Some chronology for John Joseph Ray

1962


A Brisbane autumn

Matriculating

I spent most of my teens as a diligent student of the Bible. I became as good an exegete as most of the Protrestant clergy. I remember defeating a hapless Methodist pastor over a fine point of Biblical Greek grammar. I believe he warned his congregation against me subsequentky..

But at age 19 I had become atheistically inclined and moved to Brisbane, staying initially with my Auunt Maude

I went to work for Harry Beanham (usually resident in Sydney but he visited his interstate shops occasionally) at Gearco in the city. The job was to run a business selling second hand factory machinery and some new machinery: Mostly to do with lathes and other machine tools.

One of the first things I did when I arrived In Brisbane was to set about getting my Senior Certificate so I could matriculate.

I did it in one year in Brisbane as an evening student -- teaching myself for 4 out of 5 subjects. Evening students were supposed to take 3 years so I again did an academic task in a third of the time. One of the 5 subjects (Italian) I took up only 4 months before the exam depite not having done it for Junior. So I did 4 years work in 4 months as well as having a full-time job. In the circumstances, I think I can be excused for getting only a "B" in the exam. I clearly had a lot of self-confidence even to undertake such a task but it was clearly warranted confidence. I already knew well how easy academic tasks were for me.

All subjects seemed easy enough except for the sciences. I solved the science problem when I found that I could study Botany at the George St. technical college in a one-year course.

English, German and Ancient History I studied by buying the syllabus and just learning what it said you had to learn.

Half way through the year I decided that I should really have five Senior subjects rather than the minimum four so I decided that I would like to study Italian too, even though I had not done it for Junior.

So as far as Italian is concerned, therefore, I did four years work in four months. Italian, is, however, the easiest language for an English-speaker to learn and I did do Junior Latin.

I still have a copy of my Italian textbook called "Sotto un cielo azurro (meaning: "Under a blue sky". It sounds so much nicer in Italian).

At any event my heavy study program for Senior was the sort of challenge I enjoyed. I had virtually every spare hour of every day and night allocated to some form of study - though I did not plan so tightly that I could not miss the occasional evening of study if I wanted to.

I think that it was one of the few occasions when my potentially formidable energies were really used. I actually enjoyed fitting so much in and even had time for a social life.

I passed in all subjects and matriculated. I even got two "A"s (in English and German) and two "B"s (in Ancient History and Italian).

The only subject I got a "C" in was the one I did "not teach myself. A pity in a way: I liked Botany and had rather wanted to become a botanist.



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E.&O.E.

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