11 : 25 Year School Reunion - Something Old

1988 - 2013

 

This weekend is my 25 year School reunion from our last year at High School, of which I didn't actually attend!  It was 1988 and I decided that school wasn't for me, after only 1 week of Year 12 I decided to move on and attend Business College instead.  I was awarded Dux of my class at Business College and qualified with a Secretarial Diploma in one year.  This was an interesting twist of fate as I found myself pregnant at the end of 1988 and needed a job, due to my qualification I managed to gain a position as a secretary in the Commonwealth Bank.

 

It's so hard to contemplate that an entire quarter of a century has passed since those school yard days.  Its incredible, thinking back, how the people that you only knew for a fraction of a lifetime managed to influence your life.  It was a time when the opinions of your friends mattered more than anyone else.

 

The school I completed my education at was a senior school that only went for 3 years, some of these people, basically the boys, we really only just got to know before school was over.  However, the feeder school was an all girls school from year 6 to year 9.  I joined half way through year 6, so for me I spent just over 5 years with the majority of my group of friends.  Some came and went along the way, but for me it was the longest period of schooling life that I ever spent with the same group of people. 

 

I moved many times as a child and attended many different schools.  I had the very unfortunate experience of attending year 1 in three different states of Australia over 2 years, due to different rules in each State.  The early years of school were extremely confusing to me and I soon learnt to give up making friends altogether ...

 

This is why it was really nice to have had the opportunity to stay with the same group of friends throughout the final years of my schooling.  Despite being taken away from the freedom and the warmth of Darwin when I first moved back to Adelaide, and enrolled into an all girls school, I managed to make some great friends and have some amazing schooling adventures. 

 

During the early years at my all girls school we got up to all sorts of mischief, who could forget those fond memories of  turning our classroom into a scene from Excalibur the movie.  We all imagined that the Lady of the Lake was living in the carpet, and we would leap from our chairs to the door, losing points if you touched the carpet.  I remember when we made our own letterboxes on our desks to fit all the notes we would pass around the class, even nominating different posties to post them bumping around on our chairs. 

 

Although looking back I realise we were particularly mean to some of those poor relief teachers that dared show up at an all girls private school, we certainly had some fun at their expense.  The look on their face when they would walk into a class where all the tables and chairs were facing the back wall, with us all sitting in unison, assuring the teacher that this was how we always sat in our school.  Then there was the perfectly timed stand up; where we would all just stand up at a pre organised time or start clapping, the baffled teacher would ask what we were doing but we would only assure them that we were doing exactly as we were asked.  Watching the poor relief teacher ride away on his bike with no idea of the fresh chalk marks all up the back of his suit jacket was always a giggle... 

 

It was that camaraderie and friendship that only school friends can have, it's a time in your life that it's you and your friends against the world and you believe no one else could ever understand your daily dramas.

 

The last time I saw many of my school friends was at our 10 year reunion, 15 years ago now.  It's going to be very interesting to see how much we have all changed and find out how everyone has spent their last 25 years.  What an amazing opportunity to reconnect with those people that, even if only for such a short time, were so important in our lives and to each other... 

 



1988