How much spending money does a freshman need?

Tsubie-chan
Sun, 17 Jun 2007 11:41:32 +0000

Heh, Karen, high school for me was ‘weird’. I know kids who used to study all day and night and be like ‘ugh, I hate it’ for the same courses I took while my life consisted of going to school in the morning, frowning at teachers before lunch cause I hated early mornings, enjoying a couple of classes then spending the last few periods at the lab working/having fun or going home early and doing whatever I like. Initially i’d study a lot then I was like ‘meh, I’ll need to go over these stuff anyway before exams so why spend time on it now’. (Yeah, pretty good crammer.) I did all my homework, assignments in time when I had them and needed to submit them but I was bored and didn’t feel upto doing things because although I had harder units, it was getting too monotonous… science and math only. SATs didn’t fall there as that wasn’t part of the school requirement and to be taken independently. With SAT II – it was the same stuff as A levels so nothing extra needed. My activities involved work mostly outside school so I didn’t stay at school after classes ended. My parents just didn’t like having the hassle of sending me to school every morning (they didn’t let me travel by myself) and then wait for me till early evening. What’s funny is when I was still in 10th grade, everyone was like ‘the last two years are going to be hell lot of work, just don’t ask, it’s horrible’. However, I don’t know if it’s due to the curriculum change, but it seemed more like the hard work was Grades 8-10 (I loved 10, my teachers were awesome and I was involved in a lot of activities at school too).

In Japan, schoolwork and homework where in loads and there were a lot of stuff going on so it kept me busy but I enjoyed it. I am not exactly a social person so I didn’t feel I was too busy with work. Then I’d come home and spend 4 hours watching TV and doing homework simultaneously as I always made sure I met all my deadlines and that my work were complete… while some people will go to school the next morning and try to hurry up and finish stuff… that just wasn’t my way of getting things done unless I forgot my homework materials at school/forgot about a deadline.

This is the reason why I couldn’t ever think of doing higher studies here… it’s just boring, and too much memorizing your books. I wanted to have more variation, a more international environment and broader education. It’s not worth it if you’re just doing things for getting a degree and you don’t enjoy what you’re doing at all… hence boredom.

TheDad — Yeah, been leading a princessy life (although in elementary school when my parents were busy working, I had to stay home alone and look after myself and the house from morning till after midnight). I didn’t think there would be kids in America had that type of upbringing too. Here, it’s a result of me being an only child and my parents just treating me like a doll after I became a teen as they didn’t get to spend much time with me when I was a child.