An Intro

Hello one and all and welcome to my wonderful new blog, dedicated to recording the chronicles of my IB life. It's two weeks into the IB Programme for me and, as I was home sick today, I got to thinking about blogging. And what better to blog about than my two-year journey into madness with those people in Wales who so like to torture the International Student. More about me and my aims later, but lets talk about the IBO now.

http://www.ibo.org/ - The International Baccalaureate Organization
You can click above for the official version of what and who IB and the IBO are, but here's the gist of it. The IB is a standardized, international programme for education that is recognized throughout the world by top universities, including Harvard, Oxford, and the University of British Columbia.

It is also rumored to be hell on earth for it's students, bombarding them with homework and CAS hours requirements. My school offers a 2-year pre-IB program to "bring students up to the IB level" and I've already watched a good chunk of my classmates from grade 9 drop out due to the stress and workload. More still are considering the drop at the end of the first year/semester. I personally don't find it that bad. I love to learn, and I think that's exactly the point of IB, to advance your education and give you a little extra stress now so you don't bomb your first year in university because of the intense requirements.

Anyway, I live in a small town (technically a city, but trust me, you wouldn't know it) in Ontario, Canada that depends on (and is dying because of) the auto industry. The school I attend only recently became an IB World School, and it's still a regular secondary school, so scheduling is tough and the courses being offered are limited. In fact, our only options are for the Group Six exam; either Visual Arts or Biology, both SL; and Group Five, either Math Studies or Math SL. The compulsory courses are HL English, History, and Chemistry; and SL French.

I'm the third set of IB students at my school, so we're still part of the Guinea Pig-ing they're doing in refining the program. Only one group has graduated, and from what I've heard, they're doing well. Still, it bugs me to think that everything has been chosen for us, that there's no choice within the program for us. But more on that later.

I'm off to play around with the layout for this site and nurse my failing health.
Good night,
Ace