Fire Drills

Interesting day. Fire bell went off during music. I hadn't heard it for so long I thought it was just an ambulance on the London Road. It was freezing outside and we had to wait out there for ages! What made it worth it, was that some of the year elevens had been in a swimming lesson and had to come out in towels and space blankets. But yeah, there wasn't a fire and it wasn't a drill. Some other year elevens had P.E in the hall and ran into the wall, accidentally smashing the alarm. That's twice the year above us have done stuff like that. Once in year eight, during science, a ball hit the alarm.

Music for Youth Festival thing was good-ish. Had several panic attacks. The most significant one was because the flute part wasn't in the box. So we had no music. But it all turned out good in the end. And afterwards it finished early so I had great fun waiting with a load of my band and choir friends. On the whole, we managed.

Oh, yeah, and after swimming, Rache wanted to brush my hair, so I let her. Though to be honest, it seemed fine to me - but hey, it's good my friends care that I look good for stuff that's important to me. Then Torie came into K (our form room) and wanted to plait my hair. She did it in a French plait and it looked really nice and kept it out of my face. So I must remember to thank her.

Love xx

The Lion King

About half of year 10 were on a geography trip today, so the lessons were really quiet. Most of the day we didn't do much work because the teachers didn't want to put us too far ahead of the class.

History was a lot less work than usual (i.e. an actual regular amount of work!). Maths was jokes, we answered two questions in the entire lesson.

Then Music was hilarious. Mr. Titely didn't know he should only be  expecting half the class (four out of eight) and had had a normal lesson planned. We ended up listening to some song on spotify and discussing folk music, but not working much. Then Mel practiced her solo for the concert tomorrow. I made the mistake of mentioning the Music for Youth thing I'm missing school for in front of Mr. Titely. I was complaining that I didn't want to swim before going, because my hair'd look awful. Mr. Titely got really worked up and angry and said it "serves you right for going to this concert when there is a school spring concert in the evening". Stresspot!

Physics was interesting. Was pretty much a normal lesson with less to learn. At some point Miss Sacket (who had had her hair cut!!!! She's old and used to have it to her waist - plaited. Now it's only just down to her shoulder-blades - plaited) asked me if I'd finished the sheet yet because "You're usually one of my fastest, Alicia, so if you haven't finished, no-one will have". What the hell? 1. When did she learn my name. 2. Since when was I any good at physics?

French. Ah well. We watched 'The Lion King' in French. With French subs. Hmm. But we put up with it. I'd completely forgotten the plot and got really upset when Mufassa died. But a few minutes later one of the Hyenas landed in the thorns - I loved that bit as a kid and had completely forgotten it. Which explains why I was in tears of laughter, receiving comments like "Oh, shut UP" "It's not THAT funny" and "Someone throw a book at her". But I was having fun.

Photo

For some reason, the website has decided it doesn't like my photo, or any that I tried putting in my sidebar tonight. I really love the photo I had and I'm determined to have it somewhere, so I'll get it back eventually. Spotify will comfort me.

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

Listen to them.

xxxxxx

Small Dramas

I think I've chosen quite a fitting title today. I think you'll get to see what I mean.

So, yesterday Jacob, Nancy, and their parents Rick and Jan came over for a meal and then to go to the rugby and the St. Paddy's day party. At the St. Paddy's party, we managed to lose Barney, lose Jacob, lose Toby, lose a photograph (they were doing them free in the games stall, you got a picture of yourself photoshopped into a background), Barney very nearly got beer spilled over his head (he crouched down and stood up, knocking some guy's beer on the way up and getting off lightly for it). Then we walked back  to the car and there was a disgusting man peeing up against a bus shelter in plain sight and about two hundred yards from the public toilets. Ick!

Then this morning I woke up to my dad's voice:
"Alicia, you need to wake up, Kaddi's gone."
"WHAT? Again?! OK, I'm getting up"
Kaddi happens to be about the twentieth au pair we've had in the six years since we got back from living in Switzerland (long story) and most of her predecessors ran away, gave up, were fired and a few (about three) stayed until the end of their contracts.

Then on the train on the way home, Mark "borrowed" my phone (he's getting pretty good at pickpocketing :S) and as we got to Tilehurst, it was gone. Wasn't in my pockets. Wasn't in his. Definitely wasn't in Sam's, Bryony's or the other little Kendrick year seven. I was dead, the handset's worth loads (my mum got it on contract) and die Mutti made it clear if anything happened to the phone, I was dead. End of. So I stayed on 'till Pangbourne, finally having found it in my hood. That's twice I've missed Tilehurst now!

So yeah, my life's getting pretty hectic.
Love xx

Debates

Evening!

I'm feeling positively better and can even (perhaps) say that all the tidying was worth it, considering who the guests were. My parents' old friends Steve, Julia and Ken are here for dinner and about an hour and a half ago, I was asked to go down to say hello to them. Now, I'm going to get ready for bed and I feel amazing for having such interesting conversation. I've realised this isn't the first time Steve, Julia and Ken have come over and I've had such interesting things to talk about. 

At some point this evening we got onto discussing the education system here in England versus the education system over in the US. Now, Ken said that he thought their system was better - he was refering to their university stuff, but all I know about American education is about the years when they're in 'grades'. Steve was sitting nearest to me and I said to him that I thought our examination system was better because you could work hard and still get at least a D grade, all the way up to A* - depending on commitment and how clever you actually are. Now, I'm not even what point I ended up trying to argue. I think I was saying that our system was better because you can study really hard for the American exams and still do pretty badly, and an employer should be able to tell from your exam grades whether or not you are committed or clever. If you can study hard and get rubbish grades, it's not really fair. So those who study hard should be in the same category as those with brains - which, with the English system, they are - and, with the American system, I'm not convinced that they are.

Then, after I'd gotten completely worked up at how stubborn Steve is (I should mention he's about fifty and I'm 14), my WONDERFUL dad decided to mention to me how, Steve is a master at debating and didn't even believe the point he was arguing, just did it to exercise the brain. He and Steve often have debates, and they just pick a side even if they don't mean it, and then they can go away and they have more points to consider. Would've been nice if they'd mentioned this to me at some point BEFORE I got all worked up. But I took it graciously and had admitted defeat anyway - though I made it clear that although admitting defeat, I didn't think that his point was any better than mine, just that he had presented it so well I'd come up against a brick wall.

Anyway, I'm really tired now and I want to read a bit before bed so goodnight!

Alicia

xxxxxx

Music and such stuff

When I have my own house, I will have something musical in each room - be it radio, CD player, stereo system or musical instrument. I'm going to live with it like that and I'll be able to listen to/make music whatever room I'm. And when my friends come over to visit, because I've invited them for a nice formal dinner or they just feel like dropping in or I just invited them over for a nice chat over a bowl of soup or something as a snack, when they visit I'm not going to go on a massive tidy-up fest - they can come and see how I live. Because they are my friends and they love me and they won't judge me by how tidy I am. I don't actually mind tidying up, just when I'm shouted at to do it, it gets tiresome and boring.

As for music, I would have different bands designated to each room. These could change but I would never have two rooms with the same band's music playing in them at the same time. I think the lounge/sitting room would get 'The Killers' but maybe they'd go in my bedroom. Then there'd be a mix of people like 'The Courteeners', 'Boys Like Girls', 'This Providence', 'Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly' and I dunno, some more bands I have yet to discover.
Yep, they'd definitely have to rotate, I doubt I'd have a big enough house otherwise.
Oh, and I'd have to buy some of the songs properly, because I can't just keep relying on Spotify all the time. And you can only play it from one source at a time with the same account.

Hugs
Alicia xx

Essays and Crazy Fridays

English essays ought to go to hell. Really they should. I'm so, so, so glad they haven't introduced Controlled Assessment to the English GCSE exam specification yet. Really I have no idea what I would do if we had to write up our essays in exam conditions. And if we only got one draft. On the other hand, I hate coursework. But it's there to be hated, so I don't mind too much.

I was just editing all the "couldn't"s, "wouldn't"s, "shouldn't"s out of my essay, because apparently abbreviations make you look lazy (well nah?!) and you shouldn't use them.

Yesterday night was crazy. For ensemble, 'Senior Flutes' and 'Mezzo Flutes' (I know - ha ha, they used the Italian word for 'middle' as the name for our middle flute group - *rolls eyes*) decided to join up and sightread some pieces together. I'm alright at sightreading so I didn't look like a complete idiot in front of the Senior Flutes!

Then for 'Training Band' we had an informal end of term concert. Bryony got caught talking one too many times, so landed up with the job of introducing the piece and then Hannah (who plays bassoon and is also in choir on Saturday mornings with me) started teaching me the words to one of our songs (that we need to learn by Wednesday). I ended up walking around chanting "practical cats, dramatical cats, pragmatical cats, fanatical cats, oratoracle cats, delphicoracle cats, sceptical cats, dyseptical cats" all night. It would appear that it worked though, I've learnt them! And so have Anthony (one of the other bassoonists), Barney (brother) and probably Stewart (flute, and amazing) and Mark (clarinet, no idea how good he is, probably better than I am at flute).

Anyway, my STUPID, STUPID Product Design work beckons from its folder - we got set waaaay too much.

So, bye xx

House Music

As the title suggests, we had the Inter-house Music competition today. My house, Cedars, won last year! However, this year we weren't so lucky. We sort of came third......out of three.....BUT on the bright side, it was an amazing competition. We got to miss periods 4 and 5 (Basketball and English!! Not that I don't enjoy English, it's just I don't like this particular lesson, because it's directly after P.E. and I'm just never in the mood. And I hate basketball!) and instead, we performed - which is great fun in itself - and watched the other houses perform.

Cedars House Choir sang 'Bohemian Rhapsody' which was a nice contrast to the 'Friends' theme we did last year. The orchestra/ensemble performed 'The Flintstones Theme'. I was in both of those. Then our lower school solo was an amazing saxophonist. Our upper school solo was Eleanor (In my year, was in my class last year so we're pretty good friends) singing 'Maybe' from 'Annie' and she was accompanied by my best friend Rachel, on the piano, who suffers severe stage fright but performed amazingly despite this (even if she won't admit she was brilliant). Our sixth form solo was by Stevie who sang and played the piano - it was her own composition. She's amazing and should have been marked more than the mere 17/20 she was given. The musical item was from 'Wicked' and featured one of the sixth formers singing the lead solo with her face and hands painted entirely in green. You could say that was....interesting(?).

But yeah, on the whole, a good day. I love missing lessons so I can do the stuff I love.

Hugs,

Alicia xx

Just thinking...

Ok, so I'm starting a blog because my friend, Ellie, has one, and I sort of found it...um, well, you could say inspirational. It basically looks really good and I absolutely love reading it. My au pair also has a blog, but she generally uses it to tell people about her experience here in England. Anyway, the point is, I thought it was a great idea, so I'm trying out a blog myself. So we'll see how it goes.
Night xx