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.