It’s been a busy week, but I can pretty well sum it up in three sentences:

1. I can’t wait for school to be over.
2. The weather here is ridiculous.
3. Okay, we’re recording.

The third one won’t make much sense to anyone, but I’m not in a mood to elaborate. (Don’t you hate it when people do that?)

Anyway, I’m going to jump ship completely and just say that I’ve started reading Lord of the Flies, and I’m not really enjoying it. I used to think that I loved all classics, but Grapes of Wrath proved me wrong. I barely read through a chapter before returning it to the library. It felt like too much work.

Meanwhile, I watched Across the Universe the other day and it’s re-kindled my love of the Beatles. I know a lot of people hated the movie because of its obviously weak plot line, but I really enjoyed it all the same. I’ve been in a bit of a Beatles-mania all weekend.

On a totally different note, I finally got my major assessment task for my public speaking class over and done with last week. I stood in front of the class and, by myself, spoke for ten minutes with the required powerpoint presentation running behind me. My teacher seemed genuinely impressed with it, and said some really flattering things about my “spectacular public speaking skills” and having “an engaging personality”. I was completely taken aback because this particular teacher is best known for his awful temper. It was nice, though. I’ve had heaps of kids running up to me and asking me if I’ll run for school captain next year. I think I just might.

I also got my final SAC for the year out of the way. I wrote a six-page long essay comparing “Amelie” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” for Lit. We were allowed to choose our own texts to study and, naturally, I chose two of my favourite films to make the task more enjoyable for myself. I hope I’m not counting my eggs before they’re laid (or my chickens before they’re hatched?) when I say I think I did pretty well on this one.

On Friday, there was also a maths test that I felt pretty good about. It’s been months since I felt this confident about a maths test (I’ve had below average grades all semester) but I think I’m working my way back up to my old standards.

Anyway, the point is that, even though I have no idea why my motivation dropped so drastically over the year and I still can’t wait for ‘09 to be over, last week was a good week and right now, I feel pretty good about where I’m at and what I’m heading for.

I was planning to relax for the next fortnight, but judging by the ongoing assault on my ears, my neighbours have bought a drum kit.

Although, while I was home alone yesterday I took the opportunity to blast my iPod and sing along loudly, despite having a voice akin to that guy from ‘Hannibal’, yeah, you know the one. The new drum kit may just be an act of retaliation.

I’m off to listen to Dave Melillo’s ‘Knights of the Island Counters’, which is quickly climbing the ranks on my list of favourite songs.

Bye!

In hindsight, playing hockey with the boys was probably a bad call.

I ran for the puck. He ran for the puck.
I focused on the puck. He focused on the puck.
I missed the puck. He ran forward. With full force.
His head.
My jaw.
My falling down.

I didn’t mind, though. I was on the ground for a second, then I jumped back up to the game, vaguely wondering why my mouth tasted so funny.

“AHH! You’re bleeding!”
“No, it couldn’t be that bad.”
“NO SERIOUSLY. YOU’RE BLEEDING!”
“Oh. Would you look at that. I suppose you’re right.”

Our phys ed teacher worked out that the boy’s head mashed the skin underneath my bottom lip far enough into my face that my teeth ripped through the skin and made two perfect teeth-marks on the outside of my face.
Basically, I bit myself inside-out. Or something to that extent.
I’m not feeling especially wordy at the moment.
After cleaning up the blood, getting an ice pack to hold on my jaw and assuring everyone that it didn’t hurt one bit, I spent the period freaking out friends with statements like:
“Hey. Right now, I could probably lick you without opening my mouth.”

Naturally, this all took place during first period.
Second period was spent madly studying for an upcoming maths exam.
Periods three and four are, usually, my favourite of the day; double literature is brilliant.
Of course, today we had an exam and spent the double period writing an analytical piece on Orwell’s ‘1984′.
Fifth period, lunch, was a much needed break that I couldn’t enjoy because
a) There was a whole in my face and I was understandably nervous about my ability to eat solids and
b) I spent lunch with my group members for a history assignment; writing an Irish drinking song about the third battle of Ypres for an ill prepared formal presentation we have to make first thing next week.
Sixth period was science, where we just happened to have our first practical lesson in months.
Lighting a Bunsen burner is tricky business when you’ve got one hand holding a cloth to your freshly bleeding face.

I’m sorry if this was completely disgusting, but, I’ve put off more than a few people today anyway and I thought I may as well extend that courtesy to strangers online.

Stay safe.

I would like to mention that after nine months of struggle and backbreaking labor, after nights spent covered in blood, sweat and tears, after what felt like an eternity wherein time itself stood still, it’s finally happened. Today was the day I awaited with baited breath.

I finally received an ‘Outstanding’ mark for a Literature SAC.

I’ve spent all year putting a disproportionately greater segment of my academic focus on this one subject. It’s the only subject I’m taking this year that’ll count towards my final university ENTER score, and it’s one of the few subjects I genuinely enjoy.

Unfortunately, despite nights spent revising and planning, I’ve never quite managed to reach the ‘Outstanding’ mark on any SAC, though friends in the class with a greater level of literary prowess repeatedly achieved the grade with ease.

That situation was remedied today, with what my teacher described as a piece which “demonstrated a deep understanding of Orwellian beliefs; rich with symbolism and literary techniques”.

I think I have this blog, in part, to thank for the progress I’ve made with writing over the year.

All in all, I’m a happy camper.

Auf wiedersehen, good night!

Francis stepped out of the shower cautiously, reached for his favourite yellow towel, dried himself off and went to stand before his foggy bathroom mirror. He examined his face closely. He couldn’t help but feel insecure as he noticed, for the umpteenth time, his many imperfections; the crooked nose, the unruly eyebrows, the receding hairline. He had to mask it all. He had to look perfect for tonight.

The idea of a school reunion was daunting, and Francis couldn’t believe how quickly the event had sneaked up on him. He was not the most popular student in his time, and as such, chose not to keep in contact with his peers. Still, he couldn’t help but agree to attend when he was informed of the event. He wanted to see what all the old faces had grown up to become.

Clad in polished shoes, a blue tie and a nicer suit than he could afford, Francis got into the piece of scrap-metal he called a car and drove to the hall.

Upon entering, the first things he noticed were the hideous decorations; balloons and streamers that would’ve been more at home at a twelve-year-old girl’s birthday party. However, this initial sensory shock was quickly overshadowed by the people who approached him.

The quiet girl who scribbled into desks at the back of chemistry class had grown up to become a graphic designer.
The nerd who was given a hard time for his studiousness was now a partner at an impressive law firm.
The outspoken athlete who regularly flushed Francis’s head in a toilet had chosen to follow the path of priesthood.

While reaching for the punch, Francis encountered a woman named Samantha whom he couldn’t recognize. He spent most of his afternoon with her, and discovered so many similarities between them that he felt she was a kindred spirit. He couldn’t believe he didn’t know her when they were both students.

After the event, he took her back to his apartment. He poured her a drink, and she confessed to him that she had liked him since they were kids. She’d been hoping to run into him tonight. Francis, afraid to offend the beautiful woman, pretended that he recognised her as well. He told her that he was really glad to hear she felt that way.

The next morning, Samantha left his apartment and promised to call him later that day. Francis, with a smile, dug out his old school yearbook and poured over the pages, trying to remember this amazing girl.

Soon enough, the smile was wiped off his face when it dawned on him that he did, in fact, remember her from his childhood.

Only, her name had been ‘Samuel’ back then.

—-
I just feel strangely motivated to write these days.

I keep updating this thing at such sporadic intervals that I don’t think it’s an accurate record of my life at all anymore. There are large gaps that are unaccounted for. Considering that recording my life was the entire point of my starting a blog in the first place, this whole thing is beginning to seem like an exercise in futility.

I’ve decided not to blog about school unless something especially spectacular happens. I’ve read over some of my old posts and realised how redundant and repetitive most of it is.

Basically, I’m trying to make the place a little more reader-friendly.

So I haven’t blogged in three weeks because I moved houses and, most readers would know that it keeps you pretty busy. A lot of throwing out the ‘old’ and spending excessively on the ‘new’, on my mum’s part at least. I’m liking the house though. In fact, there’s only really two things I don’t like about it – a) It’s right along the railway line so we hear trains at all hours of the day and b) I’m no longer within walking distance of my school.

Still, no complaints here. Mum let me order a new 13-inch Macbook yesterday, and I’m expecting it to arrive within the week. I’m excited, excited, excited (and suddenly greatful for mum’s recent bout of retail therapy).

In other news: I had a friend request on Facebook this morning from a girl who was in my class in second grade, back when I still lived in Sri Lanka. Now, I had to dig out my old school photos to recognise her. She, on the other hand, seems to have an excellent memory. She remembered coming to my house to visit me before I left the country, and even remembered me telling her the name of the suburb I used to live in. She moved to Australia two years ago, and I believe now lives somewhere nearby. It appears she now catches the same train that I do.

Small world.

That’s it, really. I mean, I’ve been busy over the last three weeks but I can’t bring myself to fill the gaps anymore, y’know?

Hopefully I’ll be back here soon.

Folks, I’ve finally done it. At the age of 15, I’ve managed to work out exactly what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. As we all know, life always turns out exactly the way people plan, and holds no surprises.

I’m sure there’ll be no harm in my typing out my life-long ‘TO-DO’ list here, since there’s no chance that any of it could possibly go wrong.

4th August, 2009: Type up a blog detailing my life-plan.
15th August, 2009: Make VCE Subject selections for Year 11.
October 2009: Be accepted into all selected classes.
November 2009: Pass all end-of year exams with flying colours.
December 2009: Receive academic honours for semester achievements.
February 2010: Discover that all teachers for the year are really cool and give easy grades.
March 2010: Find that the work load is really easy to cope with.
June 2010: Get fantastic grades for mid-year exams.
Novemeber 2010: Get incredible grades for end of year exams.
December 2010: Receive academic honours for semester achievements.
February 2011: Discover that the work load has decreased for Senior Year.
March 2011: Join various groups and comitees and enjoy flourishing social and academic lives.
October 2011: Sit for my final VCE exams.
October 2011: Find that I received an ENTER score of 99.95, among the top 1% of the entire student population.
November 2011: Be offered various scholarships from universities.
Novemeber 2011: Sit for the UMAT. (Undergraduate Medical Admission Test)
Decemebr 2011: Discover I did brilliantly on the UMAT.
December 2011: Be called in for an interview by the medical department at Monash University.
December 2011: Wow the team at Monash with my brillance.
December 2011: Be offered a position in the medicine course, beating out hundreds of local, interstate and international candidates, approximately 500 of whom had a VCE enter score of greater than 99.

2012 – 2017: Do really well in the medicine course. Handle the work load with minimal stress. Have plenty of time for social interaction and leisure activities. Achieve Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (with Honours).

2018: Become a Junior Doctor and enter the medical work force. Complete 12 month internship.
2019: Spend a year working in the public health system as a Resident. Find an intersting, high paying job with reasonable work hours.
2020: Complete postgraduate training. Receive full medical registration.
2021: Become a registrar at a vocational training program.
2024: Achieve a fellowship in Clinical Neurology.
2025: Receive Medicare provider number.
2026: Open successful private practice and help hundreds and hundreds of people. Daily.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. By the year 2026, at the age of 32, I will have successfully completed my education in the medical field, and will have risen in ranks enough to open my own private practice. Business will be booming, and I will live the remainder of my life secure; both financially, and in the konwledge that I’ve made a positive impact to the world by helping people.

Call me an optimist?

Goodnight, potatoes. I’ve got some thinking to do.

…won’t you say you love me too?”

Upon closer review, it appears that Barney was quite a needy dinosaur. Perhaps it’s for the best that we distanced ourselves before the situation escalated.

So, it turns out that I caught a virus last weekend, and I had a temperature last night. I’m fairly sure it’s some strain of swine flu, considering how prominent it is in the area these days. It’s not hugely different to any other flu, though, so I’ve got no worries.

Still, I went to sleep early last night feeling terrible, so dad decided to let me sleep in this morning and told me it was okay if I wanted to skip school. On any other day, this would have been fantastic, but today my attendance at school was imperative.

After waking up an hour later than I should’ve, haphazardly throwing my uniform on, running to school and stumbling into my second period class, I was greeted with exclamations of “Where were you this morning?”, “You don’t look so good” and, my personal favourite, “Why are your eyes SO droopy?”.

I spent the course of the day working on assignments, worrying about, then completing, a maths test, scratching my bewildered head at all the notes on the board for physics, attending school council meetings and desperately trying to catch up with all the coursework I’d missed last week; all the while resisting the overwhelming urge to tell my teachers to bugger off and let me sleep.

By the end of the school day all I could think of was going home to sleep. Dad usually picks me up from school on Tuesdays, but he happened to be attending a funeral today so I walked home.

Now I’m running off to pour myself a glass of orange juice and settle down in front of the TV to watch a Spongebob Squarepants marathon on Nickelodeon.

I can haz childhood bak pl0x?

“Mosquito repellents don’t repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito’s sensors so they don’t know you’re there.”

Yet another tidbit of insight, courtesy of the eternal wisdom of the internet.
Perhaps it’s just that I haven’t understood the fact correctly, but I find it fascinating that we can dull the senses of another creature to make ourselves effectively invisible to it. It reminded me of the Perception Filters from the “Sound of Drums” episode of Doctor Who (nerdy reference, let it pass).

Anyway, surprise surprise, I’ve neglected this blog for yet another month. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things and start posting good sized blogs on a regular basis, as opposed to these sporadic attempts at summarizing large chunks of my life into online essays. On the plus side, I do have a genuine excuse for being so lazy with the updates. I’ve been really busy.

1. On the 22nd of June I started my week of work experience at my old primary school. It was brilliant. My timetable had me rotating around a lot of different teachers and year levels, so apart from the two or three teachers who used me to do administrative jobs like photocopying and filing that they didn’t want to do themselves, it was really fantastic. A few of the teachers remembered me, and strangely enough, one Grade 6 student claimed to remember me as well. The highlight of the week was spending one morning with the Prep class, where I taught an adorable little boy to recognise the letter ‘a’.

2. The work experience week lead directly into my school holidays. The first week was wonderfully relaxing. I went to a few birthday parties, tried to plan a sleepover but completely failed, and on one occassion had a few friends over from ten in the morning till seven in the afternoon.

3. During that week, my parents refurnished me and my brother’s bedrooms. We live in a relatively small house, and our rooms were quite congested. Mum decided to throw out the odd bits of furniture cramped against my walls and replaced it with one giant desk with enough shelves and storage space to hold every single one of my earthly posessions. I’m loving it. Dad then bought me an office chair to go with it, and spent more on it than anyone in their right mind would have.

4. All of this refurnishing was the first step of our family’s moving process. We’ve been renting this house for four years, but recently our ladnlord informed us that he would like to come back and live here again. We have till September to find another house and move out. We’ve been searching for houses for a very, very long time now and my parents are starting to worry since we’re having trouble finding decent houses in the area within our price range.

5. The second week of my school holidays was devoted entirely to ‘Urinetown: the Musical’; the school production we’ve been rehearsing since March. The cast members were required at school from 10AM – 4PM for four days, and on the fifth day we were expected to stay at school for twelve hours in order to rehearse each song with the full band. The week was surprisingly fun, and we managed to work out all the little glitches in the show.

6. I spent my final day of vacation at a friend’s sweet sixteenth. It was a heores and villains themed party, and I went dressed as Sarah Jane (another Doctor who reference, forgive me). We played a few party games, but for the most part we just hung out and had a good time. It was lots of fun.

7. Rather than joining all my classmates for school on Monday, us Urinetown cast members had the first two days of school off for rehearsals. We spent Monday throwing together our costumes, fine-tuning make-up, etc. We came back to school at six in the afternoon for a full run through of the show, for the first time with all our costumes and the tech crew working the lights. It took some time to smooth out the technical difficulties, and we didn’t leave until eleven at night.

8. Tuesday, again, was devoted entirely to Urinetown. We had our matinee performance for the Year Sevens during the day, which was honestly quite discouraging. They didn’t laugh at many jokes, and were a generally unresponsive audience. To be fair, though, twelve year olds are hardly the target demographic with regard to this musical and they did seem to enjoy the parts they understood. After talking over everything we needed to improve based on the matinee performance, we went home for a quick break and came back to school again and performed our opening show. It went really, really well. The feedback was great, and the energy onstage was fantastic.

9. I decided to go to school on Wednesday, since there were a lot of friends I wanted to catch up with. Well, that, and my timetable for Wednesday lets me off at 12.45 so I wouldn’t have to spend TOO much time at school. Of course, Wednesday happened to be the 15th of July, also known as the day Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came to theatres near you. A few friends and I ran down to the cinemas after school, and made it just in time to see the 1.15 showing of the movie. The movie in itself was good and a huge step up from the last one, but being the Harry Potter geek that I am, it was a bit dissapointing and didn’t really feel like Harry Potter. After the movie, I headed back to school for our second night performing Urinetown. Again, all went really well.

10. I skipped school on Thursday, and only left the house in the afternoon for our third performance. The audience was fracking brilliant. They were LOUD, which is just what we were after. I endured a full day of school on Friday, ignoring comments about the enormous bags under my eyes and went back to school again in the afternoon, now fully used to go-to-school-at-8AM-and-leave-at-11PM routine. On Friday night, the audience was packed, as expected. We made more mistakes than we’d ever made before, with people forgetting lines and the band making mistakes that cut off entire bits of dialogue and threw the actors off completely, but we covered up the mistakes so well that the audience didn’t notice a thing.

11. Saturday night, the cast all agreed to meet up at school early since it was our closing night and we wanted to spend more time together. After our director walked around filming our stupid (read: hilarious) comments and conversations,we went out and performed. The audience was packed again, and the show ran without a hitch. We were all visibly tired and starting to lose our voices, but it was great and the audience loved it. After the show was finished, us castmembers completely surprised everyone else by holding an improptu presentation where we thanked our director, musical director, choreographer, costumers, tech crew and all else involved by giving them presents and a spotlight. We then performed one of our favourite songs one last time, more for our own benefit than for the audience.

12. After packing everything away, returning costumes, removing makeup and tearing apart the set by stealing whatever props we wanted, we all headed down to the after-party at one of the cast’s houses. It was a little strange. The cast of this show are, for the most part, kids from around the school who would probably never, ever, get together under normal circumstances. We’re all from different year levels, and usually run in completely different circles. The show forced us together though, but I’m glad it did since they’re all great people.

13. Anyway, it’s now 2PM on Sunday, and I’mtyping all this up as I eat a chocolate muffin for breakfast. I’ve had a good night’s sleep for the first time in a fortnight, refuse to step out of the house for any reason and intend to spend what’s left of this wonderful day catching up on a month’s work of homework I’ve used Urinetown as an excuse to ignore.

I’m finding it really weird that Urinetown is over, though. I devoted five months of my life to the show and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I have all this spare time on my hands. It doesn’t help that the cast members will probably never get together again, since a lot of them will be off to university and TAFE soon enough.

As our director said, though, the show will live on; both in our hearts and in DVD format.

That’s all from me. Goodnight, bubs.

…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 exercise more, but not really.

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), but the panic surrounding the silly pig virus is causing all sorts of bad things to happen. H1N1, for shame.

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%. 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. School stuff. Not elaborating. Sorry.

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.