[This is the other article I wrote for the Hank Magazine, just a little bit about Ridley and South Africa I think. Well, that's kinda what Maddie wanted me to write anyway. I'm not truly satisfied with it, and this is actually the second attempt and not true raw, but deadlines are deadlines are deadlines, also word counts. I don't know, I just like this guy's style! On the life front, it's basically reruns of new experiences, new friends, music, and burning rings of fire...]
(No, not Australia, dammit! The other one!) And something immediately struck me as odd… Canadians don’t say “aboot”, or “oot”, or anything like that, it’s just sort of like a States accent but not quite. And I haven’t yet but really want to see a Mountie and a moose, so if anyone has one in his or her garage, let me know. Or a grizzly bear, in fact. Anything. A wild Nova Scotian in a kilt, whatever…
The school I come from is called Bishops, in Cape Town. It’s also a “posh” affluent private school, and so I completely understand the apparent disdain St Caths (what a beautiful town! I love it!) has towards us… Apparently I shouldn’t walk around with my favourite Ridley baseball cap. Aww man! I’ll say, I think the Ridley merch store is very creative, what with all their creative merch and stuff; I will literally buy it out before I leave… Anyways, Bishops is big on rugby, tradition, and men being men, because it’s not a boys’ school but a man’s school. So I’m told… And we have 6 periods a day and sports aren’t every day of the week. And chapel every morning except Tuesdays. But that’s all minor details.
Ridley doesn’t have that sort of one-mindedness, and it’s a very good thing because it means it can sustain a plethora of differing personalities, and here I can actually be accepted, whether I’m perceived “cool” or “smart” or even “over-freaking-confident”. It’s a lot harder to break into friend circles where I come from, but I guess that’s just due to the international-ness and variety that Ridley has. Also, the fact that 40% of the school is new this year. I’m getting a lot of culture shock, but more than that, I’m liking the mindset people have. I mean, at Bishops, our equivalents of prefects are all 1st team rugby jocks. Here, there are like five in the play! Unheard of, I tell you… People still have a “meh” attitude to homework, class, and generally also feel contained by the confines of school, but it’s done in a fun way here in Canada.
Ridley is often the exact opposite in many aspects, because here, me living at school is not unusual, whereas at Bishops, camping in the music department until 9.30pm is considered weird. Here it’s just asocial, thank god! Mixing dayboys and boarders within the same house is a novel approach as far as I’m concerned, and along with the fact that we have our own rooms and desk area. This means even dayboys can enjoy the pleasures of throwing clothes everywhere and blasting bass from speaker systems taking up more shelf space than all the books combined, because ordinarily we don’t really have personal space like that at school. Or speakers that big, for that matter.
I love how easily I’ve integrated into Ridley society, and it’s really not difficult. Hell, on orientation week, I ended up telling 20+ new people where their classrooms were! I’ve also joined lots of activities ranging from Ridley Radio to the Cadet Band Drum Corps, as well as somehow finding myself, thanks to Mr Sweeney, in the most raunchy piece of acting I have done in a while (stay tuned!)… I think the music department has taken a very stimulating approach in terms of letting people sign out instruments and forcing them to practice at least an hour a week, but for some reason it’s still super-underground.
I love the dining hall, because I’ve never had something like that before. I enjoy eating lunch with my friends, throwing virtual tomahawks, cursing the chicken, clapping during drops, and just generally having a good time trying to figure out how best to fill up three cups at once. Oh, the social drama of figuring out who to sit next to so as not to cause conversational awkwardness or hint at wheeling or anything like that… ah, the perks of going to school with girls!
Hell, I’m going to miss Ridley…
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