User talk:Tolkienfan

"Hang on, you're in college? I didn't realise you were that old."
I'm creating a separate category for this because lots of people have suddenly asked me this. Maybe I should have simply referred to it as 'Year 11' so everyone would get it, but secretly* I love having excuses to explain exactly how different my Australian life is from that of those of all the RP-ers over in the US.

The short answer is: I'm 16, going on 17. I'm in Year 11, as I'm sure you would have gathered in the previous paragraph.

The long answer is: I understand the US has Elementary School (grades 1 through - er, IDK, I understand 4 but am probably wrong as I did no actual research on this - US people, feel free to mercilessly correct me on this), Middle School (grades 5 through 8), High School (grades 9 through 12) and College (tertiary education). Some RPers who either don't get that our education system isn't like this or still haven't fully grasped that I live in Australia have jumped to the conclusion that I must be at least 19, probably older. (Maybe I suggested this indirectly by making Tracey, the central character in Operation Spider Crab, 19 years old. This was a purely arbitrary number, as I'm getting steadily better at writing people in the 15-22 age bracket, and that's around how old I picture Ptraci II.)

In Australia, we have Kindergarten and Preparatory School for 4-6-year-olds (I'm not sure how many, if any, of these exist in the US, or if they go under these names). We then have Primary School (grades 1-6), Secondary/High School (grades 7-10), and college (grades 11-12). College marks the last phase of compulsory education, although you can also replace it with an apprenticeship in some business if that's what you prefer. After this, should you choose, you can attend tertiary education in the form of either university (academic) or TAFE (vocational).

If anyone who asked about my being in college did realise all this and was merely expression astonishment that I'm 16, I'm sorry for misunderstanding.


 * Well, hardly secretly anymore now I've told everyone.