Fobbity-fobbity-fob

School has presented all the sixth formers with 'fobs'. These are little electronic devices that have our personal details on them, and we have to 'fob' into the school (i.e. put the fob against a sign on the wall outside the sixth form entrance) and when we leave 'fob' out again. Why? I don't know. I think it's one of those pointless new shiny things the school installs every time it slips further down the league tables (see also: unnecessary repainting of the toilet corridor, sporadic "smoothie bar" at lunch, etc.) Anyway, this is by far the least important thing I could be writing about right now.

New Blood on Monday, at the Poetry Cafe, was terrifying. I mean, I'm not sure I actually read for the full fifteen minutes, but it was still quite hard not to burst into flames with fear in front of that mike. Yes, it IS possible to set yourself on fire through fear. I'm sure it is, I came close. But it was OK really, people listened, people seemed to enjoy, and at the end a man tapped me on the shoulder and said "Well done!" So you know, at least I pleased that man.

I read the following, in this order:
1. Strawberry blonde. Because it's easy to read.
2. Summer In The City.
3. Underneath An Irn-Bru Sunset. A mistake: I've changed the first stanza of this 20,000 times and changed it AGAIN on the bus into Covent Garden - as I was reading it I realised the new version was still wrong and got very annoyed - when will this poem FINISH itself?
4. Sorrento. It felt weird reading this, just because of the...history. Let's not dig that up.
5. Crash, which I was really worried about reading and so when the time came I just DID it, really really fast and mad, and I think people liked it because they a) laughed and b) clapped. So yay.
6. The acrobat's daughter. And I mentioned Charly!
7. Too Many Storms.
8. Margarita.

The other two, Heather Phillipson and John Stammers, were amazing. I didn't get to talk to either of them unfortunately, because JS left after the first half and I rather stupidly dashed off at the end without saying goodbye to anyone, and felt rude all the way home. But I Facebooked a hello to HP so that's OK.

Back in Real Life (not that poetry isn't real life, but you know, I tend to think of everything that happens, like, here - school, friends, family, shopping for shoes that don't fit properly, and so on, as real life, and so everything like the forum, the Foyle bunch, poetry readings, poetry-writing, Pomegranate and reunions is just some separate, wonderful poetry land where I'm a different person and...yeah. It's hard to explain)...anyway, back here school is trundling along. Or thundering along, with all the force of ten tonnes of homework and the monster that is UCAS.

I've picked a Cambridge college - Pembroke. (And a Durham college, St. Cuthbert's Society. Cuthbert is a great name. That's not why I've chosen it, though.) As luck would have it a girl who used to go to our school is now in her final year doing Classics at Pembroke, so Mr L has asked her to come and have an "informal chat" with me on Friday. Well, it was just an informal chat at first, and I was looking forward to it because I can ask her loads of questions about Pembroke and Classics and Cambridge and actually get straight answers, and also ask her "HOW, HOW, HOW DID YOU GET THROUGH THE INTERVIEW?" But then Mr L added, "And as she's here we thought we'd give you a little...mock interview."

"What...on FRIDAY?"

"Yes. Just a few nice questions."

Yeah, I'm sure they'll be nice. Gah. Mr L has actually turned into a bit of a git recently. He's Oxbridge coordinator, so most of what's been spewing out of his mouth has been OxbridgeOxbridgeOxbridge, "And WHY have you not written your box statement yet?" and so on and so on. I know he's supposed to do this, and he's not the only teacher but still, it's annoying. And he's become unnecessarily mean in Latin lessons too, nitpicking at every piece of work I do and every point I make. We were translating a bit of the Aeneid recently (book 12) and I translated a phrase said by Latinus in a kind of archaic and old-fashioned way (probably because the notes I was using were from a book published in about 1890) and he started sniggering at me. WHICH, CONSIDERING IT WAS A FRIDAY AFTERNOON AND I WAS REALLY DAMN TIRED, WAS BLOODY IRRITATING. And I protested that, well, maybe I MEANT to translate it old-fashionedly, Latinus is after all QUITE OLD and so it makes sense that that is how he would talk. Yes? And Hannah backed me up, and Mr L then left me alone. But there's still just this constant...nitpicking. I don't feel I can do anything right.

Maybe he's pushing me deliberately in the run-up to Cambridge applications. He's going to be disappointed when...I mean if...I mean, WHEN I get rejected. (If or when?)

I'm going to shut up about this before I get panicky. You know what goes well with writing a Hamlet essay? Rachmaninov.