24. Happy Halloween.

I’ve never really been big on halloween. I’ve never dressed up in costume, or gone trick or treating.
I mean, I HAVE dressed up for school plays and whatnot, and I frequently demand candy from strangers for no particular reason.
I’ve just never done those things on the 31st of October.
Today was no different.
And as I gathered today, a surprising majority of my friends are in the same boat.
The closest I’ve come to celebrating halloween was one time a few years ago when mum brought home a witch costume.
It would’ve been great, but my older brother wanted to wear it instead.
So I didn’t really celebrate it that year, either, though it was completely worth it to see him in a dress.

I do however enjoy the selection of movies that are played this time of year, horror movie fanatic that I am. I believe I was first introduced to the magic that is the Nightmare on Elm Street series a few years ago today.

I haven’t gotten around to watching any horror movies today just yet.
Which is a pity, considering it’s 11.56 PM

You know, I think I’ll run off and watch Poltergeist right now.

23. Nonsensical Ramble #7

Hah. I just got an email from a friend saying something along the lines of:

“9/10 people (82%) on the list went to primary school with us!”

I think I teared up a little. Generally, I wouldn’t be quite so amused by a… mathematical error. But this is a particularly intelligent friend, and the mistake is completely out of character. Which makes it all the more hilarious.

Speaking of statistics, I looked over my blog stats just now. I’ve been getting a really steady zig-zagging pattern, followed by a sudden peak, which then settled right back down to the same zig-zagging pattern.
With the peak right in the middle, it kind of looks like the stats are trying to give me the finger.
Not that I’m paranoid about a line graph holding a grudge against me.

…Clearly, I’ve got nothing to say today.

I’m off to watch today’s episode of Heroes.

22. How do you LOSE a pringle?

Argh.
(It’s the closest way to express how I’m feeling without being grammatically incorrect.)

To distract myself from events that are leaving me quite distraught, I’ll write about something that happened a little while ago.

My older brother did something, I forget what, that irritated me.
He often irritates me, and my general response is to threaten to throw something at him.
Just whatever I’m holding at the time is usually sufficient.
Not that I actually throw it at him, the threat seems to do its job.

Except last week, when I threw a pen at him.
He was walking away from me, and it him him square in the face.
Instead of getting angry, though, he was genuinely impressed by my aim.

Today, while he was being his annoying self, I was eating pringles.
The conversation went something along the lines of:

“Shut up, or I’ll throw a pringle at you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Want a bet?”

And I threw the pringle at him.

“Mum! She’s throwing pringles at me!”
“ONE. I threw ONE pringle at you.”
“Mum!”
“It was a SINGLE PIRNGLE!”

And that, ladies and gents, is the delightful world of today’s youth.

21. More on school.

I was supposed to have three tests today.
The first was surprisingly easy.
The second… well. The questions I studied for were easy, but the ones I didn’t study for? Not so much. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

And the third, heh…

I’m one of four leaders at our school. And being a leader definitely has its perks.
Badges, meetings, being involved in school events, being in ‘the know’, organising things, excursions, speeches, the things you’d expect a school leader to do, really. It’s definitely made my year a whole lot more interesting.
But it has other good points, too.
We can be late for class (or skip it entirely) without worry because teachers tend to give us the benefit of the doubt.
It’s not something we usually do, because the kids voted us in to be good leaders and all. And we wouldn’t want to let anyone down.
Still, with the year coming to an end… we talked about it, and decided that it’d be a shame not to take advantage of these benefits while we still can.

Which is why anyone who looks close enough will notice that the four of us seem to have meetings only during classes we dislike.

I think we’ve let the power get to our heads.

20. A rant on school.

This morning, I had a math test I was dreading.
My post from yesterday sums up the way I chose to prepare for it.
It turned out to be much easier than I had expected, and I was relieved.
I was looking forward to finishing off one more test tomorrow, and being done with tests for the rest of the week.

But no, just now I learned that I have three different tests tomorrow. Three. And what am I doing instead of studying? I’m blogging on wordpress and letting mself be distracted by friends on MSN.

These aren’t even our official end of year exams. We have, if I’m not mistaken, 53 more days till the end of school. 53 more opportunites for teachers to spring exams on us. It happens every year, and every year I’m surprised by it.

I think I just needed to rant.

19. A Day in the Life of a Procrastinator.

9:00 AM: Wake up. Realise that you have an important test first thing the next morning, but hey, that’s okay, you have all day to study. Proceed to make a cup of tea and watch some Sunday morning cartoons.

11:00 AM: Yikes, that Simpson’s marathon was longer than you thought, and the test is now two hours closer. Still, you’ve got heaps of time. Go and make yourself some breakfast.

11:30 AM: Good call. Breakfast was delicious. You should buckle down and study soon, especially considering you’ve got to catch up on a week’s worth of homework (that you put off doing) in order to pass. But it’s a hot summer’s day. No one expects you to start studying before taking a quick shower. You should go do that.

12.30 PM: Looks like you decided to wash your hair and blow dry it. And you spent a little longer in the water than you should’ve, but it’s understandable on a hot day. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t planning on going out today, it’s important to be well groomed. Now get studying! But wait, mum’s gotten back from the shops. You should be a good kid and help her with the bags.

12:45 PM: Hey, mum bought lunch.

1:30 PM: Mm, lunch was great. The conversation around the table was quite interesting, too. You probably ought to go and continue that conversation with dad, it’d be plain rude if you didn’t. You’ve still got enough time to study your brains out.

2:45 PM: It’s not your fault that the conversation with dad turned into a table tennis match. You just couldn’t have seen that coming. Besides, there was no way you could turn down his challenge. It’s fine, though. He doesn’t need to know about tomorrow’s test, you start studying soon and you can still ace it. Wait, there’s some news on the Presidential Campaign that sounds interesting. Watch it; it’s edumacational.

4:30 PM: What? How did you manage to go from watching the news to watching a documentary on drug addiction? Still, the documentary was facinating. And you picked up a few things, too. Sure, you lost a bit more time, but your parents can’t complain about you gaining some insight into why you shouldn’t do drugs. So you should finally go study and– what? Oh, someone’s called you? Well, go pick up the phone. A quick conversation shouldn’t make much of a difference.

5:45 PM: Hey, you’re a teenager. Hour long phone calls are completely normal. You could hardly stop talking to a friend in need, could you? But wait! Your friend reminded you of something! There was an assignment due tomorrow that you were meant to work on, as well as studying for the test. You figure you can finish off the assignment and still have enough time to study.

6:15 PM: Hey, you managed to finish off that assignment in half an hour! Well done to you! Pat yourself on the back for your hard work. But before cracking down on studying, I think you’ve earned yourself a short break. You should jump on the internet and blog about your day.

6.45 PM: Okay, so you got a little distracted by some hilarious youtube videos, but you’re back on track now. Off to study, but hang on. There’s a sketch show on TV with Cal Wilson and Arj Barker in it. That’s sure to be full of laughs. You haven’t studied yet, but come on. You’ve got to watch this.

7.30 PM: Whoa! You completely forgot, Sunday at 7.30 you always watch Australian Idol. You haven’t missed an episode yet! There’s no way you can miss it, especially not on Rolling Stones week. What’s another hour?

9:45 PM: Okay, there’s no excuse for what you just spent the last two-and-a-quarter hours doing. It was completely unnecessary, and you’re above it. Your time’s running out really fast now, and you know you just have to sit down and study as much as you can. But… bugger. You forgot to eat dinner and you’re feeling pretty hungry. Go eat quickly so you can get to studying!

10:30 PM: Why did you want to eat something that would take that long to prepare? You’re ridiculous. Still, there’s nothing on TV to watch, no friends to talk to on the phone, you’re no longer hungry. You can still study enough to scrape away with a pass. But it’s really dark now, you had better go and make sure the front door is locked. You don’t want a repeat of what happened last time.

12:45 AM: …Oh sh**.

18. Aliens.

You know those crazy people who claim to have seen UFO’s?
My dad is one of them.

He’s a security patrol officer, and he works shifts from 6 in the afternoon to 6 in the morning the next day. He’s been working the job for a few years now, and it wouldn’t be too far off to call him nocturnal.
Recently, he came home after work claiming to have seen strange lights in the sky in the early morning.

He said they were three very bright orange circles flying in a row, one behind another. Then one circle flew off in one direction till he couldn’t see it anymore, but the other two circles stayed perfectly in line. He said he watched them till they all eventually dissapeared. He couldn’t work out what they were, and he went so far as to call the police. He’s convinced it was a spaceship of some sort.

Now, before my brother and I were born, he served in the Air Force for fifteen years so he’s usually quite good at identifying flying objects, and before the incident he didn’t believe in aliens himself, which is why I find it so strange.

I’m not sure what to believe. Either aliens do visit the earth, or my dad’s going crazy.

I suppose they each have their benefits.

Still, it shouldn’t be too ‘out there’ to beleive that aliens exist, should it?
The universe is massive, and assuming that no life exists outside of our world is kind of ridiculous.

Do you remember the first time you heard that people used to believe the earth was the center of the universe? I remember scoffing, and thinking “Wow, people used to think the sun revolved around us? We were really conceited.”

Sometimes I think that, a long time from now, people will look back on our time and scoff the same way.
“Wow, they thought that no life existed outside of their world?”

So there you go.
Yes, I suppose I do believe in aliens, in that the universe is too big to rule out the possibility.
Whether or not they visit the earth is a different matter entirely.

I used to find the idea of aliens scary.
Not like E.T, but actual, intelligent, “I will destroy you” kind of aliens.
But then I thought about it.
What if aliens didn’t exist? What if we’re actually alone in the universe?
What if humans were, in fact, the most intelligent beings in existence?
If our violent, corrupt little race was the height of evolution?
Now that’s kind of terrifying.

I don’t generally spend a lot of time thinking about aliens, and am quite aware that I come across as marginally insane in this post.

Still, you’ve gotta wonder.

17. Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“A serial Killer with a heart . . . be greatful it’s not yours.”

I couldn’t think of anything to blog about. Again. But I’ve got the book Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay in front of me right now, and that seemed as good a title as any.

Honestly, I don’t think I’d ever have read this book if it wasn’t for the TV show, which I think is brilliant. I was so completely hooked by the show that someone bought me the book.
The book, too, was brilliant.

What I love about the show is that it’s kind of like a really clever horror movie. And anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I have an unusual facination with horror movies. I once tried to list all the horror movies I’d seen (because I do love making lists) and counted 58. I’m sure the number’s risen considerably since then.

My favourite horror movies?
The Silence of the Lambs is always great.
Oh, and I enjoyed the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
The original version of The Amytiville Horror was quite good, I thought.
And I suppose if you consider Sweeney Todd a horror movie, it’d have to be up here.
The Sixth Sense was more a thriller than a horror movie, but I still love the story.
The goriest movies I’ve seen are, by far, the Saw movies.
Though the Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn’t too bad either.

My least favourite horror movies?
Dracula wasn’t particularly scary at all.
Friday the 13th certainly didn’t live up to my expectations.
Freddy Vs Jason was a joke.
I Know What You Did Last Summer. Enough said.
Psycho. I only watched it because it’s a classic horror movie, but after watching, I couldn’t work out why that was.
The Grudge. Maybe it’s because I watched the english version, and I hear the Japanese version is much scarier. Still, it was pretty bad.
Jaws was a yawn. I’m sorry. It was a shark on a boat.

Why did I decide to rant on about horror movies? I haven’t a clue.
It’s 11.19 PM and I’m having trouble thinking straight. Though I doubt the time has anything to do with it.
I’ve been really absent minded all day.

This morning, I tried to stir milk with a fork, and it’s all been downhill from there.

16. Random Tangents.

A word of warning, purely because it seemed the humane thing to do: The following post is a string of random school related tangents, and will likely result in your brain melting into a pile of sludge.
The daredevils and risktakers among readers may continue.

All the kids in my creative expression class have been writing poems for the last three weeks.
Well, we’re supposed to have been writing poems.
I, however spent most of the allocated time spinning a pen between my fingers.

Then dropping it.
Then picking it up.
Then dropping it.
Then picking it up.
Then dropping it.
Then working out where I could get a new pen because my last one broke.

(For details on how I spend my math and english lessons, please see above.)

Productive, no?

But I managed to scribble a poem today that made my teacher chuckle, which I can only assume is a good thing. It was titled ‘Underage Thinking’ and it rhymed.
I will not be typing the poem here.
Wow, I could almost hear your sigh of relief.

Before writing the poem, though, I had what you might call a ‘falling out’ with a friend.
(Well, it wasn’t so much a falling out as it was an elaborate joke.)
We somehow came to the conclusion that, in order to be friends again, we had to start over, as if we were strangers. I took this literally.
I walked outside, then back in again, this time introducing myself to everyone as “Buddy, the new Australian exchange student.” For the rest of the day I had to maintain a heavily exaggerated Australian accent every time this friend was around. Towards the end of the day, though, my friend had noticed some inconsistencies in Buddy’s story. And accent. During eighth period, an interrogation took place.

For the record, no, our teacher did not approve.

Somehow, another friend decided that she too, was an exchange student. She was English, and her name was Queen Elizabeth. Her accent threw off mine, and eventually Buddy had to leave and make way for a second English exchange student, Marie Antoinette.
(Yes, yes, I know the actual historical figure was French.)
By the end of the day, there was a Scottish man in a kilt, a small Irish man named Leprechaun O’Lachlan and an assortment of multi-cultural characters with questionable accents.

Within those fifty minutes, a large portion of my class had quite literally laughed till they cried.

Again, no, our teacher did not approve.

Still, this is the sort of teacher that lets the class get away with most anything. But in a good way. If that makes any sense at all. We like this sort of teacher.
You’d have to be a good teacher to let kids get away with murder and still ensure they all know everything they need to know to get respectable results.

Oh, speaking of segways, I finished reading Looking For Alaska today.
I thought it was brilliant. If stupid old life didn’t keep getting in my way, I would’ve finished it much sooner.
I haven’t been that determined to finish a book since the final instalment of Harry Potter came out and I made a bet with someone that I could finish reading it first.
I lost that bet.
Still, I think eight solid hours of reading was a good effort.

But I would’ve spent that time reading regardless of the bet. I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter; who isn’t? Though I was very dissapointed to hear that the movie release was postponed. Oh, and Dumbledore being gay? Didn’t see that one coming.

What I am seeing at the moment is the Ellen Degeneres show. Wait, that sounded awkward. I’m watching the Ellen Degeners show. Seeing the show implies something different entirely. Ellen’s currently interviewing the star of Pushing Daisies. Which I’ve never seen, but plan to start watching as soon as it’s made available in Australia.

I think I might cut my ramble short and give the show the attention it deserves.

But how does one go about ending a string of random thoughts? Maybe I ought to just cut it in the middle of a sentence, and leave the audience wondering about my final, unfinished thought.

No, I wouldn’t be that cruel. I think I’ve worked out how to finish this. In fact, this final statement might make the rest of this post actually worth while.

All I have to say is

15. Looking for Alaska

I’m currently reading Looking for Alaska by John Green. I’m on page 93, and am not willing to put it down. 15 days, and already I find myself hating the daily blogging idea. It’s taking away my precious reading time.

The only way to work my way around it? Keep this post short.

How short?

This short.