An Unexpected Epiphany

The other day I was on the train on the way to Bicentennial Park, having recently done something I both regret and know was necessary to do and hence was feeling a little conflicted. So I was sitting there, hyperventilating slightly because of my irrational fear of catching trains, and generally minding my own business, when a group of lads walked into my carriage.

If you don’t know what lads are, they can sort of be described as generally quite stupid, rude teenage boys (it’s creepy when they’re adults) who hang out in big groups in parks or on trains doing silly/dangerous/illegal things for entertainment. Just to generalise.

At the time I was thinking about how sick I was of being the “nice girl” who people took for granted because I always end up being the one who apologises for fights and stuff (I hate conflict and am super terrible in confrontational situations) when one of the lads said,

“Oi! Shut up,” (this is heavily censored by the way,) “Look what I found ... ‘I never thought being too nice would be my greatest weakness and my greatest attribute at the same time.’”

At first I didn’t get it because the kid couldn’t read the note he had found properly and was struggling with the word ‘attribute’, but once his friend helped him out I couldn’t help thinking ... yeah! The lads are right! And suddenly it made a lot more sense and I felt better about everything and knew what to do.

I guess the moral of this amusing anecdote is, you never know when your problems are going to be answered and by who. So keep your mind and your ears open (eavesdropping is always beneficial) because even the stupid-sounding and stupidly dressed lads on your train have interesting things to say. Or read. J

Love you like pleasant coincidences.

An apology of sorts.

... Oops?

Sorry that I haven’t written since forever. Things happen; freedom, the composing of romantic sonnets with proper Shakespearean structure and everything, HSC results coming back (I GOT FULL MARKS FOR MY EXTENSION TWO MAJOR WORK GUYS EEE) and acceptance into a volunteer group travelling to South America next year. That’s just to mention a few of the brilliant things I’ve been up to recently that have prevented me from talking to you, or finishing my theories of life.

I promise that I’ll write more soon. Also, this’ll be a great way of keeping you up to date with my amazing adventures in Vietnam in a couple of weeks (if there’s much internet about) and then when I go to Ecuador ... it’ll probably be Ecuador ... next September.

So stay tuned, don’t hate me too much for not talking for ages, and enjoy the chronicles of my life as a proper adult who will never ever go to school ever again. J

Unless I become a teacher.

Love you like 50/50.

Insomnia

I can’t sleep, as per title. I am too happy. Super dooper content with life in general. Couldn’t sleep much last night either, or the night before that. Everything is just a brilliant haze of blissfulness.

I won’t tell you why because I don’t like to jinx these things. Also, because I don’t want to be too happy because there is a particularly large chance that said happiness is unjustified. Oh but my goodness, there are blisters on my toes from wearing stupid high heels to formal and I have a bit of a cold from walking around the city with holey shoes last night, but I super love life right now. J EEEEE.

Also, tonight I babysat these kids and we had a Dr Seuss Fox in Socks rapping competition. That story is the hardest thing to read out loud, I had to practice. You should try, it is another thing that aids contentment. That and being really knowledgeable about year eight maths/french/geo homework and making paper planes and watching youtube videos. I love kids :) This time, not in the strange trying to work out the logistics of getting pregnant/giving birth/raising a child enough to put them in childcare by the time I get to university in sixteen months fashion ... just that I love them a normal amount.

Okay sorry I’ll stop this iffy happiness rant thing. Super self-absorbed today or something? Probably. Always. It’s just ... everything (almost everything) is perfect.

Love you like LIFEEEEEEEE.

x

Life Philosophies #1: Empathy

It is impossible to hate anyone that you understand, because the second that you understand someone you are making links with them, connections between the way they act and the way you’ve acted. Connections between their internal motivations, their hopes and dreams, their relationships, and yours. It is this concept that gives me this incredibly idealistic and probably naïve belief in people and their ability to just ... be humans: empathy.

We all have the ability to understand each other because of our common humanity. Some people you have to try incredibly hard to understand; others you just naturally connect with so deeply that you know how they are going to react to any given circumstance. Then there are people who won’t try to understand others because it offers justification for the way someone interacts with you; if it’s not a positive interaction, then it can be daunting to understand why it was that way. Then there are people who are just so optimistic and idealistic that they can’t help but spend hours in other people’s heads, trying to work out the mechanics of human beings until they come to the conclusion that everybody is inherently good.

I’m one of that last kind of people. I’ve resolved that it’s not necessarily a good thing.

When I was about six, I remember having the biggest breakdown psychologically. I was in my bedroom one night, I don’t know what I was thinking about, but I somehow decided that everyone in the entire world could be a robot and I would never know, because I could never see what was really going on in their head. Everything I saw was a façade, every action a performance of the ideal person. It’s all very Hamlet. But as a little kid the thought isolated me and I became very locked up in my own head, until I decided the best way of being a human was to trust the fact that there was some spirituality (not necessarily religious) that linked us all and that was when I promised myself that I would always remember that all people are people are people are people.

Not robots.

The thing is, it makes it very difficult to hate others. This is a good thing in a way, hate is soul-destroying and just generally disgusting. But it’s easy. And if you don’t naturally like someone, the thing about being incredibly empathetic is that you just keep working away to find something beautiful and good about them. Sounds like a good thing, right? I suppose it is but just ... once you understand them, you connect with them, you know how they’d feel if you did something that might hurt them, and you just generally end up hating yourself that little bit more.

Hence why not being empathetic is easy – you then have justification for not being good to people all the time.

I think you have to be a very, VERY good person to be able to empathise with others and not end up feeling kind of shit, just generally.

Alright that’s my philosophising for the night, Lox just got back from the Gold Coast and I’m super pumped to talk to her for a bajillion years. So I’m going to leave you now. Look forward to more philosophising in the future.

Love you like being human or something.

x

Ah the Brilliance of ME!

Some things you ought to know:

1.       This is my 100^th post. THERE ARE ONE HUNDRED OF THESE THINGS! You may now proceed to read them all. J

2.       I have finished my HSC. As in, finished my secondary education. As in, I will never sit in a classroom (as I know it) ever again. Unless I become a teacher that is.

3.      I have acquired what I believe is legitimately the most beautiful dress for formal. Whilst I won’t show you a picture of it (just yet anyway), here is an example of what it resembles:

 (I mean, what Belle's wearing, not the Beast. Does he have a name, other than "the Beast"? What is with that?)

4.      Hence I may be the most content human being alive on earth.

So what have I been doing recently that has prevented me writing to you DESPITE having absolutely NO WORK to do? Well, let me tell you I have spent a lot of time in a tunnel in a playground having my spine slowly warped whilst singing many songs of varying degrees of brilliance. I have also spent a good deal of lovely time with Bruv including going to the park this afternoon and playing Frisbee/soccer in the middle of a glorious summer storm. We got soaked, but a combination of playing on the swings and a warm breeze dried us off really fast. It was lovely.

Also I just have had no idea what I wanted to write for the 100^th post. I still don’t. So here’s the most amazing short film I found on Youtube:

I’m going to go to sleep now because I’m tired. However, in the next few weeks I may be recording some music! :O And if it all turns out spiffily, I will show it to you. I also have just some generally exciting rants regarding feminism/alcohol/my life philosophies to type up and share with you. Okay? Placated now?

Love you like having actually nothing in the world to do ... except tidy my room :S

x

That's a bit awkward ...

My brother and his friends just walked into me dancing and jumping on my bed to the Rocky Horror Picture Show record. So I’ve stopped shouting that I’m a sweet transvestite transsexual Transylvanian, because that’s a bit awkward.

It’s the best record though, I love raiding my parents’ collection, unfortunately they threw most of them out and the classics – The B-52s and Talking Heads, for example – are incredibly scratched that you can’t listen to them anymore.

Anyway some brilliant music:

Love you like the time warp :)

Disadvantages of being an adult

I was on the bus – am I ever not on the bus? – on Monday on my way to the drama exam and I realised something horrific.

Not being a student is going to suck.

It’s not just that we get free public transport and hence can just hop on any random bus and hope we arrive somewhere at some point in time.

It’s not just the cheaper cinema/theatre/transport tickets we can buy.

It’s not just being able to chuck on our uniform in the morning and not have to stress about what we’re wearing.

THERE WILL BE NO MORE CHECKING OUT HOT PRIVATE SCHOOL BOYS L

This is a big problem, I don’t think you quite understand. I swear private school uniforms actually increase the average male’s hotness level by AT LEAST 57 points. I don’t quite know what it is. But I was sitting on the bus with my head on the side checking out this particularly attractive guy (the uniform, as I said earlier, added 57 hotness points) and thinking, if I weren’t in school uniform this would be twice as weird. Hey, if I weren’t in school uniform this would probably be illegal.

So I’m making the most of my gorgeous uniform – “We get the fellows in brown and yellow” – and enjoying the view, so to speak, for as long as possible.

In other news, my HSC is 50% completed – I have done five out of ten units, and know people who have only done two out of twelve. Schadenfreude Clare escapes again. Belonging killed me. Drama was weird but okay. Modules were brilliant. J Now I can relax and try to remember that entire language I need to know by next Thursday ...

Love you like private school boys ... *teenage-girly-sigh*

x

:)

Tomorrow my HSC begins. As in, tomorrow. As in, not today, but tomorrow.

This is a very strange feeling.

Today my parents bought me a huge bouquet of flowers, the prettiest and girliest bouquet I have ever seen, and it has little good luck lady bugs stuck onto some of the leaves.

Not real lady bugs.

They also got me a card and Bruv signed it saying:

“Good luck in the HSC. Your doing well anyways.”

Which was a nice sentiment.

And because Bruv wasn’t there when they gave it to me Father signed it for him saying:

“Good luck I guess. Love Patrick.”

Bruv has this thing about always finishing off anything nice he says with “I guess” – “Thanks for driving me to school Clare, I guess,” – “Good luck in your French orals, I guess,” – “This pasta is nice, I guess,” ... it’s like he can’t feel emotions or he’ll explode or something. It’s pretty funny.

Sometimes I can’t blame him for not thanking me for driving him to school – did I tell you about the time that I ran over his foot? That was pretty awkward.

Anyway, so the HSC is tomorrow as in tomorrow as in not today tomorrow and I should probably go back to studying. But you know what? I’m super prepared. We’re ALL super prepared. This is a year’s worth of work and so soon we will never have to remember silly things like:

-           

Oh my gosh I have no idea what to write there ... :S This is not a good sign.

NO MATTER. SOME INSPIRATION FOR YOU ALL:

Love you like sixteen days until I’m finished forever ...

x

My HSC Inspiration

I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A CAKE.

I invented it myself.

I really did.

It is called the Six Band Cake.

It has six layers to represent each of the bands that I am going to get.

Also, each of the subjects I want to get band six in:

MODERN

FRENCH

DRAMA

ENGLISH ADVANCED

ENGLISH EXTENSION

ENGLISH EXTENSION TWO

The Modern layer will be chocolate to represent the mud in the trenches during WWI.

The French layer will be blueberry because blue is one of the colours of the French flag, did you know this?

The Drama layer will be rainbow because drama is craaaaaaazy.

The English Advanced layer will be a simple sponge because Advanced is boring.

English Extension will be raspberry because red is the colour of communism and people feared that after the bomb etc.

English Extension Two will be chocolate again because I like chocolate and English Extension Two is all about doing what you like. Just saying.

Each layer will be separated by whipped cream and a thin layer of toffee (so it crunches, not so your teeth break when you bite it) to represent the hard stuff during the HSC, like exams, and the soft, fluffy bits of the HSC, like the common room and, you know, not exams.

It will be topped by a mixed-berry-and-chocolate-cream goo not for any particular symbolic reason, but because goo is just really yummy okay goodness gracious.

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME BAND SIX CAKE? CALL ME AFTER THE HSC ;) WE CAN EAT IT TOGETHER IN THE BATH. << Cat in the Hat reference. No? At least, that’s how I remember it … maybe that’s coming from some other slightly weirder part of my subconscious (i.e. the weird bit that wasn’t inspired by Dr Seuss). Oh well.  J

Love you like my back-up plan: organiser of post-HSC kids' parties.

x

One Week To Go ...

What are you doing as of this moment?

Lying on a picnic blanket in the garden with a cup of tea, casually booing when the neighbours are cheering at the Rugby World Cup.

What should you be doing as of this moment?

Writing more essays ... I’ve done five today though and my hands are about to fall off.

The HSC is in a week. What is keeping you alive?

Too much tea, a jumper that smells like a fireplace, the beautiful spring air and my dog. I’m bouncing stats of the death tolls during the Troubles off her.

What are you doing tomorrow?

Going to the library with Tazmunia, hopefully, until 10pm. A lot of English study because I haven’t done anything for Paper One yet awkward.

What will you be doing in a week (and about eighteen hours)?

Sitting in the MPH with thirteen other girls, hopefully not laughing and chatting like we did during our reading time in trials, trying to remember something about The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage.

What is getting on your nerves?

The fact that because I haven’t put a subject into the majority of these sentences, the computer has done that stupid green underlining thing saying YOUR GRAMMAR SUCKS. FIX IT GIRLIE! I’m ignoring it.

Anything else we ought to know?

SORRY that I haven’t written in a while. Perhaps after the HSC/during procrastination time I’ll finish the Camper’s Camper Guide to Camping and post it, it’s very informative and stuff that everyone should know. Especially the Best Group Ever as we’re going camping after the HSC and it’s good to know how to do it. My HSC starts Monday week which is a little bit scary and my eyes hurt from writing so many essays. Also, my pinky really hurts from playing the guitar (procrastination) because my steel strings pretty much sliced it in half. Or something less dramatic.

So that’s where I am at the moment. Not too scared about the HSC. There’s just a lot to know and I don’t feel as if it’s all getting squished into my head. I will feel a bajillion times better after Paper Two (the 19^th – ten days from now argh).

Until next time, mes amis, please enjoy this beautifully-written blurb on the box of tissues sitting on my desk.

Sorbent Velvet is luxuriously soft and strong. Our unique through-air dried tissue technology creates a luxuriously soft tissue that is gentle on your skin. Velvet Large tissues are even larger for the ultimate luxury tissue experience.

Oh dear.

Love you like the word luxuriant. Oh my goodness I love that word so much. Want to woo me (haha), pretty much just say the word luxuriant a lot. Actually don’t ... that’s sort of creepy.

OKAY BYEEEE.

x

In These Past Few Weeks ...

I have:

1.       Dressed up in my junior uniform and revisited my childhood by playing Foil Ball on the Lowers.

That's a foil ball -- basically a ball made of the foil from our lunches because we're not organised enough to bring a real ball. :) (Photo courtesy of Carol)

2.       Danced like an idiot in the dark in the boys’ hall and lost trivia pathetically.

3.      Gone to our champagne breakfast in Moore Park West along with the police and our deputies (both decided it was too tame to bother with and left pretty much straight away).

4.      Walked into our assembly with Rebecca Black playing, before dancing like an idiot to a dubstep version of our school song, singing an abridged version of “Under the Sea”, laughing at our skit called “Finding Mimmo”, watching Anne Dao take over school captaincy and telling everyone who has skipped classes that, “If you don’t come to school to study, come for your friends!” and crying pathetically whilst attempting to sing our medley of farewell songs.

5.      Danced like an idiot on Bronte Beach with my beautiful friends as the sun went down and smashed Lox and Tersa at beach volleyball. Latian and I, we are actually amazing at beach volleyball.

6.      Spent hours and hours making our graduation video with Alex and my fair Adie.

7.      Had a bajillion class parties ... except in our last double period of advanced where we actually were lectured at for an hour and twenty minutes.

8.      Cried pathetically in modern when we talked about what we would miss at school.

9.      Sprinted through unknown Eastern suburbs streets to make sure Laurin’s door was locked and felt like a superhero.

10.   Shared the most delicious desserts with my brilliant Superprefects on Crown Street.

11.    Got to school at 7am in my pyjamas to eat croissants, receive our gorgeous yearbooks, open the letters we wrote to ourselves in year seven (I teased myself for having the HSC, which backfired splendidly, thanks 12-year-old Clare) and finally show the graduation video TWICE to many tears (NOT MINE!! I didn’t cry at all on Wednesday!) And then quickly got changed into our muck-up costumes.

Lox is the Grinch, Tara is the Reindog, Carol is the Christmas Tree and I am Cindy Lou Who from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Lox did the hair, it has a styrofoam cup underneath. Isn't it COOOOOOOL? (photo courtesy of Tara)

12.    Swum in JUB’s infinity pool in rainbow long-johns and pyjama top, before drip-drying in her apartment over-looking the Opera House.

13.   Been evacuated from JUB’s apartment due to an electrical fire, then walked around the Opera House for fifteen minutes at sunset while we waited to be let back inside, then rescued the stir-fry we had been in the middle of cooking and realised the udon was perfectly cooked. J

14.   Found Macheath from Threepenny Opera attractive with my beautiful drama class ... ability to sing and tap-dance really does excuse all criminal behaviour.

15.   Cried pathetically at Chakkers’ and Laurin’s beautiful graduation speech, felt incredibly embarrassed that our principal mentioned my year ten music performance in her speech, laughed at how cute the year seven and year eleven farewell speeches were.

16.   Graduated from school.

17.   Made a huge circle on the Lowers holding hands with the entire grade, sung the school song and sprinted into the centre of the circle for a ginormous and slightly painful 169-person group hug.

18.   Dressed up in a pretty dress, proposed a toast to our teachers that no one heard, took a million photos, signed a million yearbooks.

The beautiful Tazmunia (photo courtesy of Tara)

19.   Had D&Ms on the bus.

20.  Revisited the chocolate shop (which represents our brilliant junior years) and giggled ridiculously from sugar-shots and a chocolate overload.

21.    Made a Chocolate and Raspberry Guts Delight Cake and shivered over it at Maroubra Beach for Tararara’s 18^th party.

22.   Had it confirmed that my no-alcohol-(AT LEAST)-until-21 policy is a good idea J

So as you may be able to see, it is a bit of an anticlimax that I have found myself at home after all that with barely anything to do but study. On Friday night I even had a dream that I was at the Advanced Paper One exam and had not studied for it at all, and was trying to think up a good concept for a belonging story before I went in ... my idea was to tell the story of a conchie during WWI. I think I might try writing that, after all, it is what my subconscious has told me.

However, if there is one thing I know for sure it’s that my last weeks of school were simply AMAZING. Here is a whole lot of love and thanks to all the people that I spent them with.

Love you like brilliant times with lovely people.

x

My Favourite Girls

It seems impossible. It’s ridiculously surreal. But here it is, happening right in front of me, and I can’t do anything but go along for the ride.

School is completely over. Over forever (and ever and ever and ever ...) and it feels really, really weird. We graduated on Thursday after possibly the most tiring week of my life, and this morning I was sitting in the kitchen gargling Betadine to rid myself of a gross lingering cold and I realised that I didn’t really feel anything – not sad that school was over, nor happy that school was over, nor stressed about the HSC in three weeks. Just numb. It’s so different from when I left primary school, because then I was just paralysed with the fear of the unknown. It’s a bit of an anticlimax really, the fact that we’ve been celebrating since trials and now I just have to buckle down and study again (I’ve done four hours today J). Maybe I’ll be scared again once the HSC is over and there’s nothing between me and the big wide world.

But what is really strange is not getting to see my favourite people in the entire world together ever again (except for the advanced exam). The girls who I have spent the last six years with have actually changed me so incredibly it is difficult to imagine. When I started in year seven I was this incredibly tiny, quiet girl who spent most of her time writing stories in the library. I am now a completely different person who has had so many amazing and terrible experiences and I like who I am now. Sometimes the things I do disgust me, but even the knowledge that I am able to reflect on my own state of being makes me pretty proud of myself.

After we graduated we went out for dinner, and a friend of mine asked me whether I was happy with whom I had become. I did have to think about it for a while because I think it’s a very difficult question to answer. But I am happy with me. At the end of the day, I am a good person with beautiful friends and a very lucky life. What is even better is that I have the self-reflexivity to see what I do that is bad and, rather than despair about it, look objectively at myself and work out how to improve or deal with it.

I don’t know what I would have been like had I not gone to my school, obviously. I do know, however, that the person I am now has been shaped by my relationships with the most amazing, intelligent, hilarious, generous, creative and beautiful girls in the entire world. I love you guys to the moon and back 169 times over. With you I have laughed a million times and for you (especially in this last week) I have cried a million tears. You make me an emotional wreck, but I will always remember the times we have spent together. BUT THIS IS NOT GOOD BYE AND WILL NEVER BE. We will be friends until the day we die. Possibly afterwards too.

I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while, things have been so ridiculously busy. Soon I’ll tell you of all my adventures since we last spoke; I’ve had some that have been pretty lovely. This was just a little emotional ioaoghsaskjnbjiaut to sum up just how much I will miss my brilliant school and the brilliant people inside of it.

P.S. Here is the video that I made with my fair Adie and Alex. I spent approximately 50 hours on it, so I think you should watch it, don’t you think hyperlink? And I totally got Lox on camera confessing her love for Kelvin.

There is no way that I could love you as much as the past six years, I am sorry.

x

It's Time: Plottier

I think it’s time that I shared with you a very interesting time of Lox and my high school careers, seeing as said career will be finished shortly and I won’t have much of an excuse to revisit it.

In year eight and nine (before I tired of it) I did debating after school and in year nine our tutor was this guy called Kelvin. It seems weird now but apparently he was 18 when he taught us. He seemed to be constantly uncomfortable in our lessons (perhaps not used to teaching a large number of squeaky 14-year-old girls?) and I liked to make fun of him. So did Lox. She loved to come up with pranks to pull on him and she called them plots. So one day I wrote this little short story for her and called it Plottier for said reason. (I feel as if I am giving away all of our in-jokes, Lox. I’m sorry. This is all for you <3)

*

Plottier

For Loxie

Kelvin Yu was not, perhaps, the most physically gifted male in his year group, to say the least. He was quite short and scrawny with a comically high voice, which amused itself by saying the word ‘like’ almost as often as the stereotypical brat often portrayed in American teen angst movies. His hair stuck up at all angles in a fashion that J.K Rowling would be proud of, and if he was to be reincarnated everyone believed that he was to be a mouse. The baby of his group, his skin was conceivably pale from the many hours of studying he had partaken in during his senior years of high school in order to achieve his UAI of 99.65. As it was, this was an astonishing fact, his tagline that he pulled out quite often to, really, any girl that he met. He seemed to cry out at any possible opportunity, “I may be scrawny, small and own an awfully girly voice, but at least I have the means of securing a high income!” And it was true. He was rather clever, and everyone knew. He was a debating tutor, after all, and had an incomprehensible knowledge of anything to do with anything happening around the world at any given period.

Kelvin taught at his old school. Sydney Boys’ was practically the only school in all of the Sydney state that he could feel comfortable teaching at. That’s just how it was. A given. A set fact that could not be altered in any way, shape or form. It was known, agreed, specified, prearranged, certain. Whatever word his thesaurus brain could arrive at, his job was it. Until, of course, a distress cry came via the form of a curiously misspelt text message from a friend of a friend; a debating coach from Sydney Girls’ High.

“Kev,” it said, confirming Kelvin’s initial impression that the text was from someone he didn’t truly know, “we @ SGHS hav 1 coach <. Need nu 1. Plz come or else will all hav 2 teach more kids. Repli ASAP. Luv, Gina.”

At first, Kelvin had blinked. Twice. Then he had put down the phone. Sydney Boys’ was his home. He couldn’t teach at more than one school anyway. Right? But then he looked for the third time, and thought of the pay. He replied quickly to this Gina in affirmative. He was going to teach at Sydney Girls’ High.

And now the day had arrived. He scanned the sheet he had been emailed, sight-reading hastily in order to find his name. Finally he saw the bold-lettered “Yu”, and quickly ran his finger across the muddled table to see which year he was to teach. The number seemed to explode out of the page. He felt his body going weak. His class was year nine.           

The group of students that Kelvin taught at Sydney Boys’ was a year nine group, too. It was merciful bliss if ever he could get them to listen for a moment, let alone use the correct structure for first aff. He couldn’t imagine the terror of a gossipy, loud and squeaky class of hormone-driven fourteen- and fifteen-year-old girls. What if their voices were squeakier than his?

In the car park of the girls’ school, Kelvin sat in his tiny blue car with the dent in the boot door. His class began in less than five minutes. Kelvin began to get terrifyingly nervous. He ran his hands through his hair until it stood perpendicular to the roof of his car. He bit his nails until they had all been ripped off. He must have checked his fly now for the hundredth time, and of course he had practiced using a low voice. Nothing was to go wrong.

Confidently he swung the door of his car open and leapt out. He could hear shrieking laughter coming from the classroom above. A girl with dark hair looked out, and screamed in such a high voice that it rivalled his.

“OH, MY GOD!” She screamed. “He’s a guy!”

Kelvin coughed a couple of times and flashed the girl a bracing smile. Quickly, not wanting to be seen near the shrieking girl, he slammed the door of his car shut and walked away. Or at least, he attempted to walk away; his shirt had gotten stuck in the door and he was wrenched back against his car almost indecently. The girl in the window laughed loudly before clapping her hand over her mouth and ducking down. She had seen him seeing her.

Kelvin cursed his chances and proceeded to remove himself from the car roughly, thus ripping the back of his shirt. His jacket covered the rip mostly but Kelvin truly wasn’t having a great day. And he hadn’t even properly met Louise yet. His life was about to get much Plottier.

*

P.S. This isn’t entirely a true story.

P.P.S. I did write this when I was 14. Please don’t blame (current) me for its oddness.

Bruv just came into my room and proudly spurted a brilliant pun. “I went camping the other day ... it was intense!” (In tents? No?) How I do love him.

Love you like fridges in suits (I won’t give away all our in-jokes just yet).

x



Almost Winners?

Today the Annual Sydney High Prefects Binball Match of Death occurred at lunchtime at the boys’ school. My being incredibly coordinated resulted in falling over twice (once with spectacular windmill arms right onto my bum, the other was a scramble that left me having fallen on my face with a strained wrist.)

Then I shook hands with Amebrain and that was when the pain shot through my wrist (right hand, of course), and I ended up sort of on the floor, but I didn’t cry! Proud? You ought to be.

Anyway, so we lost – two games to one when it was girls vs. boys (although Lish had to steal the bin and bring it into our half of the court for us to win) and two games to nothing when it was Whites vs. Asians.

Now this may make us sound like horrible people. Racial segregation is really not something I personally advocate. But it’s okay at Sydney High because everyone is so not racist that it doesn’t matter. It’s racist to be embarrassed by race, you know? Don’t hate me.

I’m on the bus now heading home and there’s this sweet old Chinese woman with her friend, I’m pretty sure they’re tourists because the one next to the window (I’ll call her Leopard Print Hair Clip) has her digital camera out and is taking pictures of my bus route. Isn’t that supremely gorgeous? To think that this route, which is to me the same old Parramatta Road, boring and ugly and uninspiring, is to someone else worthy of photo taking, is beautiful and new and exciting, just makes me incredibly happy. I sometimes try to think that way, as though everything I see is new, like I’m a tourist in my own city, just like Leopard Print Hair Clip. Then, every day is an adventure.

I sound like Peter Pan.

MAN ON MY BUS THAT LOOKS LIKE RORY (Doctor Who Rory, that is).

He just got off. L

Alright well I’m going now, I’m not almost home really but I’m tired, and napping on buses is a thing I do all the time.

Love you like almost being triumphant at binball today.

x