Basket.

Student life is the best. Of course, no one believes that when they are actually leading such a life (I most certainly did not), and it is not difficult to see why. Mounds of homework, unreasonable demands, co-curricular activities, tight schoolyard discipline, classroom politics and the bewildering experiences of puberty are just some of the things our typical secondary school student might have to deal with. It can definitely look like a really bleak life at times, but believe me, this is about as good as it gets.

Females are perhaps more fortunate. They don't have to go through the degrading experience of NS, bowing and scraping to lesser men. However, the camaraderie of secondary school and JC (no idea about polytechnics) life is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Beyond that, there are no more chances for an entire same grouping of people to sit together, suffer together and fool around together for up to two years, building friendships that can last a lifetime. For femamles, this is pretty much the only chance one gets to know a gang of other people that thoroughly, to have so many shared experiences and inside jokes. For males, there is NS - or more specificially perhaps, BMT. Even then, the time spent together is relatively short; 3 months. School is still incomparably better.

That said, of course, school can really, really suck. The best way I can describe it is that it is the best of a bunch of truly awful alternatives. Student life is the best kind of life you can ever get, but it really isn't very good. I remember the days when the essays just kept piling up at exact same instant I couldn't be home doing them, all the really awful and useless teachers I had (what the fuck, five-metre dense undergrowth in tropical rainforest) and of course the classroom politics that were especially prevalent in JC. It is impossible not to be overwhelmed most of the time, and impossible not to think that you'll rather be someplace else far, far away.

That's how it's going to be, though. Anything school ever threw at me was still many miles better than fucking around in a pitch-black middle-of-nowhere sometime in the early hours of the morning with a rifle, an unwieldly helmet and 10kg on your back. Or being wrapped in layers and layers of red tape every time someone wanted to do so much as take a crap. God, NS fucking sucked. I am so glad it's over. Until they finally call me back, of course.

So anyway, treasure your school days. And remember that being a teenager is all about doing stupid things that you are going to be really embarrassed about later in life.