Why VCE is a battlefield pt. 1

I'm going to make a series of posts explaining why VCE is a battlefield.
This metaphor first came to my attention in Jacky babe's class and since then I have often heard it brought up. These ideas are collected from personal and external, first- and second-hand sources. They won't be accurate for everyone. As Kathy would quote, VCE is a war and "your pencils are your swords". *Flourish*

You leave behind the life you once knew

The milk and honey days, the spoon-fed bludge lessons, wasting time at Galactic Circus, -- it's time to put these behind as you valiantly step up to the game. The State Library is your new headquarter.

You've always known that one day you'd be sent off to do VCE, but it's never bothered you because it was a far-off shadowy land that was future-you's concern.

At first you think you can handle going to war. You try to balance two lives by keeping in touch with friends and family. But your fun-time is restricted with your obligations to your books. And soon enough, the letters stop being exchanged. Not because they've stopped worrying about you, but because you don't have the time anymore.

And so you begin to blend in with the rest of your peers, falling in step with their study habits. Before you know it, while you sit in the trenches reloading your pacer, you realise you don't remember the last time you wasted time after school playing DDR.