School starts properly next week. Or this week. It depends who you ask, and whether you count the afternoon they handed out the reading lists as “starting.”
I have four IGCSE subjects: Business, Maths, ESL, and World Literature. When I say that out loud, people wait for the fifth one, like I forgot Science on the bus. I didn’t forget. I picked these on purpose, even if I couldn’t have explained why in January.
I can explain it better now. Sort of.
Business is the one that made my relatives nod. Finally, a subject that sounds like a plan. I didn’t pick it because it sounds like a plan. I picked it because I keep watching people choose things — a phone, a school, a brand of headphones — and I want the actual words for what they’re doing. Opportunity cost. Incentives. Why a company kills a product that still has fans. I used to think that was just being nosy. Apparently it’s a syllabus.
Maths is there because Business without Maths is just opinions with a logo. I’m not the kid who does extra algebra for fun. I’m the kid who gets annoyed when a graph in a news article has no axis labels. Numbers are how you check whether a story is true. Also, if I want to study anything finance-related later, I can’t treat Maths like a side quest. I already tried that in Year 8. It went badly, and I would like to not do that again.
ESL is the honest one. English is the language I read in, write in, and still sometimes think in the wrong order. People assume that if you like books, ESL is too easy, or that if you take ESL, you can’t like books. Both of those are lazy. I want to get better at being precise. Not fancier. Precise. There’s a difference between “the company grew” and “the company grew because they raised prices on people who didn’t notice.” Same subject. Different sentence. ESL is where I practice not blurring those.
World Literature is the one I would take even if nobody graded it. I like stories. I like that a play from a hundred years ago can still make me uncomfortable. I like that a short story can be about a necklace or a rose and also about class, pride, and the stupid things people do to look valuable.
The reason these four belong together is that they keep interrupting each other.
I read a story about someone ruining their life over an object, and my Business brain says: that was a valuation error. My Maths brain says: they never ran the numbers. My ESL brain says: the author made you feel the mistake before you could name it. Then I feel a bit guilty for turning a character into a case study, and I write it down anyway.
That’s what this year is for. Not becoming a mini-consultant. Just paying attention on purpose.
I already looked at the World Literature list. There’s Chekhov. There’s Oscar Wilde. There’s a play about an orchard a family can’t afford to keep. There’s a story where a bird dies to make a flower, and then nobody wants the flower. I haven’t read all of it yet. I’m not going to pretend I have. But I opened the list on Friday afternoon and didn’t close it, which is usually how I know I’m in the right place.
If these posts sound like I’m thinking out loud, that’s because I am. I’ll get some of this wrong. I’ll probably change my mind about a book halfway through. I’d rather do that here than wait until I have a neat opinion.
Anyway. Four subjects. One year. I should pack my bag.