Schoolies toolies foolies

Hi people! You just can't get a break from me, can 'ya? Let me ask you a question, please?

What are you planning to do when you finish school? Or if you have finished school, what did you do to celebrate the end of school and the stressful and demanding subjects, the stupid people you want to punch in the face sometimes, the really cool and hot and sometimes pedophilic teachers?

If you're in Australia, you probably spent the week after your exams (which will determine if you'll get in the uni that you want --no pressure at all) at the Gold Coast, the Philip Island, Bali, or Fiji.

Surfers Paradise at Gold Coast during Schoolies week

Source: Google Images (OFCOURSE)

Here in Australia, we have this thing called the 'Schoolies week'. It's a tradition, like 'straya is actually some cult thing and the schoolies is one of the ritual things. Please don't be creeped out, I'm not even up to the exciting part yet. So anyway, schoolies week is celebrated by, you guessed it, schoolies! Schoolies (wow, that word looks very weird now) are the school leavers. You know, the ones who are so happy about being free from school --the ones who finished Year 12. So after the Year 12s finish their final exams and have graduated, they have one final thing to do: GO TO SCHOOLIES!!!

So the schoolies week is basically a week of hangovers, drunken bastards, chain smoking, and casual sex. (Not very enjoyable for the residents, really) A whole heap of 17-year-old teenager with raging hormones and the need to show off to their friends, the beach, and no parents? Now that's the perfect formula of undying fun and vomit. As unorganised and disgusting as it may actually sound like, the schoolies is actually organised. You have to sign up online and pay stuff for your accommodation. You can even go rent a limousine to go pick you and your pretty friends up and drop you off to the Coast. Pretty, right? And the thing is, Australian parents actually let their kids go because...YOLO. (Wow did I just say that) No really, I told you, schoolies is a tradition and buzzkill parents won't be able to stop their children from going, you know?

But schoolies isn't as fun as it sounds like. People die. Now are you waiting for some punchline like people die...of happiness? No. There is no punchline because it is true. Heaps of people have died from schoolies; they leave and never come back. People drown, fall over railings of their hotel rooms, get caught in fights, etc. So is schoolies really pretty? Nah. 

That's not it. Nope, you can't finish reading this yet. Apart from the schoolies, other people enjoy the fun of schoolies week, too. We have the toolies (older people who pretend to be schoolies and hit on young, vulnerable, and drunk people) and the foolies. (younger people who hasn't even finished high school yet and wants to join in the fun) Every year, these people are the ones who do more damage than the actual schoolies. They punch people, drink too much, shout like they're Tarzan --pretty much anything that makes a bigger chaos than what the schoolies have already done.

So yeah. That's what I really want to talk about. A glimpse on the lives of school leavers, ladies and gentlemen, and the pretty and ugliness of it.