School is gonna reopen in about 2 weeks' time. This year, we decided to purchase KK's exercise books and stationery on our own instead of buying the pack from the school. Reason being, some of the items in the pack are things that we already have, like rulers, glue sticks, scissors and pencils. These things can be used again, there is no need to buy a whole new set every year. We think that is not green and a waste of money as well.
All I needed was to buy some exercise books and display books. That should be pretty easy to get and shouldn't cost a lot, I thought as I set off this morning to Big W. It turned out to be a half-day affair staring up and down the shelves and still not getting everything that I needed. I was both impressed and astonished at the variety and range on offer, not to mention totally lost.
During my school days, exercise books were either lines or squares. Now, and maybe only here in Australia, exercise books are much more complicated. First, there are different sizes (A4, A5 or 334x240?). Then they come in different thickness or no. of pages (36, 48, 96 or more). Lastly, various line spacings (eg 14mm dotted thirds) for you to select. And I have not even mentioned the choice of colours yet.
If that is not 'chim' (confusing) enough, the names on the cover will give you a headache for sure. Scrapbooks, Project books, Display books, Exercise books, Graph books, Lecture notebooks....there seemed to be an exercise book designed specifically for each purpose in school. I even saw some science, maths or biology exercise books on sale. Luckily my son has not reached that level yet but I wonder what's the difference? Sometimes the difference is only marginal. And I mean literally. Example, the difference between a spiral "Lecture notebook" and the "notebook" is simply a margin. God, is this really necessary? No wonder the exercise book section alone need an entire aisle and no wonder every major retailer here is advertising "Back to School" promotions. No wonder also retailers like Officeworks can survive.
Is this whole industry created by ambitious businessman trying to expand their business and make more money or is this fuelled by consumers who cannot be satisfied anymore with boring brown paper exercise books? Or are our students today so lazy that they don't even want to draw their own margins? Probably a bit of everything. Honestly, all I know is, the number of choices is so confusing it's not funny. I see many other parents like me today, browsing through the aisle, looking round and round, up and down, with a book list on their hands, trying to find the exact match. Almost all of them, I'm sure, is hoping someone can tell them where to find what they need.
It's just a few exercise books but I went to 3 different places before I managed to get everything I need. Well, not really. For the Project book, I found the correct 334x240mm size with 18mm lines but it was not one with 64 pages. Heck, I just took the one with less pages (I can always buy more if they use up the whole book) and decided to call it a day. What an exercise! In the end, I spent almost $29. The school pack with everything cost $50. So my advice is, unless you have time on hand like me to shop around and don't like buying a new scissors/ruler every year, it might be easier to just order the book pack from the school.
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