicidal or begin hallucinating and sustaining conversations with figments of your imagination.

…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.

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.

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.

I sit in my dorm room at this moment, munching on the sandwich that has just been delivered by the sandwich shop a few steps away (I was much too lazy to walk there myself). The fan buzzes below my roomate’s bed, the air blowing at my face as I lean on the wall, laptop burning my sensitive parts because the inner fan is essentially ineffective. And I am frozen with ABSOLUTE UNENDING despair on my bed as I realise that I could have gone to the pub with friends tonight and gotten drunk off my face and possibly dying of alcohol poisoning. But really, I should not tell you youngsters matters of an alcoholish nature.

What has IB Graduate been up to her 2nd month of university?

She has immersed herself into the theatre scene on campus and is featured in various plays. FEATURED, mind you, not STARRING as she so evidently deserves as she is a magnificent, a brilliant actress. Sigh. How they will regret it when she wins an Olivier, a Tony, an Oscar, and then a Razzie (when she falls into has-been status after a much-publicized ordeal with drug addiction). But to be in a play is enough especially since she had no opportunity to be in any plays while that thing called Life Outside of IB was put on hold.

IB Graduate is convinced that she was given roles in the plays she is in out of pity as she is not, despite the paragraph above, truly a great actress. Almost passable, maybe, but not great or good. At the moment she is attempting to write a play about globalization, which seems to be what everything boils down to in her international studies classes. She is attempting to make it satirical, but every so often when she attempts that she ends up with a work that is so very serious and depressing. And yes, she has time for writing plays and books of poems now. Her fictional memoir of IB is germinating.

It is Halloween week in her dormitory and she now has just returned from a practise Americans seem to call trick-or-treating (only once has she encountered a trick), minus the costume, the kitschy decorations, the masses of little boys and girls dressed as cars/princesses/witches/vampires and the lame treats (who gives pennies to little children??). Her costume du jour is blue jeans and a hoodie. Can you guess what she is dressed up as?

On her messy bed a caramelized taffy apple awaits its gestation.

IB Grad has no idea where her roomie is, but for the moment she’ll just assume she’s off studying as usual.

Dear Reader (if you exist),

If you must know, I am at university already. Which can only mean that I have survived(!) IB. It has been nearly a month since I began my post-IB life officially, and I must regrettably say that the IB programme has prepared me for university life. But that does not detract from the toil, the pain, the misery, the pain, and finally, the pain that I experienced as an IB student. I am going to keep this blog up as future reference and am also hoping that those who are in charge of coordinating the IB programmes at their respective institutions read my experiences. To add, I have uploaded all the posts that were previously on a different blog here for easier reference.

As a sort of disclaimer: My final IB year was riddled with a myriad of personal troubles, so if my posts from that year seem depressing, it is due to my state of mind during that phase of my life. That is to say that the programme should not be held entirely accountable for my I-hate-the-world-the-world-hates-me-I-want-to-die phase. There is, after all, this interesting thing we call Personal Life which often gets in the way. I must assure you that I am not as tortured or depressive as I seem on this blog, nor am I that witty or brilliant.

One day, if you see a satirical novel at bookstores about a secondary school programme that is startlingly similar to the IB Programme and the personalities it victimises, you can be sure that this particular IB Student is the source of those wickedly humourous anectdotes. You will probably also meet a young woman at the book tours of said novel who may or may not be me and who will say she is representing IB Student.

For all the criticisms I have had and continue to have of aspects of the IBP, my reflections on the IB experience have sadly become testimonials to its strengths. How ironical that I should become a sort of spokesperson for the IB Diploma Programme. Ah, the places the winds of life blow you to…My former teachers have pointed out that I would not have been able to articulate such criticisms so eloquently had it not been for the IB. Thank you, teachers, you are really burgeoning my self-esteem by telling me that I am merely a product of an international programme, churned out as I am by the cogs of academic rigour. I am trying to be facetious here, but probably my intended effect has been lost on you, dear reader.

So was it worth it, all that strife? I would say yes, that had it not been for IB most of my university hours would be spent fulfilling general distribution requirements, which are often painful. Think of IB as suffering earlier for the sake of saving your future, collegiate self. At what cost? Possibly your mental health, your friendships, your family life, your sanity (oh wait–I mentioned that already), and your idealism. Actually, the worth of IB is up to YOU to decide. If you feel that you must keep the afore mentioned intact, there is nothing wrong with dropping out. My own stubbornness to “stay the course!” as a feverishly driven student  in the IB prevented me from dropping out.

I often wonder to myself how historical overachievers and brilliant writers in literature, like Plath or Sexton or Woolf or Eliot or Austen, would have fared in the IB and what they would have written about their experiences. That said, I am not a famous writer whose life and personality has been shrouded in mythology which tends to take the tone of a Grecian tragedy and whose life and works have been scrutinised over and over again by various parties. I am trying to avoid that from happening while I am still alive.

I am positive someone out there must be wondering whether or not I attended their school. I will not, ever, disclose my true identity for I am just as likely to type out my home address on the Internet as I am revealing my real name, my university, and my secondary school. Or even worse, posting a photograph of myself so as to make me completely identifiable. Note that I am not above fabricating details about my background, basic information, and other such information so if you do come across a photo you believe is of the BRILLIANT young woman behind this blog, then you are probably mistaken as I will probably be in some sort of disguise. As dark and morbid as I seem here, I assure you that I do not wear black all the time nor do I listen to depressing music all the time. If, perchance, you meet a tall young woman with kinky dark wavy hair clutching dearly to a textbook that seems to be titled Global Issues, that will probably be my literary representative and that is quite possibly the closest you will get to meeting me in real life while being aware of it. Do not read the sentenced with the strike-through.

Since I am sparing you the personal details of the author behind this blog, just think of me as the IB’s Jane Eyre. Or if you prefer more depressing “modern” fare, the Esther Greenwood/Holden Caulfield of IB. Although, as I have reiterated here, I am not as messed-up as I seem in writing.

So if you are still in the death throes of IB and in need some emotional support or just have some questions, feel free to send an owl my way–I mean, an email at arandomperson [at] whoever [dot] com. It’s a real email address, I swear! Give it a try.

Love,

Former IB Student

PS I will continue to write in this blog or perhaps a different one on wordpress.com.

Today was our last day of high school. Though we have yet to receive our diplomas and have yet to go through the graduation ceremonies, all work and such officially ended today. I have been restraining my tears throughout this entire week for it is a bittersweet end to what I’ve been working for the past 5-6 years. Contrary to what I expected, it was anti-climatic without appearing to be so. I feel that this is one of the high points of my life even despite all the struggles (particularly this year).

One of my teachers, who is known to be a big softie could not restrain his tears. He made me realise today what a great person he is, both as teacher and as human being. I have of course been touched by all my IB teachers, and though some have been the rotten apples in a good bushel, even bitter tastes afford for one an acquired skill in discriminating between the good and the awful.

I cried a little also when I realised that my journey in this stage of life has ended.

I’m weary of everyone, to be honest, and I’m glad I’m not participating in certain traditional high school activities. It’s time for me to retreat for the next three months before I officially matriculate into my college. People have begun to notice that gradually I am withdrawing, and for that there are many reasons. But I digress.

One week from today, Life After IB commences. That of course means that this blog has reached its end.

I began this blog almost two years ago in the hopes of recording my experiences with the programme. I hope that others will read it and be inspired to reflect on their experiences as I have often done. Though many posts were written in frustration, in sarcasm, in depression, I have tried to be as honest as possible to convey “realism”. In retrospect what I have complained about in the past has shaped everything about me.

Ultimately I find that my experiences in the IB programme have truly been rewarding.Though others may disagree, may find it a waste of time as I have often thought it to be sometimes, and though I repeat myself often what I have gained from this experience extends well beyond the walls of a classroom, well beyond the academic constraints to which we have been acclimated. For you see, the IB Programme is not something its students will like WHILE they are immersed in its glory, but it is a learning experience to which they will look back and think, gosh I cannot believe I went through all that but somehow I’m glad I did.

I’m sure that even when I am old and lonely as is my destiny to be I will look back on my IB years as simultaneously harrowing and enjoyable (GASP!).

Non, je ne regrette rien…

Hoorah!

Today began Week 2 of my ever illustrious experiences testing for the IB Diploma. Fantastic stuff. Of course. English A1 is over and done with, however, so in that I find comfort (along with the fact that I’ve only two more subjects to go and I am over and done with IB tests for the rest of my life!!–erm, if I don’t end up an academic paid to be an IB examiner, that is).

It is literally a stairway to hell, however, when one is on their way to the main testing room, which is in the basement of the school. I call them the Dungeons because I am still a nerdy Harry Potter fan at heart (and because I’ve begun to think of sitting for exams as a magical experience, which is delusional of course).

In the Dungeons 100, sometimes less, test-takers are locked (literally) inside because Saged IB Coordinator locks the door. It’s like a prison with maximum security as headed by our Saged, Possibly Senile IB Coordinator Who Is Quite Possibly As Old as the School. Only one person can enter and exit at a time (unless it is a break), and Miss Saged IB Coordinator is the main interloper between the disintegrating desks and freedom.

The pipes on the ceiling apparently drip some greasy substance (or perhaps it was actually Pine-Sol, but I’m not so sure). It is to those pipes I fix my eyes when I finish testing early. I imagine all the nasty things that pass through them (the POTIONS chambres are nearby, and who knows what crap they dump into those drains).

Rumour has it that the door nearby the testing room leads to a dark and creepy tunnel (which I will definitely explore before I graduate), which is itself connected to the other building of my school. For all I know it could be completely mundane, but still, I must satiate the curiousity that so drives me like emotion does Jane Eyre. Curiosity! Restraint! Curiosity! RESTRAINT! EMOTION! LOVE! FIRE! FIERY LOVE!!!

Right, I’m going mad. Anyways! [On a side note, we have a horseload of final projects to complete. One of them involves becoming a character in one of the novels we've read for English A1. I intend to become a modern-day version of Jane Eyre for the next few weeks. If anyone asks why I'm so passionate, it is all part of what we sophisticated actresses call method acting, though others, especially literature teachers may come to know it as Ways of Annoying Your IB Teacher. *evil grin*]

As this blog reaches its end, I’m considering showing it to one of my IB Teachers in the hopes that they will find it mildly entertaining. I’ve said some