Showing posts with label exams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exams. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Full stop.
...That's it. Hamlet copped it, the Third Reich has fallen, Manderley is burning, Turnus is in the underworld. I've finished my A-levels. I did well in about three of them. My room is full of pieces of paper. And today I am hosting a birthday party for ten ten-year-olds.
Monday, 25 February 2008
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
Now that I'm back from beautiful fantastic Arvon, now that everything has settled back into how it was three weeks ago, some things are starting to occur to me. Firstly, I don't actually want a degree or a career thanks, I just want to write poetry all day, every day, and live on a diet of biscuits and trifle with FYP written on it in cream. Yes.
Because I'm too much of a conformist moron, though, I will probably end up doing those exam things that people keep talking about. And it has only just occurred to me that when they come around I'm not going to have some out-of-body experience so that some other girl with my name does them instead. There will actually come a point where I sit down at a desk and open a paper of some sort and see a question and have to answer the question. USING WORDS.
And that means that now I have to work. I actually have to stay awake in Brett's lessons, I actually have to make notes on The Sick Rose and not just whisper to Immy, "How big do you reckon Blake's penis was?", I have to write essays, I have to find the brain that I left on a bus several months ago and actually remember how to use it or the next four months are going to suck immensely.
(Small voice in back of head: "or you could just...NOT.")
Because I'm too much of a conformist moron, though, I will probably end up doing those exam things that people keep talking about. And it has only just occurred to me that when they come around I'm not going to have some out-of-body experience so that some other girl with my name does them instead. There will actually come a point where I sit down at a desk and open a paper of some sort and see a question and have to answer the question. USING WORDS.
And that means that now I have to work. I actually have to stay awake in Brett's lessons, I actually have to make notes on The Sick Rose and not just whisper to Immy, "How big do you reckon Blake's penis was?", I have to write essays, I have to find the brain that I left on a bus several months ago and actually remember how to use it or the next four months are going to suck immensely.
(Small voice in back of head: "or you could just...NOT.")
Friday, 8 June 2007
Honey sandwiches at dawnbreak
And then it was the end, and suddenly there was a heck of a lot of free time. (Let's not mention A2 courses, personal statements, uni decisions, prefect duties or other thingamajigs, eh?) Today was, as I always knew it would be, epic. There was me waking up at four in the morning because I'd gone to bed at nine the night before, and a few honey-sandwiches-at-dawnbreak (washed down with milk). There was a gloomy bus ride to the hospital a few hours later, during which I felt more and more ill and nervous, couldn't stop reciting Ovid's Amores 1.2 over and over in my head, and listened to two old women behind me talking about their hair.
There was the hospital appointment. I now have orthotics, which are, for a start, not as big as I thought they would be (I was dreading some kind of massive brick-like monstrosities that would only fit in the biggest of trainers or something like that, but they're pretty small really) - they're also quite comfy, like having cushions in your shoes. And I am now just a teensy bit taller because of them. So.
Then there was the bus ride home again, and I started making up a poem in my head - I swear, about 75% of my ideas for poems come to me on the bus, which is why no matter how much they suck, no matter how many times I end up on some crowded bus listening to a crazy woman singing Amazing Grace (this has happened) I will never stop taking the bus.
At home I started feeling ill. Steamed my face. Three times. Drank tea. Went on the internet. Tried not to think about a) Ovid, b) Cicero, c) any kind of Latin vocab/grammar. Didn't work. Read the OCR Mark Scheme for Latin AS-level. Suddenly wanted to cry.
And then all of a sudden it was 1:30pm and I was standing in the lobby, having one of those completely mindless small-talk conversations with Amy who was about to do her economics exam, and I was clutching some paracetamol thinking, "Should I take them? Should I? Am I being silly? Should I?" And I went up to Mr P who was the invigilator and said in a very tiny voice, "I don't feel very well" but he was running around with some woman in a red skirt so I don't think he quite heard me.
Then there was Hannah, who came up to me, wailed, "I don't know ANY CICERO AT ALL! I'm going to FAIL!" and ran off. I stood there, alone, and there were about 10000 year 11s who were about to do their history GCSE, and I thought, "Oh, those were the days - history GCSE, which I thought I'd failed and then it turned out I'd got an A* - God GCSEs were really not that bad...mind you if I told them that they'd probably crucify me...OHMYGOD I want to be sick."
Mr L (Latin teacher 1) came by and was all like, "Alright?" but I didn't really answer him because his face was sort of swimming in front of my eyes. THEN - HE came along. Thingy. Whatsisface. And I hadn't seen him since that night, and while there was a part of me that was kind of hoping to never have to talk to him ever again, there was also another part that was hoping that when we did get round to talking, there would be some kind of...difference. Like, some kind of acknowledgement, at least, of what had happened. But no. It was the biggest nothing of a conversation. It was all him saying, "What have you got?"
And me saying, "Latin."
And him saying, "Oh right. You OK?"
And me saying, "No actually, I'm a bit ill." And waving my paracetamol in an overly-cheery sort of way (why do I do that? why do I always act happier than I am?) and saying, "Immune system's decided to give up on me."
And him nodding. And then Boris came along and wanted to talk to me about the barbecue he's having at his house on Sunday, and so that was it. And I realised that yes, that really was it, we were just going to carry on as normal. Like, good-friends-who-just-quietly-resent-each-other. Yep, sounds like a plan.
Boris left, and I got very sad and sickly, and then Chadders (Latin teacher 2) appeared, and I must have looked like death in human form because he was very kind and reassuring and just generally wonderful. I felt better then, and he went off down the corridor on a cloud of godlike superior Latin knowledge.
And the description of the build-up to the exam has been longer than I was planning it to be. We went in. I forgot how to spell my surname for five seconds; that was a scary moment. Then we began (there were SO many people in the room - all the history year 11s, plus me and Hannah doing Latin, plus economics, plus drama, plus Alec who does Japanese - it was really claustrophobic) and my ill feeling cleared and just over three hours later it was all over. I don't want to jinx anything, so I won't say that, you know, it went well or anything, but...Well, the commentary paper was on two pretty easy-peasy bits (in the pro Milone, the bit where Cicero pretends Milo is waving his bloody sword and going, "Through me alone may justice, equality, laws, liberty, modesty, chastity remain IN THIS CITY!" Love that bit. And the Ovid was 1.7, the one where he hits her and pretends to grovel - SO much to say about that, and SO glad it wasn't smelly old 1.3). And then the essay paper...well, this year is the first year to do Ovid, so the Ovid question that came up was just the most simple, the most obvious, the most BEAUTIFUL question. There was actually so much to say that my essay ended up being a bit kitchen-sink-esque, but hopefully not in a rambly way. By the time the translation paper got handed out I was tired as hell, and the story was a bit doom-and-gloom, as usual (something adapted from Tacitus - the death of Otho, a real tearjerker), so at first I was a bit sluggish and confused, and then I got a grip and I think that was fine too.
And then. That. Was. It.
My other exams have generally been...OK. English seems like another age ago now, but I remember generally feeling a bit smug and pleased with myself afterwards (which didn't last long because I then went and made a tit of myself in the evening...) History was the worst, what with the suffrage paper asking crap questions about trade unions and then my art-and-culture essay on Russia being full of Mayakovsky and without any mention of Lenin - at all. I mean, Mayakovsky is slightly more relevant to art than Lenin, but still, Lenin is Lenin. Russian was Russian. I did it, but there were probably mistakes I didn't see.
But now I'm free, free, free, free. I can probably write poems again! (I'm sure the recent block has been exam-related.) And also, the latest issue of The Rialto came in the post today and it's full of good stuff. There's an essay on Auden, and some stuff about Fleur Adcock, and generally loads of good poems including this one by Julia Casterton, who actually died in March and so is given a special mention in the issue.
CONSIDER THE LILIES by Julia Casterton
I've been considering these lilies since they came out,
probably planted by my neighbour when she got bored with them in the pot,
staked up by John in two clumps beneath the pollarded trees.
As is usual with lilies, they're acting as if they own the place.
I water them every night my cooled-off bathwater.
Unlike the roses, they show absolutely no gratitude.
The hibiscus looks desperate for water, and drinks greedily,
but these lilies can take it or leave it alone. I am the supplicant,
pardon me for breathing. They breathe their cool whiteness over the whole garden,
calming it all down, easing the panic of the drought.
I go out to look at them shining in the night, taking it easy.
They boss the place. They never heard of Solomon or his glory.
There was the hospital appointment. I now have orthotics, which are, for a start, not as big as I thought they would be (I was dreading some kind of massive brick-like monstrosities that would only fit in the biggest of trainers or something like that, but they're pretty small really) - they're also quite comfy, like having cushions in your shoes. And I am now just a teensy bit taller because of them. So.
Then there was the bus ride home again, and I started making up a poem in my head - I swear, about 75% of my ideas for poems come to me on the bus, which is why no matter how much they suck, no matter how many times I end up on some crowded bus listening to a crazy woman singing Amazing Grace (this has happened) I will never stop taking the bus.
At home I started feeling ill. Steamed my face. Three times. Drank tea. Went on the internet. Tried not to think about a) Ovid, b) Cicero, c) any kind of Latin vocab/grammar. Didn't work. Read the OCR Mark Scheme for Latin AS-level. Suddenly wanted to cry.
And then all of a sudden it was 1:30pm and I was standing in the lobby, having one of those completely mindless small-talk conversations with Amy who was about to do her economics exam, and I was clutching some paracetamol thinking, "Should I take them? Should I? Am I being silly? Should I?" And I went up to Mr P who was the invigilator and said in a very tiny voice, "I don't feel very well" but he was running around with some woman in a red skirt so I don't think he quite heard me.
Then there was Hannah, who came up to me, wailed, "I don't know ANY CICERO AT ALL! I'm going to FAIL!" and ran off. I stood there, alone, and there were about 10000 year 11s who were about to do their history GCSE, and I thought, "Oh, those were the days - history GCSE, which I thought I'd failed and then it turned out I'd got an A* - God GCSEs were really not that bad...mind you if I told them that they'd probably crucify me...OHMYGOD I want to be sick."
Mr L (Latin teacher 1) came by and was all like, "Alright?" but I didn't really answer him because his face was sort of swimming in front of my eyes. THEN - HE came along. Thingy. Whatsisface. And I hadn't seen him since that night, and while there was a part of me that was kind of hoping to never have to talk to him ever again, there was also another part that was hoping that when we did get round to talking, there would be some kind of...difference. Like, some kind of acknowledgement, at least, of what had happened. But no. It was the biggest nothing of a conversation. It was all him saying, "What have you got?"
And me saying, "Latin."
And him saying, "Oh right. You OK?"
And me saying, "No actually, I'm a bit ill." And waving my paracetamol in an overly-cheery sort of way (why do I do that? why do I always act happier than I am?) and saying, "Immune system's decided to give up on me."
And him nodding. And then Boris came along and wanted to talk to me about the barbecue he's having at his house on Sunday, and so that was it. And I realised that yes, that really was it, we were just going to carry on as normal. Like, good-friends-who-just-quietly-resent-each-other. Yep, sounds like a plan.
Boris left, and I got very sad and sickly, and then Chadders (Latin teacher 2) appeared, and I must have looked like death in human form because he was very kind and reassuring and just generally wonderful. I felt better then, and he went off down the corridor on a cloud of godlike superior Latin knowledge.
And the description of the build-up to the exam has been longer than I was planning it to be. We went in. I forgot how to spell my surname for five seconds; that was a scary moment. Then we began (there were SO many people in the room - all the history year 11s, plus me and Hannah doing Latin, plus economics, plus drama, plus Alec who does Japanese - it was really claustrophobic) and my ill feeling cleared and just over three hours later it was all over. I don't want to jinx anything, so I won't say that, you know, it went well or anything, but...Well, the commentary paper was on two pretty easy-peasy bits (in the pro Milone, the bit where Cicero pretends Milo is waving his bloody sword and going, "Through me alone may justice, equality, laws, liberty, modesty, chastity remain IN THIS CITY!" Love that bit. And the Ovid was 1.7, the one where he hits her and pretends to grovel - SO much to say about that, and SO glad it wasn't smelly old 1.3). And then the essay paper...well, this year is the first year to do Ovid, so the Ovid question that came up was just the most simple, the most obvious, the most BEAUTIFUL question. There was actually so much to say that my essay ended up being a bit kitchen-sink-esque, but hopefully not in a rambly way. By the time the translation paper got handed out I was tired as hell, and the story was a bit doom-and-gloom, as usual (something adapted from Tacitus - the death of Otho, a real tearjerker), so at first I was a bit sluggish and confused, and then I got a grip and I think that was fine too.
And then. That. Was. It.
My other exams have generally been...OK. English seems like another age ago now, but I remember generally feeling a bit smug and pleased with myself afterwards (which didn't last long because I then went and made a tit of myself in the evening...) History was the worst, what with the suffrage paper asking crap questions about trade unions and then my art-and-culture essay on Russia being full of Mayakovsky and without any mention of Lenin - at all. I mean, Mayakovsky is slightly more relevant to art than Lenin, but still, Lenin is Lenin. Russian was Russian. I did it, but there were probably mistakes I didn't see.
But now I'm free, free, free, free. I can probably write poems again! (I'm sure the recent block has been exam-related.) And also, the latest issue of The Rialto came in the post today and it's full of good stuff. There's an essay on Auden, and some stuff about Fleur Adcock, and generally loads of good poems including this one by Julia Casterton, who actually died in March and so is given a special mention in the issue.
CONSIDER THE LILIES by Julia Casterton
I've been considering these lilies since they came out,
probably planted by my neighbour when she got bored with them in the pot,
staked up by John in two clumps beneath the pollarded trees.
As is usual with lilies, they're acting as if they own the place.
I water them every night my cooled-off bathwater.
Unlike the roses, they show absolutely no gratitude.
The hibiscus looks desperate for water, and drinks greedily,
but these lilies can take it or leave it alone. I am the supplicant,
pardon me for breathing. They breathe their cool whiteness over the whole garden,
calming it all down, easing the panic of the drought.
I go out to look at them shining in the night, taking it easy.
They boss the place. They never heard of Solomon or his glory.
Saturday, 2 June 2007
Mood swings and roundabouts
Last night I woke up from a dream about (I shit you not) women's suffrage (unfortunately I can't remember what happened exactly, I just know Sylvia Pankhurst was involved...BIZARRE), and then proceeded to stare up at the ceiling for half an hour, sweating and having a mild panic attack about everything. I actually wondered if I was getting ill, which only made me panic even more, so that by about 3:30am I was in a complete tizz and my teeth were actually chattering. Then I tiptoed downstairs and got a glass of water, standing there in the kitchen in the dark looking up at the sky outside, and calmed down and felt much better.
Took some Bach Rescue Remedy before going back to bed, and for some reason wondered if anyone had ever written a poem that mentioned it. I don't know if there's any kind of poetry website that has a database of poems sorted by topic, so you could just type in something like "snow" or "toast" or, well, "Bach Rescue Remedy" and it would give you all the poems that EVER mentioned that thing. There probably isn't, but there should be. Anyway, it made me want to write a poem about it (especially because the ingredients sound kind of - well - "5 x dilution of flower extracts of Rock Rose, Impatiens, Clematis, Star of Bethlehem, Cherry Plum in a grape alcohol solution" - there's got to be a poem in that, surely?). But I'm completely dry on the poem front at the moment, on account of being driven insane by exams and internal emotional dramas. That poem I mentioned ages ago that was half-finished? Still half-finished. And you know when you leave a poem half-finished for too long, you sort of stop caring about it, and it takes effort to get back to it and sometimes you just have to leave it? Well, yeah.
Friday is the end of everything. Friday is going to be an epic day, really. I have to wake up at the crack of dawn and get the bus to the hospital out of town, because - FANFARE - I'm seeing the orthopedist again and this time he's (probably) going to give me the special shoe sole thingies that will fix my right foot! This is going to be AMAZING. My foot hasn't been normal since I injured it in September, and now I'll be able to, like, wear whatever shoes I want without worrying about whether I'll want to rip off my foot with a chainsaw by the end of the day.
And then after that I have to leg it home, eat lunch and leg it to school and do the last exam - Latin - of all the exams that could have come last, it had to be Latin, the most important one - and then that's it.
It'll be quite symbolic. Exams will be over, foot trouble will be over. THEN I can start thinking about Emotional Shit (i.e. the aftermath of last week, see previous entry) which has been put on the backburner for now, which I am not currently thinking about. (OK, I'm thinking about it now. Damn. Anyway.)
In the meantime - actually revised a bit today, sprawled on the sofa surrounded by Cicero notes (apparently I looked so miserable that Mum had to ask, "What's wrong?" to which I said, "Life is shit, since you ask", and she uttered the most irritating phrase on the face of the earth, EVER: "Oh, pull yourself together"). Wrote ten thousand essay plans. Now I should probably go and read some Russian book. Yesterday Dad gave me a book of short stories by some Russian writer and said they were really good and I should definitely try them, they'd be great for revision etc. So I started reading them and they were OK, quite good in a horrendously boring sort of way - the kind of stories where nothing REALLY happens, people just meet on trains and in supermarkets and have some really meaningful conversation like:
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing really. Just...surviving."
"Yes."
"The sun is really big, isn't it?"
"It is."
"Yes."
And then they stare into space for a while and you're supposed to get some sort of idea of "things left unsaid". Pretentious arsewipe basically. Only then I noticed that loads of words were spelt wrong, and that there were all these grammar rules I thought I understood which were now looking really confusing and muddled on the page. And I asked Dad about it and he was like, "Oh yeah, he writes like that, it's full of slang and bad Russian". How exactly is that good for revision then? I mean, you wouldn't recommend Trainspotting to someone learning English, would you?
So now I'm reading some of Anna Akhmatova's prose. She wrote a little bit about her and Mandelstam and some other writers, and about St. Petersburg before the Revolution, which is quite interesting (and the stuff about Mandelstam is sad, really, considering how it all ended). Also started reading Rubicon by Tom Holland because Alistair who wants to do ancient history at uni has been raving on about it all year. It's OK - a bit breathless at times, which I suppose is what all the reviewers on the jacket meant by "exciting", only sometimes I wish he'd slow down a bit. Still, if it's a lively narrative zip through the rise and fall of the Roman Republic you're after, then you probably can't beat it. And I only started reading it because I felt like I didn't know enough about that period but actually I've realised I knew more than I thought I did (funnily enough, from endless Latin unseens...).
So, now comes the painful moment of ripping-myself-away-from-the-damn-computer...
Took some Bach Rescue Remedy before going back to bed, and for some reason wondered if anyone had ever written a poem that mentioned it. I don't know if there's any kind of poetry website that has a database of poems sorted by topic, so you could just type in something like "snow" or "toast" or, well, "Bach Rescue Remedy" and it would give you all the poems that EVER mentioned that thing. There probably isn't, but there should be. Anyway, it made me want to write a poem about it (especially because the ingredients sound kind of - well - "5 x dilution of flower extracts of Rock Rose, Impatiens, Clematis, Star of Bethlehem, Cherry Plum in a grape alcohol solution" - there's got to be a poem in that, surely?). But I'm completely dry on the poem front at the moment, on account of being driven insane by exams and internal emotional dramas. That poem I mentioned ages ago that was half-finished? Still half-finished. And you know when you leave a poem half-finished for too long, you sort of stop caring about it, and it takes effort to get back to it and sometimes you just have to leave it? Well, yeah.
Friday is the end of everything. Friday is going to be an epic day, really. I have to wake up at the crack of dawn and get the bus to the hospital out of town, because - FANFARE - I'm seeing the orthopedist again and this time he's (probably) going to give me the special shoe sole thingies that will fix my right foot! This is going to be AMAZING. My foot hasn't been normal since I injured it in September, and now I'll be able to, like, wear whatever shoes I want without worrying about whether I'll want to rip off my foot with a chainsaw by the end of the day.
And then after that I have to leg it home, eat lunch and leg it to school and do the last exam - Latin - of all the exams that could have come last, it had to be Latin, the most important one - and then that's it.
It'll be quite symbolic. Exams will be over, foot trouble will be over. THEN I can start thinking about Emotional Shit (i.e. the aftermath of last week, see previous entry) which has been put on the backburner for now, which I am not currently thinking about. (OK, I'm thinking about it now. Damn. Anyway.)
In the meantime - actually revised a bit today, sprawled on the sofa surrounded by Cicero notes (apparently I looked so miserable that Mum had to ask, "What's wrong?" to which I said, "Life is shit, since you ask", and she uttered the most irritating phrase on the face of the earth, EVER: "Oh, pull yourself together"). Wrote ten thousand essay plans. Now I should probably go and read some Russian book. Yesterday Dad gave me a book of short stories by some Russian writer and said they were really good and I should definitely try them, they'd be great for revision etc. So I started reading them and they were OK, quite good in a horrendously boring sort of way - the kind of stories where nothing REALLY happens, people just meet on trains and in supermarkets and have some really meaningful conversation like:
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing really. Just...surviving."
"Yes."
"The sun is really big, isn't it?"
"It is."
"Yes."
And then they stare into space for a while and you're supposed to get some sort of idea of "things left unsaid". Pretentious arsewipe basically. Only then I noticed that loads of words were spelt wrong, and that there were all these grammar rules I thought I understood which were now looking really confusing and muddled on the page. And I asked Dad about it and he was like, "Oh yeah, he writes like that, it's full of slang and bad Russian". How exactly is that good for revision then? I mean, you wouldn't recommend Trainspotting to someone learning English, would you?
So now I'm reading some of Anna Akhmatova's prose. She wrote a little bit about her and Mandelstam and some other writers, and about St. Petersburg before the Revolution, which is quite interesting (and the stuff about Mandelstam is sad, really, considering how it all ended). Also started reading Rubicon by Tom Holland because Alistair who wants to do ancient history at uni has been raving on about it all year. It's OK - a bit breathless at times, which I suppose is what all the reviewers on the jacket meant by "exciting", only sometimes I wish he'd slow down a bit. Still, if it's a lively narrative zip through the rise and fall of the Roman Republic you're after, then you probably can't beat it. And I only started reading it because I felt like I didn't know enough about that period but actually I've realised I knew more than I thought I did (funnily enough, from endless Latin unseens...).
So, now comes the painful moment of ripping-myself-away-from-the-damn-computer...
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
"a leftover baked potato can be damp, slippery, and simultaneously gummy and crumbly"
The sun comes out, everyone runs to Primark to buy brightly-coloured vests and sunglasses and stupid hats, businessmen drip ice-cream down their suits, toddlers turn strange shades of sunblock green, teenage girls get arrested for shoplifting. This is what I saw in town this lunchtime. (And it's the second time in a month I've seen a teenage girl get arrested for shoplifting in Primark - dear oh dear, what is happening to humanity etc. etc.)
Meanwhile I'm consuming tea and satsumas and crumbly baked potatoes (not with Patrick Kavanagh, as the Galway Kinnell poem goes), reading Heart of Darkness in a bad Italian accent and not really having much contact with the outside world. Facebook doesn't count. I had a conversation in normalspeak with Harriet yesterday, but it was pretty short and went something along the lines of
"I'VE FORGOTTEN ALL MY GERMAN!"
"Do you have an exam tomorrow?"
"YES!!!!"
"Well, good luck."
"I'M GONNA DIE!!!!"
"Stop it."
"I'M GONNA DIE!!!!"
"STOP-"
"EXAMS!!!!!"
"EXAMS!!!!!!!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
Not exactly in-depth. I keep meaning to ask her if I can go to her house on Friday before the ball to get ready, because going straight there from home and having to get squashed by buggies and wheelchairs on the bus while wearing a dress is probably not wise, but I feel a bit funny about doing it because I know she's bringing Hugh and if he's at her house too there'll be a bit of a gooseberry situation. Not that that would bother ME that much - I could keep out of the way, talk to her parents or something (not her crazy dad though, last time I saw him was when he said to Alex B, "My God, you must have a MASSIVE cock!" - I can't remember in what context this comment was made though). All I really need is a place to get my hair in order and plaster myself inexpertly with make-up and try to make sure I look nice and not just like some weird velvet aubergine.
And maybe with some company around beforehand I might actually feel a bit more excited about the whole thing than I am now. I don't know why I'm so unbothered by it - everyone keeps talking about it, and there have been a few good rumours spread about people in advance so there will probably be some kind of drama that'll keep us all entertained for the next month and a half. And it looks good on the leaflet. It's in a BOAT. There's a dining room that looks weirdly like the one in Titanic (hopefully not an omen). The tables have all the napkins folded into that funny fan-shape. There are cocktails. There's a live band. Tower Bridge will open for us. And the name of the boat is the Dixie Queen. I mean, that is a BRILLIANT name. Why am I not thrilled to bits by this?
Maybe because I sort of know how the night will turn out - not badly, in fact probably quite well, but at the end of the day I just KNOW there will be a feeling of anticlimax. Harriet will spend the night getting off with Hugh and then running to the toilet to tell me she wants to break up with him. Sophie is going to try and pull Mr Amy because she thinks he fancies her because one time he said she looked like Mischa Barton (this whole episode is going to be weird and wrong...but maybe funny). (For the record, she doesn't look anything like Mischa Barton.) Then Immy&Alex will be intertwined with each other all night, Sam will be sexist, Dom will make awful puns on EVERYTHING in sight, everyone will be manically happy and everyone who is 18 will be drunk. I will eat/drink/dance/laugh too much, while wishing that Raaheel or Boris were here because they probably wouldn't be taking it as seriously as everyone else. (They're both shunning the event on the grounds that they have better things to do, and good on them.) If the headmistress comes and if she makes a speech like she did at the modern languages dinner I will kill myself. And then it'll be over and everyone else will go to the afterparty (in Catford! Rock on!) but I'll go home via the insane night bus because the next day I'm expected at KING'S CROSS, PLATFORM NINE AND THREE QUARTERS, for a way more enjoyable day and evening.
What is wrong with me? I'm not usually so pessimistic.
Well, anyway. In other news, I've written half a poem. There's no last line and the first verse is a pile of ew, so I'm trying to change it and then I'll show it. Once again, it's a poem that isn't about me. At all. Maybe the ball will inspire a few poems, who knows...
Meanwhile I'm consuming tea and satsumas and crumbly baked potatoes (not with Patrick Kavanagh, as the Galway Kinnell poem goes), reading Heart of Darkness in a bad Italian accent and not really having much contact with the outside world. Facebook doesn't count. I had a conversation in normalspeak with Harriet yesterday, but it was pretty short and went something along the lines of
"I'VE FORGOTTEN ALL MY GERMAN!"
"Do you have an exam tomorrow?"
"YES!!!!"
"Well, good luck."
"I'M GONNA DIE!!!!"
"Stop it."
"I'M GONNA DIE!!!!"
"STOP-"
"EXAMS!!!!!"
"EXAMS!!!!!!!!!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
Not exactly in-depth. I keep meaning to ask her if I can go to her house on Friday before the ball to get ready, because going straight there from home and having to get squashed by buggies and wheelchairs on the bus while wearing a dress is probably not wise, but I feel a bit funny about doing it because I know she's bringing Hugh and if he's at her house too there'll be a bit of a gooseberry situation. Not that that would bother ME that much - I could keep out of the way, talk to her parents or something (not her crazy dad though, last time I saw him was when he said to Alex B, "My God, you must have a MASSIVE cock!" - I can't remember in what context this comment was made though). All I really need is a place to get my hair in order and plaster myself inexpertly with make-up and try to make sure I look nice and not just like some weird velvet aubergine.
And maybe with some company around beforehand I might actually feel a bit more excited about the whole thing than I am now. I don't know why I'm so unbothered by it - everyone keeps talking about it, and there have been a few good rumours spread about people in advance so there will probably be some kind of drama that'll keep us all entertained for the next month and a half. And it looks good on the leaflet. It's in a BOAT. There's a dining room that looks weirdly like the one in Titanic (hopefully not an omen). The tables have all the napkins folded into that funny fan-shape. There are cocktails. There's a live band. Tower Bridge will open for us. And the name of the boat is the Dixie Queen. I mean, that is a BRILLIANT name. Why am I not thrilled to bits by this?
Maybe because I sort of know how the night will turn out - not badly, in fact probably quite well, but at the end of the day I just KNOW there will be a feeling of anticlimax. Harriet will spend the night getting off with Hugh and then running to the toilet to tell me she wants to break up with him. Sophie is going to try and pull Mr Amy because she thinks he fancies her because one time he said she looked like Mischa Barton (this whole episode is going to be weird and wrong...but maybe funny). (For the record, she doesn't look anything like Mischa Barton.) Then Immy&Alex will be intertwined with each other all night, Sam will be sexist, Dom will make awful puns on EVERYTHING in sight, everyone will be manically happy and everyone who is 18 will be drunk. I will eat/drink/dance/laugh too much, while wishing that Raaheel or Boris were here because they probably wouldn't be taking it as seriously as everyone else. (They're both shunning the event on the grounds that they have better things to do, and good on them.) If the headmistress comes and if she makes a speech like she did at the modern languages dinner I will kill myself. And then it'll be over and everyone else will go to the afterparty (in Catford! Rock on!) but I'll go home via the insane night bus because the next day I'm expected at KING'S CROSS, PLATFORM NINE AND THREE QUARTERS, for a way more enjoyable day and evening.
What is wrong with me? I'm not usually so pessimistic.
Well, anyway. In other news, I've written half a poem. There's no last line and the first verse is a pile of ew, so I'm trying to change it and then I'll show it. Once again, it's a poem that isn't about me. At all. Maybe the ball will inspire a few poems, who knows...
Saturday, 19 May 2007
Watch out, the world's behind you
It probably wasn't the best idea to start this while in the depths of Exam Hell, since for a while (20 days and counting) all I'll have to say is stuff like, "Got up, wrote an essay, revised Latin, ate lunch, panicked, procrastinated, continued procrastinating, ate dinner, revised Latin, tried to write a poem, was too tired, went to bed". This is the kind of cycle my days are starting to take, and I doubt it makes a great read.
Nevertheless, I feel I should keep writing in here, if only because I'm in the middle of the Post-Lunch Procrastinating Period (PLPP) and don't feel like writing another Fart of Darkness essay just yet. This is what my Saturdays have turned into. I'm trying not to get miserable about it, since misery, as Thursday afternoon showed, just leads to chocolate marshmallow bingeing and yelling at younger brothers. And if I were to divide everything into nice, sensible lists, I'll see everything is in fact more fine than not fine:
THINGS THAT ARE FINE
1. I'm not dead.
2. There are just twenty tiny little days until Exam Hell is over, and all that's required of me is just to get through them one at a time.
3. I have an outfit for pruuuuuuuuuhm (aka the sixth form ball) next Friday, which I finally pieced together today.
4. I won a poetry competition yesterday. And OK, it may have been with a poem I LOATHE TO THE UTMOST DEPTHS OF MY SOUL THAT MAKES ME WANT TO RIP ALL MY HAIR AND ALL MY TEETH OUT AND CLAW MY EYES OUT OF MY BRAIN WITH MY BARE HANDS WHENEVER I SEE IT but it's still nice to win something.
5. There was an old lady in the street today who dropped three twenty-pound notes and they went flying off in the wind, and it was me who ran down the street and actually jumped in the air to catch them, and she was very very grateful and it made me glow inside.
6. I think it needs reiterating: I'm not dead.
Therefore all that I need to do is forget all the rubbish stuff (examsexamsexamsmyleghurtsIfeelsickJesusChristIcan'tfindmyCicerobooksIcan'topenmypursebecausethere'safivepoundnotecaughtinthezipexamsexamsexams) and just breathe.
And I think (because everyone else does it) I'll end on some poems today. OK, they're poems I wrote essays about this morning, but they're still good poems (and the essays were OK too).
SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
SONNET 147
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire his death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
By Shakespeare. Obviously.
Nevertheless, I feel I should keep writing in here, if only because I'm in the middle of the Post-Lunch Procrastinating Period (PLPP) and don't feel like writing another Fart of Darkness essay just yet. This is what my Saturdays have turned into. I'm trying not to get miserable about it, since misery, as Thursday afternoon showed, just leads to chocolate marshmallow bingeing and yelling at younger brothers. And if I were to divide everything into nice, sensible lists, I'll see everything is in fact more fine than not fine:
THINGS THAT ARE FINE
1. I'm not dead.
2. There are just twenty tiny little days until Exam Hell is over, and all that's required of me is just to get through them one at a time.
3. I have an outfit for pruuuuuuuuuhm (aka the sixth form ball) next Friday, which I finally pieced together today.
4. I won a poetry competition yesterday. And OK, it may have been with a poem I LOATHE TO THE UTMOST DEPTHS OF MY SOUL THAT MAKES ME WANT TO RIP ALL MY HAIR AND ALL MY TEETH OUT AND CLAW MY EYES OUT OF MY BRAIN WITH MY BARE HANDS WHENEVER I SEE IT but it's still nice to win something.
5. There was an old lady in the street today who dropped three twenty-pound notes and they went flying off in the wind, and it was me who ran down the street and actually jumped in the air to catch them, and she was very very grateful and it made me glow inside.
6. I think it needs reiterating: I'm not dead.
Therefore all that I need to do is forget all the rubbish stuff (examsexamsexamsmyleghurtsIfeelsickJesusChristIcan'tfindmyCicerobooksIcan'topenmypursebecausethere'safivepoundnotecaughtinthezipexamsexamsexams) and just breathe.
And I think (because everyone else does it) I'll end on some poems today. OK, they're poems I wrote essays about this morning, but they're still good poems (and the essays were OK too).
SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
SONNET 147
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire his death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
By Shakespeare. Obviously.
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