Sharnbrook Induction Day...

...Or as I prefer to call it, just another school day.

Expectations of Sixth Form life had been quite high among us.. throughout the lowly years of 9, 10 and 11 we hear garbled rumours of the golden 'free' period, and the dodgy dealing in Ccinos cafeteria and the freedom of wearing what we want how we damn well please; only to find out that this supposed induction to ascend us to this godly status gave us none of these. Instead, we discovered the unlimited sadistic streak that all teachers bear as they unleashed pointless activities upon on us for three whole days.
When I say pointless, I mean the usual drill of..
Teacher: "Why are you doing this course?"
Student: "-pause- Becau-"
Teacher: "This is a difficult course I hope you realise! I want no time wasters. I expect this I expect that, we expect you to..."
And so on.
...
Then we had the inevitable 'getting to know each other' activities, which I enjoy a great deal more because it's an utter social etiquette carnage. haha. You are put into the position of sitting at a table with 3 other strangers and one person you recognise from your school but cannot for the life of you remember their name and then told to build a tower together, or solve this problem together, or in my German class case talk to each other in a foreign language you barely know and ask each other about their hobbies and past time activities. Honestly! Now through my many years of being forced into these situations and observing how people react when in this unthinkable social dilemma; I believe you can sort people into 3 categories..

1. The Mouth... the one who decides to bring everyone together and to bombard everyone with pointless small talk. Identifiable by talking quite fast, not always listening and usually is a girl.
2. The Ostrich... typically the one whether capable of speech or not will not under any circumstance want to or feel like they can contribute to the group and is quite fine being a mute. Usually a new person from a different school that nobody's ever heard of.
3. That-Guy-Drawing-A-Knob-On-Someones-Book.... pretty obvious but there's always a class clown who just can't be bothered with any kind of etiquette whatsoever and decides to do their own thing. Typically loud, more often then not a boy. Or a group of them if you're lucky ;)

Now I like to think that I'm a Mouth but to be honest I can be any of them. Whatever the subject though there are a few rules as to how to behave, like a mini survival guide you need to decide when it's appropriate to use them though. Otherwise you don't look like a mouth.. just a an idiot.
The most important rule I think is whenever there's an awkward silence try and sort it as soon as poss.. there's nothing worse then waiting and waiting then two of you speak at once. So as soon as there's a pause go "Sooo- yeah.." and immediately point out an unusual feature of one of the newbies or one of your classmates .
THIS WILL ALWAYS WORK.
For example we had this new guy who joined my tutor group and of course we went through the, "What's your name, Where you from, What subjects are you taking?.." then when all standard conversation starters had been exhausted and we just ended up sighing and looking hopelessly at the ceiling I suddenly said.. "Soooo-yeah, you have an afro. What's that like?" And amazingly that lead us into a whole new realm of conversation on afros, combs, hair care, shampoo and why it's so hard to look good in the wind.

Sooo- yeah guys that actually works.

We know what's expected of us, I don't need to be told a zillion times. I actually got a pack of papers from school this summer informing us of the regulations we had to sign to. Basically we were signing to say: We'll be good.. honestly we promise! But now armed with the knowledge of how to talk to strangers, an array of convincing homework lateness excuses, and the inherited privilege of sitting where we like on the bus I am so feeling ready and looking forward to starting Sixth Form. My biggest problem now is finishing that cruel cruel chemistry homework before August's end and having to expand my wardrobe, or suffer the inappropriate dress code consequences. Ahhh I think I'm going to enjoy this year coming. :)

NB. That's if I'm allowed in! Results are given out tomorrow so fingers crossed.