Simple but somehow impressive.

Mmmmm. Pancakes and honey and golden syrup and lemon and sugar. A very lazy decadent day. I've eaten enough calories for a week. Have decided to give up Marsbars and Limewire for Lent. Not that I'll actually manage it, but never mind. I'm not Catholic anyway.

Came home early and revised Othello in my room. Well, I helf revised Othello and half downloaded music. I'm blatantly going to fail my English Oral. Othello just doesn't interest me much, it's nothing compared to Hamlet or Macbeth. Or maybe Ms Gargen is just shit. Seems more likely, all she does is mumble about her wild carefree days in South Africa where all she did was drink black coffee, and then let us go halfway through the lesson because she's run out of things to say. She's nice. But not inspiring.

It's Tuesday, and already my bedroom is a total mess. I tidied it less than 48 hours ago, but there are clothes strewn across the floor, books is heaps everywhere and five mugs on my desk. The mug situation is seriously getting out of hand: I either need to stop drinking tea, or start taking them downstairs. Preferably the latter.

Yesterday Mr Rudall and I had a long conversation about movies, Jake Gyllehaal, Ken Livingstone, Ms Warren, recorders, shoes and The Mystery Jets, amongst other things. My cello lesson is the highlight of the week sometimes.

And on Saturday I went to a ball. A proper dancy, floaty-dress type ball in a lovely venue, with lots of people I love but don't see often enough. It was good fun. I deeply regret not staying in Newham sometimes. In fact most of the time. My orchestra friends are the only people who have been stable in my life for ten years...

(Too bad Johnathan Loh's irritating friend tried to chat me up.)
x

The Things I Live For

Tea, charity shops, eyeliner, The Dandy Warhols, colouring pencils, Gwen John, bright beads, badges, fruit and ice cream, lie-ins, Germaine Greer, woolly scarves, stickers, libraries, rain, The South Bank, post-it notes, pearls, birthday cards, hugs, drawing pins, wide open spaces, smiles, art galleries, windows, mittens, Posy Simmonds, books with colour pictures in them, Garden State, cutting and pasting, live music, dresses, talking for a long time, cellos, Arctic Monkeys, clumsiness, paintings, hot showers and cold sheets, orange and blue, wild dancing, Tony Benn, yellow bananas, Starbucks, sunshine and snow, screaming, black and white photos, Jake Gyllenhaal, darkness, calendars, The Tiger Who Came To Tea, beautiful waves, Blur, polka dots.

P.S. Oh Jesus. Just discovered a blog devoted eentirely to Paris Hilton.

So now you fall asleep inside a tambourine.

Thursday nights are the new Friday nights apparently. Fittingly, tonight I went shopping, watched a movie, and then went to the Pub Quiz as well (we didn't win though). Weird the way Brokeback Mountain wasn't sad at all the first time I saw it but tonight I was in floods of tears. Perhaps subconciously I was crying about other things.

There seem to be loads of social events all coming up at the same time in the next few weeks. I didn't really go out properly all of last term, except for two trips to the cinema. In fact the last time I did anything wild was on New Year's Eve, so perhaps I deserve to have a little fun. Although the exam and revision situation is getting desperate. It's hard to relax when there are always things on your mind. Nevertheless I shall be at Becky's 'Cow people and Native Americans' party, and probably Phil's party too. Haven't got a costume for either.

What I'm listening to right now:
- The Kooks: Naive, Sofa Song, Too Much of Nothing
- Hard-Fi: Stars of CCTV
- The Feeling: Sewn
- KT Tunstall: Another Place To Fall
- And Arctic Monkeys, in general, as usual.

Can't wait to leave school.
x

A generation lost in space, with no time left to start again.

Spent today's CAS lesson coming up with "amusing" slogans for our the publicity campaign for our new Fairtrade stall to be set up at breaktime selling Fairtrade Geobars, including:

"Have YOU been GEOBARRED?"
"Fancy a GEOBARGAIN? Try new Fairtrade Geobars!"
"We're all going GEOBARMY!!"
"Let's go on a GEOBAR CRAWL!" (possibly the worst...)
"Her GEOBARK is worse than her bite!" (getting desperate)
"Don't be a GEOBASTARD! Buy our Geobars!" (possibly we won't get away with this one...)

If anyone has any more suggestions...
And while we're there I may as well plug the Geobar website.

I seem to be spending extended periods of time drinking tea at my desk wrapped in a sleeping bag. There are now five empty mugs on my desk. I should get out more. Gaby invited me to the cinema tomorrow, which was sweet of her as Katrina and Louise are always a bit cold about inviting me out. I might go. It's not like I'd get much work done if I went home....
x
P.S. I really should get over Natalie Portman....

You stopped the blood and made my head soft

My osmosis experiment involving carrots did not work AT ALL. My results show NOTHING. Some of the carrots SHRANK when they weren't meant to. I was taking results during Ms Peach's sex education class, not a pleasant experience. A load of rowdy, hyperactive year 9s were throwing things and shouting over an extremely patronising video. Believe it or not this ruined my whole day today.

Apart from that I'm feeeling relaxed and revived for a change. Little things cheer me up. Went to Ilford Salvation Army charity shop and bought two scarves. Ate Liquorice Allsorts. Listened to Hard-Fi. Fell asleep fully clothed on my bed at five and woke up at nine. Ate Honeydew melon. Worked a little.

Life isn't so bad, really.

It would be even better if I knew how to answer the following question:

A garden roller consists of a solid steel cylinder of mass 40kg and diameter 0.5m. The roller, fitted with a light handle, is pulled to the top of a uniform slope of length 30m. Given the angle of the slope to the horizontal is 10°, calculate:
a) the fall of height and the loss of P.E. when the roller is released at rest and rolls to the lower end of the slope.
b) its speed at the bottom of the slope.

Oh dear. I can see it's a fairly easy question but I can't do it. I need some help. Might have to go and ask Mr Adcock tomorrow, officially the grumpiest, moaniest, whiniest person ever.

x

And these tiresome paper dreams, paper dreams honey...

Everything's swimming in my head tonight. I hate the time it takes me to do anything. I hate my lack of optimism and my unintentional complaisence. I hate how I underachieve without meaning to.

I feel so vulnerable. I'm seventeen. But everything I do in the next two months will dictate my entire future. I don't know what I want, or what I'll do next year, but it won't be university. I need time and space, and a second chance, and some calm before the storm of life as an adult. I don't want to travel, or help people, I don't have an exciting project planned for next year. I don't know what's good for me. I feel like I'm making my life up as I go along. I'm not sure if it's down to fate, or laziness. I've made the wrong decisions, I've wasted time and wasted energy. I've become cynical, and nervous and emotional and confused. I find talking so difficult. I disappoint people, I mislead them, I annoy them. I try to change and fail. I do the right thing for ten seconds and it's an achievement. I celebrate by doing the wrong thing again. I find myself doing the exact things I criticised in other a year ago. I dream and provaricate and complain. I don't know how to change. I forget things, and blame myself.

It's completely shattering how different everything looks now compared to one year ago. I remember Claire in her red coat telling me not to take the IB. I remember thinking how silly and hysterical she was. I remember truly believing I had made the right choice. I need to stop blaming others, and I need to stop blaming myself. I feel inadequate, and inarticulate.

David Irving was sentenced to three years in jail tonight. I am glad he is finally being brought to justice. What he said about the Holocaust was a disgusting racist lie. He cannot dismiss it as opinion, nor can he trivialise it as seventeen years old. If Irving had studied the IB and written a TK essay he would know that a statement like "The Holocaust did not happen" cannot be considered opinion and has no subjective basis. I am a strong believer in freedom of speech, but as with any freedom, it comes with responsability. Disguising racist lies as truth or opinion is not exercising social responsibility, and it is this which makes the anti-Semitic lies spawned by the National Front, the BNP and Irving, and the racist cartoons printed in Denmark completely despicable. Freedom of speech does not excuse outright discrimination.

On the other hand Blair's ludicrous ideas about banning the glorification of terrorism are stupid and futile. Blair is trying to delude himself, and us, that 9/11 and 7/7 happened as a result of some kind of legal flaw, and that a restriction of civil liberties will somehow solve all his problems. It is patently obvious that both events were largely due to US/UK policy in the Middle East. Everything Blair and Bush have done for the 'War on Terror' has been immersed in ambiguity and propaganda. As Nancy Snow put it 'the phrase "War on Terrorism" is itself a propaganda message. By design it elevates the language of conflict, suggesting that all other options (negotiation, international courts of justice, international policing) have been exhausted, when the reality is they were never seriously considered.' At least in Britain, shockingly monopolised as the press may be, we are not subjected to propaganda as deceptive and offensive as the US campaigns, where adverts are even targeted specifically at women: "You, as a woman and perhaps a mother, may be in a unique position to act against international terrorism". The fact that the US government generates this is even more disturbing than the fact that American women respond to it...
x

Mascara bleeds a blackened tear

Leaping lizards, it's Sunday night all over again.

The Physics lectures I went to today were actually fairly interesting. The first one was all about medical physics: ultrasound, the doppler effect, and the way waves are used to detect heart rate, and to track unborn and premature babies' blood flow through the brain. Then everyone filed outside and helped themselves to free crisps and apple juice. The second lecturer, half an hour late, showed us all these crazy clips of people skydiving in bright orange suits and squatting and swimming around idiotically in the air whilst plunging towards earth at 75mph. He briefly spoke of the dynamics involved, but seemed more enthusiastic to overuse his visual aids and plug the British Parachuting website. All in all a very engaging afternoon. Weirdly enough, Johanna didn't turn up........... spooky. It's not the sort of thing she would miss.

Afterwards I could have got a train from Euston Square, or Goodge Street, or Warren Street or something but there were rumours the tube wasn't working, so I went on a fairly pointless walk to King's Cross in the rain, just because I felt like walking. It was very pretty there somehow, dark and shiny and wet. I got on a random bus, which incidentally took me to Liverpool Street. Three trains an hour on Sunday. Irritating.

Cooked pasta, drank tea, had a hot shower. I feel sleepy now, and warm, and miserable that it's Sunday.

This is the last day of the last half term of my life.
x
P.S. Just heard the new Streets song: what has happened?? It's deeply irritating and has absolutely no rhyme or rhythm.

Lend me a whole new world

Just read a disturbing accurate review decribing Kaiser Chiefs as "eurocentric indiepop flimflam".

Hello. I seem to have wasted the whole day, myspacing, drinking tea, killing time, reading, thinking, and delaying.

I so wish I didn't have to go back to school in 36 hours.

I'm not ready.

I don't like the White Stripes (particularly) but I love Lego and this just rules. It's like a year old though. And Goldfrapp is dangerously cool, though this video is very disturbing (in a good way). I totally disagree with Philip Bloomfield about female vocalists, he is clearly spouting misogynist crap. He is proved wrong by: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Garbage, KT Tunstall, Goldfrapp, Nora Jones, Sugababes, Regina Spektor etc. etc. etc. PHIL YOU ARE WRONG! WRONG I SAY!

I'm only posting out of obligation today. And that is all.

But she's cold inside

I'm sitting at my desk drinking tea and the cat is draped across my knee. I've been feeling weirdly emotional today. Probably because I've been spending too long on my own. The heating is up very high, and I'm wearing a jumper and extra tights as usual.

Well I thought Casanova was pretty good, but other people described it as 'shit' and 'contrived'. It was quite clearly meant to be an amusing, trashy, eighteenth century comedy sketch, what were they expecting?

Anyway, it was nice to see people again. Just nice. And then I came home, and cooked my cookies and ate one of them, and realised my brother was home very early too and that he was working and that I should probably be working too.

I've mastered rotational dynamics and revised the Vienna Peace Conference this holiday though. It's something. The best achievement, though, was being able to sit down in the afternoon and do a couple of hours of work without procrastinating, getting depressed, losing concentration, and finding everything unrealistically hard. I'm beginning to work for myself, instead of for other people. How I wish I could have learnt this two years ago. Why did no one teach me this? In year eleven I worked because someone told me too. In year twelve I didn't work because no one told me to.

There's just this horrible leap from dependence to responsiblity, and no one tells you when to make it, and most people pick the wrong time. Too early. Or too late. That's why this whole year is an endless struggle. That's why I'm not going to university in September. That's why most people are.

The fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's too hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world to me

xxxxx

She moves in her own way

Endless train journeys are somewhere between tedious and totally aggravating. Seven hours seems disproportionately long to travel from Wales to England. (They are next door to each other!)

Wales was marvellous. I forget how good it feels to be so far away from it all, but escapism is pure peachy bliss. Swimming in the Irish Sea in February is like agony and ecstacy at once, something you find in few other activites that don't involve drugs. Apparently. Amazingly enough, my grandad managed to restrain himself from racist Welsh jokes for at least two days. Unfortunately everything went downhill very quickly when my uncle and his army of people/animals arrived. Collectively they are the ultimate case of "LOVE their dog, HATE them". Jimminy (stupid name, but smart dog) is completely sane, affectionate and modest. The rest of them aren't. My uncle spends most of his time talking about things he's bought, and advising me to "keep off drugs, kiddo", "go to Durham, that's where you really want to be", and "buy one of the brilliant pressure cleaners for your patio, they're SO handy." My uncle is the last person I want to take advice from, I might end up failing a degree in Geography, living in horrible middle-class suburbia, and turning into a wanker.

Wow I'm tired. But happy, I actually did some work this holiday, and my Nana gave me some Welsh honey which I shall have on my toast tomorrow (if there's any bread in this hellhole). It's satisfying not to have wasted five whole days.

On the other hand I have killed quite alot of time over the past few days watching trash on TV, including 'Intolerable Cruelty' - fairly amusing garbage consisting of Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney trying to screw money out of each other, various episodes of Desperate Housewives and Hollyoaks, and The Lavender Hill Mob, also ridiculous but entertaining ("by jove Holland, it's a good job we're both honest men" - this had me laughing for far far too long). Also saw Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, which was as good as it's meant to be.

A pint: that's very nearly an armful!

And so, I bring you this blog entry with 475ml less blood inside me.

There's really nothing invigorating about giving blood, even if you reassure yourself of all the dangerously ill people you are saving. To be honest it was quite terrifying. There was quite a long queue of people to begin with, and I had to wait for twenty minutes before anyone noticed I was there. Then there were long forms to fill out asking me whether I had had any diseases, whether I had slept with anyone who had any diseases, and whether I had slept with anyone who had slept with anyone who had had any disease, whether I had visited places where there is alot of AIDs or malaria, whether I had had any tattoos, got any piercings, taken any medication, had unprotected sex, was secretly pregnant, was breastfeeding, had had sex for money or drugs, had shared needles, etc etc etc. Then they asked me all these questions again. Twice. Then I waited a bit longer. Then they asked me some more questions and took a jab from my finger. Then they told me I may be slightly anaemic and they had to take a proper blood test. Then they took a blood test to see how much iron I had in me: you needed 125 to pass, and I had 126 so I hadn't been completely wasting my time. Then I lay down and my blood ran into a plastic container for around ten minutes. Afterwards I felt faint so they raised my legs and put a wet cloth on my face for ages. Finally I was given custard creams and orange squash.

It was quite an adventure. Though they denied me of a 'I gave blood today' sticker. Tried to exploit the giving blood thing to persuade my mother to buy me Haribo/chocolate milk/ice cream/Coca Cola, but she wasn't having any of it: offered me curly cale and liver pate instead.

Apart from that, an uneventful day, and an uneventful weekend. Watched 'Walk The Line' on Saturday, which was marvellous. It's nice to see Reese Witherspoon actually acting. Revised and abridged my TK essay, it's still over the wordcount. Avoided doing anything vaguely connected to vectors. Read. Slept. Ate branflakes.

Can't wait can't wait can't wait for Friday......
xxxxxxxxxxxx

In your freezing arms.

In the last forty-eight hours I:

• Drank eleven cups of tea.
• Nearly finished three pieces of coursework. Nearly.
• Finished one book and started another.
• Shouted at several people, some of whom deserved it and some of whom didn't.
• Had three showers.
• Slept for nowhere near long enough.
  
• Went to four lessons, bunked one lesson and cursed/celebrated about two cancelled ones.
• Insulted Ms Ebbs/Lynne Brown/Katrina/"Mikey C" and his gang/the IB/the school library/the school internet server.
• Wasted time designing fairtrade T-shirt logos and listening to the Rakes.
• Ate beans-on-toast, macaroni cheese, chocolate, red peppers and oranges.
• Caught eight trains.
• Laughed at seaweed costumes/your face/Theo's chin/Joao.

x

P.S. If you're as bored and as disillusioned as I am, click here.