First Ever E-Card Ever!!!

My dad sent me a Christmas E-card, which made me excited because
a) I had an email
b) I had my first ever E-card
c) IT WAS INTERACTIVE!!! Today, I helped some cute mice, a cat and a dog to build a snowman, then the snowman sang and the trees in the surrounding wood suddenly had colourful Christmas lights :D

So today we had a half day, because it's speech day for sixth form (dreading that next year). Naturally, almost everyone in years 8 to 11 (year 7s aren't quite rebellious enough yet) seized the opportunity to go Christmas shopping, me included. I went with Sophie and met up with Luce and Clo near the end of our little trip. Then I got stuck in Reading.

We'd finished shopping in time for me to get my usual train, which was pretty damn cool I thought. But then we got to the station and all the departures boards were flashing "DELAYED" or "CANCELLED" Luce and Sophie's trains were each unaffected, and I ended up heading off to get the delayed 15.23 (it was 15.48ish). Which ended up cancelled. So I went to platform nine for the 15.53, which got moved to platform 8 which we boarded and then it got cancelled, so we got off and hung round platform eight for aaages. About an hour later there was a train on platform nine so we all, like good children, ran over the bridge again and got on that. And then it was cancelled so surrounded by grumpy, swearing adults, we got off again, Henry called his mum and got a lift, Stephen and Parky and Joe got offered lifts with him, I texted the father and was instructed to get a bus to Purley, where we could take Sam and Dan on to their homes (Pangbourne and Cholsey!) Then we waited 15 minutes for a 16 bus, caught a 142 instead (which meant Sam could get to Pangbourne, and Dan called his mum to get a lift from Pangbourne) we got stuck in traffic, it snowed, I got off the bus, it snowed some more. I got in the door and crashed on the sofa in front of 'Come Dine With Me' (hilarious btw) at about 17.30/17.45 (I really didn't care at this point). So that's what, an hour and a half after I should've been home? Nearly two hours since I arrived at Reading Station? Yuck. Thank the lord for microwave macaroni cheese, Barney's microwave rice (to go with his microwave curry) and 'Come Dine With Me'.

Then I did two hours of revision.
And now I'm going to tidy the hall desk, and go to bed :) My legs hurt from too much time on my feet today.... 

I can feel a cold coming on.... :/

Got that itchy feeling in the back of my throat that you can't get rid of no matter how much you cough. And I can feel it in my ears too... yuck

Anyway, I went to see the Moffats today :D We met them on holiday (if I havn't mentioned them before) in Greece and as it happens they live in Mortimer and Tom (Barney's age) goes to Toby's school. And Ella took the Kendrick exam in November, so is yet to hear the results from that! The coincidence is astounding.

Anyway, I had a really good time, plus lunch was amazing! The mum, Kiera, is a brilliant cook. I had veggie lasagne (properly homemade especially! and really lovely, especially loved the olives). The veg was good too. Makes a nice change from what we usually have at home (plus there was beetroot <3 ). For pudding, homemade chocolate mouse (they were all individual and everything!) which was gorgeous! And apple crumble, which got nicknamed Moosh de pomme (completely wrong French-wise) because it was a bit of a fail, but despite this it still tasted amazing! Plus there was a lemon drizzle cake, which was gorgeous, and I havn't had that for ages. So yeah, brilliant food, brilliant food. I'll gladly go there again!

Generally average day. I worked out I have over fifty Christmas cards to write, and don't know where I'm going to get them from, seeing as I only just have enough for fifty (someone's going to end up going without...:S  ) I got in 1h30 of revision! :D (still all Physics) and I'm sooo tired that I really need to get to bed before ideally ten, but realistically eleven tonight.

On a slightly political note (I know, lots of people hate me talking about politics, but I really can't help it) the tuition fees vote... Well, I knew it was going through Commons, so that wasn't too much of a disappointment (though my heart still sank). What I am positively thrilled about is that 21 Lib Dem MPs voted "no"! As opposed to 27 "yes" and 8 who abstained. Now, had those 8 voted.... But anyway, that'll go through Lords, so I'm off to wallow in misery and disappointment. Seeing as I want to be a vet, and that's a six year course, I think, my student debt is going to be insane...Damn.

Oh well, I'm off to watch Mentalist and generally waste time that could be better spent (as I have been doing all day when I claim to be practicing piano (I generally am, but the point is I'm doing it to procrastinate) or doing my washing)
Anyway, bye xx

I was going to put "Revision XD" as my title, but I already used that before....? Oh dear.

I've finally started revising!!! I'm truly proud of myself.
Obviously, I started with Physics, and then I'll do History, Maths, French. In that order. With P.D. squeezed in somewhere. Then I'll revise the "lesser subjects" (the ones I remember better) but I doubt I'll revise all of them  (German, most Biology).
Motors, Generators and Transformers. Done.
Mirrors and Lenses. Started.
Those are the most difficult physics topics (all P3 stuff) so naturally the ones I thought I'd do first. Just to put my self esteem RIGHT up there ;)
I'm motivating myself with Lindt chocolate and working (tonight at least) on the policy that when I run out of lined paper nicked from school, I'll stop revising. I've covered 8 sides, and have 6 left, so I'm taking a break for blogging and pizza :)

Actually, the part I'm really really really really proud of, is that I rejected a dinner out at "The Swan" in Pangbourne, in favour of revision and pizza (and pizza isn't my favourite dish)!!! Makes me proud.

I'm a happy person. Probably a result of the majority of my friends also being happy, the fact that Christmas is  coming up, and that I have done my Christmas shopping for my friends at school!!! (sooo glad that's over) AND AND AND I've started revising, and I've nearly got my favourite ever piano piece cracked, and a number of other things. :)

Time for dinner methinks! xx

I'm getting bored reading my own history essay. I pity the poor soul who has to mark it.

Oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum, wie trenn sind deine blätter.

It's Christmas! Well....

I got home at 4.30ish today, having had to walk from Tilehurst for reasons I wont go into, and decided it was a good idea to get the biscuit dough out of the fridge and make those cinnamon stars for Friday.

Last Sunday, having remembered that neither the Swiss nor the Germans ever did things by halves, I decided to do the traditional Swiss recipe by triples. That's right, I tripled a recipe that already made (though it didn't actually say so in the book) around 40 little cinnamon stars! It took me from when I got in until 8pm to cut them all out and get them cooked (and they only take about 20 minutes to cook - though they had to be cooked 60 at a time, because you just can't fit four baking trays in our oven).

They're all made now, and they look beautiful (if I do say so myself). I may one day put the recipe up here (that is, if they aren't too popular, in which case I'll keep it to myself in order to have a little power over my friends).

My hair stinks of cinnamony cooking smells. Which would be nice, but it also smells of dough (which contains egg white). 

Okay, now I can't procrastinate any more. I need to make my History essay an extra paragraph longer, just so Miss Cooper's boredom doesn't end too soon ;)

Alicia xx

Gute Ideen - halten sich nicht an Bürozeiten.

The title of a little notebook my mum gave me earlier today. It's blue with a black elastic band round it and a little black page marker thing. Lovely book. And I just love the title. "Good Ideas - don't keep to office hours"

I'm going for the stars now. Hopefully I wont get told it's too late :/ xx

I cannot believe that I've been writing this essay since 11 this morning. And I already had two paragraphs when I started. So it's taken me up until now to get four decent paragraphs, edit two rough ones and write two rough ones. I still need a conclusion, and to type up the last two rough ones.

Then I'm going to make Zimmt Sternen. A personal favourite from Switzerland, that I've been requested by Tess to make for next Friday night at Mezzos (I'm not going to get a chance in the week). I think I'll make some extra batches, for Wind Ensemble, hopefully if I still have enough ingredients and time I can do some for school, the train, and maybe even some for home. But that'd be a lot of baking. At least five batches. Probably more like eight though. That would take an entire day, a luxury I don't seem to have.

Going to get those last two rough paragraphs typed, and a conclusion written now.
xxxxxx

The Monotony that is a History Essay. Yuck.

Fascinating as it is that the development of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR was affected by many events, etc. etc., I'd much rather argue my point out in class than on paper. I am completely decided on it, and yet I have to write around 8 paragraphs (3-4 sides of A4) evaluating each small aspect in detail (something I've already done in my head) and coming to a conclusion at the end. Why must we be set such pointless homeworks. Put me up against any girl in our class and I promise I could smash her point whether she's supporting the fact it was the Atom Bomb, or the Berlin Blockade, or Soviet Expansion. Whether or not I won a debate against her would be another matter, but I could easily defend my own point against anything she comes up with. Effectively what I'm doing with myself in the form of an essay.

Don't you just think the weather is beautiful? I love it. I fell asleep a little earlier today, only for an hour or so, and when I woke up the grey fog had gone and the sun was out. It's winter light, so not as colourful out there as in autumn, but still lovely. Even though my house is freezing.

I've started to think about revising for my mocks. At least, I've highlighted the subjects that need it most (History, Physics, English Lit., French) and I'll make a start on them tomorrow. Instead of wasting around an hour waiting for nothing to happen before I leave for DofE, I'll start my Physics revision notes. Looking forward to it :)
LOL

It's weird though. Usually when teachers start talking about revision, they stop setting homework. But now most of them are setting homework, and revision as part of that homework. But the task takes as long as it usually would, so you don't find yourself with enough time to revise. I get the sense they're all a little behind on the syllabus and trying to fit it in before mocks. :S

More work now. I think I'll do some English, before I can be bothered to do my last 3 History paragraphs.

Alicia xx

German trip to the Christmas market is cancelled...gutted.

It's  been rescheduled for spring, and we'll have something else to do, but it really is a shame. I was really excited. A lot of people are saying they might not go in spring, because it wont be the christmas market. This made me realise that I was excited for a completely different reason to everyone else. I was excited because it's, well germany! I have a weird passion/obsession with the country. I just love being there. It took me a while to realise me wanting to go even without the market so much has so much to do with the country. I just love the culture, the people, the language.

On another note, my dad got us some donuts from the "Co-operative" today, as a pudding and I think partially to cheer me up :)
But that's not the point. What's astonishing, is what it said on the bag. I have it here, ripped out as proof.

Yep, you read it right. Basically, may contain traces of celery, crustaceans, fish lupin and molluscs.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what lupin is, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't ever want any of those other products in my jam doughnut.

I politely declined (molluscs = not good for veggies, and I avoid fish where possible, plus it was a bit weird) and tore off the label. Who would've thought?

Does make you wonder what they're doing with molluscs though....

I had a really successful flute lesson today :)

Having attempted the flute on Monday evening (and completely failed to produce a sound, due to my braces) I was so disheartened I didn't bother trying again this week. But, I did continue trying to find a mouth position at any opportunity - on the train, in French lessons, whenever really - and I went to my lesson, got my flute out, and managed to play d major fine. And f major. And I even reached the high A in A major :) that's soooo good! Will definitely practice loads now, to perfect it. And I'm going to try to refuse a bottom brace, because I don't need it, they just thought they'd do it while they were straightening my top teeth anyway. Apparently a bottom brace makes it really, really hard. So I'll try to avoid that at all costs.

Alicia xx

Don't look back into the sun...

Anyway, I've hit a bit of a wall with P.D. I guess I could colour stuff in and go over my pencil writing in pen, if I was desperate. It's due tomorrow, and I have one page of initial ideas (needs to be gone over in pen, but done), a single developed idea (I need two more and loads of writing to go with them), and no final idea (I know what it is but cba to draw it out). So all in all, considering it's due tomorrow, I'm pretty screwed. But hey.

Brace isn't so sore anymore, I only had two nurofen tablets today (and am contemplating a possible two paracetamol...) and it's more just annoying than sore. Though sore plays a part. As a description, I can only liken it to wearing a fitted gumshield (not one of the crappy boil-in-the-bag ones) that's about two years old, and you've lost teeth since then. Believe it or not, I know what that feels like. Just plain uncomfortable, and a pain to eat with it in (not that I have a choice)

Less than successful parents evening...not going into that.

Hey, on the bright side, I've been doing P.D. an hour and  a half (and have produced one drawing, I know, pathetic) so I'm justifying a rest.


Might get back later,
Alicia xx

Oooh, I get by with a little help from my friends Google Translate :)

Freeeennnnccchhh!
Genuinely worried for my GCSE now. It's not even funny how behind I am, and how I can't seem to do it! I'm sure French never used to be this hard. But then, that was in year 9.... life was so easy back then!
Anyway, I managed to get through my mental wall! Or that's what I think it was. I'd done my English practice paper, and my overdue History (hey, I wasn't in on Monday morning, not entirely my fault, well yeah, OK I forgot to hand it in....) and then I sat down, got out my textbook and folder and dictionary and a word document. Read the excercise and said out loud, despairingly,
"I can't do this."
But before the typical negative response I get from my brain (completely berrating me - yeah, thanks brain!) kicked in, as it usually does, I somehow managed to curb it, and get on with it. I've now produced a 267 word piece that can actually pass off as half decent French - I hope.

I haven't said much about music in ages now, have I? Ok, well since I last wrote about it all those months ago, I've discovered Amy MacDonald, Muse, Jack's Manequin, Relient K, Marina and the Diamonds and a load of others.

I'm well aware posts about school aren't particularly interesting, but I'm trying to avoid discussing my brace any more, because everyone's heard it to death. It does hurt though....
I'm on painkillers all the time (have been since I had my teeth out on Saturday) but now Daddy's worried I'll get addicted, and Andrew's being very firm that I should stop taking them soon, so I guess I'll just have to get used to them... damn.
I should thank Rachel Pegrum, though, who advised sucking on ice as an alternative to painkillers. Just to let you know, my dear, that tonight I've devoured two ice cubes, and both greatly helped, somehow. So thank you.

I'm generally quite a happy person at the moment. Having trouble getting all my schoolwork done, but I think I can blag it. Until Friday, when I'm going to Germany with school for the weekend (which I am SO EXCITED about!) so I can forget for 3 days. And concentrate on speaking as much German as humanely possible. I love being in Germany, I wish I could take my up-coming speaking C.A. out there, because there's where I speak it the best. It makes me soooo happy being there. Not sure that's an entirely rational reaction to being in another country, but hey!


I think that's it for me.
G'night xx

Dumm Dumm Dumm

Boooooorrrreeeeedddd!
Sitting at home waiting for Grandma to arrive to take me to the orthodontists. I've just emailed in my completed German, which is effectively coursework. But it's over 16 hours late. So whether or not it gets marked is a completely different matter.
I was considering making a start on my P.D. god knows I need to, but then I called Grandma, and she'll be here so soon there's really no point. And here's her car.
Bye
xxxxxx

Two Bad Rehearsals. Two Successfull Concerts. And a generally good day.

This time of year can be a little hectic with Maestros. Luckily my timings didn't work out too badly. Except the choir rehearsal at 10, four hours before anything else (I went home between).
Concert 1 went well. Despite Rosie and Bryony's distress at having to wear the "skirts of shame" because theirs were too short (above the knee's too short apparently :L   ) everything went smoothly. Kat didn't over-stress and everyone was happy.

Seccond concert was great too. I read Ellie's politics textbook (I'm sorry, that's the sort of thing I love) and had to define democracy for Becky *cringe*

I did point out a part of Ellie's book I didn't agree with, though. It said that now, in the 21st Century, "democracy is the policy preferred by all economically developed nations" and I (rather cleverly, I feel) pointed out that China's communist, and it's definitely economically developed.

Moving away from politics, because many people are bored by it - oh no, wait, one quick one. I read one of the paragraphs describing one of the most important aspects of democracy, it said. Anyway, it basically described how in a democratic parliament, the minorities should be, and usually are, represented, so that even minority sectors of the public have their say, and it is important that people ruled by a democracy have this system implemented, or the minority peoples feel they have been betrayed by an unfair system. The entire paragraph basically put up the most amazingly practical argument for why it's so important minority parties get seats in parliament. And basically, why we should have proportional representation! I love proportional representation. I almost thought I'd ask for someone to buy the textbook for me for Christmas, then realised it might be a bit sad...

Oh, I made up with someone who I'd been really upset with today. I'd been ignoring them since Thursday, which was often very awkward, but I'd just been so upset and torn between loyalties to them and to someone else. But anyway, I finally got up the courage and found a quiet place to talk to them. And was soooo glad I did. HUUUGE weight off my shoulders I didn't know was there. I appologised for the blanking, but at the same time, I think I got across my point, and then know I meant it. Love to that person. And love and thanks to a certain other person, who basically gave me the courage to sort it. You two know who you are :)

Night xxx

:)

ah, figured it was time for a really happy post.
but i have nothing to tell you. there's not many reasons i should actually be happy, but i am.
youll just have to take my word for it
xxxxxx

One of my favourite things to do in the world

lie in bed, in pjs and a hoodie, headphones on, music too loud with coffee made from hot milk and instant granules, one sugar, reading crap on the internet, not thinking.
ill deal with everything tomorrow, im warm and comfortable now.
xxxxxx

Breathe in, breathe out

 God, I seem to be in such an angry mood today! I'm sorry. I guess I got off to a bad start this morning (not at midnight, more a bad start when I woke up a few hours after that ;)  ) and haven't quite recovered my good humour yet. The day went a little downhill, tbh.

• Bad start at home.
• Bad journey that I won't go into.
• Stress about Biology ISAs and too much P.D. fundraising in registration.
• Surprise physics ISA (which for me has to count, because I missed last years as before I made the switch) period 1.
• Interform dance problems period 2.
• Spent 1st break in tears.
• Felt patronised in English period 3, when I kept having to ask explanations for words that obviously everyone had known since they were 10.
• Spent second break doing P.D. fundraising without help from someone who seems to think that I don't mind having to lug two huge boxes of products round school myself, because she feels intimidated by our P.D. TEACHER!
• Humiliated by class"mate" in maths period 4.
• Couldn't understand maths period 4.
• Had a go at in History period 5, because I'm missing next lesson to have a brace fitted on Monday. As if it's my fault.
• Crammed into the bus by some fat guy who took the seat next to me when I clearly had too much stuff and was unhappy anyway.
• Cold.
• Good flute lesson.
• 5 minute wait outside in cold for car.
• 10 minute wait in cold area next to door of Maestros for car.
• Not even allowed front seat in car.
• In trouble for not liking cold pasta in a salad.
• Revelation youngest brother's been brainwashed.
• Rant from father because he couldn't be bothered to make tea. 

And that brings me to now. So yeah, not my happiest day ever. At all. And they ask me why and how I let negative emotions build until I tip over at the smallest thing. Maybe if somebody at home actually cared... Or I didn't feel I was burdening my friends every time I had a problem (never their fault, I'm just that kind of person it seems) Maybe then I'd be better at sorting myself out. Maybe.
:(










oh, and if anybody wants to tell me they think I keep a blog for attention, and I just want a reaction. Piss off. This is an emotional outlet of mine, and I try my hardest to keep the depressed posts off here. If I wanted attention through this, I would've posted some much worse stuff than this before now.

Conspiratorialist Scum

For those who are around teaching year 8s who know no better that Global Warming is not a man-made problem, and the contribution through the human race of thousands of tonnes of CO2 emissions every year only make a tiny difference, for christ's sake re-evaluate your ideas.

Fine, go round believing that we are not the cause of what is known as a Global Crisis, and what is going to eventually kill off the human race. But for goodness sake, you're entrusted with the respected role of a school teacher, and the government has given you the task, the parents trusted you with it and the school employed you because they think you're good at it - the task of educating the children of today in a way that allows them to personally evaluate what they themselves believe. If you've been given so much trust, and such a great job of huge value to us, don't you dare go round giving them biased information and twisted statistics.

And stay away from my little brother. Leave him alone. Because I really love him, and I do not want him to become one of these people who goes round with conspiration stories trying to convince everyone that the system is against them, and so forth. Leave him alone. Feed him with the facts, but feed him with the correct, unbiased facts. Give him some actual numbers, and don't go imposing your opinions on him. You are a teacher and it is your job not to persuade, but to inform. There is such a stress from the teachers at my school that they must not, are not allowed to tell us what to think, they only give us the facts. They can tell us what they believe, but they have to balance it and use phrases such as "The sources I beleive in, show... However other sources show...
What teacher, in their right mind, thinks they have the right to brainwash my little brother. Give him the balance, then get him to write a balanced essay concluding with his views, that'll make him think. Otherwise. Leave. Him. Alone.

Ways to Alienate Yourself from the Entire Form

Not that I do it deliberately.
1) Quit interform dance in the middle of a rehearsal

Not that I have anything against interform dance, or just dancing in general, I can just about manage that without looking too stupid. Sort of. What I did have something against was the way in which the rehearsals were being conducted. I'm fine learning a dance, doesn't really matter what your teaching style is, but if you want me to persevere, you can't just shout at me all the time and have nothing to balance it.
I was truly losing my patience all through period 2, which should've been rugby, but was cancelled for dance practice. I'd keep thinking, hey, it's just a dance, I can pull it off. But when I try to have a little fun, not even distracting anyone, just swaying in a little bit of an over the top fashion (we were supposed to be drunk and on a boat...) got me snapped at by a few people. Giggling, the same, not that there's anything wrong with giggling. Then repeatedly shouting at me "Alicia you got that turn wrong" every time we do that bit of the dance, without bothering to explain how to do it right, that pissed me off. Oh, and screaming at the entire form the entire rehearsal isn't a great teaching method, thanks.

So I snapped. Somebody screamed at me to get into my position, I raised my voice a little, telling them to go away. They told me to mind my cheek. I stormed out. I got called a certain something, and was told I was being selfish and they'd have to rearrange it all, I just shouted back I didn't give a *monkeys*. And that was that. Not going back. Almost the entire form hates me,  particularly certain very judgemental people, and I couldn't really care less, because I'm not giving up any more of my free time to go get shouted at and put down. I can have second breaks back now.

2) Try mentioning to your teacher that your parents can't make it to the year 11 consultation (parents) evening without someone who's already annoyed at you scoffing and saying "It's parent's evening"
Not like it's my fault my parents can't be bothered. Literally.

3) Make a joke - that everyone knows is a joke - in front of somebody. They're sure to point out what a hypocrite you are just to make the rest of the maths lesson awkward.



yeeeah.
rant over

Never have I regretted wearing a skirt quite so much as today.

It is absolutely freezing out there. I won't permit it to snow, but everyone says it will. And then laughs in my face when I tell them that actually, snow can't settle unless it's fallen three times previously. They should really trust me more. It's not a scientific fact so much as my personal experience, and I lived in Switzerland for three and a half years, I've had more than a Briton's fair share of snow.
I admit I could be wrong, but I've yet to be proven wrong by my own experience, so until then, I don't want people to tell me I know nothing.

I actually ended up getting the bus home today, to save myself 20 minutes extra walk home. I just don't understand it, it was so much warmer yesterday. So much for global "warming!" (p.s. if anyone tries to correct me on that in some sciencey way, I will ignore them or delete their comment)

I feel I've finally (FINALLY) had a cooking success!!!
>>>Ooh, a nice song just cam on - As You Sleep, Something Corporate<<<
Usually, the oven/stove/microwave manages to defeat me in the battle of the dinner. But today I won, for once. A nice change.
It was tomato soup for tea, because apart from fish and chips, cheese on toast and pasta, that's about all I can cook (and I don't even make pasta sauce myself - I think I've been banned by Sophie, actually, but it's for the greater good). Well aware of how not-filling tomato soup is, I decided (against my better judgement) to make a Spotted Dick (queue stupid giggles) for pudding. Grandma wrote out her recipe for me just before half term, and I felt it was time to make an attempt. I actually got surprisingly good results. Before anyone starts patronisingly telling me making steamed pudding must be too hard for me, and I'd need suet, which isn't vegetarian friendly, I used the microwave and margarine, and it still worked, so there :P

I took a photo, as I do whenever I (rarely) have a food success, because I thought it looked impressive, and my dad won't believe me unless there's actual evidence :D

That's about all in the chronicles of my life ;)
I'm currently having a really happy time, in case you hadn't noticed. Hence overuse of smileys and more regular blog posting than ususual. You must be quite shocked :L

Byebye
xxxxxx

Paying Attention....obviously not my forte :)

As an explanation for the title, I just got off the phone to my mum who's still, repeat still, at work, and realised I had not listened to a word she said. I'm sure I had a perfectly reasonable conversation with her, it lasted about 3 minutes, but I just don't know what about. Oh well, just a few more minutes of my life I'm destined never to remember :)

We had an interesting Biology lesson yesterday. It was second period and we had an ISA exam. Anyway, everyone was stressing about it. There'd been an assembly that meant we couldn't revise during registration. Nobody had the energy after the weekend. I was knackered from a conversation that ended at a late hour, on a certain IM service. Some of us had just had History - not the best way to be woken up first thing Monday morning. Enough said.

Anyway, about ten minutes into the lesson, we realised it was ten minutes into the lesson. And we still didn't have a teacher. Five minutes later, Sherrie was permitted to leave the room (after previously having been banned) to go and find Mrs Oliver, as it was too late for us to do our ISA anyway, we would've needed at least 50 minutes of our hour long lesson. Mrs Oliver, as it turned out, had thought she had a free period, and was sitting in the staffroom. She was most embarrassed and this - for some reason - led her to pick on people who were smiling (which we all were, because our ISA's been moved to Friday :)

Two quotes from that lesson:
1. Mrs Oliver (in a stern, vaguely threatening tone): Stop smiling so much, Leah!
(Class laughs)
2. Mrs Oliver: Ok, who can I ask a hard question? Oh, look, you're smiling, Millie, (class laughs, someone comments she's scared if we're being punished for smiling so much) so what's.....?

Ooh, this leads me onto my favourite quote ever, which I'm afraid I can only give you out of context, because I've forgotten where it came from.
Ruth, in French last year:
"Well I'm just a big jelly"
I will never forget her saying that.

And with that, which you probably didn't find in the least interesting,
goodnight xx

Not really a post. Just a venture.

The sounds of drunken laughter drift up the stairs as I grip my head, tearing at my fringe and trying to figure out that one paragraph. They're still happy, there's been no political debating, let's keep it that way. The sounds of a violin are tearing above all of the noise, it sounds as if the strings are broken, but really the player is unlearned and improvising, the violin out of tune and dismal-sounding after so many years of neglect. But still they're laughing, this laughter is younger, that of boys messing around, trying to find something to do while their parents ponder the cheese course, and which wine to move onto next.

There's always music in this house. And even more of it when these particular guests are over. I sit at the top of the stairs, at my desk, staring at the fish-bowl reflective window in front of me, and wondering when my life will be as simple as that of the people all below me. Eating their cheeses and watching videos on YouTube on the new flat-screen TV. It's 55 inches, arrived Friday. Internet connection, 3D ready, built in HD freeview, connects up to the laptops with their bluray players. Quite the thing to have really.

But it all seems so idle now, silly pleasures that won't last. The atmosphere down there will be forgotten, in time, and replaced with whatever other mood the house has to offer up. At least it's not cold, I couldn't bear that. But then this house so often is that I may as well get used to it.

The paragraph's almost sorted, just one problem sentence in the middle. Sort that and maybe it'll be worth that all important A*, which will also lose importance, as time progresses. Then I can do my ironing. That's a constant. Ironing every week, there will always be some. A little comfort, I guess. Comfort in farmiliarity. Well, I'd better go and do that now, before I fade into the endless fickle night. Maybe they'll argue soon. Who knows.



To make it clear, I've taken some of the events of tonight and stuck them into a fantasy. I'm working on my creative writing skills. This is not what happened or how I felt, in fact, it's been a good night. But that sentence in the film review is still bothering me. :)
Off to watch "Mentalist" now. Simon Baker......

Sixth Form and well...

Today was a shortened school day, with no normal lessons. We had a sixth form induction thing, some of which was really useful, some of which was... well, yeah. The best bit for me was definitely when we were given the opportunity to talk to some current year 13s about A level choices, life in sixth form, etc. without any teachers present. Which meant we could also ask about teachers and they were free to say if they thought a subject wasn't very good. The teachers do the promoting and try to get you to stay at Kendrick, though they say you're totally free to leave if you wish, there are quite a lot of times where you feel an assumption is being made that you will stay. I'm not leaving though.

Then this evening (after being let out at 2.10ish) a group of us went into town and ate at a restaurant called Zizzis, which we got at £10 for two main courses, an amazing price considering without the offer the mains were about £8-£10 each. We decided not to have puddings and went to Krispy Kreme and Starbucks instead.

At 6.30 we returned to school for the Sixth Form Open Evening, which was cool. A lot of it was just Kendrick promoting, aimed at outsiders (as I think of them - really just prospective new girls), but I got a chance to speak to Frau Alderson (my current German teacher, who's really, really good) twice about A level German, and just the language in general. She's promised to set me up with some German books to read, because my idea of reading some children's books and working up isn't going amazingly, as I don't have the vocabulary of a German child, because I don't generally need to know the word for undergrowth or moss in the syllabus. So she's going to get out some more challenging books, but books that will cover the right vocabulary for me. Which I was pleased with. I'm really looking forwards to As and A2 German, it's an amazing subject and I love the teachers.

I've also had a look at Critical Thinking as an A level, and it looks really interesting. I know in some Unis it might not count or whatever, but I like the look of it as a subject, and as it's only an extra, I can easily justify dropping it after As if the workload's too much.

So I think that's going to be Chemistry, Biology (in which I am going to have to force myself to come to terms with the idea that the dissection will help me, the fact that an animal died for it will just be something I have to disagree with and get on with, because Mr Hodge informed me that even after A level, when studying veterinary I will have to do dissection), German, Maths (I'm thinking Statistics, not Mechanics) and Critical Thinking.

Oooh this may be a really boring post for you to read. I apologise. To be honest, if you didn't want to hear about my boring life and my ideas for Sixth Form, there was a clue in the title, so I'm not entirely to blame.
Goodnight,
Alicia xx

p.s. by the way, hi Andrew, who is now following me and (insanely) has managed to read through every single blog archive (for which I respect him, thank him (because I've taken this as a chance to have a look at how my life was working), and also think he may be slightly out of his mind). So yeah, hi there!

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.

I'm really quite ashamed to say I didn't go to any form of service on Remembrance Sunday, and seeing as the Kendrick "ceremony" only involves two minutes silence during break (shamefully not even kept by a few ignorant year 12s, who walked down the maths corridor chatting without a care in the world) and nothing like the proper chapel assembly followed by Sunday Parade that was compulsory at Pangbourne College (I know, old days, let it go already) I usually feel it's my duty to at least go to church with my grandma. But no, this year was different. And really wrong of me. I don't think war is moral, and I'm pretty convinced the means can never justify the end, but for me Remembrance Day is about remembering how it went wrong, and pondering how it should be prevented, which always leads to a roundabout thought process in which I end up examining how I can be a better person.


Okay, you've had the boring personal bit now. Back to the here and now. I'm sitting in bed, in my newly rearranged room, which I am planning on painting pale blue, thinking about watching the next episode of "Mentalist" which is brilliant (not to mention the main character...) and celebrating the lack of lessons for the rest of this week. Oh yes! ***Sophie, if you are reading this, I just very consciously did not use the forbidden word that will not be mentioned by name, or even spelt out backwards***

No lessons tomorrow because it's the sixth form induction day  (and evening) which means we're in own clothes, start at 9.20, finish at 2.10 (at which point a few of us are going into town to - as Lucy put it - go shopping, mooch around and eat, and go back in the evening with our wonderful parents. Yay.
Then Thursday's inset, followed by Exam Day on Friday. Good luck you hopeful year 6s. Remember, just because you're insane, doesn't mean you won't get in. I mean, look at me, none of my friends would call me normal.


I'm totally ready to watch the next episode of "Mentalist" so I don't have to contemplate how I'm going to need to do my final draft film review on Thursday.
Bye my loves
xxxxxx

Don't you just hate it when your pc switches itself off in the middle of your coursework? yes.

I think I'm making progress with the film review. It needs totally reorganising, I need to check it through, and I need some more colloquialisms, but I think I can get there. By Tuesday. Hopefully. :/
It's difficult. More difficult than you'd think. Trying to make something sound natural, and as if it's just rolled off your tongue, and then also trying to put in all this stuff like sophisticated words, knowledge that you don't really know much about... you get what I mean. I clearly just can't write, naturally or structuredly.

Lucy and Martha's party (at Lucy's house) was great. At about 1pm, just after having my glasses fitted and while I was on my way to work at the hospital shop, I got a text from Luce. It was warning that we would be sleeping outside (in a tent, but outside nonetheless) and to bring warm clothes. Unfortunately for me, I'd packed my bag at 8 that morning and left the house for a final time at about 11.45am. So that meant I was stuck with whatever I had. Which was what I was wearing and an extra pair of tights, two pairs of socks and my pyjamas. Luckily for me I was wearing a really thick hoodie/jacket, a thinner hoodie, a blouse and a vest top. So I was pretty covered. As the night got colder I found myself wearing footless tights, adding socks, adding tights, adding more socks, adding pyjama bottoms, and realising my skirt wasn't helping so taking that off, adding a sleeping bag, adding a blanket. My top half was warm enough, my legs were just cold.

Technically we were planning on all sleeping in the compartments; there were three outer compartments and a huge middle "hallway" that we all sat in to watch the movies. When it got to about 3am and we'd finished watching however many films, we realised nobody would be warm enough in their own compartments. So there were about ten of us in one compartment and a bit (4 or 5 were in the main compartment, or partially so). We woke Becca up, because she'd crawled into a compartment on her own and would freeze. We left Chloe and Rachel in the compartment they were in, because we figured they'd keep each other warm. All in all, it wasn't too cold. If you were squished between two people. Which lucky for me I was. In the middle of the night I was *ahem* nearly suffocated by Sophie's feet, as she propped them on top of my head, but otherwise I lived just about.

In terms of sugar, we ate too much. Let's not dwell too long on that. Heroes, Quality Streets, Chocolate Orange Slices, two Cadbury's party bags, two bags of mini chocolate bars, Fruit Gums, Build-a-Burger, Cherry Gums, Teeth (vampire kind), Chocolate buttons, more chocolate, more chocolate. Oh, and we had pizzas and Doritos and salad foods with dips (peppers, cucumber, that stuff). Filmwise, we didn't do too badly. Bridget Jones' Diary which I like more or less, Morris: A life with bells on which was cute but really not brilliantly made - it took the form of a documentary almost but hey, and Dead Snow. That was the highlight of my evening! I think it's technically supposed to be scary, but it's just soooo funny. Ridiculously so. Zombie Nazis kill people in interesting ways, they fight back. We had quite a few intestines out, but it was just such a ridiculous film. If you're not squeamish (even though the blood is VERY fake) I REALLY REALLY recommend this film. Might even have been good for my film review.

I was going to talk about work yesterday, but I'm not going to take more of your time with irrelevant parts of my life you probably don't want to know.

Alicia xx

Work Experience

Before I go to Lucy and Martha's joint party tomorrow, I want to tell you about my work experience. I went to the vets near Bradfield - Tutts Clump. I was very lucky to get a placement there. Naturally I was very excited about my week, if a little nervous.

However, after the first day, I was seriously questioning my career path. My reason: I almost fainted, first thing in the morning. 'If I'm going to be a vet, I can't go fainting during operations, can I now?' I got seriously disheartened. Despite the fact that after I'd had a drink, I got right back up and walked straight in to watch the rest of the bitch spay. Spays are the worst kind of operation for fainting.

For those of you who don't know what it's like to faint, I'll explain. You feel very, very hot, as if the room's got really warm. But you don't notice for a while because it's quite gradual. You just take off your jumper in the middle of a freezing cold room, thinking it's just heated up for some reason. Then you become very aware of your other senses; mostly you're aware of the smell of the room and the sounds, you're not worried about what you're seeing yet. Then, just as the vet's nurse rushes you out of the room to sit you down, your vision starts to black out. You don't even realise you're fainting until this happens.

Anyway, after the first day I got on really well. I was surprised that they didn't always care much about what the patients were called. There was "pancreatic dog" and "the cat castrate" and "bitch spay" and "mammary lump". Pancreatic dog was called Henry, he had pancreatitis and absolutely stank. He was also very old, and a bit grumpy, but I guess anyone would be after four days in the kennels - obviously he was walked while he was there, but that was it.

Most of the week I sat in on ops. There were so many castrations that I couldn't believe it. There also seemed to be quite a few x rays. You have to hide while they take those. Today was probably the most interesting. We had a dog in who had a problem with his leg - wouldn't use it at all. Anyway, we x rayed him, and his kneecap had slipped round, so every time he took a step it would dislocate, which I imagine to be quite painful. Watching them fix him was pretty cool. They opened up his leg (oh by the way, when teachers say your blood will spurt out if you hit an artery (vein?) it's so true! they hit one of his, was too cool) and had a look at the bone. The vet, Stephen, showed me where all the cartilage had been ground away by the constant dislocating. The way they fixed it was awesome. To cut out the gory bits as much as possible, they used a bit of wire to pull the bone back around and tie it in place, and stitched his leg right back up.

"Mammary lump" (Tilly) was in today too. Very cool. It's essentially a dog version of cancer. In this case breast cancer. Sometimes I look at something and think, "Can't he just cut it out? It would be so much easier if that was possible." In this case, he could just cut it out. Literally. He cut round the lump, pulled it off, and loosened some skin around it so he could easily stitch it back up. So cool.

Also quite cool was "pyo dog" (pyo is short for something or other) who had to have her uterus removed because it was full of pus. The thing with it though, was that the uterus was so full it was absolutely huge. Also, because dogs have litters, not single puppies, they have a uterus that goes round in a 'U' shape to both sides. It's quite interesting. I suggest finding a picture.



While I'm blogging, completely off topic, I want to share this link, because I think it's pretty cool. A combination of science and art to give a message about the environment.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/09/22/blood-powered-lamp-makes-you-bleed-for-your-light/

Anyway, that's all for tonight.
Bye xx

Woo! A whole five new emails! In one day!!!...........................oh, wait. they're all from me. emailing work home. damn.

Just been through my inbox selecting all of the emails that are from myself and moving them into the "school stuff" folder. Those emails completely fill my inbox all the time. It's a shame I never get real emails. Oh, wait. That's a lie! Sometimes I get lovely emails from my friends. That I don't need, but keep my life insanely random and...well funny really. It cheers me up when I should be doing homework anyway.

Turns out I'm not as behind with my P.D. work as I thought. I have a rubbish mark - as stands - in Criterion 1, but it's only out of 8 and the section we're doing at the moment is worth 32 marks, so I'm working on that before I go back and sort out my rubbish work. I've spent four hours today drawing eight lamp designs. I am too much of a perfectionist. If I want them to fill the A3 page, I'm going to have to annotate like crazy. Lucky I'm good at rambling really. I knew it'd come in handy one day.

Had a bit of a rubbish day. Nothing particularly bad happened, but I woke up tired, left the house in a rush trying to avoid the massive row going on. I didn't want to get involved, because then I'd get targeted myself. To be honest it was a pretty terrifying morning. I'm deliberately not going into details. However, it did leave me biting my lip trying not to cry as I waited on the platform for my late - as usual - train. Then I got to school and nothing was going to cheer me up. I found myself utterly incapable of becoming excited about trivial stuff, something I've realised that I do waaay too much. I'm going to go have a long bath now and go to bed. I'm hoping when I wake up I'll be in the mood to be overly positive again. Let's hope so anyway.

Love to all who put up with my moping when they could've done better things.
Alicia xx

I should stop drawing boxes on my home screen and do some homework.....oh, and stop wasting time on the internet! that might help!

This post is actually already proving really hard to write! And I've only done the title and a bit!

My letter 't' is refusing to work unless you press down on it firmly for a full two seconds, which as it turns out is a remarkably long time!

I'm not going to try to backlog all of the weeks I haven't blogged. It'd probably be incredibly boring for you and take me a long time. We all know I'm rubbish at being concise. My History controlled assessment is proof of this. I'll get onto that in a bit.

I think I'll just give you a general update on how things are, because nothing overly exciting is going on. I'm not going to backlog, but I'm going to mention a few things that have happened. I think that's only fair.

I'll start with Greece. Which was an amazing experience! I really loved it. The feel of being on a boat, totally in control is brilliant. And nothing I could've read anywhere about sailing holidays could have prepared me for the amazing sense of communiy I felt with the others on the flotilla. By the end of the two weeks us and three other boats were regularly having meals together. We got on so well. One of the other families (I can refer to them only as 'Oxia', their boat name) was from Manchester or something near there. Dundee? Not sure. Their dad, Andy, was a physicist. He explained the physics I was struggling to understand to me. That was brilliant and inspirational. He's great. And one of the others, the Moffats on 'Kallithea' were great fun. They have two kids Barney's age and younger, but we all got on really well. And the boy, Tom, turned out to go to Toby's school! They're coming over next weekend for lunch. 

That's all I'm going to allow myself on our holiday for now, for fear of rambling.

School's great. I've settled back in faster than ever this year. And on top of that the weeks are going so quickly! I can't say how long we've been back, but it must be well over a month! Anyway, I settled into triple science pretty easily. The physics still isn't quite caught up, but we're getting a study group going so the others can revise old topics, and I can learn them. Or revise, if I've gone over it already. We're doing Motors and Generators on Wednesday. That's one I struggled to catch up.

My letter 't' has come back :D

Maestros is great. I've moved over to Wind Ensemble so Bryony, Rosie, Seren and the others are calling me a traitor. To be honest, I think the move has been good. It's a smaller group so I have to shut up more. Plus we don't get let out late every week as the people in Training Band do. John's famous for not letting them out on time. I think he just does it to keep his reputation now. :L

Regenesis is cool. We've got ourselves - as Kat said - "into a situation where we're too good. So now people expect loads from us. And we're going to loads and loads of concerts. Oh, and they had to abolish the senior girl's choir because we're better than them... so yeah"

Train. Well that's funny as ever. We've already had two occasions where the trains have either been ridiculously delayed or cancelled. Not because of suicides though, thankfully.

I'm trying to think of other aspects of my life. I think I'm just left with school at the moment. No wait.

DofE is OK. The sessions are funny and we're actually starting to do stuff.

My voluntary placement isn't too bad either. I do a two hour shift, because Dan (the guy I work with) could do with an extra helper when he's trying to close up (takes about forty-five minutes to get all the papers and food accounted for and you can get stuck there until four-thirty if it suddenly gets busy when you're trying to close up). I like working there, even though it can be boring as hell. And I've nearly got the hang of doing the till right so it doesn't beep at me really loudly, making me look like a complete twit. Oh, and I'm getting less nervous about people paying by card. I always worry that I'm going to charge them like a hundred pounds for a ten pound purchase. I find it very stressful.

Piano and flute. Cool stuff. Cathy (flute teacher) is making me do loads of performance related stuff this term, which is not cool. I hate announcing stuff to her, it's so weird and embarrassing. But I passed my grade five theory, so now I get to move on. I'm finally starting to work on my grade seven exam pieces next week. (I've mostly just been doing grade seven repertoire).

It's inevitable that I'll have to tell you about school at one point, but I can't be bothered now. I just got out of the place! I think I should go and work on my P.D. so it doesn't get all overdue again. That could be fatal this time.

Alicia

xxxxxx

Get in the dog house....

Something sufficiently interesting has happened for me to write a blog post! :D

Sleepovers at Sophie's. Brilliant.
I'm going to start making sense now. This gibberish cannot go on without explanation.

Becca and I were invited to Sophie's yesterday afternoon to sleep over and help her paint her room. The two of us were really looking forward to it! But despite this, Sophie was still worried when we arrived that we wouldn't want to do it. After overcoming the embarrassment that was our painting clothes, we got on really well!

Sophie, being who she is, started off a little stressed because "my rollering offended her" and I made mistakes (resulting in me being sent to the dog house - theoretically) but it was all great fun! We've got tonnes of pictures of us with paint everywhere! That is not an exaggeration! Sophie accidentally gave herself a beard, deliberately gave Becca a beard and we all ended up with paint on our feet, legs, hands, arms, faces and in our hair. Surprisingly Becca ended up worst off. Probably due to the "watch" that Sophie painted onto her with a gigantic paintbrush (the watch was so large that a wire was painted up Becca's arm, connected to the mains socket on her shoulder). Oh, and I painted stripes on Becca's legs.

Mama paintbrush and Mama roller were legendary by he end of the day. They were both considerably larger than the others in their families and I was trusted with neither. Although I was allowed to have a go with mama paintbrush when we were nearly done, because I painted better with it.

The result of the day? One completely cream wall (apart from the edges which Sophie's sister will do) that we had painted two cream coats onto (the wall was originally purple but had been whitewashed before we arrived). And a wall with it's first layer of paint (creamwash?) and a purple corner. Nobody's quite sure why the corner got missed out. Everyone was really proud and we all had to keep going up to admire our work after we'd done. Oh, and I was still in the dog house for something or other. I got blamed for everything, which was quite plainly hilarious. It was uncommon for five minutes to pass without somebody instructing me to "get in the doghouse!" but it was just a load of fun! Plus, nobody got slaughtered for anything that wasn't quite perfect! :L

In all, a great sleepover. We should paint walls more often! :L

Alicia xx

All's well that ends well. Luckily for us.

Reference to the play in my title today. On Sunday it was the production of Fantastic Mr. Fox in the Hexagon after only two weeks of rehearsal. We only did one tech and one dress rehearsal. Usually you spend weeks on those kinds of things. So naturally we were all completely hyped on nerves we didn't even realise we had, they were so well covered by general excitement. Oh, and sugar. We (Toby, Barney and I) took in cakes. About thirty of them. And Erin and Tara's mums bought pizza for those who'd paid. And Immie brought in gingerbread men. And we had a few packets of biscuits. Oh, yeah and some strawberries (there were parents around, of course there was fruit). But we were completely hyper in our hour's dinner break.

Erin and Mary's mum did my make up for me. And to be honest, I didn't look too much like a clown. You have to do make up really over the top in the Hexagon. Particularly with how much we were reliant on lighting effects this year. Otherwise you look really pale. But I think if I hadn't had to wear bright red lipstick, it would've looked vaguely okay. Loads of people said I looked really different with make up on. Which I'm taking to be a good thing.

Ah, you're expecting an explanation for the title. Stewart, who is not altogether there (to put it mildly) did not know his lines for the dress rehearsal. Which, by the way, takes place on the morning of the Saturday we perform. But he insisted he knew them, and wouldn't take a script. Even though he was a narrator, and it's not unheard of for a narrator to have a script. Ugh. So in the dress rehearsal, he skipped two pages, missing out two songs and the squirrel scene. And then almost skipped the mole scene. But we thought, 'oh, it's okay, he can learn his lines during our break for dinner. it is a whole hour after all' But NO. Apparently he had better things to do. Like correct Sohum (wrongly) of his lines. Sheesh.

And for the real play, we all started with that fatal optimism "Every year the dress goes bad, and every year it turns out alright" and guess what. This year it was not to be. Stewart confused the fox family, almost skipped the squirrels' scene and further confused the fox family to the extent that nobody knew where we were in the play, and one of the small foxes cried out the next line she could remember. Which incidentally skipped out Mrs. Fox's solo. Mrs Fox was in tears, the small fox was in tears, Laydell (the second narrator) was in tears. The latter two because they blamed themselves, the first because she'd been deprived of her solo. And everyone else was just plain confused.

David, on the other hand, had watched the play from the stalls, and not even noticed the lack of song. Some director! But if he hadn't noticed, the audience couldn't have. So we just stuck the song into the second act, it fitted well enough, and the play went on without mishap. Which was a relief really. Even my flute solo went okay. We sang the Circle of Life, and having played the solo for Regenesis anyway, I asked Toby (director of music - not my brother) if I could play it. He was delighted to let me. And after I'd finished playing it, I got a round of applause I had NOT been expecting. OH and even the curtain calls went well. Nobody wanted to go home after that production. Nobody ever does.


xxxxxx

Seems to have been a while since I last posted. About a week. Don't know how I managed to let a whole week go by without posting!

On Saturday, a group of us from the summer project - including Erin, Oli, Tara, Eilish, Mary, Ellen, Querida, Toby, Barney and I - went into town. We were supposed to also have Georgii and Laydell but Georgii cancelled last minute and Laydell turned up only to be called by her mother and told they were going to London to see her sister and she had to meet them at the station.

The day in town was great though. We had so many laughs. I could outline it all but I'm sure you'd get bored so I'll just mention the most funny/interesting/whatever bits plus a bit of help so it's not all out of context.
We started off in Pizza Hut and when it came to doing the bill, naturally it called that one of us (me) had to put their maths cap on. The meal was great. We kept waving at strangers walking past the window to see if they'd wave back - it works best with couples, the one whose attention we get will tap their partner and then they'll realise we're just some crazy kids.

Toby had a huge fuss about his ice cream. He wanted the refillable ice cream factory for only about £3 but nobody else had room for ice cream and it would've been unfair for us to have to wait so we wouldn't let him have one. He drew into himself and took on the role of a sulky toddler vowing to buy three McFlurrys for himself when we later went to McDonalds (which he did then do. plus a portion of chips). Which was amusing for the rest of us.

We went to Primark where we just generally mucked about. Erin, Toby and Barney had a thong fight and someone picked up a really frilly pair of knickers and suggested we buy them (50p) for Sohum as he couldn't make it. We also somehow all ended up wearing  pink sparkly shower caps with Toby in the knickers while Oli took a picture. We presently bought Sohum a shower cap too. The two "presents" were given to him on Monday and we all laughed our heads off.

Then later on we got chucked out of a clearance store. Yes, yes, it's sad. We were just finding places to go really while we chatted, and Mary suggested we go in there because she wanted to look at the hoodies (it's one of those shops with "designer" (usually fake) clothes in at really cheap prices, a £60 hoodie for only £25) and the woman at the till came over and asked us to leave her already deserted shop if we weren't looking at anything. I guess maybe we had that air of just looking, not intending to buy, but we were hardly causing a row. And she could've done with some form of custom.

That's pretty much it (without delving into the matchmaking Ellen, Eilish and I did without mentioning it to anyone).

I'd tell you about this week but I fear it'd be an anticlimax after talking about Saturday, and also I need to get the last part of my History done.

Bye xx

Some Good News :)

This is not any news that will affect anybody but me. However, I like to share my happiness so I'm posting it anyway.
I


passed


my


wait for it...












GRADE FIVE THEORY!!!


(with merit)

I am one relieved girl. I was so worried that I'd fail it and have to retake in September and give up DofE (that's the deal I struck with my dad). And now I can finally move on in flute and figure out what to do next.

On another note entirely, it's time to get my hair cut again. I'm keeping the same style, so there's much less stress around this than the last time. I'm getting it cut shorter than last time, and my fringe sorted out, because it's sort of grown out. Only reason I want it shorter is I think it'll make it easier for Greece, when I won't have access to hair-dryers and wont want a wet patch down my back from my dripping hair.
(for those of you, like me, who are wondering why I've spelt hairdryers with a dash in it, I don't know, Google Chrome tells me that you can't write it as one word)

Have a good day,
Alicia
xxxxxx

And breeeaaathe!

I'm becoming increasingly stressed about this whole production thing. Whose idea was it to put on something as silly and difficult to perform as 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'

It's fun though. Everyone's just about going mad trying to learn two new dances today on top of the two from yesterday. plus another whole song on top of the two (ish) from yesterday. And then trying to get David's (director) stupid synchronised drama stuff right. This is madness.
And do you want to know the worst part? One of today's new dances is to none other than the 'Greece' song 'We go together' urgh! WHY Greece, of all things, WHY???

But anyway, today was definitely an improvement on yesterday. As I said, the increased stress is bringing us together, and I really mean it. It's great. I find myself talking to people who I'd usually not bother with. And they're mostly really nice people anyway.

I am getting increasingly frustrated, though, with a certain somebody. Anybody in the production knows who I mean - his name begins with S. Anyone not in it doesn't need to know. But he does stuff that he thinks is funny and cool and sure, everyone laughs, but only because he's making a fool of himself. I was lucky enough to get lumbered with him as a partner in one of the dances and he can do NOTHING right. He just copies me, and you shouldn't do that, because the moves we do compliment each other. As in I move left when he moves right, so we cross over. If he copies and moves left, it's all wrong. Bleurgh. Hopefully I won't have to be with him when David rearranges us when we get to the Hexagon. In fact, if I am with him, I may have to kill him.

Moving on to *ahem* brighter thoughts *ahem*. I've begun to contemplate the science work I'll need to do over the holidays. It's obvious the only chance I'll get in the next two weeks will be this weekend and next Sunday, because I'm doing P.D. in the evenings and am mostly too knackered to focus fully on htat. Let alone anything else.

On a much brighter note, I had a really good day today, and (this is a real bonus) I didn't have to cook tea :)

Anyway, I'll go now and do something to relieve the ache going all the way up my left leg (dancing kills you slowly) and you can get on with whatever you were doing before you got distracted by the internet. Or you can just go back to facebook. I'm not picky.

Bye xx

Don't care.

I vowed never to blog when I'm upset because it'll all end in tears. But hey ho. Who gives a damn. Nobody even reads this anyway.

Sometimes I don't know why I bother. I get home from a seven hour day of learning two brand new dances, some songs, and acting. I'm expected to cook my brothers tea and I can't even cook anything unless it's ready made like fish that goes in the oven. I can do peas and pasta and broccoli but that's about it. And when I find that the menu is a load of crap that I don't know how to cook, what am I supposed to do?

So I called my mum asking what I should do. Only she's in the airport on the way to Boston so she can't do much. I was receiving instructions on making a sauce for the pasta on the list - because the boys won't just eat the damned plain tomato and basil sauce - but Toby decided to yell at me from another room, telling me some absolute rubbish about how he'd cook potato smilies, peas and fish fingers. But we have no potatoes or peas. So I shouted back and Mummy got a load of shouting down the phone so she just hung up.

Then when she finally picked up again, Daddy was walking through the door so I said it was okay, he'd be able to do it. And then he got really really stressy about it. "What's the problem now? Can't you kids do anything without arguing?! Why can't you just get on!?" So then when I asked him to cook something because there was nothing I could do at all he got so angry and started yelling at me that I was lazy. And what the hell? Because I'm only fifteen, I don't have kids to look after and I don't know how to cook. But still I'm expected to do it at least twice, if not three times, per week. While he drives home from a job on the other side of London. This the father who says he only takes jobs close enough to home.

So now I'm in trouble for "talking to him rudely" which is something I didn't do, I was just close to tears because I was getting yelled at by Toby and could do nothing and hate the pressure I'm constantly being put under. I'm not some kid whose grown up cooking. It's just something that's been thrust upon me in the past month or so and I just can't do it. Yuck. It would be okay if some nights I cooked and had a parent supervising me so I can get used to it. But whenever I'm supervised, I'm given a garbled load of instructions that I "follow wrong" even though they make no sense. And I end up being moved out of the cooking area and somebody taking over. Why can't my parents be patient or anything?

Yuck I feel awful. I'm getting shouted at for being told to do something that's beyond me. It's NOT MY FAULT. Why should I even care about making dinner? It's not like I'm ever hungry in the evenings anyway.
Sorry for all that ranting. I need it out of my system. I'll probably post something nicer later.
xxxxxx

Oxford. is indescribable.

I had the most successful shopping trip in Oxford with Sophie today. The shops there are just brilliant. We found a tucked away shopping centre, labelled simply as 'Market' and entered it on a whim, but with relatively low hopes. But what we FOUND there. It was brilliant. There was everything. Shops for ornaments, butchers, bakers, fruit markets, cake makers - and I mean speciality cake makers, they were fantastic - cookie parlours, shakeaway, jewellery shops, clothes shops.

The clothes shops. There was a really lovely purple one, that wasn't too expensive. And there was a really really nice dress shop that we found quite early on in our journey round the centre. On our third visit back to the centre I made Sophie go back in, even though we'd already been once. And there was this one dress. It was 'Reduced' from £69.99 to £59.99. But I'm still determined to have it.

Eventually Sophie managed to persuade me to try it on. But it's the sort of shop where you don't try things on unless you're planning on buying them. So we pretended I was seriously thinking of buying it for my uncle's birthday party (for which I already have a dress) and after I'd tried it, as the overly helpful shop owner tried to take it to the till, Sophie took it from her, saying

"I'm just going to take it back to the shelf, because there's one other dress she needs to try on" and promised that we'd try to be back before the clock shut - in 45 minutes - and would definitely be on the website. And with that, we left Oxford.

The initial reason we went to Oxford was that I had some River Island vouchers I'd received for my birthday that needed spending. We actually nearly didn't find River Island. But we did and I picked out two skirts. Only one was £24.99 and one was £20 and my vouchers were only for £30. But I kept justifying the extra £15 to myself, so Sophie pointed out that I clearly wanted both, and I bought them. Luckily, the £20 one turned out to be on sale for only £7, so I actually only spent £2 of my own money. Which prompted me to drag Sophie back to Accessorise and buy the skirt I'd liked in the sale in there.

I will definitely be going back to Oxford for my dress. I'll save and save until I can afford it and then I'll buy it. Nobody can stop me.

This is MY dress.

Isn't it lovely.

I'm really getting into shopping.

Before I go,

Thanks, Sophie, for coming at only a day or two's notice and for making the trip so enjoyable and persuading me to buy things that I really loved when I wouldn't normally have. Because I don't part with money easily. And thanks for putting up with me for a whole day! :D

Alicia xx

School's Out :)

I think Kendrick is the only school determined to hold onto it's students until the bitter end. And what did the last day of school consist of for these obvious geeks - it's a grammar school, they must've worked all days. That's the general expectation of us. But I can assure you that none of us did anything of the kind. You seriously expect us to work on our last day because of some label we all curse anyway? Shame, sorry for the disappointment.

We, the geeks of Reading, watched Zoolander, cleaned out our form rooms, went to final assembly, and finished the day with hugs for everyone and anyone we knew. I'm not going to bore you of the details of all of these things, but I will take the time to tell you about the bits that touched my heart the most.

First there was part of the final assembly. The part where we say goodbye to some teachers. Mrs Carr, assistant head and French teacher; some science teacher, head of biology I think; Mrs Giddings, head of classics who's been with us for thirty years; Frau Byrne, legend. I'm not going to go on and on about them, but I can safely say that Mrs Giddings and Frau Byrne (especially Frau Byrne) will be missed the most. Despite the fact Frau Byrne's going to the Abbey (Traitor!). Frau Byrne's speech went like this:
"Guten Tag, Kendrick"
"Guten Tag, Frau Byrne"
"Not nearly good enough. Guten Tag, Kendrick"
"GUTEN TAG, FRAU BYRNE!"
Then she started in German, with a quote "Abschinendsworte mussen kurz sein wie eine Liebeserklaerung" (Words of goodbye should be short, like a decleration of love) And after saying how much she would miss us, etc etc and making every girl in the room want to cry, she left us with a promise.
"I will never wear green"
And then as she was applauded, Ruth and I did something we'd been terrified to do, but wanted to none the less. We stood up. And - thankfully - almost the whole of the sixth form followed. Though the junior school was somewhat less adventurous.

I've never been taught by Mrs. Giddings. But her speech made me want to hug her. She's retiring. She can remember the days of red and black jumpers, and of black blazers with silver embroidery. The days of grass! When Mrs Elms didn't build on every area of green ;)

The assembly ended with Mrs. Elms saying what has become her tagline: Go. Straight. Home. And the entire school joining in. And as the last bell went, the whole school ran screaming into the corridors and out of the school. Everyone stopped in the car park to gather themselves - and hug anybody in sight - and then we left. Some of us happily, relieved to have managed another year without serious mishaps, and some of us a little sadly. Because our time in Kendrick's shorter than we realised.

I'm going to miss everyone this holiday. Not just from Kendrick. From all my extra-curricular things, and not least, from the train.
Love to all,
Alicia
xxxxxx

Daytrip to Devon

Ahhh, look, I used alliteration. That's something I'd completely forgotten about.

Yesterday we travelled down to Exmouth, where Grandma Gwen (who's actually just my dad's old foster mum, but a grandma all the same) lives. It's her 90th birthday on Tuesday and Barney and I are still at school, so obviously we won't be able to visit her. So we got up early and left the house at seven - bear in mind, it's a weekend, seven is early - managing to arrive at about ten thirty, ahead of schedule.

To celebrate we upgraded from the usual pub lunch to lunch in a five star hotel restaurant in Torquay or Torbay or whatever it's called. Only it turned out the restaurant wasn't open, so we ate in the bar section. I think I managed to pick out the best option out of the five of us, which is surprising as the vegetarian selection is always limited and usually less than appetising. But I ordered a delicious home-made four seasons pizza. While my mum had a salmon salad, Daddy had chicken caesar salad, Toby had pasta and meetballs and I think Barney had the same. Oh, and we ordered a bowl of chips for us three to share. But obviously Toby doesn't know the meaning of sharing, so I had a measly total of six chips. Out of the whole bowl.

Anyway, as we left the restaurant, my parents mentioned that it hadn't quite been what they were expecting - not quite like when they stayed there with Gwen and Peter (her late husband). And we set off around the bay (I think) to come to a place called Babbacombe, where we searched for a cafe for afternoon tea. Very civilised.

We found one! And WOW I never thought much of cream teas before, but the choice they had! It was amazing. Fruit scones, plain scones, cherry scones, white chocolate scones, dark chocolate scones, ginger scones, cheese scones. You never knew there could be so many different types of scones. And teas too! You don't have to like normal tea to have a cream tea. I had peppermint  tea and stem ginger scones with devonshire clotted cream, rhubarb and ginger jam and pear and ginger jam. And wow. I was so impressed; it wasn't just good food, good service, good location, but also, also good atmosphere. But if you're ever in Torquay or specifically Babbacombe, go there. It's called Angels and it. is. amazing.

49 Babbacombe Downs Road,
Torquay,
TQ1 3LP




Goodnight xx

Rain rain go away come again another day!

I used to love chanting that.

Not much has been happening recently, I don't think. Let's see. Monday I didn't go to DofE because it wasn't on; the people doing expeditions only did them at the weekend. Tuesday is today and nothing much has happened either.

I've got my German work back. Which means I've also been set the questions for my next speaking controlled assesment. I don't think I need to prepare, just to think of some complex sentences I need to sneak in. That's the annoying thing about German: I can speak it like a local with no mistakes at all and I still don't get full marks. Because I have to include complex grammar that - and this is the annoying part - doesn't even sound right. No local would ever speak like that. It's like going into an English exam and speaking in perfect English but you get marked down for not using exemplary grammar. I mean, who knows their English grammar apart from foreigners? So that can be frustrating.

Most frustrating, though, is that because I can speak German already, my entire class assumes I can also read and write it. My reading's not bad but I really struggle with the writing. It's all that grammar and spelling and things I never learnt. It's like you've grown up speaking a language all your life but you get to the age of fifteen and still don't know how to read or write it. Sure you know the alphabet and most of the sounds the letters make but that doesn't always help. And when you're speaking you can get away with the occasional "dem" instead of "den", people don't notice or they don't care, because nobody's language is perfect.

So I'll sit there in a German trying really hard to write something in German, and most of it isn't bad, because I've picked it up as I learnt with the rest of the class - that's the spelling - but grammar's difficult. Most of it just goes straight over my head, like word order. Words go in a certain order because they sound right. But no, apparently there's a "verb comma verb" thing (I have no idea what that applies to). And as I'm sitting there writing - or at least trying to - and all the while I'm getting "Alicia, how do you write this?" or "What does what I've written translate as?" or "Does this sound right?" and I can never. get. my. work. done. Argh!

I feel I've gone on about German for too long. I was going to talk about English, but this post is already too long, so I'll go.
Bye xx

Hello, I'm back!

Really shouldn't blog so much, but it's an alternative to facebook - and I could even say a healthy one!

Would you like to hear of my latest disaster? Of course you would, everyone loves a little drama :L
So the concert. Could have been good. Hell, it was good, it could've been great. See the probelm is, half the staff thought we were playing Pachabel's Canon first and the other half thought we were playing Pie Jesu first. I happened to ask the wrong half of the staff. Do you want to know what that means? Well, just that I had to sightread the whole of Pachabel's Canon - ON THE BASS FLUTE - with some wonderful *ahem* octave leaps. Everyone loves those octave leaps on the bass flute, hell yeah. So not only did I look a little like an idiot in my too long Victorian length skirt, and with my regular flute with me ready to play - which I didn't because it wouldn't have been fair on Bryony who would've had to sightread Pie Jesu on bass (which is almost as bad as Pachabel's), but I also played like an idiot. Oh, and my arms died of tiredness. That flute is heavy.


On a much more funny note - one that I'd like to finish on.
Halfway through the concert, a drunk managed to get in. He looked a little startled to be in a church rather than the local pub, and was dragged out by the priest - literally dragged - as he wished us all:
"Have a good evening!"
Alicia
xxxxxx

Here IS The Sun!

Summery sunshine smiles and sleep.

On Friday evening I lost a tooth. Surely this is the last one?

On Saturday morning I went to tennis as usual and Jo was nice to me - as is not usual. Well, I can't say I don't usually deserve it. But yeah, we managed to get through the entire session with him only calling me lazy once. And I must mention now, I am not lazy, my tennis lesson just happens to be at ten o'clock on a Saturday. That means leaving the house at nine thirty. That means getting up at nine. And considering I don't get home 'till about nine thirty on Friday evenings - and I usually manage to avoid my bedtime until about ten thirty/elevenish. So yeah, usually I'm very tired at my tennis lessons. And so usually I'm told I'm too lazy. But really I'm just exhausted from a long week and late bedtime.

Then Saturday afternoon I went into the Royal Berkshire Hospital for my first day as a 'League of Friends' volunteer. On the whole, not much happened, I met Dan who's eighteen and will mostly be working with me, I learnt to operate the till, I read a stack of magazines off the shelf, I drank water, I went home. I'm going to have relaxing Saturday afternoons, I think.

Today I got a lie in :D and then went to a rehearsal at Douai Abbey with Mezzos, Seniors and Gallway combined. We're playing 'Cannon in D' (Pachabel's Cannon) and Pie Jesu in a concert tonight. Which means another late night is inevitable. My grandma's over at the moment, but she's in the garden and I'm avoiding the sun because I feel a little light headed at the moment - though admittedly not as much as Bryony must've felt earlier when she nearly fainted whilst playing the bass flute. I think I'll go out again in a minute.

Feeling calm today. Calm and ready to just waste the afternoon doing nothing - which is exactly what I plan on doing.
xx

French Speaking

Ugh! So glad that's over. I was the first one to be recorded, and when it was all over, and I'd finished trying to rip appart Mme Hulley's soft beanie toy, I got so paranoid because when she was saving it I swear she didn't know what she was doing. And I did not want to have to do it again; too stressful. But it's all saved and safe (hopefully) and apparently I did quite well. But in my opinion, I messed up loads, got some genders mixed up and really just didn't do to well. But hey, my result remains to be seen.

English essay is all done and handed in! Slightly interesting that when I went in yesterday, the teachers on 'inset'/'teacher's training' day were either playing tennis, hanging about aimlessly in corridors or could be found in rooms with signs saying things such as 'manicure' up on the doors.

I am soooo ready for a holiday, but sadly no such luck. Another two and a half weeks of school (ish) until we can finally go. And then it's theatre for two weeks, followed by two free weeks, followed by two weeks in greece, then straight back to school again. What a life. Anyway, all the stressful school work is over. Actually. Having said that, there's still German Speaking and English Persuasive Speach, but we'll get to them when we have to.

xxxxxx

A day off? No such thing.

It's supposed to be inset day today, which means we don't have to do any work or go into school. PAH! I have done both of those things.

I had a mini heart-attack at about seven this morning, when I realised that I was almost definitely completely sure that my English Coursework was due in for tomorrow. Usually this wouldn't be cause for concern, especially with a whole day off in which to do it. Wrong. My marked first draft, with all Mrs. Runnalls' notes and all my notes scrawled all over it, was in my locker. At school. So I sent about eightmillion texts to check the deadline really is tomorrow - which it is - and formed a plan.
1. Phone the school and see if they'll let me into my form room.
2a. If no, get a phone number for Mrs. Runnalls and ask for an extension - try not to burst into tears.
2b. If yes, go to school and get the folder, while bumping into as few teachers as possible.

They let me in. But. I bumped into my maths teacher, Miss Stacey (who I think now hates me slightly less, owing to my recent exam result) who didn't ask why I was in school, not in uniform - surprisingly - but asked how I was. Hmm...? Also, I got to see Mrs. Richardson (P.E. teacher) playing Tennis doubles with Mr. Simmonds (deputy head) and two other women I didn't recognise. Interesting way for teachers to train as good teachers....

Anyway, English Essay is calling me back to my word document.
Bye xx

Good Mor-ning Eve-ry-bo-dy!

Going for the patronising school teacher good morning there. Doesn't really work, does it?
Anyway, I woke up this morning to the *ahem* refreshing sound of the damned infants in the school right by my house. I live on a hill with a road that curves round so they're technically not my 'next door' neighbours. But the school does back on to our driveway. And yes, it just so happens that they have some kind of playtime at about 9 in the morning. Brilliant.

Junior House Music yesterday was amazing. We scored 41/50, which was the highest mark -  Palmer scored something like 35 and Sidmouth got 39. Still, these close scores mean we can't relax today, because Sidmouth only need three points more than us to win the cup! Damn and blast.

So Sophie's going mental trying to think of ways we can improve. She's also killing herself because apparently you're supposed to have an instrumental soloist, and ours is a singer (Palmer got penalised for that yesterday, but they only lost one point for it so I wish Sophie would stop worrying so much!). I have great faith in our own composition today, and I have great faith that our accompanist for the choir will be better, and I also think that the solo will score at least 9. Today is definitely our better programme.

Speaking of programmes, yesterday Sidmouth's programme was written on a beach ball bat. So today we need to do something more original. But nobody's having original thoughts. Oh well.

Will tell you all how today goes,
Alicia
xxxxxx

Whose idea was this anyway?

A question I seem to be asking myself more and more frequently.




Whose idea was junior house music?
I mean, I know it might - at face value - seem like a lovely idea and all, and it might even - at face value - look like it was something that the vice house captains have effortlessly managed to put together and pull off really well. But really and truly, did the person who thought this amazing idea up consider the amount of stress they'd be putting on the vice's and their (dare I say it?) unfortunate friends? And if they considered, or even anticipated it, why did they then go ahead?

The year 8s have finally pulled together! (we are not mentioning our measly six year sevens - it's great they've actually turned up, unlike the other thirty odd year sevens in Cedars - because they've been away this last week when everything's been coming together) On Thursday and Friday I think 8A finally began to realise how hard the three of us (Sophie, Becca, me) have been working and actually started turning up to rehearsals. Friday's rehearsals were the best yet! And that's a good job, because they were the last rehearsals. Now there's nothing left for me to do, except cross my fingers that I've got enough blue ribbon to tie to the performers, and learn the piano part to "Here Comes The Sun" in case Kate Raison can't play it on Monday, because she hasn't been able to practice (I doubt there were pianos at the Isle of Wight) and learn the alto part like mad, so they don't get lost and look at me with despairing eyes like they did on Friday. Geesh that was scary!


Whose idea was the Maestros Extravaganza at the Hexagon?
Don't get me wrong, I love it. But this year....KAAAT!!!! For those of you who don't already know, Kat has asked me to play the flute solo in the middle of 'The Circle of Life'. We had an interesting choir practice today. I brought my folder, complete with all my music. And I even remembered my flute. And we ran through it, and I discovered I didn't have my solo part after all. So halfway through my solo, I gave up looking and tried to remember it. My choir are too kind to me, because at the end of the song, they were all waiting to tell me how 'oh, it was great even though you didn't have the music!' liars...or deaf people. Everyone knows very well that it was AWFUL I made half the notes up, and it did NOT sound good. But I'll have the music tomorrow. Thank the lord.

And whose idea was it for me to join Training Band?
I think it was Cathy. In which case, I love you, Cathy! I really don't know what I'd do without Friday Nights. Really I don't. They are the air that I breathe on and what get me through the week. I love going. I love the little jokes we all have about certain band members (all eyes on Anthony, Bassoonist) and the little rivalry between flutes and clarinets, and the general consensus (NEW WORD) that the flutes will always get told off for talking. But most of all, I love the break times. They are some of the best twenty (or more like fifteen, because John always finishes the first half late. Nobody expects a break on time) minutes of my entire week. So to everyone who's there on Fridays:
Thank you, for making my week bearable, Thank you, for being so great, Thank you, for just being there, and turning up, and making my evening enjoyable. I love you all xx

I think I'm done for today. And to those thinking, "oh doesn't she ramble on?" this stuff comes from the heart. so take it like a man! and yeah, if I post more regularly, I can cut down the length of my posts, so sorry I haven't posted much recently.

But the sun rolling high in the saphire sky, keeps great and small on the endless rounds!

The title is my tribute to choir, because I didn't go last week and only did fifteen minutes this week, so I feel I need to prove I'm learning the songs. That's the "Circle of Life".

Right, it's been a while since I've written anything. So let me see. Oh, I said I was worried about English Literature. Turns out there was no need, I was only one or two per cent off an A* :) Yes, fine, you may take that as your queue to call me a boff. I've given up responding to that since I got to Kendrick.

My birthday on Wednesday was amazing. So thanks to everyone for making it that good. I got some really lovely presents. Excuse me for quoting myself, but I was actually driven to say that "this is the most successful year for presents ever. I love everything I've been given." So yeah, that applies to you all. The theatre yesterday was a bit weird, but amazingly choreographed. And afterwards we got and hour and a half to look round the shops in Oxford, which were lovely. We found some really nice shops. It is inevitable that we went into Top Shop. Just for the sake of it. Becca spotted some HUGE heels, I'm not even joking, they were goddamn massive! Unfortunately the ones on display were both right foots and different sizes. Not to be discouraged, we got Becca to try them on - resulting in her looking about a half a foot taller than me - and Rache to take a photo. But then a shop assistant told us that pictures weren't allowed, so Sophie turned to Rache and said,
"Rache, we-"
Rache turns, saying "Okay" and snaps another picture, before saying,
"Oh, oops, sorry"

Brilliant.

Then we came home, had a barbeque (LOVE to the veggie bean burgers :D) and decided to go to Pangbourne to see if they were doing an evening session of the summer fete, which they weren't this year, so we just walked home along the river.


It's so sunny and everything's so lovely at the moment. I feel like I can just lie on the grass and relax as if I haven't a care in the world. I've done my work(ish) and I don't feel any particular urge to go occupy myself with something useful.

Summer

Summer is officially here! It was summer solstice yesterday, and it's midsummers day on the 24th. Therefore, this counts as the best part of summer. Not that it has anything to do with my birthday...TOMORROW! I'm so excited it's ridiculous. Last year, I got to the day before my birthday and didn't really care. But this year, I've been counting down for nearly two weeks. I'm so so so excited. Also, my party's on Saturday and even though I'm missing half of choir (yes, yes, I know, Kat is going to slit my throat) I'm really looking forward to it. An afternoon at the theatre with my friends followed by food and the tent (but I don't think Rachel's staying for the tent part, she has a music exam on Sunday, for which we all wish her all the best).

On the topic of choir, that reminds me why I missed it last week. It was my grade 5 theory exam starting at 10am, which meant I had to miss tennis (10-11) and then I had an audition for this thing we (my brothers and I) do at the Hexagon in summer, but no doubt you'll hear all about that during the two week course. By the time that was over, it was nearly half twelve, and we were about half an hour away from choir. That means we could've caught maybe fifteen minutes, but it wouldn't have been worth it.
Bo got me a copy of my flute solo. We're singing the Circle of Life, the broadway version, and Kat wants me to play it. At the Hexagon. I may die. Anyway, Bo also got me a CD which I am currently loading onto Barney's ipod. Let's not discus the location of mine.

I'm completely immersed in music right now! I love it! I've been playing piano almost on a constant since last Tuesday. Then I've got this concert with band next Tuesday evening. Then choir and band at the Hexagon on July 4th. Not to mention junior house music, which Becca and I are helping Sophie to organise. I feel like all my free minutes are taken up my music. I love it when this happens.

Love,
Me xx