Shhhhhhh

Somebody down the road has one of those tree mashing things. You know, it's a sort of machine that you feed a substantial lump of tree into one end then receive a squashy-lumpy-barky sort of thing from the other end. I am not too sure *why* the people down the road have said contraption, or why they think that now is the appropriate time to use it, but I do know that it is making a noise.

The noise sounds like this: " ;;;!;!:!:;;;nnngggg;;;;{{{{!!!!!!{{{{?????clunk////////nnnnggg/,,,,,,." (and repeat)

But that's okay, I'm cool with that. Probably because that is a pretty accurate description of how the whole of today has sounded. From the very first noisy little bastard bird shouting it's head off through my window at 4 o'clock this morning to the stopclickingyourpenoriwillstabyouintheeye anger in maths to the "PLEASE. CEASE. BLOWING. YOUR. NOSE" desperation on the bus coming home - today has been one long head-achey, irritable chain of Stephanie-hasn't-had-enough-sleep-ness.

My day started with an early-morning Latin class. Everything about that sentence upsets me. I then had to face an after-school Latin class. There are few worse things to sandwich a day between than 10 girls reciting verb conjugations and questions about The Death of Germanicus. More and more often, I find myself wondering what was wrong with me when I decided taking Latin GCSE, in one 6th of the recommended time, was a good idea. (Although, the word "gerundives" never fails to bring a smile to my face)

My point is, that some days you should be allowed to wear headphones constantly, and listen to something beautiful, like Elbow, or maybe Fleet Foxes.

I Hit My Head On A Shelf

It's been a long day. Actually, it's been a long week.

A long month.

I am very very tired. But also rather over-excited.

I had a bit of a break down in Physics today. I couldn't quite get my brain around the whole stupid idea of the earth moving.

The earth moves at 18 miles per second. BUT I AM SITTING STILL.

My Physics teacher was going on about trains - if you jump up on a moving train, you land in the same place. apparently. I don't believe this and i won't until I've seen some proof, surely, SURELY you will land a bit further back than you were originally standing. No?

It resulted in me standing up and shouting "Don't even TRY to tell me that somebody standing still is travelling at the same speed as somebody in a car going 150 miles an hour!" Then bursting into tears. It was quite bad.

If someone would like to explain this to me... possibly with some diagrams, i'd be very very grateful.

In other news, I'm going to see Tim Minchin at the O2 tomorrow. I'm ever so excited!

You tell me too many things. There's too many things in here. They keep falling out of my ears.

I'm not good at staying focused. I daydream. A lot. Yesterday i was so deep in my daydreaming at the bus stop that my bus stopped, opened the doors, waited, closed the doors and had begun to drive away before i realised that i should probably have got on it.

It seems that this year, most of my teachers particularly enjoy making us sit in alphabetical order. This means in most lessons i am sitting next to the same people. Lets call them G and S (to protect their identity, also because i'm not sure how to spell S's name). G and S are very very boring, and grumpy, and have already made it very clear that they would rather not have anything to do with me. The plus side of this alphabetical order thing is that i'm sitting next to the window in almost all of my lessons. Awesome. Well, not very awesome if i actually want to pass these GCSEs.

I should never be allowed to sit next to the window if what's going on outside is a thousand times more interesting than what's going on inside. Which is pretty much always.

Here are some examples from recently-

Men standing on the school roof = more interesting than Chemistry.

Builders arguing about sand = more interesting than graphics.

Year 7s learning to play hockey on the field = more interesting than Physics.

Caretakers moving wheelie bins around = more interesting than IT.

Squirrel looking puzzled = more interested than French.

Blades of grass = more interesting than maths.

In fact, scratching my own eyeballs until they bleed = more interesting than maths.

Oh, and who put me in an accelerated maths group? I don't belong there. They won't let me leave. I asked to join another class but I "haven't given it a go yet". Has the whole world gotten together behind my back and decided to make me feel as awful and stupid as possible?

If you never play a song all the way to the end on Spotify, it never plays any adverts.

And i may have discovered a good thing about being horribly clumsy and having bad balance.

I Ain't Afraid Of No Ghosts

1) I've just checked my emails. All the subject lines lined up in my inbox made me giggle. 

These are the subject lines of emails i've recieved in the last week:

i'm an idiot. i'm your idiot.

you make my day lilac and electric blue with yellow flashes

I'm the American dream, i'm the definition of white trash.

You didn't email me.

Um... it's me again.

He's in your bed.

All of this shit is long

Y'all act like you've never seen a blue person before.

i ain't good to girls, me i'm a bad boy, something every good girl needs.

Big cook, little cook.

Stealing the crown jewels.

And the love kickstarts again...

مرحبا ، جميلة واحدة

special shoes.

This is because i ran out of texts. I have 300 texts a month and i used them all up while i was on holiday in Somerset because i was lonely. Now i'm emailing people instead. 

2) I play too much tetris. I used to hate it but now i'm obsessed with it. Actually obsessed. I can get to level 9 but i won't be happy until i get to level 10. I can stop when i get to level 10, that's what i keep telling myself. When i close my eyes before i go to sleep, i see tetris. It just happens in my head. When i was brushing my teeth thismorning i started thinking about the ways that toothbrushes could fit together to make squares and lines. Like tetris.

Is this worrying?

3) For my birthday i would like a jumper with a reindeer on.

It's Political Correctness Gone Mad...

Ok, so it's not really *political correctness* gone mad, more, health and safety gone mad, but i've always wanted to have a reason to say that.

I'll get straight to the point, you're not allowed to be given a sticky plaster if you're under 16. Because "you might be allergic to it".

So on Thursday, this hapened:

Me: "excuse me, may I have a plaster please?"

Miserable Office Lady: "no"

Me: "ok... why?"

Miserable Office Lady: "you might be allergic to them"

Me: "i'm really not"

Miserable Office Lady: *sigh* "what have you done?"

Me: *points at leg* "walked into i filing cabinet"

Miserable Office Lady: "what, backwards?"

Me: "well, i sort of...."

Miserable Office Lady: "i don't want to know. you can have this." *hands over bandage and some tape*

I ended up walking around Orpington then acting in our last performance of Cats (our Performing Arts entry - we came 4th!) with a large and slightly unnecessary bandage round my left knee.

It's silly, it is completely impossible to prevent anyone from ever having an allergic reaction. By the time you're my age, you should know what you're allergic to and be able to mostly avoid it, especially if it's something like sticky plasters - you can't really put one on your skin "by accident".

If they want to prevent as many medical emergencies as possible, i suggest the following things:

1) Dinner ladies should know exactly what's in the food they're serving so when someone asks they don't simply stare at them blankly.

2) Fix the radiator that sticks out of the wall at a strange and dangerous angle and leaks hot water in room 39 and glue down the bit of carpet in the drama room that people always trip over.

3) invest in some less-sharp cornered filing cabinets.

ASDA

I went to Asda. I don't know why; there's about 5 Tescos, 4 Sainsburys, 3 Waitrose and a Morrisons all closer to my house but for some reason i went to Asda.

I am never going again.

Who was it that first decided that supermarkets have to be MASSIVE? Do they really need to sell clothes and garden furniture and televisions and CDs and have pharmacies and opticians and at least one cafe? Really?

My nearest Asda is in Swanley. I looked at Wikipedia to find something interesting about Swanley to tell you, i found this - "Fat Heather from Eastenders now lives here, she can be seen frequently at the local Woolwhich Bank every Thursday morning between the hours of 9:00 and 12:00". Fascinating.

There's that blog, Overheard on The London Underground, i think there should probably be some sort of collection of "overheard in Asda". I'll start.

"Yeah... get them beans, they're french aren't they? right posh, and i think he went to france once."

Man "shall we get this candle."
His wife "no."
Man "but it smells nice"
His wife "it smells like horse vomit"

Woman in the cosmetics isle "I need some REALLY strong moisturiser, REALLY strong, i practically need a chisel to deal with the skin on my feet"
On hearing this I actually let out a fairly audible "eeeewwwwwww"

I was standing looking a fresh herbs when a small boy holding a gun shouted at me "BANG! you're dead"
Me "oh, ok."
Him "NO, i shot you, you're DEAD."
Me "Yes, i'm dead"
Him "no you're not! DIE DIE DIE"
Me "Ahhh. I'm dead."
Him "Dead people don't talk."
Me "Sorry"
*silence*
Him "Good." *walks away*

Fairly large old woman to me "you're standing in front of the sandwich bags"
Me "I know, i'm just deciding which ones to get"
Her "well move. I know exactly which ones i'm going to get. unlike you, i came prepared"
Me "ok." *moves*
Her *tutting* "look at your legs"
Me *looks*
Her "are your legs SWOLLEN?"
Me "no"
Her "mine are."
Me "uhhhh, ok." *walks away very quickly*

Woman, waving a dress at me "Be honest, would I look like an oompa-loompa in this?"

Competitions and Small Acts of Revenge

Last Friday, at lunch time, was the Easter fair at my school. The Easter fair, much like the Christmas fair, and the summer fair is essentially, people selling stuff i the sports hall and an opportunity for everyone to eat as many sweets as they can and be as hyper and uncontrollable as possible for the last lesson.

Unfortunately, i forgot to take any money to school, so had to spend my lunch time following my friends about, watching them buying stuff and staring miserably at the 32p i had found in my pencil case.

Then, i saw that the Eco House captains were running a competition - you had to write an idea that would make more people in the school more interested in the "Sustainable Schools" stuff, then stick it to a girl who was walking round dressed as a tree.

I had an idea, it was this - Prizes for whichever form had the most paper in their recycling box. There are so many reasons why this idea wouldn't work, but i decided to write it anyway. Well, as soon as i'd announced to my friends that i was going to, i wished i hadn't. For some reason, and i have *no idea* why, coming up with environmentally friendly ideas isn't all that cool. So, as i was writing my idea down on a recycled piece of paper that had been cut into rubbish leaf shape, my friends decided to take the piss out of my in a MAJOR way. It involved a lot of horrible name calling which i won't repeat now as they'd take too much explaining.

When i came to writing my name and form, i decided to get my small act of revenge, instead of writing my name, i wrote "Emma Lamond" the name of one of my best friends, also the one enjoying teasing me the most. I felt very pleased with myself, it was a rubbish idea, there were loads better already stuck on the tree, there was no way i'd ever win but i felt pleased with myself - Emma would probably die if someone thought she had entered that competition. (yes, she is quite shallow, but i still love her).

Ok, you're not stupid so you will have guessed by now that i won. Only, i didn't win, did i? Emma did. Her face when her name was called out was the best thing i have seen in so long! At first she looked really really confused, then, you could see something go *click* inside her head and then she just looked embarrassed. Really really embarrassed.

AHahahahahahahahahah. hahahaha. haha. ahahaha < that was my hysterical laughter. Nobody knew what i was laughing about but i couldn't stop myself. I'm still laughing now, thinking about it. HA!

She told the Eco House Captains that it was my entry, not hers. They were confused, but they gave me first prize instead - a fairtrade easter egg. WOO! Of course, i offered it to Emma, but she didn't want it, in her words "You're the Enviro-Warrior nerd, you deserve it."

I'm so lucky that she has a good sense of humour. And they'll all probably think twice before making fun of me for being a geek in the future.

only 2 legs

today is comemoration day at my school, it is quite possibly the best day of the year, and i wasn't there. because i'm STILL ill. there is a cake competition and my class made a multicolored cactus-wearing-a-sombrero, sweet filled (like a piniata) cake. i can't wait to see the pictures! i am sad because i missed it but more sad because i was supposed to be in the 3 legged race. and as emma pointed out - she's only 2 legs without me. we practiced and everything. we were going to win and if we didn't win, we were going to come second. nicole and peppers were competeing from S. they won last year but this year we had tactics... if they were ahead of us, we'd have pushed them over! to be honest, last time we didn't actually finish the race, she fell over, then i fell over, then we couldn't stop laughing. this year was our chance to redeem ourselves and me and this stupid swine flu have ruined it all. oh well, next year then. definately.