RM column October 19th - Transitional fun

RM column October 19th - Transitional fun

Well Transition Year so far is a blast, the Young Wan is having a ball and loving every moment.

The year is divided up into segments and she is just about finishing the first one and if that is anything to go by it will be a good year.

So far among the new things she has done is Spanish, music and home economics; she has also had an outdoor activity break as well as a trip to a hospital to talk to some people who work in various roles within the health service.

Home economics has been great and we have enjoyed her newly-learned chicken curry on a number of occasions. Her lasagne didn’t make it home because she said it was awful but her brownies (which looked more like they should be called creamies) were lovely and her chocolate muffins.

Trouble was her cooking partner hates nearly everything so the first time she made the curry she didn’t use any veg at all because of the other girl. So we had a chicken curry with about 10 pieces of chicken swimming around a frying pan with lots of sauce.

However that’s a minor complaint and not really one at all because at the end of the day she now has a dinner she can make, a dinner that could be ready some evening when I get home from work.

And on top of it all and probably more importantly she really enjoys it.

The day to the hospital also seems to have been massively enjoyed by her class.

She came home ranting about wanting to be a radiographer having been to a talk where they were shown funny x-rays and the like.

My own suspicions of her new career path is that it has more to do with seeing such films of the crazy things people do to themselves.

She laughed her head over one x-ray which showed a man to have swallowed a lighter.

I hadn’t the heart to tell her not everyday would be that, eh, fun. But I am impressed that staff in the hospital managed to impress a gang of 15 year olds, no mean feat.

Once this rotation of different classes ends the Young Wan will begin the next batch involving other new and exciting possibilities.

While I am still dubious about Transition Year I am delighted to see the pressure off herself, I am delighted to see her enjoying new subjects, she is also enjoying being a senior in the school.

I remain to be convinced about the benefits of not studying fully for the year but as I said I appreciate the pressure being taken off.

The next big fun thing, or so she thinks, is work experience. Apparently other kids she knows got paid for their time and I have tried to tell her that getting paid for work experience is extremely rare and not normal at all.

She looks at me like I am mad, but we will see just how mad I am when she finishes up her week and is given a big smile and hearty handshake for her troubles.

So for now for me the jury is out on Transition Year, it has been fun, informative and all sorts of things but only time will tell on the whole picture. But I can say I am glad the pressure is off because I don’t know who was more stressed over the Junior Cert exams, her or me…