By Ben Conway

 

SCA: let go.

To give advice that will soak in seems a bit wet, because we/I naturally know SCA. You haven’t started, so to ring off truths about the school that won’t mean much to you is easy. Your intake will be different to John XIVIIIXIIXIVOVVVXXI.

 

One thing you do know, however, is yourself. You were accepted in on you. Unless you have an identical twin that did it for you, that would be quite jokes.

 

It’s easy in the beginning of SCA, because it’s the honeymoon stage, to become diluted. To be the everyman/woman, maybe become a watered down, weaker, not even tasting of orange anymore, Robinsons version of yourself.

 

To appease or do what you think people want.

 

Bollocks to that, from the off. This, my final SCAB, is about letting go.

 

For a school with little to no rules: turn up, don’t be a dick, no drugs (obviously) and be the best version of you. It’s one of the things we all forget to do.

 

Be ourselves.

 

When you have near free autonomy to do everything, you can forget about doing anything.

 

Flashback: day two.

 

We have a writing workshop with Deanna and the task is to pull out all the words we’ve written and act them out in a story. We’re grinning emphatically at each other because no one wants to be the arsehole, so everything is like a hyperbolic walk down the yellow brick road.

 

Being the egotist that I most likely am (see I can’t even own up to it) I strip, cover my between me down there with the remaining clothes, and act out the word ‘naked’.

 

I learnt to let go.

Metaphorically. Thank God.

 

I’m not saying for all of you to get naked on the first day(s), it’s about losing your inhibitions and being playful. So whatever is your equivalent?

 

Letting go in the later terms can be harder, because that was day two, and in comparison to now SCA felt like baby food. We’re currently working through a big boy unlimited Toby Carvery that never seems to bloody stop.

 

You’ll understand that what’s in your head now, is ten times less impressive then what you had twenty minutes ago. Letting go is a step towards moving on, and if you can’t move on, you can’t become a better version of yourself.

 

The culmination of this SCAB being, don’t be precious. Not the Oscar award winning movie Precious, the tangible concept that is hoarding and keeping things to yourself, precious.

 

For now, you have a summer and time to do whatever you want. Prepare for the year of your life that is coming in nearly a months time and above everything you will do*: [list of books that you will painfully read through here].

 

Be yourself.