The Agrinautica

   I went to Kilkenny College, City of Kilkenny, County of Kilkenny, Ireland. It was basically the American grades 7-12. Fortunately for me it was co-ed, a lot of schools in Ireland aren't and "you just have to make do" if you happen to go to such a school. There was also an "experimental" school in town that was actually ::gasp:: multidenominational, but this was a crazy experiment and many were very skeptical that a nondenomenational school could function.
   The Headmaster of Kilkenny College is (until this August apparently) Canon Jack Black, AKA the Black Canon. He billows around like Darth Vader in a cape (seriously a black cape!) and will not talk to anyone without an appointment (not even teachers I think). Kilkenny College, founded in 1538, boasts of many Lords of the Admiralty and other ostensibly famous people who attended it, but makes no official mention of their most famous graduate, Jonathon Swift, because he was a satirist and that we all know is not an honourable profession.
   Three times a week they had "assembly" in the gym, so we all herded into the gym, usually making cow noises to illustrate the similarities between our herding into the gym and the herding of cows (aomething you cannot but be familiar with in Ireland). The gym doors had a sign that said something along the lines of "no shoes other than gym shoes allowed in the gym," yet three times a week the entire school was herded in wearing their black non-gym shoes, I never really understood that. School uniforms (seen here) consisted of grey slacks, light blue dress shirt, tie, and a grey pullover for guys -- (substitute grey skirt for girls, subtract tie). So basically your usually wearing the pullover so everyone is grey and grey most of the time.
   Anyway, once I was tromping into the gym along with everyone else and my tie apparently wasn't tied right. Darth Headmaster Black, who was guarding the gym entrace like the ogre of darkness he is, pulled me aside and pointed at my tie. So I retied it and asked him if it was good. But god forbid he actually talk to a student -- he stared off over my head like I wasn't there, so I started walking into the gym again -- and he used Vader powers to strangle me yanked me back and pointed at my tie again. So I retied the tie and asked him again, but of course received the you-don't-exist response, so I slowly stepped away to see if he'd kill me with a lightsaber pull me back again but he didn't so it was kosher I guess.

   Another incident that highlights the difference between school in Ireland and in America was the time there was a brawl between the "Day People" and the "Boarders." In American HS, if people so much as look at eachother funny everyone comes running and the supervisors come speeding over in golfcarts to haul them both to the re-education camp office. During my time at Kilkenny College, a brawl once went on for the entire hour of lunch. Staff must have been aware of it but there was no attempt to stop it. About two dozen people would converge in a melee of fists and violence, pause to regroup and insult eachother, and rejoin in combat. For an hour. Then we all went back to class and got over it.

   So yeah. That was school in Ireland. I returned to the United States shortly after the 4th of July 1997.

Picture of the Day

   A rough picture of Kilkenny. Basically it will just give you an idea of the greenness. Nearly all those green squares are cow paddies. I lived in the lower right hand corner. The river is the River Nore.

Related
   107 Years Ago Today: As Far Back As We Can Remember - Konigsberg 1890.
   Eight Years From Now: Remembering This - an entry that looks remarkably like this one.
   Year From Now: Freshman Year - next in the prehistory series.