What's happening in your world?

[redchild]

Hah, personally I prefer winter to summer. Winter for me means staying up all night bundled up in sweaters, drinking hot beverages and sleeping in a warm bed. In summer the heat makes me so sluggish and gross-feeling that I don't want to do anything and so end up wasting my break. Being in school in summer also means air conditioning

But I guess most people prefer hot weather (freaks.)

[Farseer]

I wonder what the reasoning is behind starting school in fall and ending in summer.

I do too! It seems strange to me, the thought of having to straddle two years with one year of school…is it confusing for those of you who have actually had to do it? I guess if that’s “the way it is” then that’s what you become used to but it is difficult for me to grasp that, if I went to the US, I may start my senior year of schooling in, say, 2010 and then finish it mid-2011. It just seems so much easier beginning a new school year at the beginning of a new calendar year.

I was just wondering whether the Australian system also goes by season than by what month it is.

In saying that, possibly we do this not to coincide with the beginning of a calendar year but because it means we are able to avoid or limit exposure during the hottest months of the year, especially with students playing a great deal of outdoor sport. Having the largest break over summer means many can stay indoors, go to the beach to cool off etc (as Rendezvous suggested…sounds like you’ve been here, Rendezvous?). It just so happens that these summer months/holidays also coincides with Christmas and New Year etc and so it seems to benefit everyone!

While it doesn’t affect the majority of Australia or Australians, the summer months do also make up half of the wet season here in the north. With heavy rainfalls often cutting off roads for quite some time, it is much less stressful with not also having to worry about getting students to school/boarding school in the middle of it all.

As it is, workers on properties (such as jackeroos) are often considered “seasonal” employees up here, working up until mid-December and then not recommencing on-property duties until around mid-January, if the roads are even passable by then. For the last three years we have had over twenty inches of rain during the summer school holidays and this wreaks havoc with trying to get men back here. Many return home to their families and even find short-term work to fill the gap and still others just work from season to season on different properties and so don’t return. This being the case, possibly the wet season is also a further reason for the school term scheduling, at least here in Queensland.

I just did a quick check on all other Australian states and they seem to be very similar with their dates/terms except for Tasmania, which appears to have the same length of school year but divided up into only three terms instead of four.

Congratulations on your son's graduation. Now he's free to study what he wants to study Any idea on what major?

Thanks redchild. As his ‘teacher’ for the first eight of his thirteen years of schooling (including his preschool year), his finally graduating probably seems more personal and significant to me than it may have if I had not had any direct input into his education. I could be wrong…

At this stage he is planning to study a Bachelor of Engineering, majoring in Aerospace Avionics, though he will defer for a working gap year and obtain his commercial helicopter and private plane licences toward the end of next year. His undergraduate course will last for four years and this will mean moving down to Brisbane for the duration. His brother will graduate high school at the end of next year and so will be ready to commence his studies at the same university, though not the same campus, in the same year….this way they can experience most of it together or, at least, that’s their plan! Plans change, so we’ll see .

There are so many different pathways to an equivalent destination on offer nowadays that there isn’t such a great pressure on school-leavers to ‘decide’ as there once was (at least, that's the case here in Australia).

As much as I love the wet season that summer brings, I think I may have to agree with you, redchild...it would be great to be able to sleep in on a winter's morning rather than have to bother about school!

[Rendezvous]

Having the largest break over summer means many can stay indoors, go to the beach to cool off etc (as Rendezvous suggested…sounds like you’ve been here, Rendezvous?)

Oh Yes. And I loved it.

[redchild]

I do too! It seems strange to me, the thought of having to straddle two years with one year of school…is it confusing for those of you who have actually had to do it? I guess if that’s “the way it is” then that’s what you become used to but it is difficult for me to grasp that, if I went to the US, I may start my senior year of schooling in, say, 2010 and then finish it mid-2011. It just seems so much easier beginning a new school year at the beginning of a new calendar year.

Yeah that would be a lot easier to keep track of the time spent in school. Starting and ending a school year with New Year's in between gets pretty confusing when you have to fill out applications that ask for specific dates.

Thanks redchild. As his ‘teacher’ for the first eight of his thirteen years of schooling (including his preschool year), his finally graduating probably seems more personal and significant to me than it may have if I had not had any direct input into his education. I could be wrong…

Wow I didn't know that, that's awesome.

There are so many different pathways to an equivalent destination on offer nowadays that there isn’t such a great pressure on school-leavers to ‘decide’ as there once was (at least, that's the case here in Australia).

Completely agree. Most people I know in college are spending a lot more time than the traditional four-year plan to get their degree. The world is so much more complex now that I don't think universities can really keep up. It's really up to the individual to make their own path.

[Mervi]

Guuuys. I wouldn't just go and delete the whole thing. Especially not without telling you first.
I'm glad to hear that things seem to be back to normal for everyone now. PLEASE let me know if this thing happens again and I'll contact the site's hosting provider to see if they can figure it out. I've checked the settings, statistics, problem logs, ban lists etc etc and from my end, everything seems normal. So if it is a bandwidth problem or an issue of too many connections at the same time, something is wrong because it doesn't show up at the logs.

['thul]

The only thing 'thul finds more annoying than not having access to a forum they use is getting the message "contact a Forum Administrator if problem persists" on a different forum where 'thul are among the administrators, then not being able to do anything.

[Albertosaurus Rex]

I just sent a paper to my lecturer. It's garbage, easily the worst paper I have ever written. Writing it, I hit some kind of mental wall that I just couldn't get through. Ugh.

[Mervi]

Mailman just brought me a packet from amazon that contains hardback copies of [[Warriors]] and [[Songs of Love and Death]]! Warriors is HUGE and the cover is ugly but I can't wait to start reading these. I got them with a gift certificate that was generated partially through the revenue from this site's links - so thank you everyone who bought Dragon Keeper & Haven through my links. The additional bonus for you all is that now I can finally update the wiki pages for the corresponding RH stories, [[The Triumph]] and [[Blue Boots]] (which is a 6D story after all yay! )

[Farseer]

[[Blue Boots]] (which is a 6D story after all yay! )

Woot woot !!!!!!!

My copy must still be in transit somewhere... !

[Mervi]

Could be the early and heavy snowing in Europe if it's coming from/through here. Basically every order I've made online for this holiday season is/has been late (even the ones coming from the Åland islands which are usually delivered the day after ordering were delayed). Even the UK Amazon posted a notice in their front page last week about the situation.