What will they come up with this time?
Five years ago, it was ‘wheat to bread’. Lucky bloody peasants and bakers! A full ninety percent of the participants who scored high enough to graduate were either agricultural or food processing professionals. They won five year of leisure and luxury by doing well what they do for a living. What’s not to envy?
Ten years ago, it was ‘build, build, build – tent, town, tunnel’. With ‘tent’ the only practical exam, many more contestants did well than in most years. Normally, if you cram hard enough, you earn a fare chance to do well at the theory, only to fail, mostly abysmally, at unfamiliar pratical tasks. Ten years ago, it was the opposite. The 3D design software provided to demonstrate skills at building a town and a tunnel was impossibly hard to use, unless you happened to be addicted to a particular type of old fashioned computer game. Most contestants are too busy cramming, they don’t have time to waste on gaming. And it showed.
What will they come up with this time?
Five more days. It’s all over the media now.
The numbers always leak, in the last week before the announcement. Someone has to compile them, right? Theoretically, the pot that determines how many contestants can graduate this year is filled by the safety valve transaction tax collected over the last five years. But in practice, the administration prefers to fill the pot in one go, right ahead of the contest. Has something to do with accounting and interest rates. 85.000 graduations is the word of the day. More than five years ago, but barely. Sounds like a lot, but compared to a population of 4 billion potential contestants…
Tomorrow this time, we’ll know. Incredible, how much suspense and announcement that takes at most a minute can generate. Even for me, a non-cramming chancer who will have a go, if the topic sounds good. There is a fee, to cover the expenses of the exercise, but if the theme sounds in the least feasible, I’m having a go.
Living around the corner from the local venue helps. Some people spend fortunes on travel and accommodation. I can walk over, in a minutes, at most. If I decide to have a go. Still a big if at this stage. There’s the fee. And I don’t like ridicule. ‘Wheat to bread’, certainly not. Finding the right shelf is all I know about bread, preferably sliced.
In my neighborhood, many guys and most ladies between twenty and sixty don’t hesitate to participate every five years. I know, see them walk over and enter the building. They don’t care, about losing the fee and making fools of themselves. I do. I’m only having a go if the topic sounds good.
I’m not fixated on a particular topic. Paul, for example, my colleague, he’s a drone freak. Has got a whole collection, from small parcel delivery drones to hunter ware and people carriers he’s not even officially licensed to fly. He hoards them, puts them apart and back together, flies them, repairs them after crashes. As far as I can think back Paul has been dreaming of a drone topic. He’d be graduating, easily.
Susan from downstairs, she totally into psychedelics, natural and synthetic, theory and practice. Give her the right dopey topic, and she’ll manage to explain which stuff does what, even while so heavily under the influence that she should be far gone. She sometimes is, pretty far gone, but only on weekends, and only an ambulance once.
Me, I’m more a generalist. Do know my way around many topics, more or less superficially. Theory should work, if probably not splendidly, compared to specialists. I know enough about enough not to make a fool of myself. My show stopper, that’s the practice. I’m not having a go at something I’ve never done before, like baking bread or putting up a tent. I won’t end up in the ‘Best of this year’s idiots’ clip. Losing the fee I could bear, such humiliation not.
Three more minutes to go. It’s quickly getting quiet outside, like when we have tsunamis, between the rush-rush just after the alert and before the wave comes thundering in. I certainly won’t miss the tsunamis, if a good topic comes up and I graduate. Five years in a sheltered location, without tsunamis and sandstorms, and being able to walk around in t-shirts because UV shield, that alone makes me urge to piss envy.
Here we go. The announcer puts on her robot face – she is of course a robot, all media ‚people’ are, but so good at looking human that she has to perform great acting to look robotic – and says: „This years theme is ‚blues – music and mood‘. Please register in the next seven days….” She goes on listing the usual procedural details. But that’s besides the point.
What the beach is that topic even supposed to mean?!
If I need help to get the topic, my chances at having a go are probably very low.
My supporter cheerily informs me that I’ve got quite a lot of blues in my tsunami day playlist.
So this type of music is called blues. Interesting. I probably would have called it mood rock, or mood pop, but that’s just me calling any music I like pop, because it’s popular with me.
Blues, the music, check, as far as listening is concerned. But that’s got to be the practical exam. I don’t play any instrument. But singing might work, just. I often sing along my tsunami playlist. I’ve got a week to get a at least one song roughly right. Back in the civil protection force, my unit got punished a lot, for slacking. We were made to sign the continental anthem, for punishment. One by one. Took ages, sounded horrible, in most cases. Me, I did quite ok, according to the others. A blues version of the continental anthem? Might be worth a try.
Leaves the ‘blues the mood’ theoretical exam. I’m having the blues no end. Try not to, I my nuisance of a job! Stopped counting the number of times my supporter tried to convince me to try antidepressants. That’s a topic I can cover, better than any shrink who never had to work despite himself. Graduation, here I come!
Who am I trying to kid here? Never do I stand a chance. There will be professional musicians, opera stars, pop idols. Oh yes, they will have a go, even if they don’t need to. Just for the fun of winning, and showing the world once again how great they are. And there will be shrinks, ready to make yet more money from the misery of people like me. Never do I stand a chance. So not going to make a fool of myself. One more pinch of blues, I drop dead!