I never thought I would say it

But I have run out of witty titles. No, just kidding, that will never happen. Seriously, though, I never thought I would say it, but I really want to go back to school.

It would be easy to say that I miss school, but in all honesty, I don't. School is not fun, no matter how you look at it. Fretting over my grades is not fun. Putting up with the dumb shits in my classes who insist on asking inane questions is not fun. Being handed two sets of calculus homework throughout the course of a single period is certainly not fun.

No, I miss the scant free time that having to go to school afforded me, and the ensuing savouring of these morsels of down time. Between three o'clock and when I might go to bed at ten or eleven, I reveled in merely not being in class, and despite our massive amounts of collective complaining, I'm pretty sure most of my contemporaries would have felt the same way.

But this earthquake here in Christchurch, it has put everything, as they say, out of whack. I now find myself with ample hours to while away, and frankly, I can't find enough stuff to fill them. It's a sad thing to admit, but this is really how I have been feeling. That isn't to say, of course, that I haven't gotten plenty done, and enjoyed most of the time off. Georgia and I spent a couple of days in Nelson with my hilariously upbeat grandparents, and have subsequently been to Halswell Quarry and The Groynes (yeah, great name I know) taking some sweet photos. But knowing that I don't tomorrow have work to go back to, tests to sit, leaves me with a hollow feeling. Not to mention the death and having our house condemned.

More than anything else, life's crappy parts, the working and going to school, highlight the not-so-crappy ones, and this system simply works. People need a job to do, and I don't think there's any two ways about it. Surely even in retirement you would get bored, and the monotony of endless games of golf and glasses of cider would start to become... monotonous.

For me, this is like using the money cheat in that classic game, The Sims. Sure, repeatedly hitting "RosebudAAAAAA!?!?!?!?!?!?!" was great for a while, and the subsequent millions of dollars in my virtual account brought a vague smile to my face, but after constructing a palace featuring an entire floor full of scuba tanks (and then the bastard had the nerve to go and not like it!) what else is left to do? It's the ongoing grind, the battle, that makes the results worthwhile. Money, weekends, without what preceded them are meaningless.

I used to enter all of those Australian maths/english/science competitions back in primary school, and a few days before them, my mother and I would leaf through practice papers. A grind, sure, but I knew they helped. Anyway, one night I felt especially melodramatic, and whined "can't we stop? I've done enough!" Even though it was all  ploy, my mother bought it, and much to my surprise replied, "Sure, if you think so." At eight years old I simply couldn't compute having gotten my way, and hastily backed down, guiltily conceding to do another paper.

And like that, I will gladly return to the unrelenting dullness of school, so happy that sneaking some time on my Xbox means something once more.