I was never a massive fan of school. I don't think many kids are, really - that'd probably explain why they feel the desperate need to spend every lunchbreak screaming at the top of their tiny lungs as if a leopard's snuck through the gates and has just begun chowing down on class 5P. All that noise HAS to be a cry for help.
Alright, so the leopard population of most British educational facilities is likely to be pretty low*, but what most schools DO provide is boredom. Boredom in vast, unending quantities. I've yet to meet a single child who actually WANTED to attend a maths class and, given that kids seem to be on permanent fast-forward (meaning that time moves far slower for them than for us proper, fully-grown humans with full control of most of our limbs), those classes pass very, very slowly indeed.
*According to OFFSTED reports, anyway, but the teachers probably just lure any maneating fauna into an art cupboard until the inspectors have gone.
However, as we grow older, our brains decide that decluttering is the route to ultimate happiness and, with no warning at all, start merrily chucking out old memories like Anthea Turner on speed, making room for more sensible, grown-uppy type information like 'how to work the central heating' or 'de-icing a car windscreen using a credit card'. This leaves us with a somewhat rose-tinted view of our years in education based on the few most notably humorous/terrifying moments that have survived the deletion process. Remember that time Sam did that thing with the Pandapops? Remember Mrs. Graham and those awful jumpers? Ahhhh, good times.
But think back. All those countless hours of pencil-chewing... of staring at the (now apparently un-PC) blackboard and longing with every fibre of your hormone-drenched adolescent being for the day to be over... and not just for weeks or months, but for YEARS. You probably spent more time being bored at school than you'll spend on the toilet during your entire life! Given the astonishing number of 1s and 2s (and even cheeky 3s if the mood takes you, fellas) that you're likely to do during your years on this spinning ball of rock, doesn't that sound like the kind of cruel and unusual torture that even the US special forces would see as a bit dodgy?
It certainly did to me. Unlike most, I've never subscribed to the old 'happiest days of your life' adage - little Emily Morris was always painfully aware of every second of youth slipping through her ink-stained fingers and of the fact that she'd much rather be doing something, ANYTHING other than this godawful 'learning' thing all the grownups kept banging on about. It wasn't my teachers' fault, it's just that kids simply aren't programmed to enjoy sitting still, being quiet and listening. Learning was something that was being forced upon me - I wanted to play.
Now, I don't want you thinking I was one of those cool rebellious kids with artfully tousled hair who knew all the good bands. Far from it. Yes, I had a creative brain that tended to wander off if left unsupervised but I was also alarmingly lacking in anything remotely resembling social skills. I had braces. My mum cut my fringe. I liked Enya, for god's sake! Cool I was not. However, I was also lucky enough to go to an extremely good school and was therefore surrounded by peers with craniums so intimidatingly blessed that bad grades were one of the quickest routes to social disapproval. Add to that the fact that my dad was a teacher there (who I had to call 'Sir'. Oh, the humanity!) and it was obvious that failure was not an option. So what to do?
Well, I quickly decided that effective time-management was the solution. Rather than slave away for the entire year on every bit of work they chucked at us I'd coast along until I hit something that would actually affect my exam grades, then focus all my energy on that, leaving me free to spend the majority of my time reading fantasy fiction novels, wasting the art department's supplies on 'experiments' and futilely pursuing that 'cool' thing like Prof. Elemental on the hunt for the golden frog. I never quite found that elusive coolness but I did get through a lot of David Eddings and Terry Pratchett novels, discovered Star Wars and, against all the odds, my so-called work ethic actually... well, worked! As it turns out I do rather well under that kind of last-minute, 'pull an all-nighter' pressure and became that annoying child who seemingly put in zero effort, yet somehow strolled out with top grades. My teachers despaired. My parents wept. The Hermione Granger types fecking HATED me.
Yup, I was the 'could try harder' kid. Those early school reports were rather telling, really - THEY knew I could do better, I knew I could do better, I just didn't see the point**. This attitude continued through my university years.
Year 1: Work? Sod that, I'm playing Doom.
Year 2: Coast (while simultaneously working as a headmistress dancer for a school disco).
Year 3: Panic.
I vividly recall being in my final uni exam, setting my pen down and thinking "I never, ever have to do that again." The sense of relief was immense. My smile couldn't have been wider. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I'd willingly go back to school.
And yet... it happened.
At the start of 2011 I was at a theatre audition with a friend of mine - a chap who speaks his mind with the kind of brutal bluntness that would cause most actors to dissolve in the salty torrent of their own luvvietears. You know, one of those ones whose opinions I can actually trust? "You do this weird thing with your arm", was the first thing he said to me afterwards. You whatnow? I was totally oblivious to doing any such thing but it turns out he was right - three months in a sling following shoulder surgery had left me with a nasty habit of clutching my right arm like some kind of idiotic security blanket whenever I felt even remotely uncomfortable. This was a real bombshell. How on earth had I not noticed this before and, more to the point, if it took a passing comment from a friend at some random audition to point out something so glaringly obvious, what other dreadful habits had I accumulated that nobody had alerted me to yet?!
I resolved at that moment to go back to school, not in the traditional 9-5 manner but in a way that would be fun AND benefit my career. I wouldn't wait for criticism to come to me, I'd actively seek it out and then work my arse off to fix anything that needed fixing. I toyed briefly with the idea of packing work in for a couple of years and actually going to drama school full-time (24 months without having to do any invoicing? Score!), but was quickly reassured by folks in the industry that I was already working more than most graduates anyway and that my time would be much better spent identifying any areas that needed tweaking and focusing on those. I'll admit, I was slightly disappointed that this advice meant I couldn't just shake my life like an Etch-a-Sketch and start from scratch, but it did remind me to appreciate what I've already got, and just how far I've managed to get on my own.
** I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to all my former teachers - you all deserve medals. Feel free to blame any hair loss/mental instability on me.
So... I'm going back to school, in fact I've already started, and I'll be using this blog to explore some of the weird and wonderful things I learn along the way. I can't promise that I wont pull the occasional all-nighter (I am still a gamer, after all, and if there's one thing a gamer knows it's greeting the sunrise from the wrong end of the day) but I will most definitely TRY HARDER. I shall also be buying lots of new stationary, because organising things makes me happy and allows me to procrastinate while still convincing myself that I'm doing work (even in the old days my revision folders were works of art that took far longer than the actual revision).
Like the geeky, bespectacled new kid I once was I'm pretty scared by this new chapter in my life, but this time around I don't have that sinking Monday morning feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why? Because this time what I'm learning IS playing. That alone is enough to make me remember why I love my job so much.
Wish me luck!
Milly x
