Thompson

Phaedrus' Street Crew
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    1395

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Thompson

  11. Posted

    There's a weird balance between eloquence and simplicity that needs to be struck. I've heard that one of the hardest parts of teaching English as a second language is finding that balance; it's pretty hard to explain to somebody why an essay is over-written.

    I guess the only way to do it is for people to let you know what sounds right and wrong. That'll be a long term process.

    That being said, your English is already far better than that of plenty of people I know. :tup:

    :barf: "I done that already."

  12. Posted

    To fully understand the story you'll need to understand a little bit about our school system. Our last two years of school before university happen at Senior Secondary Colleges and are year 11 and 12. The thing you typically get from completing year 12 is called a VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) and that will come with an ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank), which is a percentage score out of 100.

    So for instance you might graduate Senior Secondary having done a VCE of English, Physics, Maths, Psychology, IT and Business Management and get an ATAR of 85. University courses will have pre-requisite VCE courses and ATAR levels; this person will probably qualify for a Science degree given their 85 ATAR and Maths and Physics courses.

    With that out of the way, here's my story.

    I've always had trouble with school, ever since primary school i've been bullied pretty severely and have become introverted and anxious. My attendance level has always been terrible, missing probably two or three days a week, as a result I had to leave mainstream school at year 8 and did Distance Education until year 11 came around. I decided to give school another go since I wanted to try and be normal, unfortunately it didn't go so well. My attendance was pretty bad and it all came to a head when one particular bullying event occurred that had a huge impact on me, needless to say, I left school.

    I became depressed and hopeless, and did very little for a year, basically just living at home and not making any solid plans. All of this was pretty hard on my parents and it ended up with both my parents going to psychologists and me going to a psychiatrist in Melbourne. Eventually, after another half a year I recovered enough to make the decision that I would try out this thing called NETschool.

    What NETschool is is an initiative started by a woman who realized just how many young mothers and rejects like myself ended up with no way to get an education, no matter how much they might want to. She got funding from the government to create NETschool as a department of my Senior Secondary and began taking in students. The idea is that they can make special allowances for their students to extend they VCE courses from the typical two years out to three or even four years, and to generally be a supportive environment for people to come in and try to get back on track.

    I did home-based NETschool for the last half of last year and this year i'm doing center-based, which means I go in there every day and use it as a base where I can go between, after and before classes to do work and hang out. The mentors each have a group of 6-8 students that they look after personally, and it ends up being a much more supportive and collaborative environment where I actually feel like I fit in. It's like working in an office, except it's full of people you like and everyone is in the same boat, each with their own problems but all helping each other.

    Over the last half year my self-confidence has been building rapidly and I feel like I'm figuring out how I am. So this is my first week of center-based and it's been going amazing, I'm feeling super positive about everything and I'm actually enjoying school. It feels wrong, but it's a hell of a lot more enjoyable than sitting around on the computer doing nothing all day.

    It's the first time I've felt good in years, and it's the best I've ever felt in my life.

  17. Posted

    GameLoft, Zynga and their ilk are the clearest possible definitions of rip-off artists. No single person or corporation in video game (and possibly human) history has had the bare-faced audacity that those two have shown in blatantly stealing ideas.

  18. Posted

    These are the people who call themselves Alpha males and go around negging women in bars to improve their game. Just typing that sentence makes me feel like I need a shower.

    I've actually seen some stuff on the other side of the fence as well, but never in such large numbers.

  20. Posted

    Oh, oh, oh! Can I have one?

    That reminds me, I also have FOUR beta keys for Tribes Ascend. And, oh yea, I also have a -33% off any Valve title too.

    You certainly can, what's your Steam ID?

    With that both are now gone.

  23. Posted

    Castorp is clearly a scammer that has been playing the long game... Silently waiting until the gullible among us dropped their guard and then BAM, you're out 8 quid.

    Did you manage to get anyone to help you?

    Lurking a weird gaming podcast's forums for 6 years in order to scam somebody of the price of a game on sale. The oldest trick in the book.