Black Books and Christmas etc.

Merry belated Christmas to you all, said the predictable teenage blogger.   

 The next matter which, again, you could all foresee: the Stuff What I Got For Christmas list. It goes as follows—Alligator by the Natiional, Biophilia by Bjork, Annal Calvi’s self-titled album, Matilda the musical soundtrack, Either/Or by Elliott Smith, Black Sheep Boy by Okkervil River, Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins, book about Sweeney Todd, piano sheet music (simplified Chopin yayayay), Sweeney Todd Broadway recording on DVD, the Inbetweeners Movie DVD, Mary Poppins DVD, Amadeus DVD, animated Alice in Wonderland DVD, journal, Edward Gorey book and calendar, Trivial Pursuit, Black Books on DVD, puzzles, chocolate, other smaller things. Am I spoiled? The only downside of Christmas is feeling that I am being given far too much stuff.

 In truth, the only thing I really wanted for Christmas, though everything else is absolutely great and I’m so pleased, was the Black Books  box set. I’ve, um, already got through season one. Super short British seasons but nevertheless. Words can’t describe how happy I was when I opened that present. It’s another additional to my British comedy obsession. I’d recommend it, but you’ve gotta understand that a.) it’s about ten years old now and not the sort of comedy you’d see nowadays, so you’ve gotta take that into account when judging it and b.) it is one of the weirdest shows you will ever see. It’s really, really, really good and I’m basically obsessed. I’m also reluctantly in love with the main character, Bernard. I say reluctantly because he’s a misanthropic, standoffish, self-absorbed, melodramatic, chain-smoking, binge-drinking, weird, reclusive kind of a person. He owns a failing book shop; he loves books and overlooked the fact that he’d have to interact with people in order to make the business a success. He’s either drunk, hung over, sulking, or asleep, basically. I also think he’s wonderful and oh how I wish this show had never ended, sigh sigh sigh.

 Everything else is much appreciated and has been keeping me occupied when I’m not fueling the Current Obsession. That National album? Good lord, that is a great record. The band have changed so much, you wouldn’t believe. And I thought the change between Boxer and High Violet was a big leap, wow. I think this music might be what you call Americana. Don’t quote me, but that is my impression so far. As far as I know I’ve never been interested in Americana before. I love getting into new types of music. They have a song on the album called Karen, which is forever stuck in my head. So far I’ve only listened to Bjork and Smashing pumpkins before. Bjork is very, very good although it’s easy to over-listen. Smashing Pumpkins is actually for 7^th grade me, because that was when I first wanted Siamese Dream but my parents were convinced they had the record somewhere, and they just couldn’t find it. It took the reissued version to convince them to get it. It truly is a brilliant album. One of the best things of time off is being able to listen to so much more music than I can otherwise. As far the DVDs, I didn’t ask for all of them, also in regards to the Disney ones, I’m trying to watch everything I never saw when I was younger. Haven’t watched any of them yet (see: The Black Books obsession). I’ll probably watch the Inbetweeners soon, if my parents don’t consider it in too bad taste. Present wise, this has been an A+ Christmas.

 I always love the last day of school before Christmas. Free from any responsibility, I read Kerouac’s Dr. Sax for much of it. We watched a movie in English and my view was blocked by the boyfriend of the girl next to me sitting on the desk in front. He is not in our class, so I can’t say I understand why he’s there. The food we brought in for the math party it turns out was sufficient in quantity, thank god, although there were about a thousand cookies that no one ate. Again, reading and nothingness. Watched a video in 20^th century. We have been given an assignment that is too time consuming over the break. Biology, we had coffee cupcakes and watched a video. School is over! Fuck school. I’m so tired.

 The run up of the last couple of days to Christmas was kinda weird. Like, crazy manic weird. We decorated, or overdecorated the house obsessively, made gingerbread, cut paper chains, put marzipan and icing on the cake, et cetera. Also, drove around to look at the lights. One street as absolutely covered in them; good thing they were raising money for a charity, as so many people were just driving down the tiny street to see them. It’s tradition to have baked potatoes on Christmas eve for us, so that too.

Christmas day I woke up with a headache and an inability to see. It was odd. We’re dogsitting for friends until January, which I don’t entirely approve of, but the dog arrived today so yeah. It snowed very slightly in the morning. We opened presents around mid day, which was fun, and listened to Led Zeppelin, and then we had lunch which was cool and then we watched Harry Potter and Black Books and played games. Fun Christmas, yeah! The next day, Boxing Day to us Brits, we went for a walk and it was very cold, and then we watched more DVDs, ate too much food again, did a puzzle, and played games.

 I just got back from seeing the second Sherlock Holmes movie. It was okay. None of my family thought the first one was particularly amazing so I don’t know why we went to this. The first was better, but the cinema was weirdly empty so it was good. I don’t really like the interpretation of Sherlock in the movies. I never understood the appeal of the BBC version of it either. I suppose Sherlock just isn’t for me. But I’ve been lazy as hell for the past few days so it’s good to get out of the house. We are listening to Bjork and the dog is sitting by my side. Her presence is sometimes pleasant, sometimes irritating. Overall, not bad.

 Christmas break is the best.

tongue tied

Woohoo grouplove, this song will make your life.


It’s December 22^nd and Christmas is aalllllmoooost here this is wonderful. Unlike last post, I’m currently in such a wonderful mood because the hard parts of school are done with and the house is all decorated and it’s only three days until everything will be amazing. Ahhh I’m far too sentimental and mushy you know. And sometimes the opposite. I’m a paradox.


Christmas mood, which I will continue to go in about no matter what anything else, was exaggerated by a holiday piano recital. And I definitely could not play the piece as I wanted to and this kind of stuff makes me more nervous than it used to. So, I was very very very unhappy and stressed going in. But thank god the others weren’t extraordinarily good. Like, they weren’t bad, they were okay, I didn’t think I stood out much on any points. Luckily, the small child scheduled to play the Moonlight Sonata before me (playing, um, Silent Night) was a no-show. That was the best thing in my head, which is probably sad. I was happy after cause I got compliments from strangers and my teacher said I did well. I doubt it, if nothing else because flats + pedals is a bad combination, but nevertheless I was in a good mood after that. I place too much emphasis on external validation. Yay.

 As far as other Christmas stuff goes, I bought my sister a Bonsai tree and I’m listening to the Dear Hunter’s White EP, which features bells. Also went to the mall, totally unrelated, but malls in December are as terrifying as as they are wonderful.

English. Monday. After a weekend of not editing my shitty essay, it was collected and all hope of retaining a good grade in that class was lost. We were then assigned our next book, which is The Things They Carried by Tom O’Brien. And oh my god, I don’t like war books. I don’t like war books one bit. Least of all Vietnam war books. And oh, it is a long book! We’ve also been assigned the most impossibly terrible project to go with it. It’s also an ‘ongoing’ project which just compounds the problems. We had to get into groups and another group asked if I would be with them, and my Regulars got so irrationally annoyed at this. I am literally Judas to this one power-wielding maniac girl. (in this situation, she sees herself as Jesus, I am quite confident). My English teacher, get this, is making us do art. In an English class! I am not an artist! I cannot do art! What is this! I will do so badly and it’s not due until late January but I’ll put it all off till the day before! Woohoo, yay! All about creativity! Which is not my strong point! And my teacher’s one of those who things I should designate an area of my house to collecting materials for these art projects. Silly teachers, people don’t give a fuck, that should be one of the pillars around which you should design your projects. To make matters worse, we’re also being forced to do graded ‘seminars’ every single day. Talking. To everyone. And getting failing grades if I don’t. We’ve done this twice now, in which times I’ve found myself either falling asleep, doodling Black Books-related cartoons on the backs of the worksheets we’re given, or observing how my pulse and breathing rise when the thought of actually speaking up comes to me. Is it worth it? I don’t know. And do you want the –why-talking-for-the-sake-of-sound-and-good-grades-is-the-worst speech again? I’m going with no. After day one, there were about eight people who had not spoken. Now, we are down to two. The other will drop out in good time, and I will be all alone. After this, my teacher looks at me and says “Naomi: you’re quiet”. And I say “yes”. That isn’t even persuasion or questioning or gentle teasing like the other teachers do in this situation. It’s neither here or there. Yes, I am quiet: what’s your point? Jesus. Today, we were supposed to watch Elf in the class, but the DVD didn’t work so now we’re watching an inspiring and uplifting tale about a reluctant genius who’s living against the odds. Never could I be more thankful to have a hiatus from this class.

Math hell continues, although it’s getting less and less intense as time goes by. I did well enough on a quiz but my teachers impossible grading system means my grade isn’t going to get any better because of it. Sigh. We’re promised a party tomorrow (last day) if we bring enough food. She has not specified the amount, because her thinking is fuzzy and irritating. I’m taking in enough to feed the class for a week, though, just to be certain we don’t have to work.

Normal 20^th century week, boring work, and we were given the most impossible in-class essay you can ever imagine. And we were gonna have two days to work on it, but then he made it one, so what I wrote was absolutely terrible. I am so done with work! And the essay was too hard, far too hard. And we watched videos. Tired tired far too tired, that’s me. And we’re given extra work, I suppose, cause the teacher’s are working to rule starting in January (most likely). Nothin’s fair.

My bio teacher thinks letting us watch an episode of House is a good thing to do when she’s not there. And I….really, really, really don’t like House? Well, I’ve only seen a handful of episodes but all of this just don’t sit well with me at all. Waste of time? Yes. We had a quiz today and it was easy cause it was partially open book but I still worried too much about it before. Typical me. Oh dear. This stupid class. Good thing is talking about genetics now; I love genetics. One of my favorite areas of science. We did an activity was chromosomal disorders today and it wa really neat.


My aunt arrived here last night. She always stays for Christmas. She’s still pretty jetlagged but it’s fun having her here. She’s not like most family in that seeing her is totally relaxed and everything. Today was the best, I came home and had—oh my god—no homework or anything to do. And we listened to her new Led Zeppelin CD. (Revelation: I like Led Zeppelin) and for the first time in ages got to relax. It was sunny and the house was a mess and the music was very loud. It was so wonderful. And we also went shopping cause my aunt wants to browse the local shops every year, even if it’s just craft shops or something, and we kind of bought far too much stuff but it was fun. We also made gingerbread again. Amazing amazing amazing.

 Do I foresee an actual good night’s sleep tonight? It seems so.

St. Vincent! Is really really good and I love her. And this song is wonderful so listen to it.

My god, I have had one awful week. It always happens this time in December and I don’t know why, but all I know is that you’re practically counting down the seconds until days are done and until you can have Christmas break and just not care at all. It’s tough and you’ve no idea how relieved I am that this is over with.

Interesting day Monday, ‘cause I woke up with a  headache and a ringing in my ear, and although my mother takes the typical English attitude to sickness(which is, you will go to school unless you are about to die) most days, for some reason I got to sleep in this day. Hoorah! And she had to go out Christmas shopping which for many a fifteen year old means loud music And it was pretty fun and almost lucid; I dressed like it was summer, ate food on a strange schedule (I’m usually very scheduled), read books, and listened to the Killers. It was fantastic and I’m either easily pleased or far too hard to please at all.

 And then not to be melodramatic or anything—who? Me? Never!—but the rest of the week was like the worst thing ever. Looking back on it, I’m not entirely sure why but, you know, there you  go.
I’ve been essay-writing in english for a book I didnt’ care for at all. I really go in for specifics and am kinda hyper meticulous with essays so to not enjoy the book I’m reading makes it all too difficult. It truly was a terrible book. And it was just another shitty thing to do even when I had no time to do something like that, what with studying and work and being so incredibly tired and frustrated. The essay rubric doesn’t make any sense, either, and my teacher is the mockery of the class because of it. Interestingly, we also had a power outage on Thursday. We were typing in the lab. The first story was of a squirrel getting caught on the power lines, although later that squirrel became a branch. We were shuffled outside and then shuffled inside and the power didn’t come back until about an hour and a half later. Which is fine unless you cannot type the essay without the power and you don’t have time to type it after school and your teacher doesn’t moie the date back. So, yeah. The first draft was awful and surprise surprise no time to edit it much over the weekend, and peer editing is just such an awful exercise for everyone. Fucking educational system. Apparently not having a thesaurus.com tab constantly open on your computer while you write constitutes bad writing. Repeat a word once and you are just terrible. Hmmm.

This week on algebra, I got a very bad grade on a test. I was still sick, I was exhausted, I didn’t have time to study, I missed the review on Monday which meant I was probably at a bit of a disadvantage. We were tested on things that we went over once, things you wouldn’t think to study if, like me, you hadn’t been told to. As you’ve probably noticed, if I don’t find a loophole out of lackluster grades it absolutely kills me. I have bipolar self-esteem, if you excuse my using the word bipolar in that context. Stuff like this just feeds into the cycles, you see. But this has a few other repercussions that are more awful. Most other teachers would judge you on your entire performance in a class, which for me has been consistently above average, but my teacher doesn’t seem capable of this. I am now wearing the metaphorical dunce cap. This is very hurtful. She’s also moved me away from everyone I know and talk to sometimes, to the front of the class. And I find it very difficult to function at all at the front of a classroom, I always have: whoever thought moving kids to the front of the class will make them contribute and learn more had no idea what they were talking about. She made us take notes too quickly, while I was moving seats, and didn’t give me enough time to copy anything down and then interrogated me for answers as she went around the classroom, picking on people, having us work on questions as a class. She picked on me. She did this a couple of times, still without the proper notes to answer questions. I think teachers need to learn that “I don’t know” means just that. I believe putting others through public humiliation is unacceptably cruel, especially people who obviously don’t wanna speak in front of the class and who are most affected by things like this. But no, this teacher and most all of the others will just keep pushing away until they give you an answer. Even if the answer is nonsense. “Tell me, what’s the capital of Poland—you!” “I...i don’t...I don’t know” “Just say anything” “The square root of sixteen?” “Well at least you answered” (the imaginary class laughs at you from this time—you self-loathe until the bell rings and you can leave).  This rule applies even if answering makes the speaker want to cry and just get the hell out of the room right then and there. It’s all about noise for the sake of noise, doing things quickly, not caring about anything, and going through humiliating hell each day. I fucking hate the education system here, really. Even when I’m doing well at something it’s all just so awful, depressing, and humiliating. My teacher’s attitude in this class has yet to change and every day I dread the class.

I miss an easy day in 20^th century, watching a video, and the following Tuesday and Wednesday were shitty discussions. Then on Thursday, I should have studied my brains out for a test by then but alas, could I be bothered? Debate days are weird. One of the many high school events that seem to exist even though the explanation for why they exist seems to have been lost long ago. And we were made to sit by class, so it was kinda impossible to do anything useful with the free time. The girl next to me reads Catcher in the Rye and narrates her thoughts to me; I don’t know her very well. There were two debates: the first about emphasizing science and technology in schools to get an advantage over other countries, the second about the national slogan. I could have landed worse debates, true, although try as you like to hide it it’s too difficult to cover up your personal opinions on the topics entirely. I tried. My teacher, who plays devils advocate like you wouldn’t believe, made all these snide comments about the debaters now that they were outside of ear shot. Slightly unsettling. And! Some person asked questions who talked so painfully slowly it was embarrassing for everyone in the room. I don’t know why I’m complaining. Could have been a worse class, you know? But damn it, debate club doesn’t make much sense to me and yet I’ve gone before and not entirely against going again if I ever have an evening with enough time? It’s so odd. Actually, one main problem: overuse of the word decorum. Decorum! Jesus. Some of these kids are scarily college-oriented; the whole decorum business kinda gives it away. Ah Jesus, must stop being so judgmental of literally everyone. But not before I mention how absolutely terrible Friday was, because it was review for a test, and for some reason my teacher is one of those ones that managed to pick up the (incorrect) idea that playing jeaopardy is a good way to review things. And we were kinda roughly put into teams, and our team was about a third of the size of the other two, and the big team has all the loud people and god I don’t know about fucking war; this unit’s been awful. Take this, plus the typical deterioration of questions to asking about America’s Next Top Model, plus being with someone who, after getting the dates of Wilson’s presidency a few years off, continues to spend the next three quarters of an hour telling you how he doesn’t care, and you become so incredibly frustrated and tired and sick of everything. See, fucking jeopardy, this happens every single time with this game. Last time I was stuck between Potterheads, the raving lunatic fringe of the fandom types, and if it weren’t for some pretty snappy knowledge of the stock market lord knows what I would have done to them.

 The only problem with bio is the quizzes. Cause they’re too hard and it’s too time consuming to study for them, so even if the classes themselves aren’t awful, as is often the case, then just having to do the work makes everything much worse. Too many labs this week. First, we cut up flowers, then the next day we looked at photosynthesis in old leaves vs new leaves. Usually we can pick our lab partners, but for whatever reason they were randomly assigned this time. I was with three girls who I don’t know very well. It wasn’t much fun. We also had a quiz this week! Fun fun hell. I did okay but it’s irritating, what with everything else I seemed to think was going on. It’s pretty sad if the best thing that happens to you in a week is some person commenting on you getting a slew of good grades. These grades, incidentally, have been down to luck and perhaps the heightened since of value that comes with everything when you’re sleep deprived. We’re talking about cancer no in that class.. My teacher says it’s kinda weird to do right before the christmas break.

It’s the weekend now, thank Christ, and next week is the last week of school, I have a huge test on Monday and a piano recital on Sunday. This week has been terrible and blah blah blah I’m going to bed goodnight.

it's a fine life

So, the title and the above are two different songs. But from the same musical! When I was about eight, I was obsessed with Oliver. This was during the (ongoing) period of my life when I thought the combination of drama and Victorian England was just the best thing ever. My mom bought a copy on DVD back from England, and just got round to watching it a few days ago. I guess my feelings were mixed, but it still had a sort of charm about it. Who Will Buy, Oliver, It's A Fine Life, Reviewing the Situation, and Boy For Sale are still, you know, fun to listen to. Especially the last, god, I love that song. This reminds me how imperative it is I watch Scrooge sometime soon. And, naturally, Sweeney. Oh musical theater, sort out your fandom and I'd like to get to know you better.

I also watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers a few days agoand I don't think six-year-old me would be happy because I'd forgotten how long and sort of uneventful that film is. If you spent a week not getting anywhere near enough sleep, yeah, you are gonna fall asleep. As I did. and I love LotR, really i do, but that was just...god.

I have a knack for desperately wanting things slightly before Christmas. Thursday I got Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas music (seasonal, at least) and Submarine by Joe Dunthorne. The former is awesome. You have five disks, four of them EPs one more of a full album, and he's doing covers with a few of his own songs in between. Also you have essays and drawings and stuff to go with--superfluous Christmas crap all round! I like the balance of cynicism and sentimentality that most people feel about Christmas. It's like Tim Minchin's 'Wine in The Sun', which is a great Christmas song and, oddly, one I have the need to listen to every 4th of July. I'd recommend White Wine in the Sun, even of Tim's other stuff isn't for you. I'm a bit of a christmas music connoisseur, if I say so myself. The obscure French carols Sufjan's into add fuel to my flame. My favorite christmas song, and the most unoriginal choice, is Silent Night. Silent Night gets a mention in the Songs for Christmas pamphlet. Also I have to play it at a piano recital soon. Oh! And Submarine is pretty fantastic. Like, I would say it's my favorite YA novel? Admittedly the only YA books i haven't been tempted to sort of mutilate and destroy five or ten minutes after reading are Submarine and Perks. And my interest in Perks has sort of waned since reading it. Oliver as a protagonist is just great. A common criticism of YA protags is their perfection. Like, Charlie in Perks, the endlessly emotional, endearingly detached, unrealistically empathetic, popul+ar-with-the-seniors super genius. And Oliver, the same age, is the sort of person who, age fifteen, read Perks on a whim, took it in, and decided as many an imperfect person in his situation would, that he was going to mold himself to become Charlie. Well, Charlie if he had sociopathic tendencies. Oliver's unique but also completely realistic, and actually really accurately depicts a flaw that YA authors, ironically, seem to miss out a lot: uncertainty. But it's believable! Trust me! Pretentious and pompous and cruel as he may be, Oliver's thoughts are fascinating and funny and stuff, so yeah, cool book.

Having a day off is wonderful, even if I did spend most—or all—of it trying to get my head around cellular respiration. It rained a lot and I had an incredibly shitty piano lesson that day. Fun fun fun. Thank god it wasn’t a half day, like originally scheduled.

My 20^th century presentation was awful as could be. Yay, awful presentations! They truly are the bane of my existence. My classroom is the size of a small canyon, and I can’t speak loudly. I don’t know why teachers think I can help that. Why would I talk quietly if I had the choice? Jesus, some people. And shouting “Louder!”at me isn’t conductive to anything. I mean, c’mon guys, think about it. This whole shtick which I’ve heard so, so many times just makes me passive aggressive and eager to sit down and stop presenting. My goal in life is to do reasonably well, or decently well, or just not terribly, at anything that doesn’t involve social interactions, to prove everyone a lesson. Sigh, some people. We watched songs from the 60s and stuff on Friday. Surely I can’t be the only one who doesn’t ‘get’ Bob Dylan? And not just his voice either, his music and lyrics and everything. Maybe the song I heard just wasn’t a good place to start? Hmmm. We then talked about freedom, and as with most of these discussions we vaguely discuss the topic and then zone in on the question on whether anything at hand is communistic. I mean, Jesus. Otherwise these people are fairly left wing, so I really wish I knew why this keeps happening.

Friday was funny cause it involved two humiliating public presentations. The other was in English, although it kinda started the day before. Cause we were randomly assigned into groups, and told to read sections as if we were the characters (sections with little or no dialogue sometimes, so I don’t think much thought was put into the activity) and our group didn’t get on at all but we persevered. And I was told to read, and I was too tired to argue otherwise. And then another group asks if I’ll narrate for them. And I don’t know why they did this. The only thing that comes to mind is them being deliberately cruel, though that’s not the sort of thing I’d wanna actually assume…and for whatever reason I’m too thick to say no to this, so later that class I do read for the section, and there was a hell of a lot of reading I had to do, but I did it. And that was fairly okay minus the usual nerves with presenting, only the next day my teacher starts with some nonsense about my soft voice before I present what I was supposed to be presenting (narrating on Thursday, assigned stuff on Friday) and some people snicker? Which I guess is a fairly expected consequence but all the same my head was saying ‘fuck you’ for a little while after. I hate group presentations so, so much.

Bio test was fine. I did well, in fact. Sigh sigh sigh, I must get over stupid arbitrary school things. I wish I couldn’t care about these sorts of things. Sadness. Shouldnt’ve spent all of Wednesday studying for the damn thing, I know. But, I am a pedantic twat. The happiness after Thursday was done was out of control. We’re talking about plants now! Photosynthesis, leaf structure, etc. Given too much homework this weekend, and had to repeat it word for word via text to someone in my class. We looked at leaves through microscopes. It was a little bit awful, because microscopes are the worst and my partner has to ask the teacher for clarification about everything, and I was sat opposite a guy who decided to say everything to the tune of You’re Beautiful by James Blunt for the entire block. And this guy talks a lot, believe me.

Saturday was a wonderful day. Best day of the year, or one of, of course, because we got our Christmas tree(s)! We have too many decorations for just one, unfortunately. The place was cold but we're slightly earlier with this than usual so the selection was better. They usually have a fire going outside, and I was disappointed they didn't this time. I listened to In Utero in the car on the way there. it's traditional that everyone in my family gets a new ornament each year. in England they had this huge warehouse of ornaments, and we'd spend hours there. The one I got this year is sort of pale blue and frosted, if you get what I mean by that. it's not bad. We decorated the trees the following day. Listening to the old Christmas CDs. We have too many christmas CDs. My dad got new lights for one of the trees, red/blue/green, the other is just white. One of them is has unusually sharp needles, so much so that I genuinely got scratches on my hands from this. And my mom has this one christmas CD (yes yes yes, I will repeat this), of covers, that was really cheap but we listen to it every single year, and I love it to pieces. And we have so many random, stupid, crappy decorations but it's so much fun getting them out of their boxes, organizing them, decorating the trees. We did a good enough job, and it took a while, but oh it was so perfect and ahhh god, too much sentimentality for my own good. The christmas mood is finally here. We even made gingerbread men on Sunday, and they were amazing and stuff. So much music, food, sugar, decorating, even without snow it’s wonderful. I can’t wait for christmas, guys. Really I can’t.

I found this band years ago, but I'm only getting into them now. I love the lyrics to this song.

We have a day off school tomorrow. Initially it was just a half day, but they changed it cause we lost a day in November that we were supposed to have off cause of a power outage. I have to study tomorrow, but this is good news.

  It’s been a boring few days. Pretty awful on Saturday, when I was dragged along to the mall with my mom to look for clothes. It was odd, because by the time we’d got there my mother and I had already had an argument, but about whether a song on the radio was by My Chemical Romance or not. (it was). Which was an interesting sort of mother-daughter argument, if nothing else. The mall wasn’t as busy as you’d think. And it made me very happy, because I love malls at Christmas time more than I should, given that I’m not a big fan of the crowds. It’s just...the cheap gold and red christmas trees, guys. And the terrible covers of the same five or ten songs in all the shops. Unironic appreciation for the creepy christmas feeling. I did get stuff, but I had an awful day and was pretty unhappy for various reasons, which continued well into the night, including when my mom said we should also watch Brave Little Toaster for the nostalgia or something. It wasn’t my day. I’m moody but even so. On Sunday, too! But less so. Went looking for DVDs, specifically movies, I might wanna ask for, for Christmas. And then I remembered that movies are awful. Where do people find good movies? I don’t get it. Oh, but I did find the US DVD version of Submarine. Aesthetically much better than the UK one. Plus, I think it comes with a little note from the protagonist, which is pretentious and anti-American and just so Oliver that it’s endearing. In the way that Oliver Tate can do really despicable things and somehow you can’t help but like him. That I suppose was a good moment. Spent much of the rest of the day studying for biology, reading Hemingway, and listening to bad music. Disappointing weekend, although my mom did get chocolate christmas candy and what have you(19 days, guys) so there were good elements.

  English is boring as hell. I like to think I approach books with an open mind, but this A Lesson before Dying thing is awful to me. It’s melodramatic as can be, the characters are boring, and the plot isn’t interesting. It’s making going to the class every day more and more difficult. My teacher’s really into it, so I find it hard to get along with her. Her naive, repetitive, i’m-so-into-literature shtick is tiring. Also, I don’t understand being put into groups to answer questions, or present, or anything. We’re not getting anywhere and it doesn’t make sense. I want this book to end. Soon.

This week in 20th century, we changed seats at last. I am now with a passably decent group of people. The only problem is, because we have round tables in our oversized classroom, I am facing directly away from the front of the classroom most of the time. It’s quite irritating and my back hurts coming out of that class sometimes. I always feel very uncomfortable because I have to have the chair fully turned away from the desk, and I feel too exposed like that. We’re talking about Vietnam in class at the moment. It’s fairly tiring. Looking at every war in the 20th century that the U.S. was involved in, it’s kinda like ‘okay, hurry up, I wanna stop now’. That kind of a feeling. Yesterday was a lecture, today we watched a video of actual troops in Vietnam at the time. Also, peace stuff. All the hippie movement seemed to be arguing for something important in wholly irrelevant and juvenile ways. Hmmm. Oh! And I’ve gotta do my first presentation in that class on Friday. Well, something resembling a presentation. We’re in groups, arguing either for or against a lesson learned from Vietnam. My teacher’s way into ‘critical thinking’. Although, I’m rather baffled, because I’m supposed to be arguing that we shouldn’t go to war in south east Asia, and the people in my group have told me to connect this to Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t know what my, um, geographically confused group expect me to do. So, I’ll probably end up not doing anything, and come Friday I’ll have nothing and they’ll hate me and I’ll read a single sentence off someone else’s work in the presentation. Ever the dysfunctional group worker and presenter, that’s me. My teacher’s always talking about how necessary group presenting skills are, and every time he does this I just become a little more resolute in my conviction to take up a career with the most minimal social interaction possible.

A redeeming quality of a fairly not so good few days. A bio test on the hardest unit of the year got moved two days! I spent much of the weekend, including just about all of Sunday, studying for the damn thing. Because the nanowrimo-induced sleep loss caught up with me, and my brain seems to be incapable of staying active last block of the day, I’d found it impossible to take in any of the cellular respiration information from the past week. This annoyed me especially when faced with a detailed diagram of the Krebs cycle, and the knowledge that I must memorize that and many other things of equal complexity in two days. I was decently prepared by Monday, and we reviewed the whole time, I accidentally annoyed the people I was supposed to be working with. Oops. It was so good on Monday to come home and get an e-mail saying it’d been moved cause of Tuesday’s recently-added schedule changes. (15 minute talks, by guidance counselor, with the principal about the hazing incident mentioned in the last post. The Fox news vans and what have you are gone, by the way. Same old round here. And it wasn’t so much any revelation of new details on the incident, as some may have expected, but a call to arms not to have it happen again. Anyway). Unfortunately htis change meant watching the most tedious nature documentary you could ever possible imagine. Seed dispersal. The majority of it was dedicated to animals shitting to spread fruit seeds. “I’d rather have just failed the test today” said the guy next to me. And everyone else agreed.

  I’m looking forward to having a lazy evening today, possibly watching some QI or playing video games or something, staying up late, having a relatively relaxing day tomorrow. Apologies for my moodiness in this post. It hasn’t really been my sort of few days, but it’s getting better. Also, my Sufjan Stevens CD’s gonna get here in a few days, and we’ve only a few weeks left of school. And I bet you’ve heard more than enough about Sufjan Stevens here, yeah? Yeah. Things aren’t bad. So that’s my incredibly terrible post for the moment guys. Enjoy?

nanowrimo is done, thank god

So you know that really frustrating habit Kings of Leon have, where they either write really, really good pop-rock songs or really, really terrible pop-rock songs? yeah. Well my friend made me a mixed CD (my first mixed CD!) a couple days ago, and this was on it, and yeah..I was reminded of that.

Nanowrimo is over, thank god. I won! Got to 50k at about eight in the evening on Wednesday. It was surprisingly early for me. And I’d been having to catch up on a number of missed days work. It got tiring. Nanowrimo is a cool experience and I’d recommend it to anyone to try, but you do become completely worn out by the end of it. Thursday was hell because the last four weeks of all the energy spent on this crap came back to haunt me, and I was just a zombie for most of the day. I had no energy to do anything and much of the school day was spent trying to consume all the sugar I can just to keep me going. And I went to bed at nine, got nine hours of sleep, and I still woke up completely exhausted. I doubt I’ll have time to catch up on much sleep this weekend, either, because I have a quiz about cellular respiration on Tuesday and it’s the hardest unit in bio this year and I’ve literally been unable to pay any attention in class this week. I had no idea what was going on, at all. Well, actually no one has any idea what’s going on just because the material is so fucking complicated, but the majority of the class already has a benefit over me in that they were conscious, I assume, for many of the lectures. I’d just throw in the towel and make do with the D I’d be sure to get if I looked over the stuff for twenty minutes, but a couple of people expect me to do well. I’m not trying to be arrogant. I’m not smart and I don’t do outstandingly well in school. Somehow on the line, I might’ve gotten one or two passably good grades in that class and now there’s a president. How the really intelligent people at school cope with this, I’ve no idea. It’s frustrating how I just succeed something realty difficult, nanowrimo, and now I’m thrown into something also very very difficult. I can’t be granted a moment’s simplicity in terms of the work I need to do.

At least it’s December. It’s been a very warm November and with the change of the month I’ve moved from the “please don’t get cold and snow” mentality to the “I will be suicidal if we don’t get a good amount of snow by Christmas” mentality. I love December so much. There are gonna be a lot of irritating things to do in school. I have nightmarish memories of the science project I was doing this time last year. But! There are pretty Christmas lights and cookies and the malls are all gold and red and plastic Christmas trees. Advent calenders, too. Crappy Christmas movies. Christmas Christmas Christmas, basically. My aunt’s coming to visit in a few weeks and I have a holiday piano recital in a couple of weeks where I’m going to play a really embarrassing rendition of Silent Night. I am too sentimental and too attracted to things that are beautiful in a banal way. Hence, listening to carols and watching the Snowman every day this month.

A few days ago my mom spontaneously decided it would be a cool idea to go see the Boston Ballet do The Nutcracker Suite in Boston with my sister and aunt. I’ve never seen a professional ballet and I’m not very familiar with the show (except, like, the Sugar Plum Fairy, obviously. That was a ‘jam’ about two weeks ago for me, god knows why) but I do like the Tchaikovsky I’ve heard. I also love going into Boston, which is a totally underrated city by the way, especially in the evenings for shows and stuff. We got tickets for the 29th, I believe, and I’m super excited. Also, Kasabian released North American tour dates! Got tickets for March, at the House of Blues. I love Kasabian, and I love the new album. I’ve never seen them live before but they look like an amazing live act. The music seems to work very well for it. Listening to things like Fire live sounds too good to be true.

Today has been a crazy week. At least, for our school. Over the end of thanksgiving break, a story surfaced about a hazing incident that happened with the basketball team over the summer. I’ll spare you the details; it’s really unpleasant. Some then- juniors were being douche bags to some then-freshman. And it was pretty serious and it’s caused quite a stir. It also spread like wildfire. Before the week started, we’d had three or four local newspapers publishing short pieces on the incident. Mid-week, we’d gone statewide. And by Friday we’d been featured next to the kardashians on yahoo worldwide and had Fox news reports harassing kids leaving school for information. Because of the huge popularity of this story, anyone who I don’t know irl may actually know what I’m talking about. It seems a weird thought, but people have had relatives in, like, Costa Rica calling them to ask about what’s going on at our high school, so it wouldn’t surprise me that much. There isn’t a great stream of information coming from the school about it, so I’m thinking the whole thing will dissipate come Monday. Some people have been expelled, one of the victims has moved schools, and they’re still looking into the coach’s role in this. (secretly, I think the coach is annoying as hell, so i don’t really mind whatever consequences he may get). Our school is hugely into the sports stuff, and there have been some accusations that the kids who did this were still allowed to try out for the team this year. I don’t know. I don’t mind our town, but everyone else avoids it like the plague. Hey, we’re mentioned as one of the uber snobby towns in Catcher in the Rye and now, our basketball players are evil, yay. It’s been, as my biology teacher put it, a bit of a “rough patch” for our school this week.

Oh, but when it rains it pours. Yesterday, the teachers of the town passed work to rule, which is going to be implemented come January. Some time last year it was proposed, as a way to cut spending, that 20% of the high school staff should be fired, ands the remaining 80% be given an extra class each year. Ever since then, the teachers have been fighting this. A few weeks ago, they started picketing outside each morning to oppose the idea. And that wasn’t working,so this was a plan that came about, and now it’s gonna happen. It’s all kicking off round here at the moment. The kids at the school basically hate the idea, and it annoys me because now they’re claiming that they care about the teachers (as my history teacher explained to me earlier today, the teachers don’t think they can handle having another class), even though almost no one have a damn about the teachers until it directly effected them. I’m trying to have an opinion on this, but I’m just sick to death of living in a school system who have absolutely no idea how to handle money. They’re like, yeah, let’s build new schools and buy new projector things and get nice computers and get a youth center and let one of the middle school health classes buy fucking bouncy ball things to replace their chairs (I kid you not), yeah that all works, oh but buy the way we’re getting rid of loads of teachers and they’re gonna give you shitty lessons because of it. I don’t know the details of it, but it just looks like the most reckless, self-indulgent spending you could possibly imagine and I find it difficult to care too much about any of this because of it.I doubt the work by rule thing will stay long and it doesn’t affect me as much as most people, anyway. I mean, it’ll just work out the way it always does with the school, in that someone proposes an idea to save money because they have absolutely no money, then loads of people get angry about it, then the idea is resolved, and it all works out that way until we built up to the committee feeling they have to make a genuinely awful change, like this. Whatever happens with this, the school will keep buying its shiny things and keep trying to change things after. It’s sad. Sad and irritating for all, involved, I think. Again—“rough patch”.

It’s interesting watching all the mundane things still happen around school with all this going on. All things considered, it hasn’t been a terribly bad week. I fell asleep during bio lectures, which I will regret when I’m frantically up studying the stuff late Sunday night. Watched videos about the Cold War and took a difficult quiz about World War II. Continued reading, discussing, and doing group work on a Lesson Before Dying. Still, I don’t understand the appeal of that book at all. Watched a slightly weird Chinese film during philosophy club. That's it.

Yeah, so, good night everyone.