Ain't no beaches in here in the Burgh either but we get some exciting winters. Constantly changing weather and navigating through the city is like an M. C. Escher drawing, most of all if you're new.
I don't know if anyone has discussed the...iconic?...importance that summer vacation has for American schoolkids. Or at least had when I was a kid; I don't know if it's still true. For me, it was ten or eleven weeks of pretty much unbroken free time. Freedom from school, from homework (though I went to an odd school that didn't have homework until sixth grade anyway), from structured activities, from social expectations. It was like a whole little separate life. I know that many kids just get a whole new set of structured activities--sports, camp, summer school, etc. I consider myself lucky that I didn't. I believe(?) that the length of American summer vacation also means that the other holidays through the year are much shorter than in many other countries.
Yes yes yes yes yes. When I was young during the 1950s and 60s, American kids had what seemed to be an endless amount of time to look forward to, to play, to dream, to have fun. Our playtime wasn't scheduled like it is now. We just went out the door in the morning, returned for lunch, went back out for the afternoon, returned for dinner, then went back out till it got dark. And sometimes stayed out even after dark (our parents knew where we were) to look at the stars and play night games in the balmy summer weather. Obviously we had chores to do, and sometimes rain or other obligations or pursuits (like reading!) kept us indoors. But basically that's how summer went during my childhood. Teenagers could get meaningful summer jobs. Three months of working a part or full-time job brought in useful work experience and semi-serious money, too, without interfering with school work. I feel this is much better than the UK school schedule which gives only 6 weeks of summer holidays, and splits up the rest of the year so many times with 'school holidays' that my head spins at the thought. I believe teachers struggle with the splits as well, as it's more difficult to get kids to focus when the year is broken up constantly by 'weeks off' here and there.
Yep. Or sometimes we'd disappear out the door first thing in the morning and wouldn't be back until dark. Parents didn't know precisely where we were or what we were doing. No cell phones, etc. There is a certain amount of independence that kind of childhood engenders, which is why when my kids were young I let them do the same thing, even though the technology to keep a tighter control over their comings and going was available.
This reminds me of my childhood in my hometown, before we moved into the large city riffling with crime and terrorism and I am restricted mostly to my house. Ahh, memories... P.S I just love your painting! It is strangely nostalgic somehow, although I don't have any memories regarding beaches. Reminds me of the first books I ever read...
Not in any Western country. It's was a small town surrounded by oranges' farms and rocky hills. Had a large river just outside too. Now the hills are mostly gone, their stone harvested for roads.
That's sad, actually. When beautiful and peaceful land gets torn apart for 'practical' uses. So you can't ever go home again, can you? Because it's not there any more. That's very sad. One of those sadnesses where there is no real cure. And it sounds as if you are forced to live in a very bad place at the moment. Is there any chance this will change for the better?
Yeah, it's pretty sad. I remember we used to live in a suburb, and outside it the road was bordered by farms and behind those farms, distantly on the horizon, tall, dark rocky hills could be seen. Seeing them inspired a great sense of adventure within me, I wanted to walk the entire distance to them and explore beyond. Too bad now the community is surrounded by ugly gates and perimeter walls and the hills have disappeared. Living in a city definitely have it's perks. I am more groomed than I could have been and there is a lot of opportunity. But alas, I don't like the city itself. So much crime, so much corruption, the rubbish, and poisonous air. I want to move abroad, get a degree and settle down at somewhere clean. Let's hope that's possible.
Not to derail the interesting conversation in this thread, but I just wanted to add my High School experience. I attended a Christian private school from 4th grade to my graduating year. I was with the same class each school year (though many left and new ones came). There were barely over 100 kids in the entire school at one point. It was a small private school inside of a large church. One half of the church was the school (with lockers, classrooms, gymnasium) and the other half was the church (sanctuary, pastor's offices, etc). In high school, we never had a prom. We had a "formal" which was stupid. It was basically just a formal dinner. We got to wear pretty dresses and all. After the dinner, we all went cyber bowling but we couldn't wear our dresses so they made us change into jeans and a shirt first. It was dumb. We had a basketball team that barely won any games. The school got a bowling team during my Senior year which I joined. We didn't have a band. We didn't have many extracurricular activities. I graduated in my senior year with 5 people in my class including myself. Now that I think about it, I kind of wish I would have gone to public school because I had a real lack of social integration at the private school. But I also loved my school. I loved the teachers and how my classmates felt more like family than just friends. We had a lot of learning options as well. In my junior year, we took college anatomy which was really interesting. So yeah, that was my high school in a nutshell. To be honest, I don't think I've ever read a book where the protagonist attended a school like mine. Well, that's probably because it would be boring as all hell.
Actually, my biology class did teach about evolution and Charles Darwin. Our textbooks taught all different viewpoints. And I never took Physics, but I remember being taught the Big Bang Theory (along with all the other theories of how the universe began) in one of my science classes in Middle School. It was a Christian school and, yes, we did learn things from a Christian perspective, but that didn't mean our classes excluded all other views.
