54. Ah, Sunday.

I watched Made of Honour today. I don’t think I want to watch any more Patrick Dempsey romantic comedies after this one. It’s nothing against him, I just feel like I’ve watched the same movie repeatedly.

Look! A subject change!

Apparently I’ve lost 10 kgs since the last time I weighed myself. It’s worrying that I didn’t notice.

Ah, whatever.

53. Shopping!

I apologise for the misleading enthusiasm contained within that title, I’m really not a huge fan of shopping.
Actually, I’m not a fan of shopping at all. Give me a pair of jeans and some T-shirts, and I’ll be content for a long, long time.

Today happened to be one of those rare occassions when all four members of my family (my parents and older brother) were home during the day and had no other plans. They all wanted to go shopping and mum managed to talk me into going along. It actually wasn’t that bad; for someone completely void of a fashion sense, I actually managed to find some clothes I like that my mum approved of.

(Not too long ago, my parents helped organise a dinner for a club they belong to. Being someone who doesn’t usually put much thought into what she wears, about ten minutes before we had to leave for the event I walked up to my mum and asked if it was a casual thing, or if I would have to be dressed up. My mum responded with “No, no, it’s just a casual thing.”
It took me two minutes to throw on jeans and my favourite shirt. I walked out of my room, and my mum took one look at me and went “Oh! It’s not THAT casual!”
Apparently my idea of casual was a step down from being buck naked.)

Back to today: I have a question for any female readers. What’s the appeal of tight jeans? I don’t understand it. Today was the first time in years that I wore a pair and it wasn’t too tight or anything, I could zip it up without any struggle, I just wasn’t comfortable in them. I’m more than happy wearing my baggy, loose fitting pair that I feel I can actually walk around in.
My mum ended up buying this tight, low riding (don’t even get me started on low riders) pair of jeans for $80, so now I feel obligated to wear it around.

I ended up buing a fair few shirts, a jacket, pants, a pair of shoes and a bag, so I’m not complaining.

We finished off by going to eat lunch at a restaraunt where my dad knows the head chef.

I had a massive serving of chicken parmigiana and had a hilarious conversation with my brother about how impractical it was to have two straws in your drink.

We came home and (after first having to model all my clothes for the parents) I spent an hour and half playing play station games with my brother.

I think I may have to rethink my opinion on shopping.

52. Oh dear.

Today was report writing day at school, so we all got a day off, which is great.
Pity I didn’t do much at all.

Slept from 12 AM to 12 PM, woke up, sat in front of the TV/Computer/Some screen or another for another 12 hours.

Loving the long weekend, though.

Don’t feel like typing much.

51. School and detention.

I had my first detention of the year today. I tried to spend the hour reading ‘An Abundance of Katherines’ by John Green while Friend One who was sitting next to me drew a massive “Swirl of Doom” into his textbook. It was quite impressive.
I couldn’t help but notice a few “What’s she doing here?” looks being thrown my way; I was voted in to be a school leader this year so I spent the last 12 months being quite the goody-two-shoes.

It wasn’t all bad, though. The teacher who gave us the detention is really nice, and she felt so bad about it that she gave us lollypops. That was a first.

My english class was pretty hilarious, too. Our teacher gave us a few weeks to work on something which I’d ignored entirely, so I tried to fake some answers on the spot. I think she believed me for a while, pity she asked us to hand the work in. It wasn’t just me, though. It was quite obvious that none of us had bothered with the work and I can’t remember exactly why it was, but I spent most of that lesson laughing.

School finished well though, with my teacher letting me and four friends sit outside and play cards while the rest of the class watched the new Get Smart.

50. Bother.

The 50 day anniversary of this blog fell on a particularly bad day because:

1. I got my first detention all year.
2. I forgot to go to my first detention all year.
3. I got my second detention all year.
4. I lost my USB for the fourth or fifth time all year.
5. My USB wasn’t found and returned to me for the first time ever.
(It had 4GB of space, a hundred or so songs, school assignments and tons of pictures of family and friends on it.)
6. A friend lost her phone.
7. Plans to go to a different friend’s house were cancelled due to reasons I can’t begin to explain.
8. It was thirty degrees.
(A quick check with a temperature converter tells me that’s equivalent to 86 degress Farenheit.)
9. I had to sit in my tuition class for 90 minutes.

In hindsight, it wasn’t all that bad but it was just one of those days where nothing seems to go the way you hoped.

49. Teachers.

I feel the need to mention that although you may find it informative, this post is more a teenage rant than it is advice for future educators.

I spent a considerable portion of my day complaining with my classmates about our teachers, and I can’t seem to get my mind off the topic.

Teachers absolutely have to be organised. When the person who’s supposed to be educating us forgets to turn up to our class, doesn’t prepare work for us to do and forgets to give us proper notice about upcoming exams, it’s hard not to get annoyed. In the past, I’ve had teachers who quite plainly made up the class work as they went. They clearly hadn’t planned out any lessons and merely threw an assignment at us everytime report writing day came close.
The organised teachers, on the other hand, were great. They knew exactly what their classes were doing or were going to be doing at any given time, they prepared assignments and assessment tasks to keep us busy and generally put effort in to make sure we actually learned something.

Though my friends may flay me alive for say so, I really don’t mind teachers who are mean as long as they can teach. I’m sure we’ve all had experience with the teachers who seem to scream at people more than they talk. I’ve come across a few who, although I wouldn’t describe them as wonderful people, I can appreciate them because they know their respective subjects thoroughly and make us work hard enough to ensure we know the subject as well.

It hasn’t been all bad, though. I’ve had a fair few nice, laid back teachers as well. These are the ones with a sense of humour, take the time to talk to their students and actually get to know them. These teachers may not have been strict, but we worked hard anyway because we respected them.
This can backfire horribly, though. I’ve had teachers who tried so hard to be nice that they let the class get away with murder. We’d spend every lesson ignoring the work because the teachers wouldn’t dare give us a detention, and as a result we all did shockingly when it came to exams.
Then there are the teachers who try too hard to be funny and try too hard to relate to the students. I really don’t think I need to add anything else to that.

I’ve just realised that everything I said is, in short: You have to be organised, it’s okay to be a *@!#$ if you know your subject, be nice but not too nice and be funny but don’t try too hard.

Sorry, this probably won’t be of much use to anyone.
Sure was fun to type, though.

48. Birthdays are a bother.

I’m terrible at remembering birthdays. Always have been.
Fortunately, we now have facebook to make all our lives easier.
Not only can I remember a friend’s birthday by glancing at my homepage, but I can also stay updated on their relationship status and poke them at will.
Ah, facebook, how did we ever live without you.

Still, the worst part about birthdays are, without exception, presents. I know a lot of you will disagree, but I cannot, for the life of me, give someone a decent gift.
Don’t get me wrong, I try really, really hard to give someone a thoughtful gift they can appreciate. Usually, though, I can’t think of anything that seems fitting and more often than not I end up handing the birthday boy (or girl, as the case may be) a $20 note in a hallmark card.

Two of my closest friends were born four days apart, so buying gifts for them is exceedingly difficult. Their birthdays are coming up very soon. One of these friends has been one of my best buds since 5th grade, and if I remember correctly, over all the years, the gifts I’ve given her are: Food, money, a teddy bear and half a dozen Krispy Kremes, so this year I’d like to give her something nice.

I’m not overly fond of receiving birthday gifts either, believe it or not. I sincerely appreciate the thought behind most gifts, which makes me feel obligated to use/display them, even if I don’t particularly want to.

Don’t get me wrong, though, I love the idea of a birthday. It’s great in theory.
It’s the one day of the year where all the people you love come together, have fun, give you gifts and celebrate you for doing nothing more than being born.

I really shouldn’t complain.

47. I believe I’m growing skeptical of cynicism.

I’ve recently been introduced to a channel on TV named Hits.
This may well be the most wonderful thing to happen to my television life since the discovery of Foxtel (that’s the Australian equivalent of TiVo, for those of you playing at home).
As a result, I’ve been recording re runs of Dharma & Greg on a weekly basis.

Hilarious as the show is, I’ve also come to really enjoy the “Vanity Cards” they flash at the end of each episode.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Chuck Lorre places a vanity card at the end of each episode of the shows he writes. The vanity cards are his “sporadic attempt to share his personal beliefs with millions of people (hence the term “vanity”).”

I found Vanity Card #7 particularly interesting, and I’d like to post it here.

I believe that the very act of believing in something causes us to distance ourselves from that thing, thus a duality is created: oneself and the thing in which one believes. Now since we all know that in order to fully understand a thing one must be that thing — walk a mile in its shoes so to speak — it seems obvious that the state of believing in something inevitably causes us to not truly understand that thing in which we believe. This noncomprehension leads to all sorts of difficulties. “I believe in love” has a better than even chance of leading to divorce, while “I believe in God” seems to end in variations on the Spanish Inquisition. But — and it’s a big but — if one were love, one couldn’t help but be affectionate and caring towards oneself and others. If one were God, one would act toward all beings and all things as if they were one’s own creations. And that, my friends, is the secret of life in a two-second vanity card. Of course, the secret could also be “Sit, Ubu, sit.” We have to keep an open mind.

46. In which I wonder about writing.

I don’t suggest you read this post, it’s mostly just me taking an opportunity to think out loud. Or at least, the equivalent of thinking out loud on a blog.

I was just watching Nim’s Island, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
I watch a lot of movies (see “Movies?” page) and I don’t often grow fond of a character as quickly as I did with Nim. I guess I’m a sucker for the young protagonists.
I was just thinking about how likeable this character was, when the movie reached the point where her father got shipwrecked. I assumed it would all turn out okay in the end because, well, it’s a children’s movie but I couldn’t help but wonder: how much grief can a writer put their characters through?

On those odd occassions where I’m forced to spew out a story for a school assignment, I tend to go straight to throwing obstacles in my character’s way without getting too attached. If, on the other hand, I create a character I grow to like, I make sure he or she lives happily ever after. Otherwise, I’d feel something along the lines of hurting my own child.

I guess that’s the secret to good writing, though. Create wonderful characters the reader can’t help but fall in love with, then challenge them, hurt them and if it improves the plot, kill them.

Not too long ago, award winning author Melina Marchetta came to talk at my school. She said that one of the critical things in writing was to give your character a ‘Super Want’. A goal that the character spends most of the book trying to achieve. She also said something that I’ve been hearing all through my school life: every story must have a conflict.
I’m sure you’re sitting there thinking “no duh” (or perhaps something more eloquent) and usually I would too. But at that moment, it struck me as odd that from a young age we’re all taught that conflict is critical to make something interesting. I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with holding this belief because it’s been proven true time and time again.

I just find it interesting is all.

45. It’s Friday!

I love Fridays.
I can’t begin to tell you just how much.
There are no words to describe my adoration for this day.
The week’s over.
No classes.
No pull-out-my-hair frustrating teachers.
No schedule.
The weekend to look forward to.

It’s brilliant.

I’m so overwhelmed with the idea of getting this wonderful (albeit short) break that I couldn’t possibly bring myself to write beyond this point.