School

Dear readers,

As of June 10th 2015, I am officially no longer a student at the German School of Prague, since I managed to successfully graduate it. I find the feeling of graduation to be rather special, and something, that I can't really find the words for to describe it, because it's a mix of emotions, ranging from extreme happiness to lifetime frustration, as an important chapter of life, comes to an end.

After graduation, I watched most of my classmates chant happily, that they will never have to go to school again, and that is was so horrible going there every weekday at 8am. I admit, it's not a pleasant memory, getting up at 6am every morning, rushing to leave the house, only so you can be the zombie with earphones in, whilst commuting by underground in crowded trains. However, in the end, school is not a bad place to be. Compared to what probably expects me in life, school was nice and enjoyable, and even though I'm glad, that I can move on to university, I will still miss the carelessness of the organization of my day, because I had a regular routine.

As I am writing this, I begin to realize, that many of people I used to see on an everyday basis, will no longer be part of my life. I'm sure that I will stay friends with my current friends as much as I can, but no one of us is staying in Prague, as most of us will move to Germany, as our school hands us a German diploma, and not a Czech one. So, the new life I'm about to start is going to be a life, without my friends around, and if I ever want to see one of them, I have to go see them, or they'll have to go see me. That is a painful thought, considering the fact, that we once used to see each other on a daily basis.

I remember my first day of school fairly well. It was fairly painful. It was at a Czech public school, which I hated the entire year. I cried, I hated it, the kids hated me for being a foreigner (as I'm from Serbia) and some teachers even downgraded my marks, for not speaking proper Czech. The fondest memories I have of that year are my class teacher, who was really kindhearted and always fair, and a girl named Kristýna, who was my "crush" at the time. We always got along really well, and she was kind of the only friend I had.

However, luckily I mastered the German language well enough to be put into the German School of Prague in year 2, saving me from endless terror and putting in a school, where I actually had friends, and was not discriminated for being Serbian. Up until year 5, I was a part of the group and always enjoyed my childhood at the school, for it was the best I could ask for. As I got into years 6 to 9, socializing became more difficult for me and I was the outsider in the group most of the time. This was mostly due to the divorce of my parents and my personal struggels regarding my sexuality.

Years 10 to 12 were my glory years in school. I successfully (at least at my school) came out as gay in year 10, started working on various projects of my own and participated in as many classes as it was possible. I saw my grades improove in those three years and a range of successes. In year 10, I started my Serbian language class, which then got a confirmed trip to Belgrade, we were only 6 on that trip, but it was still a once in a lifetime experience. Except fot the fact that 7 of us did the same thing in year 11 again, gaining more attention from the school and support from our fellow teacher. In year 11, I also discovered MUN and I was part of our schools MUN team for two years, visiting three MUN's whilst at it. In year 12 I started my most ambitious projects, with the introduction of the regional conference for student body presidents of German Schools. A very good friend of mine from the German School of Belgrade helped me launch the project, and so we did. In Belgrade, we met with Warsaw and Zagreb and their representatives, and had the first successful confernce. A week later I was sent to Budapest to present the project to the principals of 12 German Schools abroad in Eastern Europe, by far my biggest success.

Now, I leave this part of my life behind, and look forward to new horizons, new challenges, new topics and new opinions. I have time to travel more now, and more time to write for this blog, and I expect to post more frequently and write more texts about more topics. I'm preparing, so hang on, please. I promise, that it'll be good.

I wish all of you a happy summer! Stefan.