On not catching trains to Aberdeen

Not a lot has been happening. Well. There has been this onslaught of recurring dreams lately, in which I still have a heap of exams to do and I'm not ready and there's always some Huge Obstacle that's stopping me getting to school like (as in last night's dream-adventure) being on a train that goes to Aberdeen instead of London; I'm hoping these dreams will stop soon. Also, various emotional/personal headfucks that refuse to lie down and die have meant that I've been acting like a complete and utter teenager lately - this climaxed in a big revolting mess on Thursday afternoon, when I came home from school and spent a full hour sobbing into my pillow, then started looking for a specific set of photos that I wanted to rip up, didn't find them, and hated myself for the rest of the evening for being such a...well, such a 17-year-old. Let's not dwell on that.

I wouldn't say life is majorly stressful at the moment, but there are a few things just sort of simmering beneath the surface that when I think about them make me want to break stuff. Sat outside with Boris in a free period and we had the most depressing conversation, in which we both concluded that, yes, year 12 has been one of the shittiest years ever. I mean, for me it wasn't as bad as year 10 (the Female Holden Caulfield days) but it was still slightly worse than year 8 (the Mild Bullying & Ostracism days - incidentally, I found out recently that the word ostracism comes from the Ancient Greek word "ostraca", which means "pieces of broken pottery", because the Greeks used to ostracise people - send them into exile for 10 years - and to decide who they were going to ostracise they would all write their votes on a piece of broken pottery. So...I thought it was interesting, although writing it just now I'm wondering if I got that right. Will have to check.) And yeah, so we were writing the form report today and reading back on it there have been good times this year, but, overall, year 12: a bad year. Something about even numbers...thank god there's no year 14.

And generally odd-numbered years have tended to be quite good (year 11), so roll on next year!

Uni confusion has also been bubbling. All I can say about that is YES, I will apply for Cambridge (although even thinking about that right now seems really presumptuous considering I haven't got my grades and probably screwed up history), and YES, I will go to the open day at Jesus College with the school next Tuesday, and NO, I don't really have an opinion on Durham, and NO, I will definitely not be applying for Leeds because the classics course at Leeds just looks indescribably rubbish. So far, those are the only conclusions that have been reached.

It's not all been doom & gloom & stress & hormones though. Honest. There have been laughs, even though they've been strange ones - like when we were all sitting on the grass outside the common room on Friday and Raaheel came along, and William called out, "Yo! Raa to the Heel!" and NOBODY ELSE found it funny except me, and I was laughing for about ten minutes straight and am STILL giggling about it three days later.

And yesterday, for Father's Day, we went to some Midsomer-Murders-esque village in Sussex and went to a cafe where we had tea and scones with jam and clotted cream, and it was all very nice and civilised. Then later I found one of those wonderful old bookshops and bought some poetry books, and then we went to the beach for a bit but it was cold and crap so we went home.

Also, I have a LOT to look forward to at the moment. First up - I am so excited about this - on Saturday Christ Church in Oxford is having a conference day thingy (that's how I've been describing it to everyone - it's a conference day thingy) on Auden, and Christopher Tower gave my school a free ticket as a prize, and Mr Amy gave the ticket to ME, so - I'm going. General reactions to this have been like: "WHY do you want to spend a day listening to people talking about, er, some poet guy?" but I can't wait. Mind you, I don't know how I'll manage to get to Oxford by 8.45am (get up at...4? 5? hmm), but still. I WILL get there.

Then there's a classics dinner on Monday. It's not really a school event - I mean, it would be, but Chadders says he couldn't be arsed to fill in a tonne of paperwork for it, so what will happen is that everyone in the sixth form who does Classical Civilization or Latin will meet up in some restaurant in Soho and then we'll just somehow bump into the classics teachers.

Then it's Boris's birthday, then Harriet will finally have the birthday party she's been postponing since her birthday in APRIL, then...then...I've definitely forgotten something. Well anyway, and then school will be over and I'll be learning Greek for a week at King's College and eeeeeeeeeee, summer!

So, not a lot has been happening, but...lots is GOING to happen. And look at me, I'm actually keeping up this blogging lark.

Hope those trains to Aberdeen aren't symbolic in any way...