I have been referred to this board my a co-worker of my father, who contribute a little to this board and the Wiki you also have, because I can't find anyone at home understanding what I am going through.
Sometime I wake bathed in sweat because I have dreamt that I was back at my boarding school. What is wrong?
I have to tell you my story. We had some problems at home and I thought that a continuation school was the answer. In the old days they were the reform schools in Denmark, but during the last 20 years they have marketed themselves as a solution for self-development.
I personally selected the school myself and so to say dragged my parents into allowing me to go. They were not too happy about it and thought that it would be a too restricted environment, which could shut me off from my family and friends.
I have to say that the school itself only had very few limitations on communication. Mail was allowed and the staff didn't care about what we did write. Phone could also be used outside classes, but mobile phone were only allowed after two months for us to adjust. No alcohol or drugs were of course allowed on school property and we have to sober while travelling from and to the school, but we could travel home most of the weekends, so we were not totally shut off from being a normal Danish teenager. Kissing and hugging was allowed but all room should be single gender, so as they stated the recommended the parents for some students to invite the boy-/girl-friend home for the weekend, so the students did not risk being expelled due to sex.
Regardless of the conditions I could not manage to live there. The day was very structured and I missed having a glass of wine with my parents in the living room before bed. My father must have known more about me as a person because when I arrived at the school he gave me a small envelope. When the situation was worst, I opened the enveloped and found a paper telling me to phone them and ask about a non-existing aunt if I wanted home. The student phone which were the only mean of online communication was placed in a very public place and the teachers all told us that it was placed so people could see who the cry-babies were, when they phoned home and pleaded to be pulled. In the first week 2 students left. I hoped that I could manage but after almost 3 weeks, I had to make the "Stop-call".
My parents told me to pack my belonnings as secret as possible and then they arrived some 5 hours later. The staff urged my parents to allow me to have a real shot at the reform school life, but my parents knew me and pulled me. I was a little afraid that they would be angry of me because they had to pay for extra weeks, but there was not hard feeling.
When we spoke on the trip home, they told me that they had expected this outcome but they had to teach me a lesson. They blamed me for being too impulse managed and of thinking too short-term. As they told me Danes are expected to support their local community and see strangers, new technoligies, outside cultural influences as challenges rather than possibilities. They were so wise! It was then that I understood that they were more in connection with my sole than myself. At some point in the exciting process of moving out, I had forgotten myself and they had seen it.
I returned home, attended the local school and later the local high school (I would have dropped out and started to work full time, if we didn't have a high school locally. So much I did learn). I am hoping for job in the local supermarket where I work parttime after this summer and then I have fullfilled my ambitions for the adult life. As a part of my gratitude towards my parents I will continue to live at their place to support them.
But I remain with one problem. Some nights I return to the continuation school in my dream where I can't find the note left by my father. I dream that I have to appear before the entire student body and the staff to be laughed at when I try to dial the number of my parent only to find it disconnected. What is wrong and will those terrible dreams ever go away?
Janne, born 1991, now Koege cititizen 4ever.
http://www.blog.dk/jj1991