Monday, Monday, Monday!

Our IB Coordinator (the person who is completely in charge of running IB at the school) is also our French teacher. The way we're organized, we write our Group 2 French SL Exam in May this year and the rest of our exams next year. So, to get us up to IB-par, our Coordinator (IBC, for short) decided to teach both classes (about 22 students each) in our grade during first semester and no classes second semester. Now, her contract states that she will teach only one class per semester, but they agreed last year that this trade-off was okay. However, because this is a negotiating year, the union is getting annoyed and for the past week has been trying to get her to stick to contract. And to boot, there are scheduling issues with other IB French classes (only one other teacher is trained for IB French, and she was a long-term temp who got sent away due to budget cuts). So, our IBC isn't teaching my French class anymore. Our temp (she taught my class last year (not the same grouping as this year) and our IBC taught the other class) is coming back, but we'll switch teachers in second semester, so we'll all be taught by our IBC at some point. There's also the possibility of after-school study sessions with our IBC, which I'm totally up for.

Speaking of after-school, guess I ought to tell you a little more about me and how I got involved in IB. When I was in grade eight, we had to decide which high school we wanted to attend. Mostly it's divided up by what area of the city you live in, however there's always the option of the nearest Catholic school or the nearest Public school. Plus, we have a School of the Arts (for security reasons, no names of schools will actually be used in this blog) and a school that's famous for their Math. So, while we were filling out course selection sheets one day, our teacher handed out these nice purple flyers advertising the IB Programme at the School of the Raiders (our mascot, and slightly safer than saying the name of our school) that gave a date and time for a parent-student orientation night. Huzzah, I rushed home to tell my parents about this cool new opportunity and we found ourselves seated at the back of the crowded Raider cafeteria. We were introduced to the IBC and some of the students, and next thing I knew I was bathing the the warm glow of random yellow walls and the flickering basement lights (those got fixed at the end of grade nine). Two years have passed, and here I am, thinking about leaving the school I have grown to love.

"What?" You ask? "I thought you liked IB, now you're dropping out?" No, I'm not dropping out. I'm planning on applying to a United World College (http://www.uwc.org) for a full scholarship to go study abroad in a completely IB school for two years (after grade eleven). It's an awesome opportunity, and I'm psyched at the possibility of being accepted and doing IB in India, or Norway, or any of the UWCs. I'm talking with my IBC tomorrow to see what she's got to say about it, but the applications don't come online until October. And alas, results aren't in until May.

But now I'm off for shopping, since I have no homework.
Happy Monday,
Ace