Lessons in Time Wasting

If you attend college in England (and possibly the rest of the UK as well) you have to take what's known as an 'enrichment' course, wherein you are taught things like 'thinking' and 'reasoning' and 'critical thinking,' and the most productive of all, 'general studies' which are all things that are supposed to help you get into university. What they actually do is teach you nothing in particular that is any more helpful for getting into uni than being taught first aid. The best thing in the world, without a shadow of doubt, is doing 'extended project' in A2 (second year) because you failed thinking and reasoning in the first year because you were ill. Especially when the teacher isn't there because she seems to be permanently ill. All that happens whenever I actually attend one of these extended project sessions (to call them "lessons" would be like referring to the CIA as an "afterschool club") is a bloke called Richard takes the register, sends us all an email containing a useless document which nobody's going to take the time to read because we're all too busy trying to get an education, and a noticeable amount of time is wasted.

I haven't actually been told what I'm supposed to be doing in these extended project sessions, all the documents tell me is that I can do "literally anything." Like what? At least give me some bloody ideas. I can't ask Richard because he probably doesn't really know either and all he does is takes the register and then bloody leaves. He doesn't come back. He's probably gone to make himself a cup of instant coffee with semi-skimmed milk and two teaspoons of white sugar and sit in the staffroom doing the crossword in the papers.

Now, my father's been sent a letter by the college telling him that I've only been going to 20% of the extended project lessons I've been required to go to. It told him that if my attendance were to drop to below 75% by half term, I'd have to go into college on a day off, and attend an all-day session. Big fucking brass bollocks. I bet what's going to happen is I'll go to the first of my bi-weekly sessions to be told I don't have to attend for the next few weeks because my teacher, although in college and teaching English, isn't quite '100%.' Gah!