Away With The Faeries

8 things

2007-06-11T13:18:00.000+01:00

Well, I have decided to come out of blog retirement as my dear sister has tagged me to do this! I had vowed not to post on here any longer, but if I don't then I'll probably have to do some work so here goes:
8 things about me - not quite sure if they have to have the number 8 in them, but that way does seem more fun...

1) In 8 days time I will have finished my A Levels!
2) I am 8 years younger than my nearest sister Miriam
3) Last night I ate 8 pieces of chocolate (wow I got the sound 'eight'/'ate' into that sentence twice! How exciting!)
4) I have so far been writing this for 8 minutes... (does that count?!)
5) On average I drink 8 cups of tea a day
6) I was 8 years old when I first became an auntie to my lovely niece Anna :)
7) 8 is twice the number of written exams I have for my A2 courses (quite lucky there aren't I...)
8) I really do not think the number 8 plays a very large role in my life

Well there we go! I had to abandon this post and spend the whole afternoon thinking of the last four facts, but we just about got there!
Not quite sure who there is left who'll actually respond to my tagging, so I'll join Sarah with Miriam, and also tag both Mark and Heidi. If I did it then I'm sure the rest of you can manage it too!

One Big Weekend

2007-02-16T09:35:00.000Z

OK, I am quite impressed - it has only just been over a week since I posted. Two posts in a week is unbelievable!
I am not going to bother writing lots about my birthday meal because you can read it on Mim's blog, but we had a really lovely time on Saturday night; thank you all for coming!
Since then I have been to One Big Weekend, which is the OCC youth weekend away. The name irritates me quite a lot, because we go from Sunday evening until Wednesday morning, so it's not really a weekend at all! I did suggest we change the name to One Big Half a Week, but I was outvoted!
It was a really good time actually; the atmosphere was very pleasant and relaxed and everyone got on well together. We also had a really good time God-wise, so that was encouraging. It was nice to see so many people that I haven't seen in ages - in particular current or ex-King's Schoolers with whom I've sort of lost contact.
I got back on Wednesday afternoon (we got quite lost going there and back, so the journeys took about twice as long as they should have done, but never mind!) and then mum and dad left for Carcassonne in France at about 3am on Thursday. Needless to say I didn't get up to wave them off. So now I am looking after Ben until Sunday, which is not exactly difficult (and even if it were he has rehearsals for most of this week). I am currently debating whether I have the energy to walk into Botley to do the shopping, or whether I should send him off with a list instead. Hmm.

Arthur the Snowman

2007-02-08T18:57:00.000Z

Well, quite a lot has happened since I last posted! Most excitingly, it was my 18th birthday on Monday - yay! I had a fantastic day; thank you to everyone who bought me presents!
Only slightly less excitingly, today we had no school because of the amazing snow. Therefore in what was a very mature fashion we went sledging and built the biggest snowman I have ever made! We named him Arthur and he is easily 8ft high. We were quite impressed with ourselves! I know I would say it, but the photo really doesn't do Arthur justice. He is a formidable sight :)
I hope the farmer whose field we used doesn't mind too much - and also that the poor passer by we nabbed to take a photo of us wasn't too scared!

Six Weird Things

2007-01-10T15:57:00.000Z

OK, I give up - after being tagged by Sarah, Heidi and Mim, I suppose it's really time I did this!

THE RULES
Each player of this game starts with the ’six weird things about you’ blog post. People who get tagged need to write their own six weird things post and state the rules clearly. At the end of the post tag six more people and don’t forget to leave a comment on their blog to tell them they have been tagged and tell them to read your blog.

1) I eat Marmite and cheese sandwiches every day (as in Philadelphia-style cheese, rather than cheddar).

2) When I'm at home on my own in the evenings, I often become absolutely certain that there's a burglar/some sort of criminal in the house, and so have to grab the nearest heavy object (very often a book) to use as a weapon and I carry it round in front of me whilst entering or leaving any room. After I've convinced myself that there really is no burglar, I still feel obligated to take said weapon (or book) with me wherever I go, because otherwise if a burglar did come, I would be weaponless.

3) I have a fascination with the rain and often go out dancing in it.

4) If I realise once I'm in bed that I've forgotten to do something during the day, I will pick up a handy object and chuck it in the general direction of something I'll definitely need the next morning in the hope of remembering it. For example, if I forgot my homework I would pick up a nail file and throw it into my shoes so that the next morning when I found a nail file in my shoes I'd remember that I had some homework to do.

5) I'm obsessed with faeries and all things magical.

6) I have to have everything in alphabetic order (i.e. books and films). All the books in my room are in order, all the hundreds of books that my dad's inherited over the years are in order, when I have my way all the books in my brother's room are in order... a couple of years ago I even spent about half an hour ordering my friend's brother's DVDs (there were hundreds; it was really fun!) during a New Year's Eve party.

Tagging: Harriet, but I very much doubt she'll do it
Sophie, but the same applies
Everyone else has already done it!

Bumbling Week

2006-09-02T20:20:00.000+01:00

Well, for most of this week I've really done very little!
Today was Ruth Elmitt (well now Hettler)'s wedding, and that was amazing. She looked gorgeous and the ceremony was really special and it was all just brilliant! I did spend most of the service trying to keep the McCobb children from being too noisy, but it was still great.
Last Tuesday I went into town and got caught in the torrential rains and was soaked through so much that I had to buy a new top and caught a chill! Think that's been the most interesting thing I've done!
I have sorted out all my school stuff (hip hip hooray) so that I'm ready to go back next week. And Ben is getting baptised tomorrow, which should be really good. All my family are coming round as well which will be fun :)
Oh, I have just wrecked my feet by chasing after my parents' car on gravel with no shoes on because I realised they had my glasses. I don't believe they didn't see me waving and chasing them ALL THE WAY down Hurst Lane. I mean, I know I'm only learning and all, but I'm pretty sure Dad should have checked in his mirror at least once ;)

Celebrate!!

2006-08-21T21:12:00.000+01:00

Because I got 4 As in my AS levels!!!! Hooray!! I'm really really pleased - well obviously - and a little surprised. I only just scraped through with my German; you need 240 points for an A and I got 241. Close.
Anyway, I'm very happy :)
I haven't got much to do until we go back to school, except of course all the holiday homework I've been putting off. So I'm just meeting up with people in town and things like that. Nice and relaxed really.
Anyway, that's all for now, but I'll try and post again before another 2 months have elapsed!

My illness

2006-07-07T16:27:00.000+01:00

Doctor Unheimlich has diagnosed me with Estherosis
Cause:	genetic mutation
Symptoms:	glowing in the dark, extremely polka-dot blotches, dancing, sneezing
Cure:	fire
Enter your name, for your own diagnosis:

Long long walk

2006-06-30T21:02:00.000+01:00

I have just been on a 2 hour long walk with Ben. I don't think it would have seemed quite so long, but we got just slightly lost at one point and it took us ages to find the right way again! It turned out that we were exactly where I'd originally thought we were, only I thought we were at the other side (it was a farm). A mistake which could have taken a long time to rectify, but thankfully didn't.
Aside from walking and completely blackening my feet, I have done little this past week except for watching Wimbledon! I do have quite a lot of work considering we've only just finished our exams, but a lot of our teachers are quite busy so they're cancelling lessons. I didn't have to go in until one on Wednesday and went home at twelve today. Woohoo!
Yesterday I went to a Bristol open day. I have no desire whatsoever to go to Bristol, but the school took all of us who wanted to go, so I just went along for the ride. I did very little though, really. My friend Leonie and I looked around the accommodation, which was absolutely, totally and utterly foul. I didn't want to touch a single thing in case I became contaminated. The self-catering was a lot better than the other, but still I would never, ever live there. We then walked into town by a very circular route and went to Starbucks to have a frappuccino (delicious but very expensive). After a while we wandered back by a far more direct route, went to a lecture on Modern Languages for about 10 minutes, then had to leave because we had to catch our coach home. The journey was 2 hours each way so it took ages. So, a very fruitful day really! Leonie and I going to Cambridge together next week though, which should be fun. (I found out today that we've just missed the Oxford open days, which is very annoying. They were yesterday and the day before. Grr.)
I also went to see the Larkins' new baby yesterday, who is so cute! The Shaws and Joneses have also both had little girls now, so soon there will be an influx of little girls at church. It will be lovely when they all come to creche.
I am going to Vertigo tomorrow, which is a collaboration of churches around Oxford's youth work, and they're combining it with The Noise, which is a sort of good works thingamabob. So we'll be doing things like gardening, going to old peoples homes, etc. It should be really good fun actually. And I've found out that they're showing the football, so it's all good!

Well talkative is right...

2006-05-25T13:40:00.000+01:00

I quite this result actually - although the middle aged woman bit is slightly bizarre!
Although, sorry to be annoying, but the error when it says "how to life your life" is really bugging me!

You Are Elmo

Sweet and innocent, you expect everyone to adore you. And they usually do!

You are usually feeling: Talkative. You've got tons of stories to tell. And when you aren't talking, you're laughing.

You are famous for: Being popular, though no one knows why. Middle aged women especially like you.

How you live your life: With an open heart. "Elmo loves you!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Following the trend...

2006-05-16T20:48:00.000+01:00

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I haven't actually seen Schindler's List, is it something I should watch? I think I saw a clip of it in RS once and it terrified me, but that was a long time ago. Opinions would be welcomed!

I realise that I haven't posted on here for an absolute age; I've been very busy with work for orals and written exams. The orals have passed and most of my exams are next week. The panic is just starting to set in! So I may keep quiet for another week or so, but I'll reappear soon to let you all know how interesting and not at all monotonous or humdrum my life has been of late.

Back to Normality

2006-04-18T19:05:00.000+01:00

Back to school today. I felt very bereft without my third week of Easter holidays! I thought we only got 2 weeks because of this new 6 term thing, but it turns out that Henry Box only ever have two weeks at Easter.
I have to say our teachers weren't very gracious to us today; out of 4 lessons 3 of them were essay ones. I also got given an essay in my English lesson, which I should be doing right now but cannot be bothered, and so shall probably end up doing at the weekend.
Ultimate Intention was really good and very fun, if practically sleepless. The main speaker was a guy called Brian who is starting up a church in Ibiza. Interesting place to choose! The last week I've spent in France with my family which was nice and relaxing.
I am also currently trying to finish the impossipuzzle which I stupidly started over the holidays. It's peppers and it's very hard! The choice this evening was either carry on with my puzzle or start my English essay, and somehow the essay just seemed to get sidelined...
Anyway, I hope everyone had a nice Easter, and I'll blog again soon! Well, at least I will if I remember ;)

Humdrum Holiday

2006-04-06T19:41:00.000+01:00

Well I'm off tomorrow to Ultimate Intention for the weekend. It should be really good fun; I'm really looking forward to it.
The last few days have been unspectacular, just normal things happening. I have been trying and sometimes succeeding to work/revise. I went to Caffe Uno on Tuesday which was good. I really like the atmosphere there and it's not at all expensive - as I am a total cheapskate this is very important to me!
Yesterday afternoon I acquired a headache which would not disappear despite numerous paracetamols/ibuprofens. I slept very badly because of it, and woke early still with a thumping head. It hasn't gone all day and has been really painful; thankfully it has just started receeding so hopefully I shall be all better come tomorrow. Headaches really are very aggravating things, because it's not as if it's a proper illness and yet it completely incapacitates you. It's not fair!
I went down to the library today and got out Sense and Sensibility in German. I haven't started reading it yet but it should be challenge!
Anyway, that's all I have to say - have a nice weekend, everyone!

Worth a Listen

2006-04-03T19:46:00.000+01:00

If anyone has any time, follow the link on the Happy Birthday post on Mark and Heidi's blog. I have to say I was in tears by the end of listening to that song. It's so awful to think of the thousands of people around you each day who are probably going through a similar thing. Also, school friends especially, I've been realising recently that it's really important for me to clarify my own perspective on 'issues' like this, because when people ask me about my Christian viewpoint I'm not always sure what to say. So think about it!

Go Oxford!!!

2006-04-02T19:06:00.000+01:00

Woooo we rule!
If I do go to Cambridge, I'm going to have real problems come Boat Race time...

School is over!

2006-03-31T17:17:00.000+01:00

Hooray!
Is pretty much all I have to say.
I had a very fun day today actually. It was sad because I had to say goodbye to my German language assistant as she left today. She was truly lovely, so it's a shame that's she going, but I'm sure we'll stay in contact.
History was fun as always, and in my free and lunchtime I went to Costa Coffee for hot chocolate and then to Sainsbury's, just because. It was a lovely day and it's great to be able to walk around without tons of layers on. Having said that, we did get caught in the torrential downpour this afternoon! Luckily we were just at the bus-stop so it was alright - actually I love that kind of weather! If I hadn't been about to sit on a bus for half an hour I think I would have been running around madly :)
Our German lesson today was also really fun; we played Easter games on an interactive whiteboard from the Linguascope website. The girls won, go us! To be fair we had double the amount of people, but that's completely irrevelent as we obviously would have won no matter how many of us there were.
And now I am exhausted and have a truckload of work to do over Easter - but at least it's the holidays!!! Wooo!!!!

Random Stuff

2006-03-28T20:55:00.000+01:00

I'm very excited today, I got my 'Henry V' English coursework mark back - 20 out of 20!! Woohoo!!
Aside from that Dad came home, which is also good! He's been off travelling around Africa again, and I have to admit that I thought he was away for another week until yesterday (I have completely given up on trying to follow his plans) so it was nice to see him today.
I went to an Oxbridge conference at Cheltenham Racecourse yesterday. It was quite informative, but quite a lot of the speakers should never have been let anywhere near microphones. They also didn't give us any official breaks which, when we're expected to sit through six hours of lectures on the trot, is not brilliant. Luckily one of the sessions ended a bit early; otherwise I may actually have died. The seats were also uncomfortable and it was very stuffy, but there was some good information and it made a change to my normal regime. I'm very confused now though, as I am anytime one day out of my routine changes. I suppose it just goes to show how monotonous my life is!
But now there's only 3 days of school left. Youpi!

Oral Exams and Campaigns!

2006-03-22T18:16:00.000Z

This has possibly been my busiest week in a very, very long time!
I've mainly been so busy because I've had both my mock oral exams, French yesterday and then German today. They both went really well actually; I find them really fun! The French I wasn't too worried about, although I did speak a bit fast I think. She said she really enjoyed talking to me though which is good. I was quite anxious about my German, because I didn't have my presentation nailed until this morning. In the end it went really well, even if my tenses were very skewiff in places! My French was about Napoleon Bonaparte and my German was about Martin Luther, so they're not very easy to talk about for ten minutes. We managed though, wooo!
The other reason why I've been busy is because of my Head Girl campaign at Henry Box. It's impossible to be on the School Council unless you stand for Head Girl/Boy, because the six people with the most votes form the council. I would quite like to be on the council - or even Head Girl, but that's never going to happen - so I agreed to go for it. Little did I know how seriously it would be taken! It has actually scared me how serious some people have become about it. I don't think it's healthy, to be honest! Anyway, I find out tomorrow how I fared (there are 23 candidates and as I still don't know everyone I'm not exceedingly hopeful, but you never know) so any prayers would be welcome!
And if you're interested, here's my campaign poster - I won't bore you with my manifesto. Suffice to say everyone found my initials incredibly amusing, so I decided to play on them with my friend's advice...

MUNGA

2006-03-16T16:25:00.000Z

Yesterday I went to Munga - or in other words, Model United Nations General Assembly.
What this means is that lots of schools pick countries to represent in teams of three, and go to the assembly (held in Kidlington) as that country, and debate topical issues from their point of view.
I represented Angola with my friends Heidi and Rachel, and I really enjoyed myself! I was quite scared before the day began, because I had to speak in front of quite a lot of people and I wasn't sure if I had enough information, but it turned out that I had more than enough.
The first debate - plenary or whatever it's called! - was held with everyone together, but only one spokesperson from each country, so Rachel represented us. The debate was over climate change and global warming, and although interesting this wasn't the best part of the day because, since all countries had been told to write a statement for their viewpoint on climate change, most people simply read out their statements and we didn't get very far really.
For the second part, we split into 3 different debates - Malaria and HIV/AIDs, Fair Trade and Landmines. I was in the landmines debate. This was the part that had really shocked me actually, because before agreeing to do this I didn't even know where Angola was, and it is a country in need of desperate help. Up to 20 million landmines are suspected to be under the soil, but they were not marked so nobody knows where. A 28 year civil war finished in 2002, and therefore the country is still unstable. 150-200 new landmine casualties occur every week, and half of these are children. As you can see, I had a lot to talk about. It really is appalling that no one will give sufficient aid to countries like Angola. It is true that the government is corrupt, but this is not the fault of the people and they are the ones dying from starvation and explosions.
Henry Box submitted two teams this year, Angola and Iraq. The landmine debate was very amusing, because my friend Chris, who represented Iraq, had not been able to find out anything about Iraq's stance on landmines. He therefore decided to be as controversial as possible, and it was hilarious because many countries' contributions started with, "In reply to Iraq's statement," or "I must argue with Iraq" and so on. I think he enjoyed himself quite a lot.
For lunch, we had been told there was lunch provided but actually there wasn't. Luckily we could walk easily into Kidlington, where we found a nice little café and had tea and sandwiches! We felt very proper and English :)
In the afternoon we had an emergency debate, with a situation they'd concocted for us, which was quite fun because we had to network round all the different countries and try and gain allies, so that when we voted we would be in the majority. Unfortunately, we weren't!
We then had to vote on resolutions we had drawn up in our separate debates, which was all fun enough, and that was the end!
It was very enjoyable, and it certainly made me think about issues I might not usually think about from all ends of the spectrum. I think I can probably comment more knowledgably about UN procedures now as well!

Uniform Day

2006-03-04T09:26:00.000Z

Oops - haven't written on here in quite a while!
Yesterday our Sixth Form had a uniform day, because all the lower school was having a non-uniform day for Charities' Week. So there I was in my old King's School uniform, hooray! It was quite fun actually, but I really did feel a lot smaller and undeserving with my uniform on. Very strange!
Today I was supposed to be going to a Soul Sista conference in London, but I've had to cancel at the last minute because I have so much work. I'm really gutted about that actually! So instead I shall be restructuring my entire French oral, trying to find out about Angola for a Model United Nations General Assembly thing I agreed to go to; no idea why, and also trying to remember everything about the book we studied in English Lit at the beginning of the year because we're restarting it next week. I also need to sleep, because I'm absolutely exhausted!
So there we go, hope everyone else is going to have a more interesting day than that...

My Birthday

2006-02-05T18:29:00.000Z

First of all, thank you very much to everybody who's wished me a happy birthday/given me a present today!
I've had a lovely day actually, and got some brilliant things. These include bright pink suitcases, books, DVDs - including the new Pride and Prejudice, wahey! - and toiletries, among many random and much appreciated others! I got sung to at church today, much to my chagrin, but I suppose it was to be expected as my birthday is actually today, and I had missed it at school so at least it was only once.
I reverted back to my childhood this year and had a Disney Princess birthday cake; it was amazing! :)
So thanks again to everyone, from a happy but rather tired (for no apparent reason) seventeen year old!
xxxx

Ill AGAIN

2006-01-28T10:03:00.000Z

Like many other people that I know, I've been ill this last week. I've actually been ill a heck of a lot since last September which is very annoying, but I'm confident that this is going to be the last time that I'm ill for a very very long time!
Today I have to be well enough to go the Student Weekend for the afternoon, as they invited the youth because we've been discussing recently how the students and youth barely know each other at all. I wouldn't usually go as I have been quite ill, but I managed to persuade quite a few of the youth to go on the grounds that I was going so they wouldn't be the only ones. Therefore I don't really feel like I can just not go now!
I'm slightly worried that I'm getting behind on work as I've been laid up in bed these past two days, but I'm sure I'll manage to catch up soon. I've had a period drama fest actually, I've watched North and South and Wives and Daughters, which is far too much TV to watch, as I also sat in front of a 2-hour Foyle's War episode and Singin' in the Rain!
Umm... I'm trying to think what else has happened since I last posted. I stayed at Mim and Adam's last weekend, which was really fun. It was nice and relaxed, which I needed! We played Trivial Pursuit twice, and Mimi won both times, which wasn't so fun!
Oh, and it's my birthday in a week and a day! I'll be able to drive! Now is that scary or what??

Catch Up

2006-01-11T17:54:00.000Z

OK, it's been quite a while since I posted on here! A lot has happened actually, but I'm afraid I could find neither the time or the inclination to post any of it. So suffice to say, my Christmas and New Year were both brilliant, and I am now back at Henry Box, once again working hard! I'm handing in my final draft of my English coursework essay tomorrow, which is slightly scary, but my teacher checked it over and told me he really liked it, so I'm hopeful (and praying hard)!
Tonight I am going to have to stay up until MIDNIGHT to watch the Lost finale. I am not happy! And the problem is, for everyoen who's about to shout 'just tape it', if I do tape it I will definitely hear what happens at school tomorrow. It's been hard enough avoiding the information gleaned from the people downloading the episodes off the net, so tomorrow everyone will be talking. I'm also babysitting tonight, so I might miss the start, but as it's two hours long I'm not too worried. I'll just whizz the telly back on as soon as I get home, and hopefully I won't have missed too much. I just hope I stay awake! Stupid Channel 4.
I have the most aggravating cold at the moment, basically I'm alright apart from the fact that I can't breathe, so if I go around all day with my mouth open looking like a goldfish I'm fine. Great remedy, hey?
It's hard to believe we've only just started the school term; it feels like I've been back an age! I think it's because I had an exausting weekend, so am already tired, and tonight isn't going to help on the tired front. Tomorrow night though, I think it's bed at seven for me!

Christmas Eve

2005-12-24T16:53:00.000Z

Well, with the very creative title there, it most definitely is nearly Christmas! Every single box has been ticked - school has finished, we've had our Monster Turkey youth event, I've seen the Coca-Cola ad, I've finished my advent calendar, I've done the Christmas cleaning, I've again un-creatively done the serviettes for Christmas dinner tomorrow, we have lots of presents under our tree and we've had our annual family trip to the cinema. Don't you just love traditions!
Actually I've spent most of today in a very un-festive mode, finishing off my English coursework (explore the ways in which Shakespeare portrays the character of Henry V throughout the play Henry V) but it was a job worth doing.
I am now about to go out to a party until half ten, which should be very fun!
And I am suitably excited about Christmas as is probably evident. I'm sure I shouldn't still be this excited each year, but there we go.
So, Merry Christmas, everyone!

Benj's Birthday

2005-12-22T14:44:00.000Z

I have just come back from about an hour and a half of falconry, which we went to in honour of Benj's birthday! He is 14 today, which is very scary, and he absolutely loved doing the falconry. He got to tempt them down onto his hand and carry them, as well as help to train them for a bit. The guy doing it was really good, friendly and knew what he was doing, so that was ok. One of the birds rather scared me at one point though, by taking off from his hand to land on my head! It was very fun once it was there, I just hadn't expected it.
Benj also got a fish tank for his room this morning, which he is very pleased with - although personally I still have my doubts as to whether he'll remember to keep it up all the time!
He has 2 friends coming over this evening, which means I can thankfully disappear :)
I have actually been ill for the past 3 days and am still not on top, and at present am absolutely freezing, but I think I'm getting better. I hope I am, anyway, because I refuse to be ill over Christmas.
And that is all I have to say, really. I swear Benjamin cannot be 14 already, but apparently he is, so there we go!
Happy Birthday Benj.

Berlin

2005-12-13T18:05:00.000Z

I got home from Berlin at about 8:30 yesterday evening, very very tired but having had a brilliant time.
I had to be up bright and early on Friday to be at school for 7:30, and from there we travelled to Luton and flew to Berlin Schonefeld with EasyJet. I get on really well with my German group so it was lovely to be going with them. We also went with the Upper Sixth, but there are only 3 of them and they knew none of us so were just as scared about that as we were! They were all lovely though, and everyone got on brilliantly, so that was good.
We visited tons of Christmas Markets; they are absolutely amazing. The atmosphere is just so friendly, and I think really special as well. Lots of nice food and nick-nack stands to look at too! We also went shopping in the actual shops - KaDeWe, largest department store in Europe, and many of thehundreds of H & Ms which seem to be in Berlin.
As well as shopping we played tourist. We visited the Reichstag, which was incredible - it's really high and there's no roof so you look out onto the sky. We also visited the Fernsehturn, or TV tower, which has a revolving restaurant in it. That was very fun!
We saw quite a few remnants of the Wall, which was more sombre, and also went to the Holocaust Memorial and a Jewish Museum. We actually found the museum quite interesting, and we didn't nearly finish all of it - I think we faffed around too much, thinking it would be boring, but there were enough hands on activities to make it interesting and informative.
My feet ached sooo much, we walked everywhere! We also took the U-Bahn quite often, which is really funny because the German people just stare at you the whole time. They didn't even look away when we looked back, it was very disconcerting!
Oh, the other very amusing part of the trip was our cinema visit - they were determined that we would go and see a film in German. So we decided to go and see Narnia, got there, watched the adverts, got to the trailers and they were all in English. Hmm. Got to the film, by which time we were all slightly hopeful that it might just be in English after all, and hooray! It was! The film was really good, I loved it. Obviously, knowing the book very well, there were some parts I wish they'd kept which they didn't, and some parts they made up which I found slightly bizarre, but on the whole it was just fantastic. I would definitely recommend it.
Our teachers were mortified though. They asked at the end of the film how come it hadn't been in German, and the attendant said, "Oh, all our films are in English at this cinema!" That I found just hilarious.
I'm actually very pleased because I'm not too tired, and I don't have any outstanding work to do. I had a brilliant time, and anyone who's considering going to Berlin, you definitely should! And visit a Weihnachtsmarkt!!

Parents' Evening

2005-12-07T20:44:00.000Z

So this may be a slightly bizarre way to describe my parents' evening, but I found it really fun!
I was quite worried about some of it, and I'd never actually been to my own parents' evening before. I still think it's weird to have to go. They should at least change the name if we do!
But anyway, my first appointment was with my History teacher who is absolutely lovely and amazing, and she was really positive, so that meant I was less nervous about everything else. In her lesson yesterday we had to portray the second reign of Edward IV in different ways, randomly given out to us (namely a chart, a visual diagram, freeze frames, a poem, or a song). So my group got the song, and we made it up to the tune of Amazing Grace, and had to perform it. It was almost scary but hilarious, and so she liked me because of that! :)
My French teachers were really positive as well, which I was glad about because I've tried hard.
My English teachers, much to my surprise, told me they thought I could take it on to a higher level (i.e. uni) and expected me to receive a top-level grade. I was quite stunned!
My German was good as well, my teachers are lovely, and they said I was very enthusiastic!!
So hooray, panic diverted. And Mum wasn't too embarrassing either!

Seven Things

2005-12-04T15:40:00.000Z

Well I suppose I'm going to get coerced into doing this, one way or another, so I may as well do it now!

Seven things to do before I die:
1. Get old!
2. Get married and have kids - lots!
3. Write at least one book
4. Move to France
5. Time travel
6. Meet faeries
7. Help combat poverty, as far as I can

Seven things I cannot do:
1. Walk in a straight line
2. Geography, of any sort at all
3. Stand people talking French in an English accent
4. Like my sister, write with my right hand
5. Resist chocolate
6. Live with any sort of mess
7. Stop talking!

Seven things that attract me to my spouse:
Hmm...not applicable!!

Seven things I say most often:
1. You must be mad
2. I know!
3. Oui (I detect a French vibe in my answers)
4. Please/Thank you
5. Sorry
6. Hello (my brother says I say a sound similar to "hiyee" rather than hello, but there we go!)
7. Only (however many) days till Christmas!

Seven Books I love:
1. The Ordinary Princess by M.M.Kaye
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. The Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix
4. This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti
5. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
6. The Narnia Chronicles by C.S.Lewis
7. The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Seven Movies I would watch over and over again:
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. The Little Mermaid
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. The Princess Bride
5. The Sound of Music
6. A Matter of Life and Death
7. Lord of the Rings/Star Wars - I was split

Seven people I would like to join in too:
1. Harriet
2. Benj - as if!
3. Sophie
4. Mim
5. Mark and Heidi - my list is becoming similar to Sarah's!
6. Anna
7. Abbie

Well that's taken me far longer than it ought to have done, I found it really tough! I am just far too indecisive!

After a long absence...

2005-11-28T16:20:00.000Z

Sorry for the silence, I haven't really had that much to talk about, and when I have I've been so tired I really couldn't face the computer!
What is happening in my life at the moment...hmm...school is going really well, I'm really enjoying everything. I have a parents' evening in 2 weeks time which I have to go along to. I think that is weird, but my teachers told me it's not that scary really. Anyway, I'm curious about what the teachers want to say about me! I got a highest level grade for my first English novel essay, which I was very happy about :) I've also had to do lots of work for my French oral topic, which is 'Napoleon - hero or villain?' (Well, that's it in precis form). He wrote some very sweet love letters to Josephine, but it doesn't sound like she really deserved them, so there we go. And still on school, I've just had to do the most ridiculous German homework which involved looking up words in my stupidly big dictionary, only to find even that doesn't have them. Grr. And I suppose I may as well finish summing up my school life, history is also going well, we made finger puppets the other week, and then played human snakes and ladders!
Oxford church youth led the Youth Worship Evening last night, which was really good, although we ended three quarters of an hour early. Oops!
However I am now very tired, because mum and I spent the weekend at Mark and Heidi's, looking after Caleb and Elodie, to give them a break. The kids were lovely, but it was still tiring, and I think I've probably caught Caleb's cold now, which means the neverending one I seem to have at the moment will continue for even longer. Oh well.
I only had one lesson today, from 9:45 to 10:45. My teacher wasn't even there for that one, but she'd set us work we had to do as a group. There were only going to be 4 of us, because of various school trips, but in the end 2 people obviously couldn't be bothered so it was only me and my friend Leonie! It was fun though - well, ish.
Apart from that, I am looking forward to Christmas - only 27 days left!!!

Mimi's Wedding

2005-11-09T19:06:00.000Z

OK, so I'm a little late in posting this, but congratulations to Miriam and Adam who got married on Saturday. Hooray!
As everyone else has posted pictures I can't be bothered as I have no better ones, so just look at either Sarah or Mark and Heidi's blogs.
It was an absolutely brilliant day. Miriam looked gorgeous and everything went really well; everyone behaved and there were no problems. It was slightly cold, but there we go!
I really did think it was fantastic, and I managed not to cry too much!
Actually, I cried on Sunday, and I really miss Miriam now, which is ridiculous - not only because she's been away for far longer before and it never overly affected me, but also because they're only going to be living in Abingdon. Oh well, it must be because it's more final I suppose.
Anyway, I'm now very jealous having seen the amount of presents they received! I want a wedding!

Apart from that life is just bumbling along as usual. This weekend my parents are away somewhere random so my friend Harriet's coming to stay for the weekend, which will be fun. We're going to go to a Ceroc dancing thing at church on Friday, which should be fun!
I am currently in a state of perpetual coldness, and do not warm up from about 8 in the morning till 8 in the evening, when I suddenly become boiling because I insisted on turning on our heating about about 3 in the afternoon. Hmm.

And now I must stop writing this and instead finish my English essay, which I am trying to evade as it is deathly boring, but it's going to have to be done sometime.

Untitled

2005-10-26T21:24:00.000+01:00

I don't believe it's the end of Wednesday already, this holiday has gone far too quickly!
We came back from Exeter today, which has been fun. It was really nice seeing all the Clarkes again, and I also bought lots of new clothes and got lots of Christmas shopping done :) I was starting to panic because it's late October and I hadn't even started on Christmas, so that was good! Dad is annoyed with me now though, because I borrowed some money whilst we were there and paid it back in coppers today. I say he should be grateful I paid at all, but he's not so sure!
I finally finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife, and I'm now reading The Dark Flight Down by Marcus Sedgwick, which is quite young but I read the first book 2 years ago and want to find out what happens! I hate it when authors do that to you! Actually I don't, it's good, but annoying at the same time.
But anyway, I'd better be going now so that I'm ready for when Lost starts - can't miss any of that!
xx

Holidays are getting nearing!

2005-10-17T15:46:00.000+01:00

I discovered today that I finish at 12 this Friday because my teacher is away, and there's an inset day the Monday after half term, so my holiday is just getting longer and longer! It's fantastic!
Sorry about the long absence, I find I'm increasingly busy, and also I spent last weekend staying at Mark and Heidi's, which was brilliant fun, thank you again for having me! I probably hindered Caleb's development by letting him watch far too much TV on Saturday when I was looking after him, but it was the Iron Giant, which is so good and I hadn't seen it in so long, so you know, sometimes it's worth it...
I'm reading The Time Traveler's Wife at the moment; anyone else read it? It's really good and very interesting, although it does have it's weirder moments. But I'd recommend it to anyone who wants something to read, if you're looking!
So apart from that and counting the minutes until it's holiday and we go down to visit the Clarkes, I'm not up to much, but I'll keep you all updated on any progress!

Life is Exhausting

2005-10-04T19:36:00.000+01:00

At least that's how I feel, at the moment!
I'm getting tons of homework, but even when I don't have work and think I'm free things seem to crop up, so I'm always busy and when I'm not I'm just too tired to do anything but collapse!
I learnt something interesting yesterday though - walkie-talkie in French is talkie-walkie. Bizarre.
I have lots of things I should probably be doing rather than writing this so this post won't be long, although I'm not sure I'm going go get round to them somehow. Oh well.
Um... I'm trying to think of something interesting to write on here. Oh I know - on Saturday I was stewarding at Vertigo, which was a joint youth event for all the churches in Oxfordshire but hosted by us at the King's Centre. Anyway, I was on carparking duty so directing them all into spaces (it's amazing how terrible some people are at parking. 3 spaces, for goodness' sake!), and I got to wear a fluorescent yellow jacket and to have a walkie-talkie. It was very fun :) And hence the French observation, if you hadn't worked it out!
So that's me. Tomorrow I have 2 German lessons, and that's all, which can be very good but can also be very boring if you have no work. German is fun though. It's probably my favourite subject at the moment in that I'm enjoying the lessons the most and finding them most profitable, which is amazingly good because it's probably the subject that I'm weakest in, and also the one subject where I'm not with other ex-King's people. I think I may have already put that on an old post but never mind, it's still true!
And that's me. Anyone got anymore interesting news?
PS I just read this in an old Reader's Digest, but found it so funny that I have to put it in here. It's from the 'All in a Day's Work' section:
As a customs officer I was attending a court case in which we were prosecuting a smuggler. The judge asked the court, "Who makes these allegations?"
My superior officer replied, "I am the alligator."
:)

Please don't take this as boasting...

2005-09-28T19:22:00.000+01:00

...but I am very, very happy and excited after receiving the following letter from King's School today (apparently I was supposed to get it with my other results, but somehow they managed to lose it!) :

Dear Esther
I am very pleased to tell you that you are amongst the group of candidates who scored one of the top five marks in French Specification A this summer. There were 138508 candidates for the examination so this is an exceptional result.
May I congratulate you on such an outstanding achievement and wish you every success with your future studies.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Cresswell
Director General

How amazing is that?!?!? I'm quite hyper at the moment. Wow. Please don't think I'm showing off but I really had to write this, I'm so shocked! Very unexpected. Wow again. I really am in shock!!!

English Residential

2005-09-27T18:24:00.000+01:00

For the last two days I've been in Stratford-upon-Avon on my English residential. We stayed in the Youth Hostel and did activities based around our texts, as well as visiting the theatre in the evening.
Yesterday we worked on our Shakespeare, as well as doing warm up games like charades. We had to produce mini-versions of our plays, which was quite fun. There were 4 versions of Twelfth Night, but our group is doing Henry V - which was good because it meant everyone preferred ours as they were sick of the other!
In the evening we went out to the theatre to watch As You Like It, which was brilliant. I'd never seen it on stage before so really enjoyed it, and the girl who played Rosalind was excellent. It was vaguely confusing in the fact that one guy played both the Dukes, and only showed the difference by taking off his coat, but once you'd figured it out it was easy enough!
Then followed an interesting episode where on the way home, our teacher got bored and drove us round a roundabout about 20 times - I kid you not - just for the sake of it. Our English group was in a minibus, but everyone else was on a coach. So after having driven round this roundabout for about 5 minutes, we drove off to try and find a chippy, but failed and so had to go back!
Our beds were less than comfy, and creaked every time you moved a muscle, which isn't good when you're as fidgety as I am! But hey, I survived. I was actually really worried about the accommodation, because I have an insane fear of Youth Hostels after having been told lots of horror stories once when I was about 8. It was perfectly adequate, but everything still felt dirty and slightly unsecure to me!
Today wasn't quite as fun as yesterday; we just did work on our modern novel (Spies by Michael Frayn). It was still better than school though! And over the course of the two days I've met lots more people, and got to know other people far better, which to be honest was for me the main reason for going. So a success! Although I'm exhausted, having not slept Sunday night either, but there we go.
I'm just going to collapse this evening!
And that's all my news, exciting life that I lead.

What on earth have you done to Mr Darcy?

2005-09-20T16:55:00.000+01:00

That's by far the best line in the whole film, I reckon.
Well, Pride and Prejudice was better than I'd expected! Keira still wasn't brilliant in my opinion, and didn't pull off the razor sharp Lizzie wit thing very well at all, but there was nothing wrong with her performance and she didn't make the film terrible. Matthew MacFayden (or something like that) was good as Darcy, I liked him, even if he did have a tendency to talk very fast or mumble in important scenes! The first half was a bit slow but the second half was far better. There were some very odd parts, for instance when the screen randomly went flickery orangey red for no apparent reason, for about 5 seconds, then Lizzie woke up. Hmm. By far the worst moment was during a dance, when I think the director was trying to show that for a moment it seemed like they were the only people in the room, and so took away all the other dancers. What actually happened, was we all sat there going, "Hey! All the people disappeared! Where did they go?" So not very successful really. I was disappointed that they didn't have the double wedding scene at the end - in fact it ended with Mr Bennett laughing maniacally - but overall I enjoyed it, and will probably buy it when it comes out on DVD.
There was lovely scenery and a brilliant musical score, so you could go just for that if you wanted to! We got free posters as well :)

Apart from that I haven't been doing much save school. Sunday was fun, celebration then looking after gorgeous little Townsend kiddies while Neil and Dee talked to mum and dad, although it did mean that homework was once again pushed to the side.
School is generally good at the moment, although it can still be daunting at times. I got a locker yesterday which means I don't have to lug my dictionaries around anymore. My back was actually starting to continually ache so it's a very good thing.
I usually finish at one o'clock on Tuesdays, but today we found out at about 11 o'clock - completely by accident, no one had actually told us until someone just happened to ask - that they were swapping our timetable around so lunch would be earlier and I wouldn't finish till 2. I wouldn't have minded this at all if it wasn't for the fact that they hadn't even bothered to tell us, which was really aggravating, especially as I was going to use this afternoon to do homework. So anyway, at 2 it didn't seem worth wasting money on the bus so I went to King's and helped with Yrs 7 and 8 hockey; great fun! We did reverse stick today :)
So I'm trying to psyche myself up into doing some work right now but failing, I guess it will just have to wait till after tea...

Not much to report

2005-09-16T19:17:00.000+01:00

Well, Henry Box is much improved and this week has been fun (at times) but still very, very tiring!I am exhausted but relatively happy. However I still feel like a total idiot in all the language lessons because of ridiculously amazing people that also do them, which is not very helpful! But anyway. At least I knew what warfare was in history!!!So I'm not doing much this weekend, apart from going to see the new version of Pride and Prejudice with Harriet tomorrow. To be honest I'm not very hopeful, especially when it comes to Keira Knightley, but I can't not watch it so there we go! She just isn't very good - at all really, but especially at witty lines (as is demonstrated with the very odd 'you like pain - try wearing a corset!' line in Pirates of the Caribbean which sits completely differently to the rest of the humour and comes out oddly anyway). So you know, it could be dreadful, but I'll let everyone know tomorrow!
Apart from that nothing else much is happening - I am cold and ill, but that's not particularly exciting.
Oh, I know what I can say - I've got some photos from my China trip on Flickr now; if you want to check them out my user name is EstiBesti.
Have fun!
xxx

Slightly more hope

2005-09-07T20:12:00.000+01:00

Today was so much better than yesterday or Monday. Both those days I came home wanting to escape to some other continent, but today was quite good.
I had frees until 10:45, and they're so much worse than lessons because you just sit around on your own in the sixth form block being looked at weirdly by lots of people who won't talk to you. So today I escaped into Witney until about 10:20 when I came back, but luckily there were only about 5 people in the room I went into and I'd met some of them before. They were really nice and actually talked to me (especially after in my freakish organisation I could provide a necessary stapler), which was cool. It was also good because a couple of them were in my German class so I could tag along when they went and not get lost again :)
The only lessons I had today were German, one before lunch and one after. Both the teachers are so nice, which is brilliant, escpecially as German is the lesson in which I'm completely on my own with no King's people, and also it's probably the subject I'm weakest in. So hooray! Our German grammar teacher did Lemony Snicket with us in German, which I think was a stroke of genius. Then we played Countdown and Blind Date in our oral lesson. Fun all round!
Anyway I'm absolutely exhausted - starting a new school is so draining! - so I'm going to go off and relax and do nothing for a bit. Sounds good to me.
xxx

That place is far too big!

2005-09-05T20:06:00.000+01:00

I got lost about 7 times today - trying to find my room for registration, trying to find my English lesson, trying to find my German lesson - that was the worst because I was on my own, and I looked around at all the buildings realising that I didn't have a clue which one to go in, turn one way and there are hordes of scary little people in uniform surging towards me, turn the other way and there's more of them... I was so panicking until I saw someone that I knew and sprinted towards them!
At lunchtime no one was really talking to us so we escaped and hid in Witney. It's not that it's not good, but it is very very daunting, and there's only so much you can take in one day!
My German lesson was cool though, the teacher was really sweet, and our English teacher is lovely as well. I wasn't quite so enamoured with the French lesson - unusual for me - but hopefully it'll improve.
Oh, and I have to buy a £25 collins robert french dictionary for some ridiculous reason - if anyone has a spare they don't want please let me know!!
Anyway, fingers crossed for tomorrow - luckily my lessons finish at lunch so I can come home then. Although lunch is at ten past one, which is ridiculously late compared to King's lunchbreak of quarter to twelve! I'm starving by the time we get there!
But I've been a good girl and done all the homework I was set today, so we'll just have to see how we get on from here...but you have no idea how much I want to go back to King's right now!

New School

2005-09-02T19:21:00.000+01:00

Well it was my first day at Henry Box today.
It was fun and everyone was really nice and friendly, so that was good. A lot of the admin stuff was quite confusing - and I'm convinced I'm going to get lost straightaway (anyone who knows me well can imagine that!) - but it did seem like a good school. Apparently of 300 ish A Levels exams taken last year only 2 were failures. Which is very impressive!
Most people were really friendly to us, which was really nice as I was so nervous you would not believe and really needed someone to take me round! I had a complete panic attack last night! But as I said, people were really nice and we tagged along with a bunch of girls from our form all day. They very thoughtfully put all the ex-King's people together, which is really nice - it's good to know at least someone!
Everyone was shocked when they found out how small King's is. We worked out that our whole school, primary and secondary combined, is less than their 6th form. e had 220 pupils, they have 240. Wow.
So I think I'm going to be shocked on Monday, when the rest of the school starts back - there's about 1200 I think! Aah!
Anyway I have to go, I'll hopefully start writing on this again after another long summer absence, so watch this space!
xxx

28:18

2005-08-20T17:43:00.000+01:00

I've had a good time this last week.
The youth work (which I went to in the evenings) was generally good, as were the morning seminars and especially the worship. It always amazes me how you don't realise that actually you really need a whole 'God week', so to speak, until you get there.
There were some not-so-brilliant parts, but then there always are. We had a Kiwi lady called Cindy who led worship often, and which was very different! She was good once you got used to her style, though.
It was fun to catch up with everyone as well; whole afternoons of wandering around being bored :) There were late night bonfires for the youth which was very fun one night, the other nights we got there too late so were about half a mile away from the fire!
Also nice to see the Clarkes again - sorry about the soft toys Sarah!!!
I'm not going to write loads now because I've had a headache all day so don't want to spend ages at the computer, and because I need to sort stuff out since we're going away again to Cornwall tomorrow. I also need to write book reviews for Henry Box which I haven't done yet, actually have only read one book list book so far, so that needs doing!
Hopefully I'll be able to post while we're away and keep in touch with everyone. Y11s please let me know how results are! How scary will that be?!
Anyway, have to go turn over our awning now, we're trying to dry it out!
xxx

1066 Country

2005-08-12T09:46:00.000+01:00

Hooray! The internet works properly on Dad's laptop!! Now I can reach civilisation from the farthest reaches of the earth :D
We've had a really nice few days holiday here, mainly looking at the history, etc.We're camping about 10 miles from Battle, which is where the Battle of Hastings took place. Imaginative name, isn't it?!
Anyway, we went and looked round the site which was fun, and you get these audio phone sets which take you round. You can choose your perspective - either Harold Godwinnson's wife (who you wouldn't think knew much really, and who didn't seem to on the tape either!), or a Saxon peasant knight (who died in the battle...hmm...talking from heaven?), or a Norman knight. Who was the only one with anything decent to say, even if his French accent sounded more Irish than anything else!
Yesterday we went to Dover Castle, which I found very interesting. There's an audio visual 'Castle Under Siege' thing about Henry II, a 'Preparation for the King' thing about Henry VIII and some Secret Wartime Tunnels, used in WWII, where they masterminded the whole Dunkirk rescue and had the biggest switchboard thing in the country. So that was fun! Only I couldn't help noticing that our tour guide for the tunnels looked extremely bored, and when there was a recording playing he was reciting it word for word - it was quite amusing!
We also found an amusement arcade which Benj decided he loved and kept on dragging us back to again and again. It has 2p machines which have those little ornaments but on this one they do actually fall off with the 2ps, so it was good. Oh, and Dad managed to get a whole zoo out of the boxes things (Thomases - remember the one in Looe? It was like that!). It was fun, but now we have a million soft toys just hanging around the van!
Anyway I should probably go have breakfast because we're moving on the Ashburnham (sp?) today, for 28:18. Dad has a team meeting today so we're going a day early - that's good though, because we can choose a nice pitch!
And I'll see people again on Saturday! Hooray!

Summer Swinging Along!

2005-08-07T20:12:00.000+01:00

Well, have had a nice couple of days here!
Yesterday I didn't do anything except learn to play my really cool wind instrument I bought in China. I don't know what it's called! I could post a picture actually, but I can't be bothered at present, so it might come later.
Talking of cameras (well almost talking of cameras), we got a new camera yesterday! It's a newer version of our older one, which had broken, and (this is the really funky part) it came free with one of those printers which you place the camera on then you get a photo straight away! How cool is that?!
So today there was church; I was on creche which is always good fun. And today, major achievement, I managed to feed Naomi Townsend without getting food everywhere! She wasn't even wearing a bib, either! Seriously, for me that is a very big deal; it's hard enough me trying to keep myself clean when I eat let alone me trying to keep babies clean :)
After church I went round to Steve Hipwell's house for a barbecue - it had been meant as a 'meet the new church leadership team' lunch but no one could make it, so Steve just invited his friends instead. It was cool because my friend Lizzie got to come along, and she only knew me before so it was nice for her to get to meet other Oxford folk as well. She's only been coming to OCC for a short while, so doesn't know many people yet. And I found out today that when she was younger (she used to live at Eton because her dad taught Physics) she managed to shove Prince William out of her way at their 4th June regata thingy, push Prince Harry into a gungy thing for a charity event, AND she used to do ballet with Princess Beatrice who she said was horrible and they used to fight each week. Pretty impressive record!
Oh, and really random point here, the Hipwells had this absolutely gorgeous toffee and pecan roulard, it was soooo nice! But probably so bad for me. O well.
Anyway, after that I had to come home and pack because we're going off on holiday somewhere random tomorrow - I think it's Sussex but I could be wrong. Have just managed to persuade Dad that I really do need the amount of clothes I've put in the van!
But after that we're off to 28:18, our church camp this year, and yes I do agree the title's stupid! So probably no blogging from me for another couple of weeks - have a fun summer everyone!!

Benj is Back!

2005-08-05T15:56:00.000+01:00

After years of not being bothered, my brother Benj has set up a new blog - you can look at it here. He assures me it's not finished yet, so we'll call it a work in progress!
Other news - went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday, mainly just so that I could meet up with friends I hadn't seen in while (well OK, 3 weeks, but it felt like years (miss you already Harri!)), but I was actually really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Johnny Depp is as usual fantastic, and Freddie Highmore who plays Charlie is also brilliant as usual. I feel sorry for the one guy who had to play all of the Oompa-Loompas though!
Also went back into Oxford today to buy presents for the Gills and Andy Armitage who led our China trip. We were going to get Tim Gill a joke book, as in China he and Andy both regaled us with millions of puns and 'I got a new job today' jokes - know the ones? But anyway, in the end we got him a 'Practical jokes on her' kit because he's always so mean to Barb! For whom, incidentally, we bought a Chinese cookery book. We bought Andy a book on Extreme Ironing, just for the sake of it and because it seems like the sort of thing he'd like, but seriously it's so weird! Really funny, but really weird.
I'm absolutely shattered today because my body clock got merged somewhere to half Chinese-half English time, which means I'm waking up at 5 each day and falling asleep at about 9. Hmm. Our house is really boring at 5am, I can't make any noise so there's nothing to do!
Anyway, I'm going to get off the computer now so that Benj can fiddle round on his blog a bit more :)

Home Sweet Home

2005-08-02T15:47:00.000+01:00

I came home to a piece of toast with Marmite :)
My time in China has been absolutely amazing!
I don't think I can possibly recount all that has happened on here - or at least, if I did it would take so long that no one would be reading by the end, so there's absolutely no point.
I shall, therefore, recap some of the highlights of my trip, and shall hopefully stay succinct enough to keep interests:
First of all we travelled to Xi'an, a humongous city quite a long way from Beijing (I'm afraid that's all I know on the Geography front!). We arrived on the Tuesday evening and on Wednesday Dave and Susie Bickford (friends working in China) gave us 'culture and orientation' lessons, just so that we knew what we were up against!
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday mornings we ran a summer school for about 20 Chinese students, most aging 12 to 16. Each of us students (we were called 'Oxford teachers' - how cool is that?) had 3 Chinese students in a little group with whom we did activities and talked, to improve their English. All of the students had English names which they'd chosen themselves, because that was easier than us trying to say their Chinese names correctly. The best names were a couple of girls called Mickey after Mickey Mouse, Candy, Snowy, David Beckham, two Magic Johnsons and my personal favourite, Lorry. He was a really nice guy and probably the student we got closest to, but it was funny because we all thought his name was Laurie until half way through the week!
In the afternoons the students would come round to our rooms and we'd play games and things, just so that they had to speak more English. We taught them Uno, which was interesting, but they all loved it in the end!
We also wondered round Xi'an in the afternoons, went shopping etc, and did the same in the evenings, usually until 10 or 11ish. We'd then sit and chat for about an hour and a half, so we only had about 6 hours sleep each night, but we didn't get that tired - well I didn't anyway!
We spent a lot of time with other Westerners who were working out there, namely Steve Onn, an English student; Natalie, an Irish girl planning to go into childcare; and Shannon, an American doing the same thing. It got quite confusing with two Steves out there, which is why we had to use both surnames the whole time!
We also visited the Terracotta Warriors, which are amazing, and an orphanage run by Christians. It's just devastating to see so many children who have been rejected or abandoned, because of their sex or because they weren't deemed good enough. Lots of the children had cleft palates, which is so easily and cheaply reversible, and it breaks my heart to think that they can be so unwanted because of such a small and fixable problem. Barb Gill, who was one of our leaders, is a nurse so got to go into their dying room. She said that the worst thing was there was no reason for most of them to be dying.
After we'd been in Xi'an we travelled to Beijing on the sleeper train. That was really fun. All us students had a good chance to talk over everything, including how well we were getting on, so I think people were better friends after that! We got bored at one point and someone had turned most of the lights off, so Amy and I were making up an absolutely terrible, completely unfreaky ghost story which was scaring the heck out of Hannah because we kept grabbing her foot at random points. But then we got to the culmination of our story and both jumped up screaming simultaneously, which was hilarious because Hannah, Steve and D all jumped about a mile and looked really freaked :D We hadn't thought we'd scare anyone, we were just taking the mick, which was the funniest part.
In Beijing we toured all the famous attractions and did other touristy things as well. It was all really fun, and we had a really nice guide called David, but we were on the go the whole time and it was vaguely annoying because we had to do what the company said the whole time. I think perhaps my main problem was embarrassment as we had to follow a blue flag around, since I always mock that sort of tour group, but there we go! Everywhere was so beautiful, it was amazing; we just did quite a lot of walking, especially in humid, 40 degrees heat!
I honestly did have an amazing time and really enjoy myself, and hopefully we managed to make a small difference to some people's lives as well. We visited a slum area and it's incredible to realise once again just how much I have and how privileged I really am. I'm so grateful that I had this opportunity and I really want to go back again now! Maybe I'll join a future team as a leader, that would be fun! I'd like to learn Chinese as well now, I have about twenty phrases in my vocabulary, including, most bizarrely, the Chinese for watchamacallit :)

Hello from China!!!

2005-07-24T09:04:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm here and have finally managed to access the internet so can post quickly, although I don't have long.
Things have been great so far. I have 3 students in my little group who are really sweet, so that's fun, and last night they all took us out for a meal. Their English is absolutely amazing; it really does put my French completely to shame.
Everything is so cheap here it's amazing. You can buy food for such ridiculously small amounts - usually about 11 of us eat for under £10! And the food is really nice, although I have to admit I am getting slightly sick of Chinese food now - really want some English stodge!
Xi'an is such a beautiful city, we've seen some amazing things. All the people are lovely as well.
Now I have to go, don't know if I'll be able to post again but I might, you never know!
So please carry on praying, I'm having a wonderful time, and I'll see you all soon!
xxx

Only 5 more hours to go!

2005-07-18T09:36:00.000+01:00

Well, until we get the coach to Heathrow, at any rate.
I'm so excited now! I'm sure I'm going to have a great time - it'll be hard not to really, considering as how I'm going to China.
For anyone who doesn't know, we're doing a summer school teaching English in Xian for a little over a week, then going to Beijing and doing touristy things too.
The only thing I'm slightly worried about is my being a vegetarian. Dave and Susie, the friends we know out there, said the Chinese don't really get the concept of a vegetarian. Although they also said that if I tell everyone I'm a Buddhist they'd understand because Buddhists don't eat meat! Not sure if that's the best way to play it, though ;)
Hopefully I'll be able to post whilst in China, at least while we're in Xian. I have to go now though, finish packing and everything.
Prayers would be very much appreciated, and I'll update everyone soon!
xxxxxx

Shopping Spree!

2005-07-11T17:00:00.000+01:00

That's what I did today :)
First of all bought 5 books with my book tokens from Prize Giving. This is what I bought:
-The Dark Flight Down, which I have been waiting to come into softback for almost a year. The prequel is amazing, called The Book of Dead Days (I can't be bothered to link it) and it's really creepy and cool.
-Drowned Wednesday, because Garth Nix is just the best author ever. And because I stupidly started buying this Keys to the Kingdom series before realising that there were 7 and he's only publishing one a year, meaning I'll be buying them until I'm 20! Oh well, what can you do?
-Troll Fell, because it looked fun and I read an extract so want to read the rest now. I always do that, it's ridiculous really!
-A Hat Full of Sky, because all Terry Pratchett books are good, and the prequel to this was amazing. I like his children's books, because they're a lot gentler than his adult ones, and consequently also often a lot more clever!
-And finally my personal favourite, Camelot's Shadow, which I have been wanting to read for sooooooooo long on account of a) me being obsessed with all things Arthurian and b) it looking quite so amazing. I think I shall read this book last, so that I can savour the fact that I finally get to read it more :)

I'll let you know when I'm finished!
I also then went on a clothes shopping spree as I needed new summer clothes, especially for China because we can't wear anything that is classed as revealing - which includes strappy tops, anything relatively low, and skirts above the knee.
Only, by accident - and it was an accident, honest! - I spent £80. Oops. Well actually Dad spent £80, but still. I am going to be very nice and acquiesent for the next few days - wait, years!
I bought 2 pairs of trousers, 2 tops, a cardiganny-thing, 3 skirts and also a pair of shoes. So not bad really!
But still. I spent way too much. I was all set up to be thrifty (don't know if that's actually a word or not!) but then went and looked in Peacocks (I'm really into links today can you tell? (and brackets as well!!)),which unexpectedly had dozens upon dozens of really lovely clothes. So bang went the minimalist policy!
Anyway, I really have to go read a book now, so bye xxx
PS Don't you just love Waterstones? It's so tidy, and therefore so soothing, I love order!

Staying at Sarah's

2005-07-08T16:46:00.000+01:00

I would have written Staying at the Clarke's, but the alliteration wasn't as impressive!
Anyway, for the last few days I've been visiting my sister Sarah and her family in Exeter, hence me not blogging for a while. Although I've been utterly amazed while I stayed with them just how much time Sarah actually does spend on the computer!! Seriously, Sarah, I think you have an obsessive-compulsive disorder :D
I had a great time though, many thanks to all the Clarkes. Activites included going to Crealy (theme park type thing), visiting a museum, going swimming, eating out at a really lovely restaurant and also learning how to play poker!!
It was really cool seeing everyone again because, considering as how we're related, we really don't see the Clarkes very often! My niece Anna is getting more grown up every day; it's really very scary (or maybe I'm just getting old - what do you think?!)
Today I have been obsessively reading The Da Vinci Code which I borrowed from the Clarkes. I'd been meaning to read it for ages, very nearly bought it for Dad about 3 times so that I could steal it but in the end just didn't. Have now finished it, and would highly recommend it to anyone. It was very very cleverly written and had lots of interesting information as well, although I did have to keep on reminding myself that it was fiction and I didn't actually believe it!
Tonight we have King's School Prizegiving, my last ever - end of an era!!
Oh, and on a slightly different note, Henry Box school where I am going next year have sent me a letter telling me to write two book reviews before September. Somebody should really tell them this is not the way to get enthusiastic pupils. Although luckily I've read enough of the books on their list to not need to read any more as well!

Leavers' Banquet

2005-07-03T21:10:00.000+01:00

Class1
Originally uploaded by Estibesti.

I don't have much time tonight, but I went to my Leavers' Banquet last night and it was AMAZING.
There are a few more photos on my Flickr account if you want to look, and if anyone wants me to email all the photos I took then just ask!
Everyone looked stunning and it was really fun, such a lovely time, thank you everyone, you're great and I'll miss you all!

A little bit of deep Philosophy

2005-07-01T14:49:00.000+01:00

So our exams are finished -
What now should we do?
Our workload is diminished
And I'm happy, through and through

Yet, a disadvantage
In midst of all this mirth:
Strangely unsatisfactory
To do nothing that's of worth

And what's this guilty feeling
I find lurking in my mind?
Such conflicts, and my head starts reeling
After all, I've left revision behind

And so to my conclusion:
I'm mad, that must be it
Searching always for differing things to do
When last week, I wanted just...to sit!

Fun Fun Fun

2005-06-29T18:20:00.000+01:00

Well, I've had a nice couple of days here.
Yesterday I had a sort-out and went to cell at Pete and Cat's, which was fun. The storm started while we were there which meant we all had to get wet, but it was cool, I love the rain. Usually I go out and dance in it! I did get shut out of the house yesterday, just for about a minute if that, but was completely and utterly soaked. It's all good though - seriously, I love thunderstorms, they just make me feel so alive. Which, you know, is always good!
Anyway, today I went into Oxford to try on a bridesmaid dress for Mimi which was fun. It's really pretty, but I think I'd need to get the top taken in a little because I'm between sizes!
Then I went back to my friends house and we made pitta pizzas for lunch and watched Finding Neverland, which I love. It's so sweet but sad as well and I was all but crying! It's quite subtle though so I suppose it might not be to everyone's taste, but I liked it lots although I always do like subtle films.
Tonight I don't have anything on although I'm quite tired so I suppose that's a good thing - not that I have any excuse for being tired! I did walk all around Oxford today though (oh I bought a pretty pink necklace to go with my dress as well!) so I did get a relative amount of excercise. However I completely wrecked my diet by drinking an iced chocolate in Marks & Sparks - well worth the money but very, very bad for me!
Anyway, must get back to cheering Roddick on now and leave my computer to recuperate - I don't think it's feeling very well, poor thing!!

Michi & Renate

2005-06-28T10:07:00.000+01:00

Michi & Renate,
originally uploaded by Estibesti.

Nope, still can't work it out, computers and me really don't see eye to eye on quite a lot of things, you know.
Anyway, this is Renate and Michi at their wedding. I think her dress is gorgeous, and she looked completely stunning.
Also note the car in the background, even though I have no car knowledge whatsoever, it was pretty cool!

Wedding Cake

2005-06-28T10:03:00.000+01:00

Wedding Cake,
originally uploaded by Estibesti.

Hmm, we may just have to have four small posts until Sarah tells me what to do again, I think!
This is the phenomenal wedding cake that Renate's mum made all by herself, I was just astounded so thought you might be too!

Wedding Outfits

2005-06-28T10:00:00.000+01:00

Wedding Outfits,
originally uploaded by Estibesti.

Well, this is one of my photos from Germany - I've worked out how to get it on my blog now, but not how to make it bigger!
This is three of us in our wedding clothes before the wedding, I'll try and get the other photos too but I'm not quite sure how yet :)

Leavers' Assembly

2005-06-27T19:00:00.000+01:00

Was absolutely brilliant!
What happens is as follows:
First of all there's a short time of worship, which is always good. After that, the departing Y11s scatter round the hall and all the younger years come and pray or prophesy for them. It's really touching, actually, because you can see which people you've influenced or encouraged over your school life, and their prayers really mean a lot. All my Y7 Youth Alpha group came straightaway to pray for me, which really got me actually - it's lovely to see that they really do appreciate all we did!
After that everyone except the Y10s leave, then we split into small groups of about 6 Y11s in each. They get in all the good prophets from the churches and then you have a time (going round each person in the group) where everyone gives their words and prophesies for you. It's amazing how clearly God can speak, and I really appreciated it. People gave me some amazing words, about my future, using my strength as a caring and also different person for God and one which I particularly liked about me, Edd and Jonny's lives being intertwined - basically meaning we're going to stay in contact, which I think is cool!
I just want to thank everyone who prophesied for me, your words really meant a lot and you're all brilliant!!
I also like having the chance to give words to other people, because as I've been in the same class as them for up to 12 years (!) it's nice to be able to give just a little back.
Additionally, we get to speak into a little dictaphone, which is fun.
Anyway, off from my high, I'm trying to work out how to use Flickr as I finally have some photos from my trip to Germany which may or may not be posted soon, depending on how succesful I am!

Mad Cat!

2005-06-27T10:14:00.000+01:00

OK, so yesterday evening I was babysitting for the Townsends, they have 3 adorable and very well-behaved little girls. All I had to do with the girls was read a story, fetch a drink and then they went to sleep, very easy really!
However, they have a 3 month old cat. Until 10 o'clock it was perfectly happy just sleeping on my lap, but then suddenly - mad cat! It decided it wanted to play attack Esther's foot, and I decided it didn't so shoved it off :) Then it started careering round the room screeching and leaping up at me until I got bored so shut it in the kitchen!!!
I let it out about 45 minutes later, though, and it was duly repentant so I let it stay out again, feeling victorious. And it was alright because Neil and D say they have to do the same thing every now and then; it just has mad phases.
O well! Stopped me going to sleep I suppose!
Today's our Leavers' Assembly, so expect more blogging later as I will be full of news!
Oh, and PS, my sister Miriam has a blog now as well, hooray!

Revelling in my freedom

2005-06-25T13:40:00.000+01:00

Well, in a lovely way, not much has happened since I last posted.
I've pottered around doing this and that - got my shoes for the Leavers' Banquet, that was fun :) I think they're really pretty, and I can actually walk in them, which is always a bonus. I'm even putting a photo in and feel very proud of myself; first time ever! To be fair my brother Mark told me how about 20 minutes ago, but whatever.
Like them? It's not the best photo but it gets the point across!

Apart from buying shoes (I also bought another pair of posh black shoes for only £6, can't really go wrong for that can you?) I went to my friend's party last night which was fun. They've recently moved house after living an hour away from school in Marlowe, and because they lived so far away they stayed with people from school for most of the week. The party was their way of saying thank you, which was really sweet, and really fun! We didn't really do much though; talked, played games and had competitions with their clothes pegs! (We were slightly hyper by that time, but you can make some very funky hairstyles using pegs. If somewhat odd.)
I suppose I have to get Wimbledon into this post somehow, so I will mention that I'm annoyed because: a) Safin and Johannson have both gone out and they were cool and
b) Sharapova just got through and she REALLY annoys me! The whole Palmolive thing, £500,000 24 carat gold inscribed trainers and the squealing just get very...um...irksome. Anyway.
This afternoon I'm planning to sleep and cheer on Andy Murray. Sounds blissful, doesn't it? I can't sleep when it's sunny because it seems a waste so I'll sleep lots now to make up :)
Mark, Caleb and Elodie all came round this morning which was fun. Always nice to see them. Although we didn't get to see Heidi as she was getting her hair done, but there you go.
Anyway I am going to stop writing now as lack of sleep is really making my head go funny - if I'm not careful I'm just going to start waffling on about utter twaddle. Well, maybe not start, but continue!
Is twaddle a word actually? It sounds right in my head but not on paper. Well screen. Oh no it's started! I'd better stop now. :)

Shattered Dreams

2005-06-23T17:15:00.000+01:00

Again.
I'm gutted. Devastated. Completely and utterly in the pits of despair.
Well, that's taking it a bit far, but you get my drift.
Andy Murray is actually our only hope left now! So, off I go to watch him...

Free at last

2005-06-23T14:33:00.000+01:00

Don't you just love exams?
Well OK, perhaps not the exams themselves but definitely the after-exam holiday! I finished my GCSEs yesterday, much celebrating all round, and many congratulations. It's a completely bizarre feeling. Although the Graphics people still have one on Friday - I would be sympathetic, but I simply can't find it in myself to try!
So today was my first day of freedom. And it has been deliciously full of nothing. The most exciting things I have done today are:
1) eat breakfast with a serving spoon as we had run out of all others
2) go down and talk to the hairdresser about how to style my fair for our Leavers' Banquet
3) watch Henman/Wimbledon
And the brilliant thing is, I don't have to feel guilty any longer because I'm completely sanctioned to sit around all day doing nothing (although I have a feeling that this could get just slightly boring if I do nothing for too long. Oh well).
Am currently also playing MahJong on the computer; it's a random ancient Japanese card game and nicely undemanding to play.
Have fun all you suckers at work and school!!!
xxx

That's why we love him

2005-06-21T18:16:00.000+01:00

But it was murder to watch!
Seriously, it always amazes me when Henman manages to come back after being two sets down - but we couldn't lose him in the first round; what would England do?
I suppose this year at least everyone can follow Andy Murray as well, but I doubt he'll get far this time so we still need Tim to pin our hopes on :)
Although many more matches like that and I'm likely to have a nervous breakdown soon! My heart has only just stopped beating double time!!
Afraid the revision got pushed back though, whoops. I'll just have to pray hard instead :D

Wimbledon, here we come!

2005-06-20T16:24:00.000+01:00

Hooray, Wimbledon is finally here! I'm so excited! Am quite hyper anyway as I have just finished my French written paper (in which, by the way, I managed to include Wimbledon :D (and my newest French word - Youpi!)). It wasn't straightforward exactly but was quite easy once I'd started.
Anyway, now Wimbledon is here it must be summer time! It's a good job my GCSEs are almost over because I so would not get any work done with so much tennis to watch. And I know it's slightly sad to be this obsessed, but at least I'm not so sad as to hate Wimbledon like some of my friends do, merely because of the fact that it means no Neighbours for 2 weeks! (love you really!)
I have just counted up the exclamation marks in this post, and there's a surplus even by my usual standards, so I shall leave you all to de-stress slightly in the wake of my onslaught!!!!!
xxxx

Too Darn Hot!

2005-06-18T16:03:00.000+01:00

Well actually, it's lovely outside. It's just that I've been out for about 2 hours now and my head's going funny! I'm so pleased summer's here eventually though; I've been pretending it's here for ages but getting very cold in summer clothes!
Had a nice pottery day today - did some physics and some French, went for a walk, lazed in the garden... what more could you want?
Also, I know this is very, very sad, but I'm really excited today because it's the last Doctor Who episode and it looks so cool! I blame my brother Mark for my obsession; I'd watched most of the old ones by the time I was four so what could you expect this time round??
Anyway now I've cooled off slightly I'm going to go back outside again, it's far too nice to sit in here for long!
xxx

Guten Tag!

2005-06-14T09:19:00.000+01:00

Actually I must start speaking French soon as my exam's coming up, but as I've just got back from Germany I think I can stay in German mode whilst I do a quick summary.
I had so much fun!
On Saturday morning, we were out of the house and travelling to Stansted by 3am. We took a flight to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden and were met at this lovely but very small (by which I mean two rooms) airport by a friend of Renate, who speaks perfect English as he married an Englishwoman and also lived in both England and Canada! It was really nice to get off the plane and hear this English voice going, "Renate's friends?"
Diether took us to Renate's parents' house, where we were staying. It's amazing! It was probably 3 times as big as our house; we only saw half of it! And it was spotless as well - complete with terraces, vegetable garden, the lot. We all stayed in Renate's old room. Anyway, her mum met us at the door (she speaks very little English) then we met Renate's sister Barbara who luckily for us can speak English. Her father can't speak any, and I'm not sure if her brother Florian can or not but he looked very fazed when we all clattered up the stairs and were introduced to him! He shook all our hands then escaped quickly; it made me laugh.
Anyway, we unpacked and went downstairs where they'd laid out a sandwich lunch for us - and by sandwiches, they were really posh ones you get at buffet dinner parties. Her mum apologised that she was busy, because she was making all 5 layers of Renate's wedding cake! And each one a different flavour! And it was incredible, honestly, I wish I could do it justice with my description but I can't.
By the way, this post is going on for a long time yet! After we'd changed, we were taken to the church wedding in - wait for it - the back of Renate's uncle and aunt's camper van! It was great fun. At the wedding we met Liz, who was Dieter's wife, and they very generously translated for us throughout the service. Renate looked absolutely stunning. She was in an off-white almost beigy dress, and it had a crumpled effect. They had no bridesmaid or best man which was interesting - also, the wedding ring goes on the right hand. There were lots of musical pieces as well, but it was quite similar to an English wedding. And the priest was so funny; he didn't stop smiling for one minute!
After the wedding we saw Renate amidst lots of screaming which was lovely, then were taken in the camper van to the reception. They served cake, and we took one piece each then came and sat back down while all the German piled about 5 slices on their plates then told us we must eat more than that! So as the cake seemed to be all that was going to be served we took a little more and got very full. German cake is incredible.
We were sitting next to this lovely German girl called Christiane, who speaks fluent English and was translating for us. In German weddings, they have a programme of small sketches or plays which people put on. It was really fun actually. The youth group made up a rap/song and some of the boys put on fake beards and stuff to make themselves look like Renate's husband Michael. But after a couple of these sketches they announced they were about to serve dinner! A salad course, a main course and dessert. So much food! And the Germans don't really queue, which we found out after having stood there like lemons for about half an hour! There were lots more sketches including an amazing hiphop style dance, a very weird German Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkäpchen) which we didn't quite get - Germans have a very slapstick sense of humour and we were exhausted by that point! We'd been up for 21 hours, on 3 hours sleep! But then Renate's brother offered (or probably more accurately, was told to offer) us a lift back to their parents house, which we gratefully accepted as all that was left was hours of dancing and we were having difficulty standing! So we got driven back, this time sitting in the back of one of those assasin-type vans!
On Sunday, our first adventure was at breakfast when we trying to politely not eat the German stodge breakfast we were given but were forced into seats and had to escape by running up the stairs when no-one was looking! Then we met up with Renate, who to our amazement had decided that she and Michi should spend the first day of their married life with us. We looked round Baden-Baden, then met up with Michi and his friend Markus (aka Rotkäpchen) to look round Straßbourg. So off we went to France! We looked round the cathedral and the old part of the town and tried their speciality Flammkuchen, at a café with the funniest waiter you have ever seen. We were all 6 of us in hysterics! He was so camp it was unbelievable. Anyway, it gave us a chance to practice our French too.
So, then we went off to the airport, said goodbye to Renate and Michi (who I think was quite scared of us!) and went to the departure lounge. After half an hour they said there'd be a 2 hour delay. Another half an hour and they said the flight was cancelled. I kid you not. So, 11pm at night, we were stranded in Germany, not allowed to stay at the airport. Hmm. So we prayed hard and rang up Renate's parents who very generously said they'd come and get us. When Manfriend (her father) came, we were so grateful it's unbelievable - by this time it was gone midnight - but our limited German was very severely tested! He told us he was glad we'd rung and they were both very welcoming; it was just slightly different to our plan! But to be honest, in hindsight I'm actually quite glad the flight was cancelled as we had a chance to actually get to know Renate's parents instead of just using their house - and also, it was an adventure!
And we got scheduled free of charge on a flight back the next morning - when they told us the cancellation was due to a falcon getting ingested into the engine of the plane. Yuck.
Anyway sorry for the ridiculously long essay, I have to go now to do frantic revision!
xx

Evil! Totally evil!!

2005-06-07T19:21:00.000+01:00

So, today was our maths non-calculator paper. The non-calculator one is the one that I can do, and I'd done well on my practice papers, so I was feeling quite happy about the exam to come. Little did I know that there was a conspiracy to make the hardest paper ever possible for GCSE students!
Seriously, though, it was horrible. Completely and utterly impossible. However that means that the grade boundaries will probably be lower - I hope!
Our Biology paper yesterday was relatively easy, and I only have English tomorrow which is why I'm wasting time writing this, as you can't really revise for English. I suppose I could be learning those History dates which keep magically disappearing from my mind, but heigh-ho. Can't be bothered.
I'm getting very excited at the moment, because I'm heading off to Germany on Saturday for my friends wedding! How fun will that be? OK, so admittedly in the middle of my exams is not the best timing ever, but I had to get my priorities right! Only we have to leave at about 3am, which is nasty, but we get to go to the wedding, stay overnight free of charge and then spend time with Renate (the friend in question) and her husband on Sunday since they're not going off on their honeymoon until Monday. It's going to be great, actually, and it'll be a well-needed break!
Anyone else going anywhere interesting soon?
Exxx

Revision-filled Half Term

2005-06-02T09:31:00.000+01:00

Having said that, I have been doing other things too so I shouldn't complain too much!
On Monday all I did was work, but then I was out from 2pm onwards on Tuesday for a team-building meeting for our trip to China in the summer. I'm so excited about it now! We're running a summer school and visiting an orphanage as well as doing touristy things such as the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall. We also have to have tea with Chinese families who can't speak English, possibly on our own, which will be scary! But it should be great fun, and it will definitely be a good experience.
Yesterday I got bored out of my brains doing Biology revision; I reverted to using BBC Bitesize but it didn't help the boredom much! In the evening I went to my mentor's for tea, and had pasta and strawberries (not together obviously) which was nice.
Today I am doing more revision and in the evening we are going to Stratford to see Twelfth Night at the theatre! My parents are going to Sarah Ertl's cremation but as I didn't know her very well I am sending my love and prayers but staying here. God be with everyone there.
But I must get on and find some more ways to avoid too much work; spring cleaning my room is looking promising today.
xxx

After a very, very long holiday...

2005-05-24T18:55:00.000+01:00

...I have returned!
Well OK, no holiday really, but I may as well start writing on here again. Just couldn't be bothered for a while, but we'll see how long I last this time! :)
Today was my first GCSE written exam - German listening. (It's classed as written, anyway!) It was OK, a bit surreal to be honest. It doesn't seem like I've done a GCSE; just felt like normal school or a mock paper. I don't think I did too badly, although there was one question where I thought this woman was going to buy her husband a pipe and everyone else thought it was clothes! Whoops! I have English Lit tomorrow - although I already have 50% complete! - which is an hour and a half, but shouldn't be too bad. I'm optimistic at the moment, just don't catch me in a couple of weeks!
I am definitely not going to bother trying to catch up with everything I've missed - life has been bumbling along at a lovely pace, same as usual really. I'm on study leave at the moment which is quite fun, doing work of course but also going to the cinema to see Star Wars (very good), going shopping (it was almost necessary), almost burning the house down trying to resurrect a candle (not quite so necessary) and - you know - normal stuff!
Anyway, I'm off to revise RS philosophy - joy of joys! I've got nothing to complain about though really, so ignore me, and at least I'm alive.
Hopefully, will write again relatively soon!

Viva Network

2004-11-05T17:09:00.000Z

During this last week I've been on work experience, helping out at Viva Network. Viva is a Christian charity organisation that links other charities together so that they can work together and help each other, etc. It's all on the website if you want to look! (Hint, hint.) I've actually been involved with the Facilitation Team - they're the ones that do the work to make everything else possible! (Like, for instance, organising conferences.)
It's been a brilliant time for me; I've really enjoyed the work and the people have been lovely. It's been really good experience to try out new things e.g. phoning up a travel agents - I was dreading that then it was fine when I actually did it. I've managed to work with 8 people in 5 days (!) which I thought was pretty impressive. It's because I moved around helping in the different departments, rather than focusing on one project.
The week's been slightly more tiring than a usual school week but feels so much more worthwhile as well, so that makes up for it. I got a lovely card today from everyone I've worked with, saying thanks and well done which I found very touching.
I've learnt quite a lot as well - about myself and about the world! For instance I feel more confident about doing things which I would have avoided like the plague before, and also more confident about meeting new people which I'm often tentative about.
I've had facts and figures thrown at me all week, so in case you're interested here are a list of what I think were the most interesting:
- 1/3 of the world's population are under 15
- 1 in 12 people is an Indian child
- 95% of British households buy bananas every week
- If we say each banana would cost about 30p, the person who grew/tended that banana will only receive a halfpenny, and 90% of the profits will stay in the western world
- More than 37% of children live in absolute poverty
- Memphis is a city in America and Elvis Presley was born there (no, I really didn't know that before!)

Don't know if that'll interest you, but thought it might make some people think! (Well, some of it might, anyway. There are loads of really horrid statistics like the absolute poverty one; you hardly realise but it's terrible.)

Anyway, it's been a great week and a real eyeopener. I'd love to stay for longer helping them, but unfortunately we only get a week. Maybe I'll come back in the future, though, who knows?

Half-Term Holiday

2004-10-27T13:59:00.000+01:00

This week has been our half-term holiday, and so far it's been really enjoyable. I didn't do anything much on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, apart from buying a couple more Christmas presents - I only have one left now!!
After church on Sunday I went and stayed over at Mark and Heidi's, which was great fun. We played board games all evening, including a game of Lord of the Rings Risk until midnight! The next day we all trooped to see my sister Mim's new house, which she just bought, in Abingdon. I think it's really nice, but the decoration leaves a little to be desired!
Yesterday we went out to Bourton-on-the-Water for the day, which was great fun. I couple of new books - yay! - and lots and lots of candles! I persuaded Dad to buy these really cool Christmas ones which have a small candle in the middle which you light then its surrounded by a larger wax part with stars or reindeer etched out so they light out they're really pretty!
I saw this really funny cushion as well which Dad almost bought for me, it said 'I'm not bossy, I just have better ideas!' I liked that. I agree with it.
This morning I've been doing history and lit homework which I've been putting off, then I'm going to a party this afternoon which should be fun.
But I'd better stop blogging now because the Pillonels just came from France so I'm probably supposed to be being sociable - although I'm so tired there's no way I can possibly speak French today!

Sense of Inadequacy...

2004-10-17T17:09:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, if everyone expects me to do quilling as well as that then I may as well quit now...my designs are simple yet elegant, shall we say!
This weekend's been good fun; I stayed over at Harri's house on Friday night and we went to see Wimbledon yesterday. I thought it was quite good, the problem was I think normal tennis is tense and watching a choreographed version was a million times worse. I think I chewed my ticket to shreds! It was sweet, though, but predictable.
I watched A Walk to Remember when I was at Harri's, and I was in floods of tears by the end! They find every possible sad storyline, I think. I've seen better film wise, but it was good, and it does make you think! Although the Americanisation of the love scripture passage did annoy me, but Harri rightly told me that most people wouldn't know and at least it was in there, which is good!
Today I've just lazed around really, apart from church. I think I'm turning into a pyromaniac, I have about 4 candles lit in my room constantly!
This week we only have Monday to Wednesday in school then we split up for half term, so not long to survive now!

Christian Questionnaire

2004-10-07T19:48:00.000+01:00

We went out onto the very busy streets of Witney today to a questionnaire on the public's perception of Christianity for our RS. It was really fun; I love doing things like that. Although I was surprised at the amount of people who murmured 'too busy' and walked on, but I suppose we were asking at 9:30 so they could have all been going to work. It was fun though, we got some really random answers - e.g. the Christian man who when asked what he thought happened after you die said, "Pile of ash, I suppose!!!" - but some very deep and thoughtful ones to, about what people reckoned Christianity was. It's nice to know some people will still stop and talk to you, after all. We met this really cool lady there, she was really sweet and really nice to us, and we talked between questions as well, and then when we saw her later on she was like "Hello again!" and she had on the coolest eyeshadow ever. And a pretty scarf. I liked her lots. We also talked to these deaf old ladies and I had to talk quite loudly and clearly for a while! I'm sure it was good for me.
I'm writing this in a break from doing my quilling set (!) which I found in my cupboard a couple of days ago. Its really quite fun; at least I'm enjoying doing it!
You never know, all my Christmas cards might end up being quilled this year...

A Whole Week in 60 Seconds

2004-10-03T18:49:00.000+01:00

Aah - my blog's gone all big! This is so weird blogger is odd sometimes. To be honest I don't have much to blog about, only if I don't blog I'll have to do some Maths Coursework and I don't think I can be bothered yet - its only tweaking now anyway; it can wait!
Nothing's really happened since last week, I was ill for a couple of days but apart from a lingering snuffle I'm all well now!
I've had a really nice lazy weekend - baked a coffee cake yesterday, did most of my homework and watched sad T.V. programmes all evening, then went to church and finished off my history today.
Well, sad to say that's all that I've done this week really. We did have a cell social on Wednesday and did the Athens 2004 PS2 game on the dance mats, so you actually have to run, which was fun but half way through the 400 metres you just can't be bothered anymore and so stop. At least I did.
And that is it, really, I can't believe that I've summed up my whole week in a few sentences! Oh well, maybe this week will be more interesting.

Humdrum Life

2004-09-25T09:40:00.000+01:00

Oopsydaisy, haven't written for...um...quite a while!
Not much has happened though, really. School is as ever; we had the reunion weekend which was suitably manic, fun and exhausting. I did manage to spill wax all down my trousers at the alumni thing, but no worries it scraped off.
Y11 took the assembly yesterday, and I am pleased to announce that it went far better than last time. The worship we'd actually practised for and sounded good, the drama we did was together, the Y10s who are going to France this week were dutifully prayed for, and Eddy Graham who spoke was excellent. Yay! Oh yeh, and we had a really odd ice breaker from our Mexican student Oscar - you had to taste different types of chilli powder or something....it definitely broke the ice! It was fun though, and even Mr Blakey said our worship was good so it must have been OK!
Apart from that, nothing has been happening. Nothing is happening today either, except I have to go down to the library this morning but that only takes about 10mins. And I might go round to see my friend's new puppy this afternoon. Apparently its gorgeous.
Oh, and there's always that RS homework I've been putting off...

Romeo and Juliet

2004-09-12T16:07:00.000+01:00

I went to an open air performance of Romeo and Juliet yesterday with my class, because we're studying it this term. It was excellent actually, although they all doubled up because there weren't enough actors - there were only 2 women so Lady Montague just got dropped altogether! I really enjoyed it though, I love going to see Shakespeares because there are so many things you can do with the scripts; different interpretations and things like that. It was really funny as well, and the acting was quite good except for one guy who can't die realistically AT ALL, and ironically had to die twice. It was very amusing though, although Hannah and I got some strange looks when we laughed as he died!
Apart from that I haven't done anything this weekend, I just watched T.V. all yesterday evening, I thought Louis Walsh was really mean just to leave that woman he was supposed to be taking out to dinner on X Factor yesterday!
I'm going to go and cut up my chocolate brownies now, I got a bit bored this afternoon!

Exhausted

2004-09-09T18:57:00.000+01:00

I am completely, utterly exhausted. Lately I'm waking up at 3:30 a.m. each day and not going back to sleep very quickly, which is really aggravating, actually. I'm pretty much the world's worst sleeper. But then today we had the 1st of 2 activity days during which I did fencing. It was fun, but very hot and so quite tiring. Tomorrow I'm doing canoeing, and then we're having a BBQ which I think I'm going to mess up by being the only vegetarian!
School has been quite good so far - not that we've done much work as yet, what with the 2 days we're having at the moment. Then on Saturday we're going to see Romeo and Juliet in an open air theatre, so lots of fun to be had! And the week after that I expect will be manic due to the 20yrs reunion thing, and we (as Y11) are doing a bit to help so you never know.
I was going to type more today, but I need to go now because I'm supposed to be meeting my mentor, so I'll catch up properly another time.
And just to mention, we've had to stock up the girls' loos again already.

Y11

2004-09-02T18:20:00.000+01:00

Well, we've had our first day back in school!
Its really surreal to think that I'm in Y11 now; we're the oldest in the school, it is so odd. It means we're pretty much guaranteed a place on the hockey team though!
It was quite a good day actually. I'm in Mr Goodchild's tutor group this year, which means that technically I'm supposed to write that I'm in Y11G. It was nice seeing everyone again though, especially the people who I haven't talked to all summer.
We spent the first part of the morning doing admin-type stuff, but then we got into normal lessons. When I say normal, the work wasn't on the whole particularly taxing, especially not in Biology where we just did a silly little quiz. (Thank you Mr Blakey!)
Although they hadn't managed to stock up the girl's loos with toilet paper properly, even though they've had all holiday; I went in at breaktime and 2 loos were empty. At lunch Harriet and I had to raid the stock cupboard for loo roll, hand towels AND soap, although we couldn't find any soap!
But, overall, a good first day.

Sound of Music

2004-08-29T18:48:00.000+01:00

I have made a very useful discovery today. Ben hates the Sound of Music song. I mean the actual 'the hills are alive' sound of music song, rather than any of the other ones on there. Somehow I've missed this before, but it's going to come into play whenever I'm feeling annoying now!!
Sorry for the very random post, but I think its quite funny!! Why hate that song? He could at least hate the 'Climb Every Mountain' one which is, due to a very VERY warbly voice, quite aggravating!
One more Sound of Music comment: has anyone seen about that new Pauline Quirke drama, Von Trapped? Its about a woman obsessed with the Sound of Music. I'll be watching it!
Anyway - so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu!
(Sorry. Had to be done.)

Home Sweet Home

2004-08-28T18:51:00.000+01:00

Well, we're back! We arrived home at midnight last night - 1 o'clock for us - but its alright because I slept until 11:15 this morning to make up!
It's really weird being back actually, and not having to speak French any more. I swear my vocabulary has all but doubled in the last 3 weeks. For example, thanks to many trips to various chateaux I now know what 'dix-septieme siecle' means. I'm sure it'll be very useful!
Anyway, we had a lovely time. We have a really nice caravan complete with oven, microwave, bathroom, etc so its not exactly a struggle to survive. It rained quite often, but that was only to be expected, although the golf-ball sized hailstones (and I'm not exaggerating) were pretty scary. We had some really nice sunny days too though, and spent quite a lot of time near the campsite pool.
Ben did lots of fishing and bought lots of fishing equipment so he's happy, Mum stocked up all her cupboards so she's happy and I got 2 really nice new skirts so I'm happy. And Dad bought most of it, so he's possibly not quite so happy.
We also went places, visited some really pretty towns; one day we went to a Medieval Fete which was fun - there was this really interesting stall with about 30 different instruments of torture...
We came back to the news that one of our guinea pigs had died, which is sad, but she was a bit ill so at least she's not suffering any longer. We've got 2 left now, but they're both old and Amber's skin is looking sore and she's lost a lot of hair so I'm watching them carefully. They've had a good life.
I've got a week now before school starts, its really scary to think that I'll be in the top year, we can boss everyone else around!
But now I've got to go and empty the dishwasher, joy of joys, so do comment and tell me what you've all been up to this summer!

Quick Check-in

2004-08-04T18:31:00.000+01:00

Well, I'll catch up quickly before we go off again tomorrow - at 3am, AGAIN - to France this time.
We had a really nice week in Poland. They have all these little nicknack stores and the stuff on them is really really cheap, which is cool. I bought 3 new bags and 2 new pairs of sandals - although the sandals were more of a necessity, really, because my feet were slowly being ripped to shreds in my old ones. I also got some really nice jewellery; a ring and 2 necklaces.
We were going round some unpronouncable town one day when we came to this stall selling DVDs. They were pretty much definitely pirated, but they're good quality pirated, and Dad bought Spiderman 2 for 5 pounds, which I think is pretty lucky because I'd been planning to go to the cinema and see it for that amount! Our Uncle Tom, who was there as well, bought Troy, so I stole it off him and watched it on Dad's laptop because that was another I hadn't got around to seeing in the cinema. Only that one showed more that it was a dodgy copy, because at the beginning when they have the brief history thing (which I presume when you have it on the English setting should be in English) it was all in French. Which was weird.
Anyway, the meetings were good too, but very loud. The Poles don't seem to be able to manage quiet worship. But hey, its fun.
So that was last week, and then next week we're at Euronet France, then on holiday for 2 more weeks. I don't know when I'll be able to post again, if I can I'll try on Dad's laptop, but au revoir for now! (See - I'm in French mode already!!!)

Off to Poland

2004-07-21T12:18:00.000+01:00

Well, this could be my last post before I go off to the first European destination of the year. In the early hours of Saturday morning - about 4ish - we're flying off to Poland for a week for Euronet 2004 - well, Euronet Poland 2004. We're also going to the France one a week later.
But tomorrow we're all going down to see the Clarke family in their new house, and Friday we'll all be frantically packing!
Had a nice weekend, went to Hilary Gyde's birthday party on Saturday. We went bowling (and I won! Yay! Despite having actually forgotten at the beginning how to throw the ball!) then had a barbecue afterwards, which was fun. We also interrogated Hilary's younger sister, which was also fun!
I stayed over at Amy Mason's that night, because Dad was speaking at a Chippy Churches together meeting in the afternoon.
On Monday we had a dentists appointment (Groan! I HATE dentists! I never used to mind until one time he drilled on a nerve - OWWWWWWWW!) but my teeth are fine! Yay! After the dentists I went into Ottakars and persuaded Dad to buy me three new books for the holidays :) They were on a 3 for 2 deal though, and to be fair it will benefit him just as much as it will me! I got Grim Tuesday, Inkheart and The Book of Dead Days! Lovely titles, all 3.
I got bored in the afternoon, and became a Friend of Felicity and also joined the club at EverythingGirl.com! Its really fun, actually. Well, I think its fun!
Yesterday evening we went to see Shrek 2. I'd finally managed to persuade Mum and Dad that it would be fun, and that they needed to pay because I have no money!!! They didn't mind that much, though. I thought it was very good, especially as it was a sequel, and really funny.
We have a nice lazy day today, I don't think anything is happening, so I'm just going to sit and read and play on Bust-a-Move 2, which I rediscovered 2 days ago, and now need -well OK, want - to complete.
So if I don't get to post again for a while, have a nice summer everyone!

HOLIDAYS!!!!!

2004-07-16T13:29:00.000+01:00

Yippee school is finished!!!
This morning was quite fun actually, first of all we just cleaned the school (OK - so that bit wasn't quite so fun!) and then we had a party in our family group, organised by yours truly in the absence of our tutor as he is off in Zambia with the former Y11s. But the party was really fun - big thanks to everyone who brought food or drink, and who participated in the games, although Chinese Laundry went a bit hectic at the end!! (I got them to bring me a person, as in carry someone else!) But then we had assembly, and said goodbye to 3 teachers - well, one helper but she's amazingly cool. She's called Renate and she's from Germany. She helps because she's on a placement from Germany; and we all love her loads. We also said goodbye to 4 students, although 2 of them aren't quite sure if they're leaving or not yet. Then Harri and I - and other people from the other family groups - had to say what the highlights of our year in connection to family groups had been. Ours were winning the Family Group Netball Tournament and writing and producing plays and musicals for assemblies, most of them starring D Timms and Jamie Seggie.
Talking of Seggie, Sarah, in answer to your questions he was in our class but left last term to go to New Zealand, because his Dad's in the RAF. And Seggers because of his surname. Obviously. But he used to sing really high in our musicals, and he was up for doing whatever part we gave him so it was cool. He was Joseph/Danny in our production of the Nativity Grease style last time. It was very funny. We sang Donkey Lightning.
Also, Sarah, to answer your other question I meant when I was FOUR, not FOR!! Sorry for the confusion, and to anyone else who didn't understand.
Anyway, I'm going to leave and find some way to celebrate being off school - I would go into Oxford with some of my friends to watch Shrek 2, only I'm broke!! Hope you guys have a good time though.
I'VE FINISHED Y10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 MORE DAY IN Y10!!!!!!!!!

2004-07-15T18:01:00.000+01:00

Yes, people, tomorrow is our last day of school!!! Whoopee!!
It actually doesn't feel like it at all, but I think that's due to a) 3 pieces of coursework being carried on until today (but now they're FINISHED!!) and b) the fact that our courses carry over to next year, and c) the fact that things like Prize Giving and Sports Day no longer excite me like they used to do when I was for.
Also, apologies for not posting for AGES, but our internet's not working. I have finally given up and am now using my dad's laptop.
I spent my history lesson stuffing envelopes today, because King's are having a 20yrs reunion in September and they're not doing very well on the admin!! Although it was more fun than FDR's New Deal, and plus (this is going to sound really sad) I actually quite like stuffing envelopes. Its very therapeutic.
I'm really bored at the moment, probably because tonight's the first night in about 2 weeks when I haven't been frantically doing stats coursework. However the fact that I'm bored does not mean I'm going to write a really long post, because I'm exhausted and have run out of inspiration for today. It all got used up doing our Speaking and Listening Coursework for English today. But we got our Creative Writing piece back and I got an A, which is cool.
Anyway, I'll love and leave everyone, and Jamie I'm just about to add you to my links so don't worry!!

Murder Mystery

2004-06-29T18:01:00.000+01:00

Well, Jonny's party was great fun. Everyone's costumes were really cool. The Indians (I should probably say Native Americans but hey) all had feathers and stitched waistcoats and stuff, the cowboys all had boots, checkered shirts and hats, and the businesspeople were all smart and suit-ish. I was very pleased with myself because I completed all the aims in my envelope, and I must at least have done the 'make sure everyone knows Clem (the sales rep from my rival company) for the low-down, dirty double crosser he is' one right, because in the last half hour when people could die, he had about 10 people lining up to kill him!! It was very amusing actually, and you killed people by playing rock-paper-scissors. I also managed to get the land for South West Rail, as well as make an ethically sound deal (my character was very ethical!) that everyone was pleased with. I also managed to find out who'd murdered (or at least beaten up until he had a heart attack) the ranch owner, which I was pleased about as last time I did one of these none of us had a clue! You also had these 'ability cards' which meant that after you'd talked to someone for, say, 5 minutes they'd have to show you a secret or something. Only the boys (OK, some of the boys) always claimed you hadn't been talking for 5 minutes yet and would try and escape so I'd be trying to run round the small gap behind the tent whilst attempting not to fall into the holes or onto the roots in my high heels. Which was fun.
And Jonny seemed to really like his Barbie present!! Well, OK, he found it amusing anyway.
One of the most fun things was double-dealing and blackmailing people (I think I should become a professional blackmailer!!) and trying to work out who was lying to you. I have no idea what D (as Judge Paulson) was doing but he was making deals with everyone then the next minute he wouldn't even know you! Irritating, yet funny.
It was a good job Saturday was interesting because nothing much happened on either Sunday or Monday. I had an opticians appointment yesterday, and he did the usual put orange dye in my eye then turn my eyelids inside out, which is horrid but I'm becoming more used to. And we've been given 3 weeks to do our maths coursework so everyone is frantically thinking up questionnaires.
Not much else going on here, I'm still obsessing over Wimbledon though. Sprem went out today! I don't believe it! She's like the coolest player ever and her match with Venus rocked. Plus she makes me laugh. I spent all yesterday evening watching Tim's match I couldn't tear myself away. And he kept on losing all these easy points where he could have won the whole match so simply, and then with the tie break -
I was finding it hard not to grab a cushion. That is really sad.
But yeah, to summarise the last few days: Murder Mysteries rock, so does Wimbledon, Coursework doesn't.

Southampton Sports and Other Random Stuff

2004-06-26T12:41:00.000+01:00

Hmm, Steve, that is a good point about Jonny reading my blog, I hadn't thought of it, but don't worry, I don't think he will. And his party's tonight, wahey! It should be really fun, as long as I can work out what's going on!
Anyway: Wednesday. I wrote a long post about it on Thursday, but when I was about a sentence from the end my computer crashed so I went and watched Wimbledon instead. Sprem is the coolest player ever!! I am majorly addicted to Wimbledon actually, its slightly worrying. I mean, I never cared this much about the football - I was laughing on Thursday night!! I thought it was very ironical. But I was also scared because everyone else bar Mim in the room was jumping up and screaming at every goal. It was terrifying.
But that wasn't what I was talking about. I did very badly in my shot on Wednesday. I got a metre less than I got last week, and if I had got the same score I'd got last week, I would have won. Grrrr. And overall, we did really badly, we didn't even come 2nd, we were 3rd. And even though it wasn't raining, it was FREEZING. So much so that one of my friends who shall remain nameless took to standing in very distorted positions under the hand dryer in the girl's loos just to warm herself up. Talking of the loos, they were disgusting. Worse than ours, and that's saying something. They even had that horrid plastic toilet paper. I've never been so glad I had tissues with me in my life. (Come to think of it that's a lie: I was more glad I had tissues when we were in Prague and my new sandals were rubbing and we had no plasters so I had to pad out my shoes with the tissues. And then do it again 5 minutes later, because the tissues disintegrated!!)
Nothing much happened on Thursday, we got given our Data Handling Maths Coursework, but that's basically it. The coursework doesn't look too bad, only I get confused with Data Handling and never know which graph I should use when.
Yesterday I went to a Bobby Ball evening at our church. He's one half of Canon and Ball, who apparently used to be very famous but I am too young to have ever heard of them! ;) It was fun because loads of my friends were there (the only reason they all came was because Amy and I practically forced them, but that's not the point!) only for some reason they'd decided to sit at the front (which meant, seeing as how we'd told them to come, we really had to sit there too) which put them directly in the firing line of lots of Bobby's comments. It was funny though because he ignored us and just concentrated on the boys!
And the boys had this Kaliber drinking contest, because there was loads there and they found it disgusting, which was very amusing. I think the record was 16 gulps.
I'd better stop typing now because we have people to lunch and I'm being kind of antisocial, but I'll write again soon about Jonny's party and whether anyone actually managed to find the murderer. (And whether my company - South West Railways - managed to win the railroad war!)

(Relatively) Quick Update

2004-06-22T19:23:00.000+01:00

Oops. Haven't posted for a while. Well, only 3 days, actually. They've just been an extremely loooong 3 days.
Sunday was pretty boring really. We went to church, which was fine, but then I had nothing to do for the afternoon or evening. And Mum was adamant when I was begging her at 10pm that she was not going to come out into the garden, light lots of candles, build a bonfire and dance round it with me going "Aiaiaiaiaia!" to celebrate Summer Solstice. Which I thought was very boring of her, but you know. And then I was going to get up to see the dawn, but decided I was too tired. I woke up at about 5:30 anyway, but that's not the point. Although it was annoying.
Oo, random fact I found out - at Summer Solstice in Sweden, they whack each other round the head with plastic hammers!! Weird yet probably very fun!!
Nothing exciting happened on Monday except we got given the title for our English coursework essay on poetry. Something to do with comparing 2 William Blake poems, which no matter what Mr. Howard says I do not find particularly optimistic - lines like "babes reduc'd to misery" don't strike me as immensely happy. But anyway, its kind of boring, and we're going to have to do about 5 different analysises on each line, but I suppose it could be worse. And it does mean we won't be doing much else in our Lit lessons.
Today, I bought a birthday present for Jonny Darley. I was going to buy it yesterday, but then we got grounded, so I had to wait...
Anyway, my friend Sophie and I clubbed together, and in the end (it is so hard getting presents for boys! Why do they have to be so difficult? I mean, toiletries and make-up are off the list basically straight away - we hope!) we got him some Heroes and a Shelly birthday doll that's really sweet. We were bored! We got this really cool Barbie card as well, its really huge and all glittery...
Anyway, I'd better stop writing now and start getting my stuff together for tomorrow, because I'm going to Southampton Sports Day. I don't think I'll win, but it should be fun. Wish me luck!!
xx

Assemblies and Guinea Pigs

2004-06-19T17:00:00.000+01:00

Well, yesterday was, um...interesting.
We - Y10 - were leading assembly for the first time. Things got off to a good start in the run up when no one (including the boy supposed to be overseeing the organisation!!) except me and 3 others turned up to the planning meeting. So we drafted together a rough plan but the teachers didn't know whether we were leading this week or next. In fact, they told us on Thursday. Helpful.
So on Thursday lunchtime we sorted everything out, practised a small sketch for the first time, and sorted out who was playing in the worship. Or so I thought.
I turned up on Friday to play my flute, thinking that Ed Graham was leading the worship. However, it turned out he wasn't even playing, so there we were 5 minutes before the assembly started trying to sort out the songs, who was doing what, and what the heck we were going to do without a leader. The answer? Muck it up. Its harder than you think trying to lead worship on your flute, especially if you have no idea what you're doing as that was the one thing you'd completely left to someone else.
For instance, we were singing In Christ Alone at one point. One of the singers hadn't ever heard the song before, so when I start doing the twiddly flute bit for an intro, they started singing. So I stopped, she goes 'I don't know the song!' and so I end up singing the first verse instead of playing, only then I play the twiddly bit in between verses, and they start singing again! At which point I was about to give up on the flute when Sophie (thank you SO much!) came to my rescue and walked up the front to sing, letting me play flute again. But I gave up on the twiddly bit.
Anyway, think of that happening for 4 songs, and you'll see why I was kind of alternately laughing and cringing the whole way through. But hey. It was, at least so I thought, pretty hilarious, but I think other people found it less funny and more embarrassing than me.
Also, there was a new boy visiting the school for the first time. Interesting introduction to the school!! Poor kid he'll think all our assemblies are terrible. Especially as the drama didn't go particularly well either. Although a couple of people did respond to the prayer thing, but only after we'd sent D Timms over to look as though he was responding, so that the other people didn't have to be the first. It worked!!
Oh, he got a big cheer when he came on as the whale who ate Jonah, as well. He always gets the stupid parts, but everyone loves him, so it works great. We had him as the iceberg that sank the Titanic, once. That was excellent.
Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty mundane. We played squash again, which is really fun, only I'm absolutely pants! And my head goes funny from all the echoing!!
Oh yes, I forgot to say, interesting photo you chose, Sarah!! I don't remember when that was taken, do you?
I've just finished helping Mum give our guinea pig Gem her medicine! She's got some sort of mite on her, which apparently usually doesn't affect them at all, only when they're stressed and upset. Which I find quite sweet, as we had to put Gem's sister down about 3 weeks ago. She must be grieving. But we had to wash her with medicated shampoo this morning, which was a new experience. It wasn't too bad in the end, to be fair, but at the beginning the poor thing wasn't particularly happy. Anyway, I hope she gets better soon, because we're having to give her a syringeful of medicine twice a day and she doesn't like the taste. At all.
We're having my nephew Caleb over this evening because his parents are going to Banbury with a German exchange group. That's a new one. But anyway, he's really sweet and we love him, so I'd better go because I think - possibly, maybe - he's coming soon.
xx

2004-06-17T20:42:00.000+01:00

Well, a slightly more eventful day today.
It started off boring, but then we got a big telling off for messing around on the buses on the way to the Junior site for Games. We were being loud and signalling to the van behind us etc, nothing particularly terrible, but the driver complained which I can kind of understand. Only now their terrible punishment is to ground us to the school for 2 lunchtimes - tomorrow and Monday. The thing is those 2 lunchtimes are like our shortest ones, and practically none of us go out every single lunchtime a week anyway... Also, they grounded our year and the year below, but the year below aren't allowed out anyway!! Interesting.
But it made us laugh, anyway. Which I don't think is the point, but whatever.
Oo, big event today, I actually watched (well ok, half watched half read) a whole game of football! Which is doubly surprising seeing as how the match I watched was England playing, and I'm supporting Italy! ;)
Anyway I'd better go now as its taken me an age to write this since I only had one hand as the other was holding the phone!! Not my fault!!
xx

I HATE COMPUTERS!!!

2004-06-16T19:52:00.000+01:00

Which is probably not the best thing, really, if you intend to keep a blog. But it has just taken me about half an hour to actually set our stupid computer up since it kept freezing. Idiotic machine. It thinks its so clever, sticking on me like that...
Anyway.
I got told today that I absolutely have to go to Southampton Sports Day next Wednesday, which is an event for about 5 Christian schools to compete together. Well, OK, so they didn't say in as many words I CAN'T go, but my teacher was doing that 'it'd really bless me if you served in this way...' Basically, you're going so stuff it. Although I only have to do Shot, so it'll only take about 10 minutes out of my whole day, so I get the whole day off to do not a lot, which is cool. And we might be able to beat Basingstoke this year, as it really is our turn. They're like our arch-enemy, by the way. I practised all Games lesson today (well OK, all lesson I wasn't sunbathing or talking) and my best score so far is 7m60, which just for all of you who have no idea - in our school at least - is pretty good. I was pleased, anyway.
It was a gorgeous day today, consequently I spent all afternoon lazing around in the garden as it was so hot. Although I only just managed to persuade Ben that a water fight really wasn't such a good idea, but it would have been OK, because Mum was on my side.
Well, now that Sarah's sorted out my comment times, you can all say something to liven up this relatively boring post!!
I shall look forward to reading what interesting lives you all lead in comparison to mine.
xx

First Post

2004-06-15T16:49:00.000+01:00

Well, I finally got a blog of my own!!
I figured as I'd started stealing my brother's constantly I really should start my own instead.
Thank you very much to my sister Sarah who due to her blogging prowess set me up with this one. You'd better read it now you told me to get it, is all I can say!
I've been out looking in charity shops today for a costume for my friend's murder mystery party. I'm a 'city slicker' sales rep and after various trips into Oxfam, Sue Ryder and Sobell House I EVENTUALLY found a light purple matching dress and jacket which is just perfect. Hooray! It did set me back £10 but I think for a suit its not that bad. Now all I have to do is find numerous accesories to make the outfit just right...
We had Biology in the courtyard at school today. Its SOOOOOOO hot in that building, its horrendous. Its alright for all you lucky adults and HE-ers, but for us poor school students stuck in a suffocating building...
But luckily, due to the fact that we did our exams recently, we're getting no homework so all I have to do this evening is read and eat stupid amounts of chocolate that Mum and Dad got me from Germany over the weekend! Yay!
But now I'm going to fiddle around on my brand-spanking-new blog!!
xx