Old Memes, Secrets and Missing Friends

I’ve been generally a bit down today, for the main reason that I really hit home to day that none of my good friends are in ANY of my classes. Fia and Livi are in my form which is cool but I hardly get to see everyone else.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much about my day, in places it was good. I got jabbed against Cervical Cancer which considering the possible alternative is pretty awesome and I’ve been selective to be interviewed for the position of Managing Director for one of the school’s Young Enterprise companies.

Despite all of this I still kind of bored and lost without my friends, and I also feel kind of bottled up so I thought I’d tell you my secrets, because you’re my friends.

I actually wrote this list about 5 or so months ago when that “25 Things” Meme was going around facebook but then didn’t have the nerve to put it up, but now I think I have the courage to put it here. I warn you some of it’s a bit old and so not so relevent anymore but I’ll try and make that clear with annotations in italics like this.

1. I’ve never written a Facebook Note before and it took me a while to work out how to do it.      I still haven’t ever actually published a facebook note.

 

2.Whenever my dad asks me if I want anything when he goes shopping I always ask for smarties. Recently he’s found that hardly anywhere apart from our local co-op sells smarties anymore, so he stocked up so that he can magically produce a packet whenever he goes to the shops. He doesn’t know that I found the stash in his desk draw. I wish I hadn’t found it so it remained secret and magical.       The secret stash still exists.

 

3. I’ve told a number of people that I ate a whole pencil for a dare. This isn’t true. I’ve eaten many whole pencils, out of choice, I’ve developed some weird habit and now I find it really hard to keep hold of pencils.      Still the case.

 

4.I still haven’t got around to uploading Suga’s Fall Out Boy CD to my computer even though I’ve had it for 18 days now. Its one of several things I’m putting off doing for no apparent reason.  I did actually get round to doing that not that long after I wrote this.

 

5. I buy Doctor Who Adventures magazine every week, even though it’s meant for 7-11 year olds. I like it when the free gift is stickers.  Nowadays I don’t get it so much because there isn’t any Doctor Who actually on but my Mum usually gets me a copy if I’m feeling down.

6. I have to put “Do Something Creative” on my To Do list every now and then or I get stressed.  I no longer have a proper to do list but I do lots of drawing now.

 

7. I don’t like it when people choose the date of their birthday as their favourite number. I don’t know why.   Actually I think I do know why, I think it’s because it shows a lack of imagination.

 

8. I have an irrational fear of death. Although not my own. I’m not scared of anything else because I can find logical reasons not to be.     This is still very much true, the summer before year 8 my Grandma died whilst I was away from home without my parents and so now I’m scared of coming home from trips alone to find that someone else has died in my absence.

 

9.I talk to myself in mirrors as if I’m watching myself vlogging on youtube I even show the mirror random things that are around me as if someone’s watching.   Erm.. yeh… I still do this.

 

10. I only really developed my love for Harry Potter about a month AFTER the last book came out. I wanted to be part of the hype.   It makes me feel kind of like a cheater actually.

 

11. I don’t understand why sometimes I just can’t spell things. I make out like it’s some kind of joke that I’m the worst speller in the year or whatever but I actually find it really embarrassing, annoying and a real encumbrance.

 

12. I made two spelling mistakes in point 11 and felt really pissed off by the red squiggly lines.   I think it was embarrassing and encumbrance that I got wrong and I had to look and check them again this time round.

13. I correct people’s grammar automatically because my mum has been correcting mine since I learnt to talk. And it drives me insane.

 

 14. I barely ever speak to anyone from my primary school anymore even my old best friend who quite literally lives around the corner from me.  I only sometimes wish that I did though.

 

15. I accidentally wrote that I was 16 in my diary entry about Snow Day when I don’t stop being 15 for another 2 weeks. I didn’t even realise I’d done it until I read it back a couple of days ago.  Woah, maybe this list is from longer ago tan I thought… anyway, I just felt 16 for quite a long time before i was.

 

16. Nearly all of the books I’ve read in the past year and a bit have been recommended to me by he same person. And she doesn’t even know she’s recommending them to me.  More recently I’ve read alot of books the English department have recommended but I still make a note of the books she recommends.

 

17. I have 4 major goals in my life right now, Firstly to get all A*s in my GCSEs or at least more than Ben Hodgson so that’s more than 6, Secondly to get all As at A-level, Thirdly to go to Oxford Uni, Fourthly to be on University Challenge. I want to do these four things because I know they are what would make my dad proud. Goal 1. Complete, I may not have got all A*s but I beat Ben Hodgson.

 

18. I have a big secret, that isn’t really mine. Four of my friends know and I wish two of them didn’t. I think an old friend also knows and I kind of hope she does because even though we don’t talk much anymore I still think she’s cool and nice and stuff.   More people know now but a couple of my really good friends don’t, I think I’ll try and tell them tomorrow.

 

19. I have a secret wish to be a writer but I don’t think I’m good enough at it. Still very much true on both accounts and I will be taking part in NaNoWriMo this November,

 

20. I had to stop writing a story about my friends and I living in an imaginary flat because I sort of started fancying someone who I wrote about a lot and after he moved in with us I knew it had gone a bit far. Especially seeing as in real life he’s about 10 years older than us.     This was embarrassing even when no one knew, in my defense I’d like to say that the character I was writing changed into someone very different to the real life person and quite a bit younger.

 

21. I have a shoe box full of a whole bunch of random things from the past all of which have a story behind them. For some reason, recently I havn’t added anything to the box.

 

22. I haven’t been to the cinema in over 14 months. I’ve been three times since I wrote this, twice for the same movie.

 

23. Even though I know I’ve got the Library prefect post in the bag for Upper Sixth part of me still wants to try out for Head Girl.   I’ve never ever been voted into any kind of role. Only about 2 people voted for me for Head Girl in my primary school and I only ever got to be a school councilor in year 2 because the teacher chose rather than us having a vote that happened every other year.

 

24. I have a mountain of things to do tomorrow and I don’t think all of them are going to get done but I’m afraid to admit this to myself because I know whatever happens it’ll all be alright eventually. I honestly don’t remember how this turned out or even which work it was.

 

25. I’m really good at telling lies. That sounds like I’m blowing my own trumpet but I don’t always see it as a good thing. I tell lies constantly sometime to amuse sometimes to conceal and sometimes because I can’t be bother with the finer details of the truth. Usually in these sorts of memes I lie a lot. Not one of the facts is a lie, but I think I’d be more comfortable with this list if they all were. Very much still the case.

PostScript Thank god I have a free first thing tomorrow.

Tea, Poetry and Sarajevo

As most of you know school started properly today. And I had real lessons for the first time in over three months! It was a little bit of a shock to the system but nice to have my time allotted for me so I didn’t have to plan what I was supposed to be doing.

One of the best things about my timetable has to be the free period I had first thing this morning. A free? First thing on Monday morning?! Awesome, I know, I now have a whole extra hour in which to wake up at the beginning of the week. As, unlike the rest of my year, I’d all ready finished my holiday homework I spent most of my free period drinking tea and helping in our pathetically small, but abundantly stocked school library. If there’s one place I feel like I really belong at school it’s the library, I also helped out at lunch getting Library cards to the new year 7s.

After the joy that was my free period I had my first English Literature lesson, it was nice, most of it was just listening to our teacher talk for a bit. And then we talked about books and since I’ve just told you that I like to spend the majority of my free time in the library you can guess how much I liked that. The other good bit about English was learning that “The World’s Wife” the poetry collection by Carol Ann Duffy is one of our set text. I like quite alot of Duffy’s poetry but the World’s Wife is by far my favourite collection. My favourite poems from it are Mrs Beast and Anne Hathaway. They are of course both about the wives of famous men as are the rest of the poems. What I particularly like about these two though is that they show the wives to be strong raunchy women that make there males counterparts seem timid by comparison.

I the middle of the day I had Maths and Biology, both were unremarkable and at first glance both these classes seem very quiet which is a shame but I suppose it means that I may actually knuckle down and work this year.

My last period was Geography, which was good because I know what’s going on when it comes to Geography, a lot of he AS course is the same as that at GCSE but just in more depth so I feel like I’ve all ready good a firm footing in what we’re learning about. I did however make a bit of a fool of myself when Mr T started talking about the capital of Bosnia which I confidently remarked to be Sofia when it’s not, it’s Sarajevo, Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria but I only realised that after I’d said it and Mr T had laughed at my failed attempt to sound clever. Oh well, serves me right I suppose.

Grandparents, Padlocks and Carry Outs

Here goes attempt number 4573 to kick start this blog. I’m fairly optimistic but then again the realist inside me is saying “Why should it work this time? every other attempt has failed” And well, the pessimist inside me is currently so surprised that I’ve even written this much that it’s rendered speechless.

So, let the blogging commence.

Currently staying in my house are my lovely Grandparents, formerly known as Grandma and Grandpa Scotland, mis abuelos are down from Glasgow for about a week and a half for the wedding of some family members I don’t really know. I love seeing my Grandparents, they always remind me of loose tea, crosswords and repeated stories, I’ve actually taken to finishing my Grandpa’s stories for him as he finds it amusing that I always seem to know what’s coming next.

Back in their youth my Grandpa was a pilot in the navy, yes he flew planes in the navy. My Dad always used to insist that this was a cover up story and that my Grandpa was really a spy but I’ve seen the photos and my Grandpa really did fly planes on and off boats which was really pretty cool. My Grandmother was a radiographer, this basically meant that she worked in the x-ray place in the hospital and when I was little I took in to school her old collection of images when we had to take things beginning with “X” into nursery.

Today, my Grandparents went shopping to find a new shaving brush for my Grandpa and I went on the hunt for tupper wear and a padlock for my new locker at school. Since my locker is now in the Sixth form centre, and so accessible to a great many more people, I thought it would be sensible to buy a lock to protect the supplies of tea and sugar that I’ll be storing in there.

I began my search for a padlock in Wilkinsons, for the simple reason that stuff in Wilkinsons is cheap. Sadly however the only locks they had were very small and required keys, I also tried Cotswolds (one of many outdoorsy shops near us) but all the locks were way too expensive. So I ended up approaching the Key Man. I’ve known the key man for a long time, he cut my first set of keys and used to engrave the name tags for Theo’s collars. I knew the Key Man sold Padlocks that required keys but I felt a bit stupid asking if he had any combination locks.

For a moment he, and it seemed everyone else waiting for keys to be cut or watches to be mended, looked me up and down as if to consider whether I was worthy of being let into the secret. “I have only the one” he said slowly as if I’d asked him for a silver bullet to slay a werewolf with, rather than an ordinary lock. He routed around under the counter for a while, scattering various oddly shaped contraptions next to the Liverpool FC  keys, before producing what looked like mud, stuck to a square of cardboard. “It looks a little dusty on the outside,” (understatement of the century) “but I’m sure it’ll be good as new beneath the plastic”. He handed it over and I grappled for a moment with the plastic front before unearthing a surprisingly shiny combination lock that was amazingly just the size I’d been looking for. “How much?” I asked, my mind flashing back to the £19.50 locks it Cotswolds and the sign above the key man’s head that reads ” Prices change due to customers attitude”.

“For you… 3.50″ I almost felt like skipping there and then, after what had seemed like an epic journey, I had a padlock. An ordinary, medium sized, three number, combination padlock. But it’s the best padlock I’ve ever owned.

The day ended well with a Chinese carry out (that’s a take away to those of you whose Grandparents haven’t lived in Scotland for the past 40 years) and a box of choccies that my Grandma bought in Thorntons because “life just wouldn’t be the same without fancy flavoured chocolate”.

PostScript      I’m going to attempt to update this blog at least once every three days, you have been warned.

Psycology Philosophy

I fail at updating this blog, infact recently I seem to have failed generally when it comes to continuity, which is quite a big thing for a girl who can’t deal with her colouring pencils not being in order.

This lack of continuity is mainly due to a number of uncontrollable changes that have happened around me in the past 6 months. I’m not going to talk about what they are because, although I’ve got past the stage where I was uncomfortable talking about them I realise that some of the people who read this (or that I hope still do) don’t know about them yet. And I’d rather tell them first hand.

I think my general opinion on life has changed in the past 6 months as well though. I’ve got closer to my friends (that probably includes you if you’re reading this) and I’ve got closer to deciding what I want to do with my life and I’m no longer so bothered about that not actually happening.

Tomorrow I leave for Sheffield to go to a wedding that I am not even invited to. That means an exciting 4ish hours in the car followed by two nights in a hotel and a day with some random guy I’m distantly related to who also has to go to Sheffield for the wedding and is also not invited.

Now I am going to watch some stand-up and then go to sleep.

Children are the Future.

I started my Work Experience today. I thought it would be odd, being in a school but of the other side of the learning process but it wasn’t at all. I got past the strangeness of the Staff room environment quite quickly. Staff rooms are weird places… The staff room always seemed to contain in some form, someone giving out excess food, someone making odd substances for their class to do art with of the cooker (all of the pans were labelled “playdough pan don’t make real food in”) and someone trying to find out what kind of cake the sandwich mad was selling (summer berry cheesecake and chocolate orange flapjack if you were wondering).

But the best bit of the day was meeting the kids. They were all so nice! I’m working with a family friend and also incidentaly a class mate’s mum in Year 1.

Today we wrote about the rainforest creatures that Larks class met last Friday, using “exciting writing” and describing words and “wow words”. Sara (Mrs Merridan) put me on the spot by making me come up with a “wow word” to describe a tree frog, all I could think of was green.

After helping kids with how to spell words like “shiny” and “cold” (my kind of spelling) I then sharpened what seemed like a thousand and three pencils while the kids play Continent Twister, which they love.

Then it was a quick prayer/song with actions about praying, before break.

The afternoon was odd, first we had PE (major CSLA de-ja-vu) and then we went to watch the Year 6 Production dress rehearsal (cringyest thing ever, it was a modern Cinderella spin off written in rhyming couplets) it made me feel guilty about ever being in a Year 6 production. It was quite amusing though as the ugly sisters were played by two boys dressed in drag one of whom was just brilliant. He’d even stuffed a fairly large bra with newspaper to give himself an extremely amusing cleavage, he was probably the best actor as until I saw him change him wig I though he actually was a girl.

Anyhoo, I will no doubt tell you more about the good little Catholic children later this week.

Amen and Out.

Pianos, Tea, Birthdays, Royalty and Trafalgar Square

For those of you who I didn’t spend the day with yesterday I thought I’d just let you know that it was awesome.

Absolutely 312% awesome.

I met alot of awesome poeple and did alot of awesome things like…..

Meeting and getting to know awesome new people (And come up with crazy group names, we were the Bermudez Decagon)

Signing spotty trees on the South Bank.

Playing on free pianos whilst getting funny looks from both the public and the man who was playing when we arrived who was actually really good.

Drinking tea in a tiny and very dark pub made from our own tea bag.

Throwing a birthday party for random Spanish ladies.

 

Following Rosi to non-existant Harry Potter filming locations.

Conquering walls of water with the help of american author Maureen Johnson.

Fighting, on the floor of the south bank centre, for books that won’t be published untill February 2010. (Joseph won it , his height gave him an unfair advantage).

Anyway, the day was too awesome for words (hence the pictures) and most of the odd things we did were actually part of an amazing scavenger hunt that Maureen organised.

Amen and Out

PostScript

I own the first ever copy of Chameleon Circuit’s album of the same name to be signed by more that one member of the band. And also, everything that Charlie (aka charlieissocoollike) signed yesterday, he signed with MY sharpie)

I just want to live while I’m alive.

The title of this blog is a line from a song by Bon Jovi. It makes me laugh.

In other news, nerdfightaria is a pretty awesome place right now. We’re loving our music, our Wrock and our Trock and our Original Hank Green songs, my favourite of which is about a deep sea angler-fish. It goes a bit like this:

Yeah you can’t hate the light if you’ve lived your whoe life without light,

And you can’t hate the dish if you’ve only ever eaten fish,

And you can’t feel alone if it’s all you’ve ever knooooown.

Yeah the deep sea anglerfish has no reason to be happy but it’s got no fickin’ idea what else to be.

We also have books, like “Mummy, How do I know if I’m a nerdfighter?” and “Everyone Poops in my Pants”.

We have awesome foodstuffs like toilet paper and fat sandwiches and blenderised stuff.

But most amazingly we have gatherings. Oh yes, and when nerdfightaria gets together you get an awesome overload. Despite the fact that the average difference between each single nerdfighter is quite high, we go to great lengths to gather.

On the 19th of January 2008. Two people flew to London from Spain, one flew from Dublin, one flew from New York , one drove up from Cornwall, four took a train from bath, and several others got trains from other places. All to climb of Lions, get lost in Hamleys and make “In your pants” jokes in under-ground magic shops.

When Nerdfighters gather we gather to the max.

And we are gathering THIS Saturday which makes me a very very happy person.

According to Facebook 95 people are attending this gathering, which is a slight increase on the 17 (or possibly 18) we had last January.

It will be so awesome there is bound to be a nuclear chain reaction of awesome. This makes me very happy, another thing that makes me happy is that I get to go on the London Eye for the first time on Saturday. And I get to do it with Maureen Johnson, and charlieissocoollike and other amazing people! Oh! and Maureen is bring some copies of her books that aren’t published in the UK!!!! And some of her new book that isn’t published anywhere yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*points to self* is happy person.

Amen and Out

Just One of the Reasons I Love my Parents

I like having parents I can talk to about wordly stuff. I talked to my parents after dinner and even though the conversation started off being about the BNP it ended up more about well, everything.

I don’t know if I really want to go into talking about the BNP, I just get kind of exasperated just thinking about the and I almost don’t want to give them the publicity. So I won’t I’ll just say that i don’t like them or anything the stand for and I appologise for mentioning them as I don’t think they even the diserve that. My Dad thinks they should all be lined up and shot but as I keep telling him I don’t beleive violence. And before any of you (for some reason I’m directing this at Jess) say anything by saying “I don’t beleive in violence I’m actually say I don’t beleive that violence is right in any circumstances but saying the phrase I did is a commonly accepted way of expressing that.

I am a pacifist and a realist and a liberal and a nerdfighter and as it turns out a self-labeler….

I’m also tired. And I think that Suga should have a blog. Suga click on the link http://www.wordpress.com and make a blog right now because I want to read it. All in favour say Ay, all opposed say Nay.

Amen and Out.

(PostScript) I got a letter from Indianola today!!:D My pen pal goes to a school full of “faux gangsters”!

13 of Livi’s Blue Envelopes

Ok, so the title is bad. It’s the best I could come up with.

I bought 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson today which is exciting. Then I got attacked by Zoe in the bental centre so she came to my house to eat pot noodle via my kettle. Then my mother got home and Zoe left for her graphics exams and I ate my lunch which consisted of salad and a slice of pie that i didn’t like so i didn’t eat much of it. It had ham and turkey and apricots in it. I don’t like it when meat is mixed with fruit. Apart from pork and apple, I like pork and apple.

As Livi mentioned in her blog (link in the not so quite at the side but more at the bottom bar) we have been cordially invited to Maureen and Charlie’s gathering. Smiles. We love Maureen and Charlie. I didn’t mention this in yesterdays blog but one of many reasons why I like Chameleon Circuit’s album is that in the song “Exterminate, Regenerate” where Charlie sings from the point of view of Davros NSG(the music man) has put some cool effect on charlie’s voice that makes it sound extremely sexy. Anyway, moving on. The gathering means that I can get Maureen to sign 13lbe and Charlie to sign my copy of Chameleon Circuit’s album. Awesome or what.

Other news includes the fact that there is a new Green innocent smoothie on the market that I bought today. It’s exciting because it’s green. And I have replenished my supply of Chupa Chups that got very low yesterday.

Now I’m going to go and try and remember the case study lessons that I ignored in Geography in yr 10.

Amen and Out.

21 exams, a link, two tees on the way, a 5ft 7″ timeline, two new CDs, a pen pal, a pair of birthdays, a new friend at the hospital and an obscene number of Chupa Chups.

The title of this blog post accurately describes my life right now baring the interesting series of dreams I’m having. I will split this post into the different sections of the title, to make my life easier.

Part One: Exams        I am now 16 down 5 to go. I’m pretty happy with how they’ve all gone so far apart from English Literature but I’m not going to talk about that because the lid of the box it’s in is creeping up of it’s own accord. Generally the stress has been manageable. Mainly due to the help of some of the other parts of this blog. But very soon they will all be over and things will be back to normal once more. Thank God, Allah, Ganesh, Jesus, Moses, Buddah, the Authority and the man with the puppets who gave me a palm cross that year in primary school.

Part Two: Threadless               Threadless is a T-Shirt making website, Threadless is awesome. Threadless has a sale on at the moment. You should check out Threadless and buy loads of stuff there via this link:

http://threadless.com/?from=saltrox

I have two Threadless Tees on the way at this very moment which you will get to see shortly. Yays.

Part Three: Revision                The timeline is one of two. One is about Russia ‘n’ stuff and isn’t actually of any use to me anymore and the other is slightly shorter and is all about Liberal reforms and the Gists and the Gettes and knitting socks. My room is full of mind maps, half of which are only there because they’re waiting to be burnt.

Part Four: Compact Discs                  This part is very exciting. On Friday I received Chameleon Circuit’s first album of the same name AND DFTBA Records Volume One. Exciting or what. As a consequence I have combinations of “We’ve reached the journey’s end, having a laugh inside the tardis, and although it didn’t make much sense, it’s always nice to see them Darleks” and “and then slowly he becomes a sperm producing parasiiiiiite” and ” regenerate, exterminate, and even though we are the same why don’t you hop into your ship and leave me burning” whirling around my head. The CDs are boh amazing and you should go and check them out at http://www.dftba.com because it’s awesome.

Part Five: The Pen Pal                         Her name is Lexi, she lives in a place called Indianola in Iowa, she likes Harry Potter and Doctor Who and is a Nerdfighter. I have sent her a nice letter and stuff and I’m awaiting a reply (I’m very excited about it).

Part Six: The Birthdays                      Hannah and Livi are 16!!!!!!!!! It’s unreal. I don’t feel as superior anymore. I feel like I just lost one of the games I make up for the sake of being the winner. It’s just not the same anymore. You guys were keeping me young!!!!

Part Seven: The Hospital                       I was going to tell you about the guy I met at the Royal Marsden but now I’m not sure I want to because that would mean explaining why I was there, and some of you don’t know why, so I’ll leave that for another time, it still feels awkward somehow.

Part Eight: My Lifeline                               I can see eight Chupa Chup sticks from my desks, they are all that’s keeping me alive I swear. I don’t know how many I consumed in the past week but it is not a small number.

Now I’m tired, so I’m going to go to bed. Please do leave a comment if you exist to let me know how you’ve been.