Serious Business

It's the 29th of December. The day after the day after the day after Boxing Day. Frankly, I am surprised, and my surprise is gradually becoming concern. The Doctor Who Christmas Special was the day before the day before...I'm just confusing myself...it was a while ago, anyway. And obviously I am not going to blog about it, for three reasons:

1. I am not what anybody would call an expert on Doctor Who.
2. Other people I know who have blogs are.
3. I thought it was 'very good.' That would be two word-long blog post.

So obviously, as I am not an expert, I am also not weeping into my pillowcase every night because I do not know what Laura and Jane thought of it. It is just that the disturbing lack of undoubtedly excellent analysis combined with attractive pictures of Matt Smith suggests that more sinister forces are at work.

Which leads to the main point of this blog post: Did Laura and Jane...you know....die?

Has there been a horrific accident I don't know about? A Doctor Who related suicide pact? Did they enjoy the Christmas special so much that they chose to commit suicide because nothing else in the mortal realm could ever compare to it? Or did they hate it and die of the disappointment?

Or perhaps this whole 'huge fan' thing was a lie. They're now sitting in their respective houses laughing and saying: "Haha, just a TV show, haha. Who's Amy Pond?" No, that can't be true. God, I hope they're still alive.

So, Laura and Jane, fill out this survey.

"I am...

a) Dead
b) Still too emotional to type
c) Frozen in a box and only able to come out on Christmas Eve (do you see what I did there?)
d) Sorry? What? I didn't watch it, sorry. "

Lazy Christmas

It is gone 7pm, and I have not opened all of my presents yet, or watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special. Crazy, I know, but in my family, we finish stockings at 9.30, then there's a long break until eleven when everyone eats breakfast and gets dressed, and then we open presents until about 12.15 when my parents and granny go to prepare the turkey. We eat Christmas lunch at 2.00, and by the time we have finished and the grandparents have had naps and the washing up is done, it is 5.30 and I realise I have been entertaining Jack for two hours. At this point I yell 'Are we going to open any more presents before Doctor Who?' and then by the time the grandparents have properly awoken it is quarter to six, and I say 'Fine, I'll watch it on iPlayer.'

Then we opened presents for another hour until Jack got fed up because he wanted to eat tea. I didn't mind because I recieved tartan button down pyjamas which I wanted to instantly change into, and wow they are comfy. Maybe before midnight we might actually finish opening presents. Who knows?

We used to make presents last until Boxing Day back in days of old. I literally don't know how every year the entire Christmas lunch process lasts for over five hours. In other amusing-moments-from-my-Christmas, my grandfather (who loves bow ties) said that he hoped the Doctor wearing them would make them more commercially available, and, at eight o'clock this morning, my Dad decided it would be a fun idea to lock me outside in the snow in my pyjamas.

Ooh, we're going to open the last of the presents now apparently. Excellent.

Too Much Fun

In our attic, there is a box that we get out around this time every year. In this magical box are eight electronic, singing Christmas toys which belong to my brother.

There is a snowman that sings 'Frosty the Snowman', a snowman that duets 'Winter Wonderland' with a smaller snowman, a Christmas Tree which sings a song called 'I'm the happiest Christmas tree,' a deformed looking penguin that sings a Christmas song no-one has ever heard of, a penguin on skis that sings 'Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow,' a reindeer that sings 'Jingle Bells,' a Father Christmas that sings 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' and a teddy bear dressed as the Queen which sings 'One Wishes One a Merry Christmas.'

I spent the best part of my morning setting them all off at the same time and allowing the chaos to ensue. It is madness in this house. Sheer madness.

Fa La La La La La La La La

In the spirit of Laura's Christmassy wintry cheery blogpost, here are some particularly festive moments from my day.

1. Half of the staff at work had to leave at midday due to the snow, leaving those of us who live in St. Albans to attempt to run a cafe, but I didn't mind because the customers were very sympathetic and full of the joy of Christmas (except for one of the virgers, but oh well.)

2. I accidentally squirted milk directly into my eye in front of some customers. A little elderly lady said "Oh dear, you just baptised yourself" which made me laugh.

3. A little toddler named Edwin kept getting in my way. His parents were saying: "No Edwin, out of the way Edwin," but I didn't mind because his name was Edwin.

4. Steve from work and his boyfriend Clive gave everyone a box of licquor chocolates each. This was especially nice as I have never even met Clive, and the chocolates are delicious.

5. The Abbey looked beautiful in the snow as I left at 4.30 (we closed early.)

6. Once I got to my road, I decided to run down it while listening to Fairytale of New York. I would recommend this to everyone.

Old Age

Ironically, after blogging about still being a child at heart and enjoying Christmas pantomimes, I now appear to be aging at an alarming rate.

I am surrounded by old people every day that I work, because at a cafe in a cathedral the majority of the customers are, well, ancient. There are obviously exceptions, like their grandchildren, choirboys and the occasional young person who possibly wandered in by mistake. However, some customers come in so regularly that I have named them (in my head) "Crazy Old Guy", "Smelly Old Guy," "Old Guy With The Adorable Face," and "Old Lady Who Looks Like A Hammerhead Shark." And now I am worrying that aging might be catching. That, or these people do not go to the cafe because they are old; they are old because they go to the cafe.

Perhaps there is something in the coffee.

I found a grey hair.

An actual grey hair, just hanging there next to my cheek and my ear, amid all the other black ones.

I showed it to my Mum, and she said "maybe it's blonde." After all, my brother was born blond, and his hair has got darker ever since and is now dark brown. The same could be happening to me in reverse. But I compared it to one of my Mum's actual grey hairs, and it truly was grey.

This is only the beginning. Soon I will have wrinkles. And backpain (actually, I already have this today). Soon I will call everyone 'dear.'

A grey hair. This is ridiculous. I read books from the 'Young Adult' section. I have a cuddly toy lion. I know all the lyrics to 'The Teddy Bear's Picnic." I pulled it out. It is not coming back.

Oh no you didn't!

Oh yes I did.

Jack won four tickets for the whole family to go and see the panto of Peter Pan tonight at the Alban Arena. I know I am eighteen, and that I have finished school, have a job, and am technically a grown up, but I really, really enjoyed it.

Tomorrow at work almost everyone is going to be talking about what a fun night they had and how drunk they got etc., and I can pretty much guarantee that none of them had as good a night as I did. There was music, exciting special effects, a camp Smee, adorable lost boys and topical jokes. I saw Rolo's husband in the queue for chocolate ice-cream during the interval, and my brother laughed very loudly during any quiet moment, as expected.

I laughed, I booed, I shouted 'It's behind you!' and I clapped my hands because I believe in fairies.* We were sitting in front of a huge crowd of cub scouts, and during a version of 'For Good' from Wicked with Neverland-related lyrics (don't ask) one of them yelled "Don't get all emotional!" It was funny. Or maybe you had to be there, I don't know. And Larry Lamb from Gavin and Stacey was excellent as Captain James T. Hook.

Anyway, now I can go back to being a very serious grown up who does not sing along to a version of 'Another One Bites The Dust' sung by pirates. Expect the next blog post to be about the current economic climate, or my views on the student protests, or mortgages. In the mean time, 'I always want to be a little boy** and to have fun.'

*Shut up. Of course fairies are real.

**Girl.

Got Me Thinking

Both Laura and Jane's excellent blog posts, as well as Friday's episode of The Graham Norton Show, got me thinking more about this whole fame business (or, you know, showbusiness.)

On The Graham Norton Show, they always seem to pick guests that you would never expect to see together, like David Boreanaz and Sharon Osbourne, or Cynthia Nixon from 'Sex and the City' and David Mitchell, and the contrast is usually what makes the programme entertaining.

Except occasionally they will have a guest who is unbelievably famous, and is billed as the main attraction, and with very few exceptions I will never care about this person as much as the other, more minor celebrities on the show. For example, on Friday the main guest was Justin Bieber, and the entire audience screamed whenever his name was mentioned, but his presence almost put me off watching it. The only reason I did watch it was because of Jack Black and Miranda Hart. At one point someone from the audience screamed 'I love you!' after Justin Bieber had spoken, and Miranda Hart said 'Thank you.' Obviously she was joking, but I kind of wish the audience member had actually been speaking to her, or at least to Jack Black.

I think to properly admire someone famous you have to identify with them in some way, so on those kind of programmes where they have Justin Bieber next to Miranda Hart or Katie Price next to Jo Brand I don't understand why anybody would tune in for the former rather than the latter.

On a semi-unrelated and not-at-all profound note, I think Sally Philips who plays Tilly in 'Miranda' (I sat down, I gave it another go, I laughed out loud) is aging in reverse. She looks younger than she did in 'Bridget Jones's Diary.' So, now I think there is a fifth category of celebrity, which is 'Famous People Who Age Backwards.' These are surely the most dangerous.

My Family and Other Shenanigans

Everyone's favourite eccentric religious cafe was closed today for some kind of event, so I got to spend a Sunday at home with my family, who, after four weeks of Sundays without me, were behaving more weirdly than normal.

As it is November, my Mum decided that we had to eat the Christmas pudding which my Aunt and Uncle gave us last Christmas, presumably to make room for a new one this year. She poured too much rum on it, so it burned for a very long time before we actually got to eat it. I never eat Christmas pudding on actual Christmas day, so I didn't really mind eating some now. After we'd finished, we got talking about toys Jack and I had when we were little, and Dad reminded me about a teddy bear we had that my parents had named 'Orifice' because apparently it was shaped like a polo mint, with a massive hole in the middle and a bear's head attatched.

Aside from family stuff, yesterday at work I broke my first glass (at work, not ever) and at one point thought I had broken the coffee machine, but it turned out that probably wasn't me, as I am not the first person to accidentally try and make a latte when the milk fridge is empty.

Oh dear. I have a stomach bug, and no title for this blog.

It is 13.28 and I have been lying in bed all morning and not eating anything, as I spent a significant portion of last night either throwing up, trying not to throw up or listening to the Deathly Hallows audio CD to distract me from throwing up. What endless fun. Which must, of course, have stopped by at least Thursday morning as I need to work on Saturday and apparently in the catering industry you can't go into work until forty-eight hours since your last vomit.

I can't believe I just used the word 'vomit' in a blog post. I'm so sorry. Not that it's a very rude swear word or a racially offensive term or anything, it's just a little bit gross. Although luckily I have been actual throwing up-free for 12 hours and counting.

Really Weird

Edited post because I have some interesting facts courtesy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Australia.

In Queensland, there is a place called Laura. It's a sleepy settlement that 'comes alive in June of odd-numbered years with the three-day Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival,' and includes somewhere called the Little Laura River. I was just thinking "I will have to go there and take a picture of the road sign" when I saw that on the very next page of the travel guide is information about Queensland's largest fresh water river, the Jardine river. It describes the 'impenetrable country of Jardine River National Park.' Apparently it's named after John Jardine and his sons Frank and Aleck, who were selected to supervise the area in 1864. Frank Jardine married a Samoan princess (Jane I found your real parents.)

I was a little freaked out. So, question for Laura and Jane, did you secretly go to Queensland and name places after yourselves?

Quest and Woolloomooloo

I am back from Thursday Quest one, which was a rehearsal for all the independent travel I'll be doing in Australia.

I can navigate the underground, overground (wombling free) etc. all fine and smoothly. Unfortunately to actually get myself around actual London I rely heavily on print-outs from Google maps, but I successfully found both the National Gallery and the National Theatre, and had a browse around. Unfortunately once I had looked around both of them I did not have the map for how to get to anywhere else. But I had a good time in Foyle's bookshop, and reading some of Jo Brand's autobiography in the National Theatre bookshop (avoiding, of course, the books which give hideous drama exam flashbacks.)

Apparently, my Dad has somewhere 'cracking' (his word, definitely not mine) lined up for next week. That will either mean really fun or impossible to get to. However I am now getting really excited about Australia, particularly as my Lonely Planet Australia book has a map of everywhere so I will always find something to do and how to get to it. And because there is a place in Sydney called 'Woolloomooloo,' which is the only place name in the world with 8 letter 'o's.

Fish Pie.

My Mum is cooking fish pie from 'The Dairy Book of Family Cookery'. There is no escape. I like fish, I usually like pie, but whose idea was it to just put bits of fish in mashed potato? I can smell it from here, and later I have to eat it.

I discussed with Mum how 'The Dairy Book of Family Cookery' sounds overly wholesome and would be better suited if Jack and I were called Janet and Roger, and if I was any good at needlework. We have the internet and iPods; we should be using 'The Lady Gaga Book of Family Cookery.'

Except that is not yet really a book.

Stephen

I am reading The Fry Chronicles, which is Stephen Fry's second autobiography. I'm only on page 42, but I've flicked ahead and read some good parts (page 100 made me literally weep with laughter.) Then I put the book down to watch TV, and during an advert break heard Stephen Fry's voice on the direct line adverts. The TV was blaring next to the Blackadder box set, which was still sitting by the television from when Laura and I watched some of it last Thursday.

After I'd finished watching TV, I went upstairs to my room. To get to my room I need to walk up my stairs, where Stephen Fry's book The Liar, which belongs to my parents, is still sitting on the landing from when I took it to Corfu and never got round to actually reading it. Once in my room, I put The Fry Chronicles back on my bedside table. Sitting on a tiny chest of drawers next to my bedside table are assorted pebbles, some jewellry, and Stephen Fry in America.

I carried my laptop up from the study and plugged it in at my desk, using the same socket I use for my CD player. I almost never ever use my CD player, except on the rare occasions when I can't sleep and feel like listening to some Harry Potter, read by, you guessed it, Stephen Fry. And then I have to stop because he's at the bit with all the death, and that does not make for peaceful sleeping.

If I turn around and look over my left shoulder, he's looking at me from the front of his book. If I extended my arm and pressed play on the CD player, I would hear his voice. At Zanny's house there was a joke that I had brought Hugh Laurie along as my date and he was just outside parking the car. Well, if I went to the front door right now and Stephen Fry was there, perhaps holding a packet of chocolate digestives as I have run out, I would not be all that surprised.

If by some hideous chance Stephen Fry just googled his own name and, after reading about 5000 million other results (because he's not, you know, busy or anything), stumbled across this, then I am not stalking you Mr. Fry, you appear to be stalking me.

Breakfast and Religion

The Breakfast Club are unable to give me a regular shift for the time being, which means, while I am still technically an employee, I will be looking into alternative possibilities. I am going into Cafe at the Abbey to 'have a chat' with them on Thursday about a potential job. I hope I do not need to be religious to serve food to passing worshippers.

This is a little bit sad, because I was just getting the hang of the Breakfast Club, and was almost able to tell all the blonde, ponytailed staff members apart. Not that I will not be working there anymore (double negative ahoy), just possibly once in a blue moon.

Obviously Cafe at the Abbey is not exactly like being an Amish farm hand or a Baptist priest, but it just so happens that both breakfast and religion are almost entirely non-existent in my regular day to day life. They're things that other people do, like sport and buying lottery tickets.

Oh well, come February I'm taking myself out of the St. Albans job scene to go and help endangered dingoes in exchange for food and board, or something along those lines.

Crazy Gets Crazier

At 1.30 this morning, I couldn't sleep. I heard people shouting in the street but, not realising that one of them was Kathryn next door, was too scared to go and look.

At 10.30am, as I was still in pyjamas and dressing gown making coffee, Sara from other next door knocked on the door, holding part of our wing mirror, and explaining that our car had been vandalised, along with about seven others down the street, and that I should probably not tell my parents yet so I don't worry them.

I went to go see Kathryn next door, and she said that she had been up at 1.30, seen teenage boys running down the street kicking cars, and had gone outside to yell at them. Seeing them kick our wing mirror so it dangled off the car, she chased them down the street and then called the police, who said that each car owner had to report the crime individually. She asked if I could call on my parents' behalf, being eighteen. They said yes.

So I went on a hunt for the car details and found them in an upstairs filing cabinet, then rang the police from Kathryn's house (not 999, the local police station.) That part was pretty cool. Reporting the crime and giving them the car details, my Dad's details (it's in his name) and my details and everything. And now Kevin next door is trying to fix my laptop (I'm on the home computer) in exchange for me providing part of their lunch, as they did not have any bread.

I am not telling my parents until a couple of days before they come home, because I want them to know before they actually see the trashed wing mirror.

Part of the wing mirror is on the dining table. It's bizarre.

Sneaking Suspicion

My MSN is not working; it crashes my laptop every time I try and use it. Everything else is fine, just being kind of slow to turn on.

The house phones are not working, they say they're engaged, but I've hung them all up and they're not.

I had to organise my Australia travel insurance while my parents are in Spain. My Dad supplied me with his credit card details- but his credit card is not working so I paid it from my savings account.

There is only one possible explanation- my parents are being arrested in Spain (probably for murder or drug trafficking or something) and so the government have hacked into my laptop in case I use MSN to communicate with the criminal underworld, cut off my Dad's credit card and discommunicated all our house phones.

This is probably not true, but then my parents were recent victims of credit card fraud, and all their old cards were cut off. And now, apparently, a new card.

Communication is a little tricky. but my mobile is working fine (although rapidly running out of credit due to lack of house phone, but my parents have given me permission to use some food money on credit), as is facebook, and yahoo. And my parents instructed me to get the neighbours to ring BT tomorrow.

WHY DOES NOTHING WORK? WHY?

At least I have the main computer if I need MSN, and the TV, and the microwave. But this is still a little bit like the beginning of a horror movie. Going to Company of Teens in 15 mins will make me slightly less freaked out.

Nostalgia

It is just beginning to dawn on me that I am sort of a grown-up now.

I mean, I am going to be alone in the house for 2 weeks, I have driven a car (admittedly not without a lot of prompting,) I now have a job, although saying that makes me feel anxious that I'll turn up tomorrow and the other staff will be like 'ha, just kidding. Go home.' I have stopped growing. I can legally purchase alcohol. I do my own laundry and go to the bank by myself and tick the box saying 'I am over 18' to watch the Inbetweeners on 4od without having to lie.

This is weird, because it feels like about three and a half minutes ago that I was upset in Resistant Materials because Zia said in a patronising way 'Anne, have you ever even been out with a boy?' and then laughed. And now that just seems kind of stupid because that shouldn't really have worried me much at thirteen. I found a diary that I wrote when I was thirteen to fourteen (and might have to burn) which made me realise that it was a lot longer ago than it actually feels like. All the REALLY SHOCKING gossip from 2006 or whatever is actually really, really mundane.

I am kind of hoping that when I get back from Australia I will actually feel a bit more like a real grown-up, because I will have wrestled kangaroos and fried shrimps or whatever it is people do in Australia.

WooHoo

I got a job!

At The Breakfast Club, where five kids from different social groups sit in Saturday detention and learn things about themselves along the way.

I am officially going to Australia from the 13th February to the 14th August 2011.

Wow.

I would like to thank my father and his 380,000 spare air miles and my relatives who live in Australia and left a message on my Dad's voicemail saying 'whenever and for as long as she likes.'

Wow.

No Room at the Inn

So my Mum and I left to go to Kent at seven o'clock in the morning. We ran around, talking quickly, drinking coffee and making pro/con lists Gilmore-style. And then sat in a four-hour traffic jam on the way back, because today is just one of those days.

Here were the pros of deferring, which are major and numerous:

1. Time to learn to drive
2. Time to learn to cook
3. Guaranteed on-campus accommodation next year
4. Off-campus: distance and difficulty
5. This one is stupid, but I would be 21 for the third year in the US, and therefore the legal drinking age.
6. July birthday, so I'm young in the year anyway
7. Lack of first year Halls experience off-campus
8. Waiting for something good rather than settling for mediocre
9. Able to change to preferred module, as I only got my second choice this year
10. Difficulty acquiring internet access off-campus
11. Unpredictability of small group of roomies, can't visit other uni friends on campus easily
12. I am mentally prepared for Halls, not a house.
13. It is not like second year when you choose who you live with among your best friends and have lived away from home before.

The only major con was not getting to go this year, but I know that I made the right decision for me. I plan to do the aforementioned continuing to learn to drive and cook, start looking for jobs and talk to my relatives in Australia about possibly seeing them.

I am happy with my choice but still kind of disappointed generally, as Kent keep building me up buttercup baby and then letting me down and messing me around. I really need something good to happen at some point soon.

How To Make Friends Quickly

What an afternoon.

I have not officially got anywhere to live next year, and have three options.

1. Defer university, which ensures that I get on-campus accommodation for 2011, and find something to do for a year.

2. Hastily find equally desperate Kent first years, do a group e-mail and become very quick BFFs and potential roommates with some friendly-seeming strangers looking for a place to live.

3. Buy a tent. Live in it. Become known as the Campus Hobo.

I have gone for option number 2, and have sent more e-mails to strangers today than in my entire life, and my stress levels are set to Maximum.

Post

I pre-ordered Mockingjay (the third Hunger Games book) ages back. It came out in the UK yesterday, but my order was not dispatched until today, which means it will arrive tomorrow at the earliest.

And I went into Waterstones yesterday and saw it, there, on the shelf, mocking me (no pun intended.) I could have bought it, except I have ordered it. I had a £10 book token and everything. It had no blurb, so I read the first sentence. My Mum, who I was with as we were making a trip to the bank, said 'put it down and walk away.' So I did.

I am also waiting with bated breath for news on accommodation, which I am likely to get later than most of the people on the Kent facebook page because it was my insurance. But Mockingjay is more important, because Catching Fire ended on a massive cliffhanger.

UPDATE:

I just had the following exchange with my mother:

Mum: Anne! Come downstairs!

Me: Coming!

Mum: You have a letter from UCAS!

Me: seeing Mockingjay on the table Mockingjay!

Mum: Yes, but UCAS letter.

Me: Yes, but Mockingjay.

The UCAS letter was boring and did not really say much. I am off to read. And will have to put Paper Towns on hold for a while.

Well

I am happy, I think.

I got ABCC (the B in A-Level French last year, the A in English)

Kent wanted ABC.
UEA wanted BBB.

Even though technically as it averages out on points UEA ought to have accepted ABCC, they didn't because they are silly and really need to sort out all 500 million of their phone lines. If I had got a lower grade in English but a higher grade in History or Drama, they would have accepted me, so I am therefore warming to the idea of Kent very rapidly as they wanted my A in English, which makes a lot of sense for an English and American Literature course.

Also, it's the only course on UCAS which is American and English Literature with creative writing and a year abroad, which is more than I could have asked for really. And Alan Davies went there, and Sarah Waters of lesbian historical fiction fame, David Mitchell (the Cloud Atlas author, not the comedian), Howard Read, Ellie Goulding and some people I haven't heard of. Good old wikipedia, with its information like the gender ration (55 women to every 45 men, apparently.) Of course, I have absolutely no memory of the university at all, as the open day was at my worst point of glandular fever, but oh well.

So I'm off to Canterbury, like the Pardoner in 'The Pardoner's Tale' which I wrote about in the English exam.

And most importantly, more so than anything else in this blogpost, I got a Proudfoot hug. What a legend. She should be famous.

Anne got tipsy and sat by a campfire

After last week's somewhat unecessary blog post, I will return to actually talking about recent events in my life.

So I returned with Alex and her very lovely family to Dorset. To be honest while I was looking forward to it there were elements of doubt that it could possibly be as good as last year, and a fear that I might spend the entire time on the beach desperately hunting for a specific 'brock' as we might refer to it.

However the first difference was that there was torrential rain on the first day, which actually was a good thing as I never thought I could have so much fun sitting in a tent wearing my Mum's old waterproof and eating constantly. And then there was the sitting around the campfire, wearing my staple look of two hoodies (but one was a leaver's hoodie this time) and socks with flip flops, complete with the crazy Edward Scissorhands hair and bright red face. Good times.

And then there was returning to the lovely town of Wahey-mouth and eating fish and chips by the sea. Although the wind was a lot colder than last year I did get to swim in the sea once, which was lovely. I do not know if I found the brock; it was impossible to recognise by daytime and at night, lets be honest, one patch of grassy, crumbly earth is much the same as another, but Alex and I did get to act a bit idiotically by sitting in various different bits above the beach and trying to judge our position based on the lights on the island of Portland, and then just giggling and jumping in mud.

Last night I stayed up late to watch the meteor shower (very amazing) and then this morning Alex decided to leave the tent to go for a walk at 5 o' clock. After a few minutes I panicked in case she had left to either throw up or commit suicide (I was half asleep) and found her after about 10 minutes on a hill. So we went down to the beach to watch the sunrise, which was slightly mental but incredibly pretty. We did go back to the tent at quarter to six, the whole thing seeming bizarre as every other night we had slept until about eight and we have no idea what made us both wake up simultaenously at 5ish. The fact that this morning I was doing that and now I'm at home on the internet is slightly surreal.

Also, over the course of the holiday Alex got high and had sex with a woman, but don't mention it to her because she'll probably want to tell you in her own time.

I Want One

Now, I have never had a pet, and I do not necessarily consider myself to be an animal person. I mean, I like animals, and I will happily talk in a stupid voice to anybody else's pet cat, but I'm definitely not the biggest animal lover I know by any means. Since I was very little I haven't liked books with animal protaganists that much (obviously Disney films like The Lion King are an exception) and I gave up nagging my parents for a pet years and years ago.

But ever since stumbling across the picture I want a teeny tiny little bunny rabbit. My Mum said that rabbits are actually not particularly friendly pets, but look at it's little face and tiny little ears. All the world's good emotion must surely be contained inside that rabbit. I just want to tuck it into its little rabbit bed at night and sing it a lullaby. I want to give it a completely incongruous name like Brett or Gus or Bruce. In fact, yes, Bruce. And then I'll make it a little plaque with 'Bruce' on it.

Actually getting a little bit tearful right now. I should probably eat some chocolate or something.

Justifying Wasting Time

So I've been spending a lot of time recently watching documentaries about people. I'm not sure if I am wasting my time or whether I am actually learning a lot about the world and preparing myself for leaving home and meeting people who are not my family or from this town.

Naturally, I still have standards regarding what documentaries I watch. I've watched all the BBC documentaries that look interesting under the 'family and relationships' and 'lifestyle' sections and have moved on, kind of warily to Channel 4. Obviously this channel is pretty infamous when it comes to stuff like 'the girl born without skin' and 'lets watch people have extreme surgery' but those I avoid like the plague, preferring people's lives and personalities to the inner workings of their digestive systems etc.

Recently, I've watched World's Strictest Parents, The Grandparent Diaries, Underage and Pregnant and My Child's Big Fat Birthday Party on BBC iPlayer, and I like to feel as if I have learnt something. The most shocking of these, in a way, was the birthday party one, because the mother was really excited about the party, whereas her 8-year-old son didn't want all of the fuss and thought that she had gone over the top spending £20,000 on the huge cowboy party when all he really wanted to do was play with his friends in the garden. I actually watched this the day after my birthday party and felt incredibly relieved that my parents had never tried to get me a unicorn, like the 12-year-old girl whose parents stuck a pointy cone on a horse for her party. They could have just gotten her a rhino.

And now I've watched two episodes of How The Other Half Live on Channel 4, guaranteed to make anyone weep uncontrollably at the sight of the little girl from the council estate hugging the little girl from the Sussex mansion and crying because they bought her a new bed. Or the look on the face of the boy who finally got his own bedroom thanks to the wealthy family from Kent.

There, I'm learning about poverty and family life and people and the issues facing society today. My life is like a P.S.H.E lesson without the condoms on bananas. This is clearly what happens to me when there is no school.

End Credits

My birthday was amazing, with thanks to...(in no particular order, other than with Jack obviously being first)

Jack the Twin
Mum
Dad
The Edinburgh Grandparents
The Welsh Grandparents who sent money
The Cousins who apparently sent money which has not arrived
The Assorted Aunts and Uncles
Alex
Laura
Jane
Elise
Zanny
Katie
Jess (who was there, but kept a low profile all evening)
The people who we ran into afterwards in Cross Keys
Kathryn next door who left a cake on the doorstep under a glass.
And everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Facebook.

Now, I've driven around corners while extremely tired I have no responsibilities for the rest of the day.

Street Party

Today my street had a party, and it was amazing.

I drank wine with nectarines in it out of a plastic Bug's Life cup.
Mya and I lost spectacularly to Leah and Kate at table football, and table tennis.
I helped a woman I had never spoken to before empty little stones out of a sandpit.
My grandparents made some friends down the road.
And I ended up not joining in the boys vs. girls waterfight because it turned out to be about 20 boys, all with weapons, and about 5 unarmed girls.

All in all a very good last official day of childhood, seeing as I spent most of my childhood doing crazy stuff with people in the street.

And it has taken me 2 episodes of Buffy, 3 episodes of Jane Eyre, 2 episodes of Bones and 1 episode of How I Met Your Mother, and an hour this morning to make my brother's birthday card and I am still not finished.

My Life Is Now Complete

For ages I have randomly had the words 'Gentlemen! This is a house of God!' in my head, and been unable to remember where the line comes from.

Well, just now I was making a birthday card for my brother while watching the 2006 BBC Jane Eyre and the vicar just said 'Gentlemen! This is a place of God!' (I misquoted) after Mr. Rochester tried to beat up his brother-in-law.

I yelled 'Yes, finally!' and now I can move on with my life.

Things I Learnt in Corfu

1. J'aime le breeze.

2. I don't actually burn that much so long as I apply regular suncream.

3. However mosquitoes are quite fond of me.

4. Never underestimate the power of the British plumbing system.

5. Zeus is an appropriate substitute for modern religion.

6. Alex knows a lot of facts about science. Well, I knew that before Corfu.

7. I might possibly have a recurrance of the old chesty-spluttery glandular fever cough.

8. I am incredibly excited about the book Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins coming out on 25th August. I got over my booktile dysfunction by skimming the final chapter of Catching Fire on the train on the way back and still retaining information.

9. I have very nice friends. Before Corfu I loathed and despised them all with a burning hatred, but now my opinion has changed after actually spending some time with them.

10. Lounging by or in the pool is the best part of any holiday.

Also, today I had to get up very early, both from coughing and because I had to go and have my first driving lesson. It was probably better than I expected, far less scary and the driving instructor was lovely although it was quite complicated. It turns out that I am short enough to have to drive sitting on a cushion, which the instructor keeps on the back seat for 'little people.' Therfore I am driving at approximately the same elevation as fairies and all seven dwarves, with the seat pushed right forward.

And now I can finally relax.

The Prom Post

I once, when I was about thirteen, bought a book of short stories at an airport called Prom Nights From Hell, for god knows what reason.

I never really read the book after the first story, in which a girl realised her friend's prom date was the reincarnation of Dracula, and skimming through, it just gets worse. In the next story, a girl wished to a fortune-teller that the boy she liked would ask her to prom, and then the boy spray painted 'Will you go to the prom with me?' on top of a watertower and fell and died.

In the next one, a girl is killed by the guy she goes out with to make her ex jealous. And then he turns out to have been the Grim Reaper himself. I genuinely could not work out what the next one was about, except it seems to include talking dolls and the immortal line "Drink a can of man!" The last one is by Stephenie Meyer in all her sparkly-vampire glory, and appears to be about some angels and demons who happen to be at the same random hell prom.

Needless to say, I am happy to report that NONE OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED last night. That I am aware of anyway. I had a very good time, despite the foot pain and ear ringing and lack of alcohol.

Also, sorry for spoiling a book that I'm sure everyone was desperate to read.

Summer

A lot of people dislike Summer a bit, which I can understand. Walking in blistering heat in the middle of the afternoon and feeling disgusting is not pleasant, and particularly when you have dark hair which gets so ridiculously hot that if I sat on a roof I could be used as a solar panel.

However, all that aside, I love Summer. I also don't know if in English we capitalise seasons. Ah, according to Yahoo! Answers, we DO NOT.

So I love summer, because I love not having to wear layers and layers of clothing and still being cold, and I love the freedom of the summer holidays and I like the way that even when I'm in school (never again) the fact that it's warm outside seems to make lessons more relaxed.

And I love having ice lollies and ice-cream, and drinking Ribena out of a pint glass, and being barefoot in the garden, and the shade under the tree and how Clarence Park is suddenly full of really happy people. Like one time a few summers ago when there was one couple that were just asleep in the middle of a field for about an hour, although it's occuring to me that they may have been dead.

I love deciding which books are summery and which books aren't, which is why two summers ago I ended up reading 'Notes from a Small Island' and 'Small Island,' because they have the word 'Island' in the title, even though neither of them are particularly summery. And I like summer evenings when it's cooled down but you don't feel like sleeping because you've been lazy all day. Most of all I love not being entirely sure what day it is (it's Thursday 24th June 2010, I just checked) and it not really mattering what day it is because it's not like I have homework or anything to hand in next week.

So thank you Mr. Sun. I am glad the hay fever tablets are working.

(The person in the picture is definitely me. Nothing from Google. Just me, on a typical Thursday morning.)

Rhubarb

My exams are all done, which means that my life is far less stressful now, as whenever I am doing anything which could normally be seen as procrastinating or wasting time, there is genuinally nothing more productive I could be doing.

However, my family are involved in a conspiracy to make home as stressful as possible now exams are over. Today at lunch I poured half a pint of double cream all over the floor by mistake, which I thought would be the most dramatic part of the day, but I was wrong.

At dinner, my Granny and my Mum got into an argument about whether or not my Mum liked rhubarb (she doesn't, but my Granny said that she did, and it escalated.) It culminated with my Mum storming out into the garden and slamming the door, and my Grandad getting mildly angry with my Granny for the first time in at least 25 years.

Importantly, it was not about the rhubarb really but about Emily/Lorelai Gilmore-type tensions, many of which tend to involve food. There were so many vast helpings of tension cake that I jokingly asked if maybe I could go upstairs to start revising for first-year Uni exams, because it's never too early to start.

I have actually come upstairs to watch Doctor Who, which I missed due to the awkward mealtime. Not particularly looking forward to Sunday Lunch, unless I find some way of not being there.

Short Post

All I am saying about English is that I took a bit of a gamble which may have been a bad idea or a good one, and am hereafter changing my name to Risky McPardoner'sTale.

As for History, bring it on. I am equipped with the knowledge that Khrushchev had a burly physique.

Things I Have Learnt...

...From Drama

1. Never under any circumstances should anyone be named 'Abigail.' If your name is Abigail and for some reason you are reading my blog, I am sorry, this is an in-joke.

2. It's not the week before the performance unless at least half of the group has cried.

3. Tension cake is to be served at room temperature, and should be cut with great care and very sharp knives.

4. It's not tension cake if it has Twelfth Night quotes written on it, then it's just cake.

5. The Drama teachers' personalities should correspond as closely as possible with Lysistrata, Calonice and Lampito.

6. The most important parts of rehearsals are when people of very different heights are tied up and made to fight one another, and singing 'My Heart Will Go On' at inappropriate moments.

7. Flocking is the most important part of Drama ever. There is going to be a feature film, starring Jude Law as the Leader of the Flock.

8. The bell signalling the start of Drama is called a 'knell.' This is an official term.

9. You must always listen to each other physically.

10. 'Probably Nicola and the Occasional Room-mate' is an ideal name for a band.

11. There is no such thing as an ordinary assembly. There is only a Frantic Assembly.

12. The main character of Pool (No Water) is not called 'Paul O'Water.'

13. It is physically impossible to eat 45 Wispas in 24 hours, so don't even try.

14. "She's here!"

15. And lastly, but most importantly, Shakespeare had an earring. This is really the only fact that will be necessary.

Weddings and Stuff

My brother should attend every wedding ever. I think it's very important for someone other than the Bride and Groom to make their voice heard during the "I do"s. Because otherwise, frankly, it's a little dull to hear "Do you, Namie McNameName, take this woman, Namella Name-ingson, to be your lawful wedded wife?" without any occasional shout in the background.

However if they had actually been called that I suppose it would have been quite entertaining anyway.

My parents therefore spent the entire service going 'shhh Jack' while I tried very hard not to giggle. I was mentally urging him to shout during the "Does anyone know of any lawful impediment why this marriage cannot take place?" bit, but, alas, he didn't. However it is completely inevitable that at some wedding in the future he will interrupt at that point, and if I get married it could quite possibly be mine.

A good day was had by all I think. Except people kept coming up to me and asking me about revision, and my Mum was like "She's revising really well" and my Dad was like "No she's not, she's at a wedding." Oh well.

Upcoming

I know Russian History better than I thought I did, and I'm feeling OK about English and the Twelfth Night part of the Drama exam, however I have stared blankly at the Lysistrata practice questions and flicked through my script and drawn up a complete Lysistrata mental blank.

Today I got to the revision stage where I thought it might be productive to re-read The Pardoner's Tale, as it's quite short and I wouldn't have the time to necessarily re-read the others. Unfortunately it has to be read aloud, and sounds pretty ridiculous. That was a fun and highly unecessary half hour.

I'm going to a wedding on Friday. Not much can be said about that other than it will be interesting. This is the third wedding I'll have been to in my life and they have all been a little bit bizarre and unusual. The lesbian wedding my family was invited to but couldn't attend as it was in Canada and we had work/ school was actually the most normal.

It is amazing the number of TV shows I am suddenly really interested in now that I'm on Study Leave. I didn't go to bed until really late last night because I was watching Child of our Time on iplayer.

Also, it is the FIRST day of Summer and it was so cold in the house today I wore a jumper and a hoodie.

476 words...

...of my Twelfth Night notes done.

It is very hot outside, which tends to make me sleepy, so for the past two days I have been dozing off while trying to revise.

And this morning my mother made way too much coffee, because my uncle was visiting and she thought he would drink more than he actually did. So now, as an alternative to feeling sleepy, I have had rather a lot of coffee to drink.

And now I can't do my Twelfth Night notes anymore becuase I keep getting distracted by the urge to walk briskly or dance around listening to music. And I did not even get very much sleep last night due to the bizarre screaming outside my window. It was either mating hedgehogs, cats being strangled or the agonised cries of the monster I created the other night out of dead body parts. I must make a mental note to stop ransacking the local graveyard.

Oh dear, I should really stop typing now.

Long Time, No Post

Not much has been occuring. Study Leave is dull; I have done some revision. Decided to revise English and do my Twelfth Night notes this week and do History next week.

I stayed up to three in the morning re-reading the second half of Stephen Fry's autobiography, so now I am exhausted and have wasted most of the morning sleeping. I also have hay fever. In between all this revision and procrastination, the television continues to be very interesting. Ashes to Ashes and Outnumbered may have ended, but there's still Doctor Who, Glee, How I Met Your Mother and the embarrassing guilty-pleasure programmes that I care about less than the ones listed above.

However, important to mention that Britain clearly does not currently have very much talent. Or maybe all the talent went to the BBC to be in Over the Rainbow, who knows.

Also, Stephen Fry quoted Macbeth in his autobiography (And pity, like a naked newborn babe) so I could technically argue that I stayed up until three doing hardcore revision. And I may need to get myself some antihistamine if this hay fever shenanigans continues.

Lies

My Dad is irritating me by pretending that he watched Ashes to Ashes last night (he didn't.)
He keeps saying things like, 'Oh, Ashes to Ashes was very good last night wasn't it?' and 'Fancy that, a man named Gene.'

And I'm like 'Shut up Dad, go away.'

It's like when he pretends that he used to watch How I Met Your Mother when he was at school (obviously not possible) or when he told me that he frequently runs into Jim Broadbent on the train to work (not true either.)

School's Nearly Out For Ever

Apart from revision sessions, exams, clearance and results obviously. And I plan to buy myself a tent and live for the remainder of my days on the back playground, roasting marshmallows on a small campfire and becoming known as the strange middle-aged woman who speaks in riddles.

I'll offer cryptic words of wisdom to passing students, like the witches in Macbeth, and maybe one day a student will try and befriend me and it will be made into an inspirational documentary. Perhaps in lessons the teachers will tell legends about me to the students, beginning with: 'They says she was a pupil here once, many years ago, shortly after the dawning of the new millennium...'

Or, you know, I'll go and be a normal person, but a normal person who after fourteen years of education gets confused by how 'ninety seconds' and 'one minute thirty' are the same thing.

Political Party

Having people over for a small political party was great; eventually at three in the morning we gave up on waiting for an actual result and decided to catch about four hours sleep.

Due to temporarily being possessed by a superhero, I got up at 7.20 and did the washing up. I'm glad that I did, as otherwise I would have to be doing it right about now. Katie very kindly drove me and Alex to school, where I tried (and failed) to sleep in the common room before Drama.

I also have to say, that despite the fact that we are technically going back for a revision session next week, the last English lesson with one of our teachers (do I name teachers in blogs? Probably not) was quite emotional. It also contained the most amazing Gothic-themed cake I have ever seen. Which was also the only Gothic-themed cake I have ever seen.

So shattered I am going to stop now because I don't trust my typing ability.

Talking to Strangers

This afternoon I went to Morrison's to buy ready meals for my 'home alone while parents go on random holiday in Chichester' stint at the end of the week. As usual I was listening to music and daydreaming on the way there, so after taking my headphones out in the actual shop I was still a little zoned out and only paying attention to choosing which ready meals didn't look gross (very few.)

When I got to the check out, still in my usual walking alone dazed state, I was a little unprepared for the conversation with the very friendly check out man, who after I said hello to him, asked me the following questions:

1. How are you?
2. Have you had a nice day?
3. What have you been up to this week?
4. Are you quite shy? You've gone bright red.
5. Do you have a bag? (Ok, this one was about the shopping)
6. Are you thinking of Uni?
7. Which one?

To which the answers were:

1. Fine thanks. You?
2. Er...yes.
3. Erm, not much.
4. Er...yes.
5. Yeah, I've got one thanks.
6. Yes.
7. UEA.

The Uni thing started because he said 'good luck doing whatever you're doing,' and I said 'Erm, A-Levels' becuase I was feeling like a mean, cold person for going red as opposed to volunteering any information. It occured to me that I either need to:

a) get better at talking to strangers, or
b) learn to use the self check-out.

Good News

I am not currently in form time, or, you know, working because that is what study leave and Sunday afternoons are for.

And the sun is shining outside and the History mock is over. There will be cold pizza for lunch and I don't have to go to school for over an hour. Good times.

Food and Work

Jess's Alice in Wonderland party was fantastic, and I have now eaten so much food that I cannot imagine eating ever again (or, at least, until tomorrow lunchtime.)

It was merry, whimsical, nostalgic and hilarious.

Despite the teacher being stuck in Hong Kong due to the cloud of volcanic ash, I have a reasonably sudden History mock on Monday which I have done practically no revision for, as well as a Lysistrata mock, which, in light of the recent surprise History mock, I have also done very little revision for. Not to mention the English essay that I wrote half of on Friday and cannot be bothered to finish because all the Gothic questions are virtually the same.

Inevitably I will end up failing at revision in order to watch the Glee Repeat (apparently it was repeated on Friday rather than Sunday, who knew?) and anything else I can procrastinate with on iplayer. But now I must watch Doctor Who, despite the post-eating-too-much exhaustion.

Irony

No longer feeling nostalgic about school now I actually have to go back tomorrow.
It'll mean getting dressed at some time that isn't at least half past eleven, which means I should probably be going to sleep right now.

Glee was excellent tonight. TV is amazing at the moment, in general. It's almost as if broadcasters think 'Hey, let's think of a fun way to distract kids from those exams they have to revise for.'

Oh well, I'm sure some of it is educational.

Wow Time

This will hopefully be a more interesting blog post than the last one, which was just me venting my general history frustration.

Jane said something in her vlog which I had not realised: just over 3 weeks of school left until study leave. This is not a panic about exams, as I know when the exams are, this is just...the end of school. Actual lessons. In classrooms, with teachers and fellow pupils and whiteboards and all the typical school things.

One minute you're five and getting upset in a P.E lesson because you can't do a forward roll, and the next minute you're seventeen and...getting upset in a Drama lesson because you can't do a dive forward roll off three people. That is cyclical structure if ever I saw it.

And what about school bells? Breaktime? Packed lunches? Being surrounded by people in blazers who should me shorter than me but aren't? I swear sometime last week I was doing maths and worrying about puberty, and now I have friends that can drive, and my Mum asked me yesterday if I was planning on taking my cuddly toy lion to university. (Yes)

My parents never got detentions in their entire time at secondary school, and nor have I, except for ones for the whole class. I also managed to get through the whole of science up until year eleven without once touching a Bunsen burner. I feel like I should, at some point during the next three weeks, light a Bunsen burner and get a detention.

I also regret never once skipping P.E, apart from one time when I left early and sat in the changing rooms for twenty minutes, but I don't think that counts.

Wow, reasonably profound final stretch of school blog post. Expect something similar and also slightly different at the actual end where I highlight some particular favourite memories, like one of those channel 4 countdowns but with more like 5 rather than 100.

Argh.

I thought I would edit my History coursework today.

I read it, in my head, and it was so dull that I realised on page three that I was not taking any of it in. So I read it aloud, in a monotone, and by the end of page one I realised that I was still not taking any of it in.

So I lay on my bed listening to music, and then went to look at it again. I added a bit more to one sentence then realised that I was now over the word limit. It is without a doubt the most boring word document in existence. I could type the word 'bored' repeatedly for a page and it would be more interesting than this particular piece of coursework.

Argh.

Life

It's a day of sunshine, picnics in the park (except I left early to get a lift with Katie) and buying ridiculously upbeat cheerful music on itunes.

I am now for no apparent reason listening to feisty lady music. Which I have decided is now an actual genre. And 'There She Goes' which is one of those songs that you can always imagine is about you while listening to it even though it's clearly about drugs.

I have come home and realised that I am at a bit of the loss for what to do for the remainder of the afternoon except watch television and possibly do some Macbeth quote gathering. I have rented the film 'Almost Famous' to watch, which I hadn't heard of until I watched that Movie Mistakes thing. It's about a 15 year old rock journalist and has Zooey Deschanel in it at some point. It might be awful, or it might be good.

Ooh, according to wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 88, so I have high hopes now.

The Television.

You can cancel the assassination plans, recall the armed ninjas and cross me off of your hit lists, because yesterday I finally watched Doctor Who.

It was excellent. I intend to continue to watch it. Also, my Mum likes how the new Doctor dresses, so ordered my Dad a similar jacket. They did not actually watch it; they're just clearly heavily influenced by the fashion part of the Independent.

I am not going to say anything else about Doctor Who, as I am by no means an authority on the subject and fully intend to leave the analysis, reviews and comments to those better informed than myself. Ditto Ashes to Ashes.

Also, Outnumbered was amazing. Best part was 'We're not, now we're spotting lesbians.'

Quarter Past Midnight

I should not be blogging at this godforsaken hour.

Just returned from Zanny's. You know when you're out somewhere, and you're really, really tired to the extent that you're practically falling asleep at someone else's house, and you think 'I'm going to sleep as soon as I get home,' and then suddenly you get home and you're awake?

Well, that is me right now. The weather was nice today; you could tell by the many people making out in Clarence Park. It's like the mating season.

Oh Sod It

I'm going to end up watching Doctor Who on iplayer tomorrow morning because it's had positive reviews and I won't have done enough Lysistrata to let myself watch Bones.

My life is confusing.

Easter

I am confronting the two issues of the early Easter Holidays head on. These issues are:

1. Fear of watching too many episodes of Bones in too short a space of time, therefore not savouring them accordingly and
2. Fear of not doing enough of my Lysistrata concept.

Therefore, from today onwards, 20 pages of Lysistrata= one episode of Bones. Of course, this is not as harsh as it initially seems as the pages are only odd-numbered, so by 20 pages I actually mean 10. However it feels a little bit like some kind of diet, with Bones being chocolate and each page of Lysistrata being a press-up or something.

Of course, both of these are stationery activities and I can eat chocolate at the same time, providing the corpses are not too disgusting, making the diet analogy kind of null and void. Although I did walk to town and pay a visit to a certain local trainee librarian today, which constitutes as exercise.

The exciting news is that I have a new bedroom blind to replace the broken, orange one and the rock in a sock holding it in place. It is blue and not particularly thick, so the sun will stream in a bit but not so much that I will be waking up in blinding sunlight every morning as I have been doing for the past year or so. Looking forward to testing it out tonight.

Now I must go and get in eight more pages of Lysistrata before dinner. Oh, and I've also made the decision to not watch Doctor Who, because I am not really a frequent watcher anyway, and had just got used to David Tennant. However I did watch Ashes to Ashes. It was always going to be one or the other.

Poll Tax

As it says on the BBC website, it's the anniversary of Poll Tax Riot Night, which, as my parents never fail to remind me every year, was also the day they met.

Happy Poll Tax Riot Anniversary everybody.

Luck

In History today we had to pick numbers out of a Quality Street Tin to decide which two people we would be preparing a powerpoint/ information sheet with.

Luckily I got to work with my two favourite people, because I dislike everybody else in the class.

Make of that what you will.

Sleepyface

I had lots of fun at Alex's last night, but now I have incredibly exhausted. I just fell asleep on the sofa for forty-five minutes, and was going to watch 'An Education' but now feel it is too late to start a film when I am this tired and can just half-focus on 4od instead. Attempting to ration the number of Bones episodes I watch to prolong the enjoyment; I would watch another one today except I am almost definitely too tired to follow the undoubtedly complex and intellectual plotline. I am only dimly aware of who actually did the murdering in the last one I watched.

No work has been done this weekend, in other news. My legitimate excuse is that I have finished my coursework, until my History draft gets returned to me, and ever since actually writing the coursework I have been feeling a bit ill.

Nothing much else to say. Except I have Bad Romance in my head as Katie was singing it this morning and this is incredibly annoying as it does not appear to have any words that I know of.

EDIT: 'I have incredibly exhausted'??? Clearly.

ANOTHER EDIT: My Dad just called me from downstairs saying that I actually have to watch An Education with him because it is in some way entertainingly relevant to our lives.

No School Day

This day may turn out to be very productive.

I woke up, shuffled around and perused my history sources, which have overtaken my carpet, then went to town and bought Alex's present and card. I also got a top to wear to Alex's, which I was not expecting to buy. Then I had a nice lunch and came home.

Since then I have written a quarter of my history and been to the dentist.

Alex's Birthday: Sorted. (More or less)
Teeth: Sorted.
History: Quarter Sorted.

Big breakfast making time in school tomorrow. Excited and a little apprehensive as I tend to be a tad over cautious around ovens and rely overly on Zanny (sorry Zanny.)

Just noticed a weird insect crawling over my Schulzinger source. Oh, he's now moved on to a different source. I think he might be trying to tell me something.

Oh no

Another episode of Bones.
Another gory moment involving a piercing.
Another trip downstairs to breathe deeply and get a glass of water.

I think I have an extreme squeamishness when it comes to piercings. I can just about cope with changing and wearing earrings, but that is the extent of my tolerance.

I can tell it'll be a good episode though.

All Hope Is Not Lost?

A couple of weekends ago I was in an airport branch of W. H. Smiths, feeling downhearted due to the lack of good books that I wanted to read. I have not read any teenage fiction in a long while, but I was looking through that section feeling the familiar 'oh, it's all vampire romance now, how crap' feeling.

I do not really want to read about boring girls falling in love with generically dull sparkly vampires, as if people are going to rip something off at least make it something worth copying. Like we learnt about in Drama with Shakespeare stealing everything off the Italian guy, that was fair enough because everyone's heard of Twelfth Night but as far as I know no-one's that familiar with the other play that I can't remember the name of.

Anyway, Blaise recommended a book in History (nothing to do with History though) that was apparently good and not about glittery meadow sparkly undead love. On a whim and some book tokens festering in my purse I bought it, and I haven't actually started reading more than the blurb and the first page yet due to this Marxism essay, but it looks highly promising.

Perhaps this is not the end after all.

Mothers' Day with LBJ

Alice in Wonderland was very good. I want all of the dresses Alice wore throughout the film to wear to prom (I would change every forty-five minutes.) I appreciated the visual effects a lot as I was seeing them through both 3D glasses and my beloved nerd goggles.

Great though my Saturday was, my Sunday is being ruined by Lyndon B. Johnson, who's decision whether or not to increase involvement in Vietnam is discussed at length by boring historians whose sources I have to highlight for fear of letting the group down tomorrow. This is distracting me from things I could be doing, such as watching Bones, watching Amelie, watching anything on 4od or iplayer, or watching paint dry. Or even, possibly, doing my Marxism essay.

I am sure I have previously titled a blog post 'Go Away, LBJ.'

My Mothers' Day card went down very well, mainly as I drew a moustache on a picture of Luke from Gilmore Girls and labelled it with my Dad's name.

Food etc.

I was mightily pleased with my re-sit results, and was therefore generally upbeat for the entire morning, most of which I spent trying to inform my parents. This involved texting my Dad during English and standing on the street at breaktime in an attempt to get signal to ring my Mum.

This levity may have affected my eating patterns, as well as the fried egg sandwich in 'How to Boil an Egg' elective (Zanny and I created some strange explosions with the electric hob.) And then when I got home my Mum was like: 'Do you want to go to out of school drama or do you want to go out for a meal with me and your Dad?'

Needless to say I chose the latter.

Also, I only had one lesson yesterday due to History Teacher #2's kitchen being flooded, so I spent most of the day at home, which made me realise exactly how much tea and coffee I drink when left to my own devices.

I was stuck on Mother's day ideas until I realised that most days the first thing I do when I get home from school is watch Gilmore Girls (again with coffee) and that my Mum likes to watch it too because she has Lorelai-envy and blatantly fancies Luke. I feel I must incorporate this somehow.

EDIT: I was just reading back on my first posts from September, and found this gem:
"Not all my blog posts will be rambling about coffee"
What a lie. All I ever seem to DO is ramble about coffee.

10 Things I Learnt At The Weekend

1. My cousins are considerably awesome and booked tickets for us to go see some improvised comedy with some of their studenty friends.

2. I can pass as 18 in a very busy Edinburgh pub so long as I am with students, only remain in the pub for about fifteen minutes (drinking quickly), and deliberately don't look at the bar.

3. My perpetually kilt-wearing cousin decided not to wear a kilt for the weekend, but instead embarrassed us by going on stage during the improvised comedy for a game of 'Freeze.'

4. My non-kilt wearing cousin, before we settled down to sleep in the living/ drug taking room of her flat, was thoughtful enough to ask me in a concerned way if I thought I was likely to choke to death on my vomit while sleeping, to which I answered probably not.

5. My parents were entirely convinced by my cousin saying loudly about me: 'She's definitely not hungover!' before I told them on the plane back that of course I had been.

6. My Dad loves the film 'Legally Blonde' and has apparently seen it many times.

7. The cousin who normally wears a kilt told me, while we were eating lamb in the restaurant, that he spends a lot of time in university cutting up dead bodies. When he told me it was dissection and not forensic anthropology I lost interest.

8. My grandparents love my non kilt-wearing girl cousin's boyfriend so much that they have a giant photo of him in the attic, although with my cousin.

9. All family arguments can be settled with a certain type of Hungarian pastry that I am not going to try and spell.

10. The aforementioned family arguments tend to revolve around politics, global warming and whether or not my grandfather needs different glasses for the computer.

The End.

Santander and Life

Today I went to Brent Cross and spent £48 on clothes. Then my new Santander' card wouldn't work in the machine. Turns out that it was the replacement card for my savings account not my current account, so I'd inadvertantly bended my current account card thinking I was meant to destroy it.

Therefore, I do not have access to my money for a week and owe my Mum £48. Luckily I have change, so oh well. I also can't remember the number for my savings account bla bla bla boring banking stuff.

In my out of school drama thing today we played a drama game called 'Werewolf.' It is a little bit like Wink Murder only more complicated and terrifying. Everyone accuses you of being the werewolf and you feel horribly guilty even if you're not, so I got accused a lot because I looked so nervous. Good times.

Tomorrow I am off to Scotland for my grandfather's birthday celebrations. Should be fun.

Ewwww

I was watching an episode of Bones today (Episode 6. 'The Man in the Wall' for the benefit of Jane), in which something happened that was so disgusting I had to sign out of MSN after the episode and go and have a glass of water and lie down on my bean bag for a while. It wasn't even something explicitly shown, just talked about, and it even made Dr. Brennan wince.

Nonetheless, what an excellent programme. I am now eating Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey icecream, ultimate cure for squeamishness.

In about fifteen minutes I'm off nextdoor babysitting. Good times.

Forensic Anthropology

due to my general squeamishness and lack of scientific knowledge, would be an appalling career choice for me.
Looks good as the title of a blog post though.

A Letter

Dear Anonymous Person,

You insult me a lot, and it is always quite amusing, like the time you told me I was 'like Giles from Buffy only bossier and therefore like Hermione from Harry Potter only not as pretty,' which was much laughed at afterwards for being the strangest pop-culture insult ever. Or the time you said something weird and slightly perverted about the top I was wearing, and then said 'you should wear it if you ever go on a date.' Thus inventing the Patronising Lesbian Diss Compliment.

However, as people in this particular lesson can apparently tell from my facial expressions, I have just about had enough after nearly seven years of casual put downs. You are someone who has been 'bullied' in the past, and makes it into a massive sob story, and yet just insults people the whole time. I really should have said something back, but none of my immediate comeback ideas were appropriate for a classroom environment.

While I should have been expecting it from the creator of the pop-culture insult and the Patronising Lesbian Diss Compliment (TM), the 'glasses/hair/clothing combo insult' from a permanent glasses-wearer was something else.
Also, please stop trying to make us jealous of your life. It is not really working.

Love from,
Anne

PS: Yeah Laura, that's you told. ;)

Bad and Celebrity Genders

SWED question 2 is a fail, history coursework is a fail, parents are a fail.
Cannot do a ranty blog post about parents because I'll only delete it later when we are once again on speaking terms.

Reverted back to being five when the neighbour came round to thank me for looking after their guinea pig and I was a bit tearful from the parental argument, so my Dad was like 'Anne come down!' and I said 'No, not now!' and hid in my cupboard.

You know, as if the neighbour was going to barge up to my room and demand to thank me in person. Sat in the wardrobe for a while like a very pissed off citizen of Narnia.

In more upbeat news, I spent much of lunchtime explaining to my parents that Taylor Swift is female and Kanye West is male. They thought it was the other way round, but apparently knew the gender of Beyonce. Then the phone rang and I was like 'that'll be Taylor Swift, explaining her gender.'

It wasn't, it was my Granny, but I was giggling weirdly down the phone at her at the thought of Taylor Swift being an eighty-something year old from Pembrokeshire.

UEA

Today I went to UEA (The University of Extreme Awesome.)
The campus itself is an ugly interconnecting network of concrete blocks, which I love in the same way that people love mongrel stray dogs and the little slum children in Slumdog Millionaire.

As usual with universities, my Mum and I made fools out of ourselves by arriving and instantly asking the first person we saw where we could find coffee, then making a Gilmore-style dash in the direction of the nearest coffee shop. She also asked the tour guide whether students were allowed to swim in the lake, the answer to which was a resounding 'no.'

Last time I went to UEA I remember all the food tasting completely gross, but that was probably because I had glandular fever at the time as it all tasted quite nice today. We got given a tour round the room of a guy who was clearly not ready to give a room tour, as he was still in his pyjamas and seemed kind of embarrassed by the half-naked picture of Cheryl Cole on his wall. .

And that was pretty much my day really.

Oh my God, just saw that there's a Gothic Episode of QI on iplayer, with Sue Perkins of 'Supersizers go Wartime' fame. I am incredibly excited.

Further Procrastination

What happened with the English is failing to happen with the History, probably because while I actually know quite a bit about dystopian future books, I know absolutely nothing about the Tet Offensive, so I am procrastinating before I have actually begun.

I went to see Valentine's Day yesterday, with Katie, which my Dad said was 'a bit gay.' It was better than I expected, and the bit that looked like a complete rip off of Love Actually turned out to not be, due to a suprise twist at the end. Also, I liked the fact that Anne Hathaway was in it, because she pulls off that first name of hers really well, which I find very reassuring.

Oh dear, I'm really writing a lot of bollocks on this History.

Motivation!

Oh. Wow.

I re-wrote this post about my motivation spurt this morning, which I doubt anybody read anyway, because this is far more shocking.

On normal days in which I plan to do an essay, I wake up at ten, get dressed by eleven, and then think 'well, it's too late to start the essay now.' So I waste time until lunch, and then I have a 'post lunch break' from nothing, and then at about three-thirty I start. So by six o'clock I have a thousand word essay.

Today, due to possible cosmic intervention, I got up at nine, I had coffee and got dressed, then I colour-coded my English coursework notes, and then I wrote the whole thing. At quarter past two, on the Tuesday of half term, I have actually just written my two thousand word English coursework. On a normal day for a normal essay I would not have started, and it would be due in tomorrow.

I am somewhat astonished. Where the hell did my usual procrastination go?

Tired

Kellner's was fun, and now I am mighty exhausted due to sleeping afterwards on the shorter of Katie's sofas.

I forgot to feed nextdoor's guinea pig yesterday, but my mum remembered and did it, and now I feel guilty because they're really nice people and entrusted me with the responsibility of their guinea pig. It's as bad as the time I was babysitting their son and he kept putting his feet practically in the fire until I told him to please stop.

I am very happy to have a cup of tea right now.

Eye Fail

I am officially short-sighted, according to the eye test I had today. Fortunately, I am not short-sighted enough to warrant glasses full-time, just for looking at the board in school, driving eventually and watching TV.

Apparently I also have funny-shaped eyeballs. To be honest, it feels good to be out of the denial phase where I've been ignoring the fact that I'm straining to read the board and just lying to the person next to me that I can't see because 'the light is shining on it.'

I've chosen the glasses but they're not ready yet, so I'll get them in the next few days. The picture is an approximation of how I feel I look in them (although they are rectangular) but I'll get used to them as at least they're only for looking at things long-distance.

Do you see what I did with the link to the previous title there? Quite proud of that.

iFail

My iPod appears to be nonresponsive. I plugged it into the computer via the USB port and it froze, 19 seconds into 'In My Place' by Coldplay. I don't even like that song that much, and now it is permanently frozen onto my screen. Screaming at the iPod for about five minutes has had little effect.

I am now giving it space to think about what it's doing and hopefully come round.

EDIT: Woohoo! It's working. Like an idiot I was pressing the wrong 'resuscitate a frozen iPod' buttons. What a pointless post.

Phew

Spoke to Rolo, all was good. Sigh of relief.
Also, I was home alone just now and the doorbell rang, and it was a random man...or so I thought.
Yes, that's right, it was Stephen Fry.

(It was actually Jane's Dad, and he wanted to speak to men in full time employment. We had a chat about Drama, seeing as my Dad was currently at his full time employment.)

Little slice of random from my life there.

To Be Honest

Everyone is incredibly ecstatic, and I was too, with the whole 'phew it's over, what a relief thing.' I had a great evening and was really happy afterwards.

However, over the course of today, despite the joy at actually going home in daylight and not having to rehearse, I've been feeling slightly uneasy about the entire thing, and I think I might be the only one. Everyone that I saw perform (which is everyone who did perform) was amazing and gave it their all, I was incredibly impressed. However I have literally no idea how I did. Not a clue. And I am afraid to say to anyone 'How did I do?' incase they A. Think I'm fishing for compliments or B. Say, 'Sorry, but you were terrible, we're all just too polite to mention it.'

I wrote on my yellow form 'I have no idea how I did,' in the hopes that Rolo would just give me some clue, like she did with Joe. However all I got was 'Now for the concept!' Cheers, miss. Despite all the happiness at it being over, there's a small part of me which wants to go back in time and do it again, just my two major scenes, just in case I can do it better.
Post-drama paranoia I was not expecting. I think it's a bit like post-natal depression; I regret giving birth to this drama baby.

Woo Hoo

After what was arguably the most stressful week of my life, everything appears to be oddly calming down. I was very cheerful all day, from imitating 'My Heart Will Go On' from Titanic to Narnia 'in the closet' jokes.

I'm feeling like after all the 'crap we're all doomed' of last week this week is so far a bit of an anti-climax. I may, of course, regret that tomorrow if we're all reduced to weeping nervous wrecks. But wow am I looking forward to walking home in daylight and only being in school when I need to be there for lessons.

I think, when it comes to the other subjects, my brain might be disintegrating slightly. Most of history today was spent discussing just how much Vietnam is like Avatar (Alex had the amazing realisation that Na'Vi= Native Vietnamese, the teacher agreed.) Also, today when I arrived home I had hot chocolate and two very large chocolate cookies. My excuse is that I was having Wednesday's share of chocolate today, as Drama Rule #1 states that chocolate coats our throats and makes talking difficult. I bet that's an urban myth, like saying that coca-cola affects your facial expression. Which is probably not true but BETTER NOT RISK IT.

Maybe, as I was saying earlier, this panic has gone full circle and become insanity.

Oops

Completely left out five people who mean a lot to be at the moment. Which is probably a good thing because I hate having to make that kind of choice.

1. Everyone
2. I
3. Know
4. Who isn't
5. Crap.

There you go.

Oh Sod It I Might As Well

TEN things you wish you could say to TEN different people like now:
10. You're definitely overreacting.
9. You might be underreacting.
8. If I had to change my hair colour and style for some reason I would make it like yours.
7. You are, on this occasion, wrong.
6. I used to feel superior to you, and I appreciate you so much more now I don't.
5. Seriously, what the hell happened to you?
4. Thanks for recognising that.
3. You're a lot better than you get credit for.
2. You are admirably genuine.
1. I borrowed your iPod to listen to guilty pleasure music, I hope you don't mind.

NINE things about yourself:
9. I had so much trouble with the above exercise. I don't have enough interesting secret thoughts about people.
8. I, like Harry, have a simultaneously high and low opinion of myself.
7. I feel like I'm daydreaming about ninety percent of the time.
6. I get very sentimental about the past.
5. I am the second most ticklish person I know. If someone mentions the word 'tickle' I tense up.
4. I love long car journeys.
3. I love the walk to and from school, but I know I pull weird facial expressions depending on the mood of the song I'm listening to.
2. I have a good memory for song lyrics. It's useless but fun.
1. Ultimately, things always seem to turn out ok.

EIGHT ways to win your heart:
8. Be kind and genuine.
7. Be calmer than me.
6. Be at least a bit intelligent.
5. Be romantic.
4. Don't have overly-styled hair.
3. Be a better singer than me.
2. Think about things.
1. Make good memories.

SEVEN things that cross your mind a lot:
7. Me
6. Amusing observations on life.
5. Dreams for the future.
4. Love and soppy romantic crap.
3. Books/ films/ television.
2. School.
1. Hypothetical scenarios.

SIX things you do before you fall asleep:
6. Make sure the laptop is turned off.
5. Pyjamify myself if I have not already.
4. Yell 'Goodnight!'
3. Pace idly around my room.
2. Listen to music or read.
1. Daydream.

FOUR things you see right now:
4. Special 'Complaint' post-it notes given to me by my parents.
3. Many mugs.
2. Colouring pencils.
1. An origami panda.

THREE songs you listen to often:
3. Leaving on a Jet Plane
2. Accidentally in Love
1. Chasing Cars

TWO things you want to do before you die:
2. Fall in love.
1. Go places, see things.

ONE confession:
1. Even when I'm stressing on the outside, my life is always pretty great.

Can't Believe I Am Finding Time To Do This

Oh Drama, you crazy, crazy subject. Tears and traverse and tummy aches and transitions and ten percent. That's a hell of a lot of alliteration.

In good news from today, I no longer have to do a forward roll off three people while doing a monologue, I had a very good lunch and am about to have a yummy dinner. Also we improved, apparently, in the space of twenty four hours, which bodes well.

I hope everyone who is well feels better and that everyone who is stressed feels less stressed, and I for one plan to spend tomorrow with my face (and other people's costumes) not quite as smeared with mascara. I am writing this blog post in the brief window between getting home and eating my aforementioned yummy dinner, then relaxing, I hope, for the remainder of the evening.

Warning

Yesterday I purchased some felt-tip pens in a tub from Paperchase, identical to the ones I gave Jane for her birthday. This is because at heart I am still a five-year-old and would like to forget about exams and instead draw pretty pictures.

When I sat down for a while to try them out yesterday, it was very hard to get the lids off the pens (I had to use my teeth for some of them) and very hard to put them back on. So much so that in trying to put the lids back on I made my hands bleed from tiny Jesus-like puncture wounds in the palms of my hands. I apologise for any similar injuries I may have caused, and urge you to press the pen lids against a table to close them, not palms.

Tomorrow, as the last Monday of January, is supposedly the most depressing day of the year. I don't know if it can beat last Monday's drama rehearsal until seven o'clock in a dark and creepy school, which, in retrospect, was actually kind of fun. Oh well, at least Glee is on, and I can draw pretty pictures so long as I am careful.

Note to Self

In future, I will not, no matter how stressed or upset I am, post angry blog posts about my Dad. Because, once the argument is resolved entirely and I no longer harbour any feelings of resentment, I will feel really guilty and therefore delete the blog post.

So here is a blog post to fill the absence of one I wrote and deleted. Hello, world.

I Concur.

I deleted the rather dull and pointless blog post of yesterday, for the purpose of fully agreeing with Jane's sentiments with regard to the Drama exam.

As we draw ever closer to the Day of Reckoning, I begin to have the teeniest of sneaky suspicions that we are absolutely and unarguably doomed, and that Tuesday was by no means the first of the inevitable panic-driven meltdown lessons. Tensions are running high, and I suspect that I do not have enough awareness of what I am supposed to be doing to necessarily make valid suggestions to the group. Particularly as Music and Movement combines the two things I am worst at; music....and movement. Throw a few mathematical equations in there and you've got yourselves a party.

Or, quite possibly, we're being melodramatic and actually it's all going to turn out ok, as will the History resit that I have not done enough revision for. I miss Lady Windermere's Fan.

In good news, I went to Morrisons to buy HP6 on DVD, but it was 14.99, so I bought The Notebook for 3.99 instead. Bargain. That's tonight's procrastination sorted.

I Don't Speak French

Today is a wonderful, beautiful day. Not only because it is Jane's birthday (although that, I have to say, is mighty attractive) but because from now on I can just let the funky music do the talking, talking.

After two and a half hours of sitting in room forty with six other French resit-ers, and some annoyingly lucky year twelves/ consortium kids doing the new specification exam, which is half an hour shorter, it is over. The fact that we got little mp3 players for the listening part of the exam back in June kind of implied that we would get them this time, but no, we had loud, clunky individual cassette players. Which is just counter-productive, because you disturb everyone with all the really loud clicking of buttons that you have to press three times to get to work, and our half of the room became a trip hazard of wires.

Meanwhile, the new specification people had their silent mp3 players that are easy to use and disturb no-one. Never mind though, because NEVER AGAIN. I can parler francis for fun, pas pour les examens.

Also drama yesterday was tears and tension cakes, but I reckon if we listen to enough inspirational music we might get through it.

My Ears Are Warming Up

Just went for a very nice walk around the park in the snow. It was like Narnia but without the talking animals (that I know of, anyway, none of them spoke to me.) And now my ears are warming up, hence the title of the blog.

Somehow spent the entire day, apart from the horrible French practice paper and finishing my SWED questions for Drama, listening to Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.

I have only done the listening part of the French paper and I have to do the rest by tomorrow but it is so unbearably boring it makes me want to individually tear off all of my limbs and throw them at the Eiffel Tower. I like the language, the food and the adorable petit-filou-advert type school children, I just ABSOLUTELY hate the way it's examined.

I also was supposed to see Avatar yesterday but it was fully booked, so I spent my evening feeling somewhat disappointed and like the whole day had been a let down. That was until 11.30pm when I thought of an idea for my English Coursework while reading 1984. Over and out.

Stage Fright

Well, it's another snow day, and last night I had a horrible nightmare about the Drama exam.

We were performing, and attempting to move between scenes, one of which was a giant flock in the car park outside the Drama studio. The audience were getting restless, and then we did a scene that I had never rehearsed before, which involved all of us sitting down in the middle of a circle of audience while holding coat hangers. I wasn't sure if I was even meant to be in the scene, but seeing as we had nothing I improvised. The audience were not paying ANY attention, and just talking amongst themselves loudly with no notice of what was happening on stage, so we started saying to one another 'The audience are just talking. They're not even watching. What do we do?' Then I burst into tears and yelled at the audience, shouting 'You're not even listening to us,' but no-one except Sheps heard.

Then we had to do another scene which had Katie in it, who doesn't do Drama, and also the guy who played Bootstrap Bill and was one of the fathers in Mamma Mia. He ruined the scene by getting his lines wrong. Then the play ended and we were all agreeing it had been a total disaster, and everyone was going to go and get drunk and drown their sorrows, but not me because I wasn't invited. And for some reason Laura wanted me to watch a very bad animated film and then yelled at me because I didn't want to watch it.

My subconscious may be informing me that Drama-wise, we are currently a little bit screwed.
Sherlock Holmes today, in much happier news.

Cold, Tired and Hungry

Ten minutes until my early dinner because my mother is gallivanting off to a meeting of some kind. That's one of the three on my checklist sorted prior to actually getting down to some serious History courseworking.

As for cold, well, hopefully warm food will help, and maybe being trapped in a frozen cocoon of History sheets will actually encourage me to do work, as opposed to continuing to waste time. If that fails, fingerless gloves.

And finally, tired. Hopefully warm food followed by coffee will put a stop to that, or at least postpone it until such a time when I can legitimately allow myself to sleep, with my History coursework safely memory penned and printed.

I may have got to the stage of delirious exhaustion which is always noticable by using unnecessarily long words and speaking in a slightly slurred way. Which are also, strangely, the symptoms of drunkenness. Clearly this is how I do 'out of it.' I should never be under sedation.
Gloves, dinner and coffee are in order, then Lyndon B. Johnson.

Go Away LBJ

883 words written out of 2000.
Apart from lunch, going downstairs for snacks, and pacing pointlessly around my room, I have spent all day sitting at the computer surrounded by ridiculously massive sheets working on this darn essay.

I have gone crazy with the orange highlighter (orange showing increased involvement in Vietnam, like Agent Orange. Yes, symbolic highlighting.)

I have resisted playing the rollercoaster game on my phone, even though I have nearly completed it, and resisted BBC iplayer, which is not to say I haven't been procrastinating, as I obviously am RIGHT now. Also, I don't understand how Sunday lunch somehow manages to last from 1.30 until 3, thus wasting precious time. It's not like we're religious and pray round the dinner table or anything.

That is all.

2010 Already. Blimey.

Happy New Year, and I have just got dressed, for some reason in a blue top and blue tights, I look like one of those blue people from Avatar, a film which I have not seen.

Had a lovely New Year sleepover avec Zanny, Jane, pizza, films and smirnoff. I have had the most chocolatey breakfast known to mankind to kick start 2010. My New Year's resolution is always to 'generally improve in all areas' which I am beginning to suspect might be too vague and overly ambitious.

So this year, rather than doing what I want to do I will do what I want to have done. For example, if I want to have read a certain book by a certain time, or to have done homework, I will do it rather than doing what I want to do, which is waste time by watching BBC iplayer, doodling, or playing the addictive rollercoaster game on my AWESOME new phone.

Yeah, right. That resolution will not happen. I have had very little sleep.