Recap.

Last night, I managed to completely miss earth hour. I was excited about it and fully wanted to take part in it, but I lost track of time. At 10PM I looked away from the computer screen thinking “Huh, wasn’t I waiting for something?”

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

On a different note, I’ve been ignoring schoolwork entirely this weekend. Next week is our last week of term, and then we’ll finally get our two week break. It’s only the first term and I’m already tired of it. I find it sad that the older I get, the less I enjoy school. I remember a time when I was genuinely excited about learning. I’d spend extra time at home studying, I’d finish homework ASAP and I’d talk mum’s ear off about some assignment or another that I was really looking forward doing. These days, if it wasn’t for my friends, I don’t think I’d bother getting out of bed at all. A secure “furture” just doesn’t feel like motivation enough. My progressively declining grades are a testament to that. It’s not that school’s a bad place to be. I mean, as far as schools go, I’m in a pretty brilliant one. I’ve got decent teachers and I’m doing subjects I chose to do. It just isn’t interesting enough anymore.

Or maybe watching Cloverfield has just put me in a weird mood.

Work Experience.

It’s compulsory for all Year 10’s at my school to do a week of work experience before the end of the year, so I’ve been scrounging around, looking for my first job. After nagging mum for weeks to try and get me a job at the hospital she works in (she’s a psychiatrist, and I’m interested in neurology), she finally came back with a solid ‘NO’. A hospital is no place for children.

After asking around and taking our family dentist into consideration as a possible employer, it finally occurred to me to ask for a job at my old primary school. Two friends and I walked down to the place after school yesterday, since we got off early. One of these friends went to this primary school with me. We saw a few familiar teachers from back when we were fifth graders there. Neither of us were recognised, though, but that was understandable. Nothing’s confirmed yet, but I’m feeling fairly confident about getting a job there.

I couldn’t believe how small the primary school was. I go past the place all the time, but I hadn’t been inside the buildings for over four years. I mean, everything was more or less the same, except, the rooms were narrower and the roof was shorter. It felt bizzarre, walking past certain spots, turning to the friend who’d never been there before and saying
“HEY! That over there is the spot where two friends and I met up every lunch time for our Harry Potter Club back in fifth grade! We had a flag and everything!”

I don’t have the job yet, but I’m really excited about it. I think I’m counting my eggs before they hatch, or possibly putting all my eggs into one basket. I’m not entirely sure what the most accurate metaphor would be, but I’m certain it involves eggs.

I imagine working with primary school kids would drive me insane after a while, but just for a week of work experience, with a good friend there with me? It sounds like so much fun.

You, our humble audience…

…you have come to see! What it’s like when people can’t pee free!

Three weeks in, and being a part of our school’s production of Urinetown is already getting to me. I can’t get the silly song out of my head.

I got to school at 8.10 this morning, only to find that my first period teacher was away and I’d missed out on a rare opportunity to sleep in.Then, instead of walking home at 2.25, I had to stick around till 5.30 for Urinetown rehearsals. Afterwards, instead of calling it a day and heading home, I had to stick around until 7 because I’d volunteered to help with the parent-teacher interviews we had today.

Now I’m finally home and, rather than doing homework, looking for a job for work experience, studying for an end-of-term science test we have in two days or writing practice essay’s for next weeks SAC, I decided to come to my blog and have a whinge again.

Sorry.

Quick Update.

Today’s my dad’s 50th birthday. Because of school and production rehearsals, my brother and I didn’t get home till 6, and mom didn’t get home from worktill 6.30. We had a little celebration at home, and gave him presents. (A massive beer mug from me, and Andre Rieu CD’s from my brother). Right now, we’re heading to dinner even though none of us are feeling the least bit hungry.

Told you it’d be quick.

I’m Addicted to Brain Crack.

If any of my readers are nerdfighters, (I realise the chances are slim to none), you too may have stumbled upon this brilliant video by ZeFrank which introduces us to the fascinating idea of Brain Crack.

Basically, the theory is that the best way to not run out of ideas is to just not execute them, and tell yourself that you don’t have the time or resources to do them right. Because “No matter how bad things get, at least you still have those good ideas that you’ll get to later“. That way, you just keep hanging on to these ideas in your head, like brain crack.

The longer you hang on to them, the higher your expectation of it will become, the more impossible it will be to achieve and the more dissapointed you become with the result.

So the best way to avoid getting addicted to brain crack is to get your ideas out into the open as soon as possible, because “the guy who fails three times has three times the experience as the dreamer who never executed his idea”. (I’m paraphrasing here. The video really is much more entertaining than anything I could write.)

I’ve been using this blog as a medium to separate myself from my own brain crack, but I haven’t been doing a very good job of it. There’s a bunch of topics I’ve wanted to type here for a long time now, but I never get around to it. I always tell myself that it’ll take a long time to word my ideas the right way, and I couldn’t possibly get my thoughts across to people in one sitting, so it gets pushed further and further back on my list of priorities.

Today’s no different, really.

I’ll stop it here, because I’m itching to go back and watch CommunityChannel’s “We Just Touched Awkwardly” Song on youtube for the umpteenth time, because I haven’t had the best day and this cheered me right up.

Sick (and also, I’m here to stay).

I really don’t enjoy going out in the morning and having people ask me “What’s wrong?”, when the answer is “I’m sick”, because nine times out of ten I end up saying something more along the lines of  “I’b SHICK!”.
I wouldn’t mind having to say “I’b shick” so much if people understood what I was saying, and wouldn’t force me to scream out “CAND CHOO SHEE DAT I’B SCHICK?!” only an hourly basis.

Well, I didn’t actually scream at people, but I’m not feeling my best right now. Losing the ability to breathe through my nose does tend to make me grumpy.

I’ll move right away from that to happier topics now.
My family moved here to Australia from Sri Lanka seven years ago, and today our permanent residency visa was finally granted.  I’m not completely sure about how the system works, but I don’t think it usually takes that long. We came here because of mum’s job (she’s a doctor), and we couldn’t be granted permanent residency until she passed a particular exam, which she managed to do last year.

It’s really great to know that we’re no longer just temporary residents. We can stay as long as we like, and can become Australian citizens in the foreseeable future.

Exams and Earthquakes.

We felt an earthquake here in Melbourne just a few minutes ago.  It’s our second earthquake in less than two weeks, if I’m not mistaken. Which is ridiculous, because the last earthquake was the first one of that magnitude we’d felt since 2001. I don’t know for sure, but today’s earthquake definitely felt bigger than the last one.

I find it interesting though, that no one really reacted to this one. I mean, last time it happened, the general reaction was:
“THE FLOOR SHOOK?! OHMYGOD THE WORLD IS ENDING!”
This time the reactions were a little more sedate, more along the lines of:
“Haha, yeah, I felt it too.”

We only had one earthquake just a fortnight ago, but already we’re perfectly comfortable with the idea. I find it fascinating how quickly we get accustomed to these things.

What I originally wanted to blog about was that I did my first SAC (School Assesed Coursework) four weeks ago for my literature class, and we finally got our results today. I scored an ‘excellent’ which I must admit I’m fairly happy with.

I couldn’t enjoy it for too long though, considering I’ve got more tests and exams coming up very soon to worry about. Friend “C” came over to my house after school to try and study, but my brother and a handful of his friends were there already,  which distracted us completely so we ended up watching ‘Lie to Me’ and ‘Saw’ (the first) instead.

Still, what was easily the highlight of my day was the “Shave for the Cure” held at our ampetheatre afterschool. A good mate of mine, “A”, shaved her head and managed to raise thirteen-hundred dollars doing it. It was an awesome effort.

Severely Disctracted.

I’m currently talking to friend N online for the first time in weeks. She’s a ridiculously brilliant friend who moved overseas last year. Friend A is also in the conversation. The 3 of us have a running holiday tradition where we spend a day together, just the three of us, and cause some general mayhem. Because friend N moved overseas, we plan to carry on this tradition online. We haven’t got any definite plans yet, but we’re definitely having a fascinating conversation about it.

Blogging is distracting me from this conversation, which was distracting me from watching Doctor Who with my brother, which was distracting me from filling out my tax file application form for school, which was distracting me from studying for an exam, which was distracting me from doing my general homework tasks.

I realise how convoluted that is.

I’m going to try and complete all of these things in reverse order now. Wish me luck.

Play Rehearsals and People Watching.

Our school production this year is Urinetown. Because I’ve been on this ridiculous “give-everything-a-go” kick lately, I auditioned and somehow got a part. I’m only one of “The Poor”, and don’t have a very active role but today’s rehearsal kind of made me glad that I’m in it.

We all just sat in a circle and read through the script and listened to all the songs. Even though I didn’t have much to do because I don’t have any lines, I enjoyed it all the same. It’s a funny play, and it’s nice to finally know what the story’s about.

Of course, the only downside is staying back after school. School normally finishes at 2.25, but rehearsals start at 3.30 twice a week. I’m getting into the habit of walking down to the local shopping center with a group of friends after school to kill an hour before rehearsal starts. I find it interesting, because when we sit at the food court it gives me a chance to do some people watching. Just as we decided that we should be making our way back to school and started leaving the food court, we heard a loud noise and turned around to see that someone had fallen down. This person was eating with a large group, and while attempting to stand, had gotten himself tangled with the chairs somehow and fell hard. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so worrying. The poor guy couldn’t get up, and a lot of people rushed over to help. I left at that point, though, because it was getting kind of late and my friends wouldn’t let me linger any longer.

I didn’t get home till quarter past 6. Awful, awful timing because I have to write an english essay and have a maths test tomorrow that I’m overwhelmingly under-prepared for. Of course, after spending about half an hour “studying”, or rather, staring blankly at my math book, I decided to call it quits and jump online.

I know I’m going to pay for it soon.

At this point, I’m just hoping that doing math is like riding a bicycle, and the methods will just come to me when I look at the questions.

Ads and Shakespeare.

My mum’s watching the Ellen Degeneres Show on TV right now. She’s watching it on our new TV which is in the middle of the living room. Right next to it, we’ve got a dodgy old TV that my brother’s using to play some PlayStation 2 game. On the other side we’ve got the PC, which I never seem to leave.

So while mum’s watching, it cuts to an advertisement for pimple cream, and the first line is:
“Are you frustrated by your face?”
My brother and I started laughing at the same time, and couldn’t stop for a good half a minute at least.
Mum was turning her head from side to side trying to work out what was so funny.

Anyway, I just wanted to blog about a school excursion I had yesterday. Our school’s two Literature classes went to see The Taming of the Shrew at the Botanic Gardens. We caught the train at 6 in the afternoon, and got to the gardens at 7.30 to catch the play starting at 8.00. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. The play was easy to follow, the language was post-modern, the pop-culture references were funny and the bats flying over our heads added to the experience rather than take away from it.

There was a very cool vibe going in the gardens, and the atmosphere was great. Everyone was sitting really close together on picnic rugs, sharing food and chatting to strangers without worrying.

The play finished at 10.30, and because it was dark, we took a tram to the train station rather than walk. Friends R, B and S and I played games the whole way back, and scared more than one person off of the train.

It was 12.15AM when we got back to our suburb, which is definitely the latest I’ve been out for a school activity. I enjoyed watching disgruntled parents coming to pick up their kids. The whole night was great fun, and I’m hoping we get to do something like that again.

(The only downside was being completely unable to function at school today due to sleep deprivation.)