Heh! I'm back, returned at lunchtime to read your post in detail. The rant re the sports funding, perhaps there is summat you can clear up for me. (Being a confused foreigner and all.) We get heaps of American teen sitcoms over here, and from what snippets I've scanned, (and believe me, I ain't no fan of such TV, Buffy excepted,) I get an impression from them that sport is the major, overriding important thing in US schools. That is is far better to be, say, good at football than academic. (Or, heaven forbid, interested in Science.) Academic types tend to be portrayed as frail, weird looking, sickly geeks, the inference being that they study because, (poor souls,) they don't have the stamina for football and baseball or cheerleading. !!!! Surely it is not like this in real life? Surely this is some bizarre, distorted TV la la land being portrayed? That this could be even remotely true would be horribly depressing for me. I cannot relate to these shows at all, my own last years at school, academic excellence was the big thing. Sport was just some kind of tedious semi-compulsory lesson designed to burn off the odd bag of chips. The cool kids were the ones going to Oxford and Cambridge to study esoteric stuff like philosophy and pure maths. I was the rubbish disappointment at my school for going to a vocational University to study something as dreadfully work-centric and middle class as Architecture. (Dammit girl, if you want to work, study medcine. That's what the cool kids do.) So tell me, is sport the all consuming Point Of Life in School, or am I being mis-lead by twisted sitcoms? (Reassure me please.) :-)
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branchandroot
Request for a further rant?
Date: 2005-05-05 04:37 am (UTC)The rant re the sports funding, perhaps there is summat you can clear up for me. (Being a confused foreigner and all.)
We get heaps of American teen sitcoms over here, and from what snippets I've scanned, (and believe me, I ain't no fan of such TV, Buffy excepted,) I get an impression from them that sport is the major, overriding important thing in US schools. That is is far better to be, say, good at football than academic. (Or, heaven forbid, interested in Science.) Academic types tend to be portrayed as frail, weird looking, sickly geeks, the inference being that they study because, (poor souls,) they don't have the stamina for football and baseball or cheerleading.
!!!!
Surely it is not like this in real life? Surely this is some bizarre, distorted TV la la land being portrayed? That this could be even remotely true would be horribly depressing for me.
I cannot relate to these shows at all, my own last years at school, academic excellence was the big thing. Sport was just some kind of tedious semi-compulsory lesson designed to burn off the odd bag of chips. The cool kids were the ones going to Oxford and Cambridge to study esoteric stuff like philosophy and pure maths. I was the rubbish disappointment at my school for going to a vocational University to study something as dreadfully work-centric and middle class as Architecture. (Dammit girl, if you want to work, study medcine. That's what the cool kids do.)
So tell me, is sport the all consuming Point Of Life in School, or am I being mis-lead by twisted sitcoms? (Reassure me please.)
:-)