Delinquenisms.

I’ve decided to title all posts which detail acts of juvenile delinquency as “Delinquenisms”, since it seems wholly appropriate.

So, every now and then I experience something which reminds me that, underneath the fancy words and misconcieved notions of maturity, I am still just a teenager.
Today was the first day of our school holidays, and I spent it at a friend’s house. It was his sixteenth birthday, and he’d invited a random assortment of characters both from our school and neighbouring schools. They were all a cool group of people though, and all had a good sense of humour.
The first thing we did as a group was to walk down to the nearby park, where some of us played football and chased away the joggers on the track while others vandalised the bleachers. From there, we went to the children’s playground and crowded the top of the Rope Tower; as the name suggests, it’s a tower of rope we needed to climb. Of course, we were the only ones on the tower since parents steered clear of us, and the kids seemed frightenend. (For the record, I didn’t condone the scaring of children. Anyone who read my post from yesterday will know that I love kids. But I digress.)
After everyone was at the top of the tower, looking over the heads of the crowd, some of the girls decided that the guys in our group ought to play a game of Gay Chicken. (For those of you playing at home, that’s when two heterosexual males put themselves in increasingly awkward positions until one of the pair feels too uncomfortable and chickens out). It was entertaining, to say the least.
The day passed with most of the group going down to the skate park, running down to the creek, and being generally annoying in public places. Later, while the group went on a bike ride, my friend “C” and I separated ourselves from the group to go for a walk around the neighbourhood.

While we were alone, “C” revealed a few things to me about our mutual friend “L” that had me momentarily too stunned for words.

To cut a long story short: “L” is a wonderful girl, who I’ve considered a good friend for the last five years. She’s almost sixteen (in fact, I believe her sixteenth birthday is tomorrow). Since last September, I’ve been aware of her relationship with a boy who is, well, older than sixteen (by three years, if I’m not mistaken). While I couldn’t approve her choice, I’d known her well since grade school, and decided to shut my mouth and trust her judgement.

“C” informed me today that “L” and her boyfriend had been, to put it lightly, doing “more than just holding hands” over the last six months and, apparently, she recently found out that the boyfriend had been doing “more than just holding hands” with more than one girl. The resulting break-up happened about a week ago, and “B” has been in a bad state ever since. Before I had time to process this news, “C” proceeded to put the cherry on this espial sundae. Apparently, in a moment of depressed vulnerability, “L” had… uh… propositioned our friend “H”. (The term ‘proposition’ here meaning an improper suggestion, to say the least).

“H” refused on the grounds of being in a relationship with “C”.

In hindsight, the last few paragraphs look embarrassingly like a gossip column, and drained some of my hard earned self-respect. The point of it all was just that, today, for the umpteenth time this week, I thought about how very little I know my friends and how very little they probably know me. I find it curious, and truth be told, frightening.

Anyway, after all the gossip subsided and we rejoined the group, it had gotten dark and we played murder in the dark in the park, using the night vision goggles we had all chipped in to buy for the birthday boy. We listened to music, ate, drank, pummelled a spongebob-shaped pinata and around 7.00 I headed back home.

The party was fun, but it gave me a lot to think about.

I’m in a weird, reflective sort of mood at the moment, guys.
I’ll spare you the torture of reading through my muddled thoughts in the form of poorly constructed sentences by finishing my post here.

Goodnight, and happy holidays.

“Does anyone here watch Gossip Girl?”

I was startled back to conciousness in yesterday’s English class by this most unfamiliar inquiry. ‘Unfamiliar’ because we never discuss current television in English class, ‘back to conciousness’ because I was on the verge of dozing off and ’startling’ because the question was posed by my forty-something year old english teacher.

However, that initial shock was dwarfed upon hearing him declare the three words: “Blaire’s a BITCH!”
It was terrific.

I only bring it up because my 1&2 Literature class (Is it any surprise that I enjoy English-based subjects?) went on an excursion today to see a low-budget version of the play ‘Antigone’ performed by a cast of seven in a tiny school room. The play itself was impressive, yes, but it’s the gossip in which I was engaged during the bus ride back home I wanted to discuss.

The conversation started innocently enough. A group of us talked about movies, friends, the goings-on at school and other generic fifteen-year-old subject matter until ‘Penelope’, with a terribly perplexed expression, called out: “Hey, are ‘Bonny’ and ‘Clyde’ going out?”
(In this case, ‘Clyde’ being a friend I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with over the last six months and ‘Bonny’ being one of my best friends since fifth grade.)
The truth of the matter is that they celebrated their one month anniversary last week, but ‘Bonny’ was reluctant to announce the relationship to the whole schoolyard. Still, I was under the mistaken impression that the cat was already out of the bag, since this brand of information doesn’t generally take long for most high school students to uncover, but apparently it’s this month’s best kept secret.
So, I covered up for them brilliantly with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders which fooled everyone into believing that Bonny and Clyde were just close friends. (Yes, it really was one hell of a shrug, but I suppose you had to be there.)

Once that was dealt with, we moved on to reminisce on failed relationships we’d witnessed over the years, from the week-long, hair-flipping hand-holding embarrassments from seventh grade to the more substantial year-long affinities we’ve grown accustomed to.

We talked about the “random hook-ups”, the two girls in our year who “got together” during last year’s formal purely for the shock value, the friends who got smashed (wasted, plastered, buzzed; so many options) at another friend’s sweet sixteenth last weekend and the general drug-culture that covertly exists deep beneath the surface of our year level (or in any case, deep enough to maintain our school’s spotless reputation and warrant half-truths during family conversations).

It got me thinking about how very little I really know about these people; this group of three-hundred-odd kids I’m spending my formative years with, the people whose birthday parties I’ve attended since grade school, the network that forms almost 90% of my Facebook friends list.

Strange as it sounds, I realised that I don’t actually recognise my peers as human beings, because I tend to categorise them according to their predominant interests. I don’t think of them as having complex levels. I don’t consider the possibility that they might be just as deep, if not deeper, than I am. I dismiss them as being just one label. (Except, of course, for my closer group of friends who I speak to on a daily basis. I know them well enough to dismiss them as eight or nine different labels.)

‘Terry’s the athlete. Let’s get him something sporty for his birthday.
‘Mary’s the girly-girl. Let’s get her make-up for her birthday.
‘Lilly’s the drugged-up boozehound who smokes in the bathroom. Let’s steer clear of her on her birthday.

It would never occur to me that while Terry’s athletic, he might not be as interested in sport as he appears to be. Maybe he’s just self-concious and keeping up appearances. Maybe his greatest interest is art. Maybe he’s secretly got a notebook full of intricate sketches and heartfelt poetry that no one will ever see.

It seems impossible to believe that while Mary’s the classic girly-girl, she might dream of joining the military and following her brother’s example. Maybe she spent years learning martial arts on weekends. Maybe the girly-girl personality is a front to cover up a side she’s afraid won’t be accepted.

Perhaps there’s more to Lilly than the inconsiderate rebel. Maybe she’s got problems at home. Maybe her self-destructive behaviour is a cry for help. Maybe she dreams of growing up to be a veterenarian.

I spent the remainder of my day following this realisation trying to imagine everyone – friends, acquaintances, strangers – as complete and whole human beings with lives of their own.
In short, my epiphany of the day was simply that while I’m the center of my own universe, I am not the center of THE universe.

Astonishing revelation, really.

And it appears that this entry has taken a completely unexpected turn. This is not what I set out to write about. Apparently I’ve again turned my blog into an incomprehensibly gratuitous soiree, full of self-obsessed digressions and again, I’m going to use my age as an excuse if you’ll forgive the predictability.

My next post will be about a more consequential topic.
Honest.

It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs…

…but not downstairs.

A fascinating fact divulged to me by the unquestionable wisdom of the internet.

Now, this isn’t something I’d normally say, but today I’m going to advice any readers to follow this divine, bovine example. I think we should all be more like cows. That’s not to say that I advice people to attempt sticking their tongues up their own noses, or to produce sixty-five pounds of feaces a day. I just think that cows send us a terrific message about not allowing anyone to lead us down the proverbial stairs.

Of course, the only reason cows can’t walk down stairs is because their knees can’t bend properly and any further analysis of my metaphor will prove its complete inefficiency, so we’ll move right along and ignore the fact that I know more about cows than any normal teenager should.

So it’s been a month and two days since I last updated this blog, and if I know my readers (and I think I do), I’d say that none of you are the least bit interested in what I’ve been up to over the last four and a half weeks. Luckily for you, I’m far too lazy to try and fill you in, so I’ll try to sum it up nice and quick.

1. I’ve been house-hunting with the family for a few weeks now, because we’re finally financially secure enough to move out of this relatively small house (clearly, the global economic crisis hasn’t really hit home).

2. I’ve been attempting to excersise more because, while I’m at a perfectly healthy weight, I can’t delude myself any longer. I’m unfit. The continuing trend of being puffed out before almost anyone else in P.E. class has finally forced me to create a more intimate relationship with Mr. Treadmill.

3. Urinetown rehearsals are going strong, and we’re opening the show in just a month. I’m enjoying it at this point, and have gotten to know/actually enjoy the company of my cast-mates. We’re performing a scene for the entire student body (2000 students and a few hundred teachers) this Tuesday.

4. Two friends were in quarantine for swine flu last week (they’re fine now), and friends who were planning to go to Adelaide on music camp had their hopes dashed when Adelaide refused to accept students from Victoria on account of the pig virus. A good friend who now lives in Singapore was planning to visit us after a long time away, but changed plans due to the ridiculous panic surrounding the flu. Terrific.

5. I had mid-year exams a fortnight ago, and was really disappointed by the results. I managed to scrape together 64% on my maths exam; below the class average. I also received 74% on a science test. The class average was 86%. This was shocking, considering I’m usually the resident science geek in class, and it’s not a title I was in any hurry to relinquish. My first ever VCE exam however, went okay.

6. I MET JOHN GREEN! You”ll have to excuse the capitalization, but it really was exciting. John flew down here for a few days, and I went with my brother and a handful of his friends (because none of my friends have the foggiest idea who John Green is) to see him speak at the state library. He autographed two of my books, and was overall fantastic.

7. I’ve just been talking to my best friend from 4th grade over MSN. I haven’t made contact with anyone from that school for about five years, but it was nice to know that she still remembers me. She seems like a cool girl, and it’s strange to think how close we used to be.

8. The Monday after next marks the start of my work experience week. I’m working at my old primary school (not the one mentioned above, but one I moved to in 5th grade) with one of my best friends. I’m excited. The children are adorable, and the teachers are mostly familiar faces. It makes me feel all nostalgic and mushy.

9. There’s been a lot of drama at school that I’m not prepared to explain. The gist of it is that the aforementioned friend (who I’m working with) got into a lot of trouble – the kind of trouble I considered calling the police about, but abstained – and refused to talk to any of us about it. She was being hurt (may still be being hurt) by someone who she shouldn’t have been involved with, but she’s doing a fantastic job of pretending to be okay. Anyway, I’m really worried about her.

10. I’d really like to finish the list on a nice, even number, so I’ll mention that I had the day off of school today and spent it watching old movies (Dead Poet’s Society, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Chocolat, A Weekend at Bernie’s, Thelma & Louise) and being useless in general. I loved every minute of it.

That’s about it, and I have to apologize. I suppose I didn’t sum it up “nice and quick” after all. In any case, thank you for putting up with all of that self-indulgent blather. I’m going to make an effort to blog more regularly again, and try not to get so wrapped up in school/friends/my own fifteen-ness.

Goodnight, potatoes.

Mother’s Day.

My mother’s day began at 11.45 PM on Sasturday night, when I first realised that I’d completely forgotten to get anything for my mum. Making sure that she was well out of ear-shot, I ran, literally ran up to my brother around midnight, desperately hoping that he’d at least remembered to buy a card.

He had not.

So there we were, in the early hours of mothers day with no present, no card, no flowers and mum sleeping in the next room. I went into a slight panic. There was no way I was going to let mother’s day go by without giving mum something. My brother, on the other hand, took a dfferent approach.

He went straight to sleep.

I spent a good ten minutes running, or rather tip-toeing silently around the house, trying to find some paper to make a card. I couldn’t risk making a card on the computer because our noisy printer was bound to raise suspicion. I finally managed to find a pile of rainbow-coloured paper in my closet left over from an eigth grade school project. Rather than spending time trying to find a pen that could write clearly on the blindingly bright paper, I grabbed the nearby pile of multi-coloured post-it notes and pasted them directly onto the coloured paper and wrote my mother’s day message across them. To finish off, I picked up a ribbon I had on my desk from an old birthday present and attached it to the card, and I actually liked the end result.

After quickly ransacking the old drawers in my room, I found a great old photo frame, buried under some of mum’s old diaries. (I love flipping through her old diaries, by the way. She’s kept letters from dad and old pictures pressed between the pages. Reading the diary entry she made on my first birthday, “Her party went well. She looked so pretty today.”, was partly what made me want to give her a gift so badly). I had a picture in my room from back when I was four or five years old, and I was clinging really close to her. I put it in the frame, then placed it next to the card on the kitchen counter where she was sure to see it when she woke up.

It wasn’t much of a gift, I admit, since it was thrown together entirely from things I had lying around in my room but mum really seemed to like it. She told me the story behind the picture, since I couldn’t remember the day it was taken.

Since I hadn’t actually signed the card I made, assuming mum could tell it was from me, my brother came up to me looking really sheepish saying “Uh, the card’s from both of us, right?”
I got a little mad. He made no effort whatsoever to get mum anything, and expected me to let him take credit for my card. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he hadn’t done the same thing on father’s day as well.

Around noon, the four of us left the house to go and join some relatives at a vineyard for a mother’s day picnic. I ate, sat around talking with cousins, kicked around a football, told dirty jokes to my aunts and uncles and actually had a pretty good time.

And now I’m online, catching up with some friends on facebook for the first time in quite a while.

Let’s press some words.

I honestly didn’t intend to neglect this blog for a fortnight, but real life kept getting in the way, the silly thing.

That’s why I didn’t get to tell you about about my being in a production of Urinetown, or finding a great place to work at for my mandatory week of work experience, or about the fancy-pants dinner party my Dad organised (with my help) for 350 people that I got all dressed up for, or the Melbourne time-freeze I attended with a friend.

Instead, I’m going to tell you about the parent-teacher interviews I got back from about half an our ago.

I’m in tenth grade, and this is pretty much the year that I have to start taking school seriously. The subjects I selected this year have an actual impact on my University enter score and, ultimately, my future. So no big deal, right? Right?
The only problem is that, when I compare my reports from over the last three years, it’s pretty clear that my standard of work has deteriorated. I went from being a seventh grader with academic awards and Semester Honours to a tenth grader looking for any excuse to skip class.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been on the student council every year since year eight, and I’m still involved in a lot of different school events. I get along relatively well with a lot of the teachers at the school, and after four years here I get along really well with most of the kids that go to this school as well.

In short: As far as schools go, mine is a pretty good one.

So if school’s a good place to be, then we must conclude that the problem, ladies and gentlemen, lies with me.

I find it increasingly difficult to find any sort of motivation when it comes to my education. To put it simply: I just don’t give a **** anymore. I don’t understand it. If it’s teen angst, I hope it passes quickly because I want nothing to do with it.
I intend to someday get degrees in theology and clinical neurology, but the actual process I need to undergo to reach that point bores me to tears. Tests and assignments are important, I know, but they’re just not INTERESTING. I’d much rather spend my class time talking to friends, or attempting to text someone while cleverly concealing my phone.

That being said, luckily for me, I was fortunate enough to get a good set of teachers for my subjects this year. Not only do I like my teachers but, wonder of wonders, they actually seem to like me too. Despite my casual attitude to education, I’ve managed to maintain above average grades across all subjects.

So I was more than willing to take mum to see these teachers today, and got surprisingly great feedback. The only noteworthy comment I received was from my geography teacher, who described me as a “quiet and concientious student” which made me laugh out loud, but I think I managed to pass it off as a “Thank you for the kind praise” kind of gesture rather than the “Are you kidding? I do nothing BUT talk in your classes!” strain of thought I had actually been following.

It honestly was an overwhelmingly positive series of interviews. The only comment that came close to being negative was from my english teacher, who mentioned that my writing was “good but it could be better”, and that’s not too bad, because I absolutely agree. Improving my writing is one of the things I’m hoping to acheive through this blog. When we got home, I’d earned some major brownie points with mum, which is always nice.

Let’s hope I can keep this up.

Shouting into the vacuum.

Every Monday for the past few weeks, I’ve consistently come online for the sole purpose of finding a new youtube video for the complex, thought provoking fun guaranteed by youtube channel ‘isthistom’; an extension of the riddle site This Is Not Tom (TiNT for short).

I encourage anyone who enjoys puzzles (and has a lot of time on their hands) to visit the site. It’s an addiction I’m in no hurry to break. (For help, visit the unofficial forums).

While the weekly puzzles in themselves are, as far as I’m concerned, nothing short of genius, the most fascinating part about this website is the progressing story that ties it all together. After solving each string of clues, followers are lead to a chapter of a story, which becomes clearer and infinitely more real with each passing week. I’ll avoid going into details of the story here, and suggest you visit the site to find out more.

What I wanted to write about today was the chapter released four weeks ago; which I believe was the sixth instalment of this gripping tale. Specifically, I wanted to point out this section of it:

So, like, imagine some girl who writes in her little unread blog, right? She writes, and no one comments, and she wonders if anyone reads it, and she looks at her site stats and finds that most of the few readers find her on the 37th page of google results for small town kitten or whatever, that her blog is only attracting people obsessively interested in kittens living in small towns, and even though the lack of readership is terribly, oppresively depressing, she keeps blogging. This girl, she can make her voice hearable but cannot make it heard. This sweet little girl – who has friends, who harbours crushes, who worries about homework, who knows that talking without being heard is sadder and more poignant than silence – heroically overfills survey memes with the minutiae of her life. And then I ride these details to the NutraSweet high of feelingreallyfeeling [as we subjects used to say] her life. And only because she continued on shouting to the vacuum.

I wanted to point this out, partially, to give spotlight to the wonderful story written by John Green. (Author of Looking For Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. I bought copies of all three online.) This ongoing story has been described as his latest novel and anyone up-to-date with the TiNT riddles will know what I mean when I say that it’s difficult to know for sure whether this is a work of fiction or if it’s a true story (or maybe even both).

Mainly, though, I wanted to post that passage of his writing on my blog because I’d imagine it rings true to a lot of my potential readers, as it does for me. I’d imagine a lot of you have blogs of your own, and can understand the feeling of talking unheard. And while the lack of readership can at times make me lose the motivation, I intend to continue shouting to the vacuum.

Slowing Down.

My mum and I were watching a Charmed season 3 DVD, because for the first time in a while we’re both home at the same time. We used to watch the show together all the time but haven’t in a few years now, so we were enjoying it. Then dad walks in, decides he doesn’t want to watch Charmed and changes the channel to watch the latest weather reports in LA.

We live in Australia.

I’m a little annoyed.

Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to update this blog since it’s been a few days since my last post. I’ve mostly been spending my holidays sleeping in and catching up with friends. I spent Saturday at friend C’s house, because she planned a dinner party. It was just eight of us there, and the dress code for the night was “Black and white and ties”. There’s nothing better than having eight kids wearing ties, sitting around a dinner table.

We felt kind of old.

We baked cookies, and everyone brought a home cooked meal to add to the table (except for me, because I can’t cook and store-bought lasagne seemed a kinder choice for my friends). After adoring her cat, playing Mario Cart on her Wii, making fools of ourselves on stepmania and scarfing down dinner, we decided we’d like to be outside. It was 9PM. We took a candle, placed it on the pavement and sat around it in a circle, telling ghost stories and trying to scare each other.

Every time a car drove past, we looked up and tried to imagine what the driver thought we were doing. It was good fun.

Anyway, I’m taking a break today and just sitting home, waiting for dad to stop watching the French news and let us watch Charmed again.

He doesn’t speak a word of French.

In 5th grade I wrote a story…

Back when I was in fifth grade, my teacher made each student in the class write a story, which we would then read to one of the Prep kids as a treat (Prep, for anyone wondering, is the ‘preparatory year’ before year one here in Australia).

I wrote (and illustrated) a heart-wrenching story about a lost puppy who had to find his way home. I can’t remember the exact details of the story, but I remember feeling immensely proud. The only problem: I couldn’t think of a title.

My fifth-grade friends were all already finished with their stories and ready to present them! I needed to think quick. And then it came to me. I titled my story: “LOST”.

My bubble was burst, however, when the kids in class saw my title and laughed. I can still hear them taunting me with “‘Lost’?! What a stupid name for a story!” I was crushed.

A year later, Australian television was graced with the first season of hit series “Lost”, which quickly gained a massive following and suddenly, my fifth grade book title didn’t seem stupid anymore .

Birthday Presents.

I’m inherently awful at shopping for birthday presents. It takes me hours of aimless wandering through a large shopping center to decide on one item that the person I’m shopping for might enjoy. These days, I’m usually spared the torture of trying to find the perfect gift, because a group of friends and I have gotten into the habit of pooling our money to get one great present, which the birthday boy or girl is guaranteed to enjoy more than a few small individually bought presents.

It started two years ago when friend A’s birthday was coming up, and we knew she wanted a digital camera though she didn’t dare ask for it. A large group of us chipped in and raised about $200, bought a great camera in red (her favourite colour), and surprised her with it on her birthday.

Since then, we’ve surprised friends with iPods, Jewellery, Phones, and even tickets to the Australian Open.
Whenever we know a friend wants something, we make every effort to get it for them, regardless of price.
It sounds like a lot, but having 20 – 30 people chipping in $5 – $10 dollars a couple of times a year to make good friends happy isn’t nearly as hard on the wallet as it might sound.

Today, friend C, friend R and I met up at the local shopping center to buy friend T, whose birthday is coming up, some colourful jewellery we knew she’d really enjoy.

It ended up taking us almost 3 and a half hours, because we stopped to buy ourselves ice-cream cones at the food court, and ran into a few friends we stopped to talk to (and one teacher we tried to avoid). Stopping to try on bizzarre glasses and hats might also have added to how long we took, but it’s hard to say for sure.

Holidays!

Today’s the first day of my school holidays. Term one flew by ridiculously fast, but I got really tired of it really quickly. I’m having trouble looking forward to a two week break because when I think about it, I have a stack of holiday homework to do and I’ll be back at school again before I know it. I know, I know. I’m being way too optimistic.

I was planning to do something with friends A and N today, but friend A had to go to work at the last minute, so we calld it off. I’ve been at home watching re runs of That 70’s Show instead.

Two friends who I get together with a couple of time every holidays, C and K, are both unavailable for the next two weeks. C will be in Canberra, and K will be in Adelaide.

So I’m trying to plan something with friends R, T, Y and H. We thought we might go to the city to watch a movie and kill time. A few other friends have their birthday’s coming up, so I thought I might visit them. I’d tell you their initials too, but I’ve already used an unnecessary amount of them already and if I’m getting confused, I can only imagine what you’re going through.

I apologize for putting you through that ordeal.