The Truth About The French Exam.

So I finally decided to post the truth about what happened in and after my French exam. This story currently resides on four pages in the back of my French book. My reasoning for this shall be revealed later. Enjoy.

The exam was terrifying. As I walked into the classroom and sat down with my paper, I was fine. Slightly nervous, I'll admit, but otherwise okay. I guess you could say I was In denial. But then I saw the list on the board. Mostly covered up, but with a small yet arrogant number one sat next to my unfortunate name.

Horrible, painful death. That's what I'd told my friends it would be. I'd been joking of course, but now I think it was more of a prediction.

Of course I panicked. I knew I would. It was all business from the moment I was called from the classroom, and I stepped into the tiny store-cupboard they called an office because it contains an outdated computer. I smiled briefly after an acknowledgement of the foam penguin I had clenched in my fist, but the knot in my stomach prevented me from making any of the witty comments I usually could have produced.

I sat down on the stool which was a good few inches taller than the desk in front of my, causing my knees to rest atop the desk. Questions? Yes. What happens if I blank out? He said he'd ask in a different way. And if I still blanked out? As a last resort, say 'je ne sais pas'. Okay.
A minute down the line, I blanked. I didn't know why I was calling for an interview at a random hotel in France. Kind of a big deal. You don't ramdomly call someone, introduce yourself, and then start listing off your favourite activities. He asked me again why I was calling. Still nothing. I umm'd and ahh'd a little, the way you would at the dentist, but nothing came to me. Silence.
"Je ne sais pas."
I exhaled. I didn't know when the last time I'd inhaled had been, but it was a large exhale. Probably sounded like a tornado on the recording.
After that, I moved on, but it only got worse. Do you do sport. I answered to a reasonable extent. I've got a feeling I mumbled a lot, but it didn't feel too bad, although of course my mind blanked again near the end of my paragraph, causing a lot of broken sentences to jump from my mouth like they were on a suicide dive. Work experience? There was a brief pause as I struggled to recall anything on the paper. What I did remember wasn't the best, and quite a lot came off the top of my head, but not a lot was said anyway. Two sentences? One long one? I didn't really speak with punctuation. I couldn't even say the funny line I had prepared at the end, even though I had it at the front of my mind.
What do I want to do in the future? Ah, this I can say. Or so I thought. I got the first two sentences out okay, but then, yup, you guessed it, mind blank. I sighed. He moved on to the mystery question. What is your telephone number? I grinned. I could do this, I hoped.
"Zero, sept, non, zero un deux trios zero, non, zero un trois zero deux, sept deux sept, trois, five..." he cut me off. Or maybe i just stopped talking. It was over, either way. I stood up, he told me it was better than the last time. I can't remember the last time, I blacked it out from my mind because it was horrifying.
Back in the classroom, I sunk deep into my seat, my head fell onto the desk with a rather loud bang, which hurt more than I care to say. I didn't realise I was crying silently until I had to lift my head. I mumbled a request to stand outside. Granted. The seconds between me getting permission to move and me being propped agains the window outside with my head pressed against the cool glass are missing. I couldn't say whether the door was already open or whether I had a battle with the curtain or tripped over the carpet like I normally do, and when I finally unclenched my fists, it took a while for me to notice that I didn't have a clue where my penguin was. It was also at this stage that I became very grateful for the existance of tissues in my pockets, and the fact that i'd stopped wearing mascara last month. It took a while to stop the tears but they had never been too drastic; I hadn't been sobbing, merely expelling a few patheticly helpless tears. A few minutes later, I deemed myself ready to go back in. I made sure there were no stray tears or inflamed eyes, using the back of the drawn curtains through the glass as a makeshift mirror, and walked back into the classroom. Avoiding everybody's staring eyes (I could tell they were staring at me and I didn't blame them) I tried my best to convince myself that looking up was a bad idea. I went searching in my bag, first for my water bottle which I emptied in under 30 seconds, and then for my homework booklet which I was fairly certain I had forgotten. I fetched a textbook from the cupboard instead, I wasn't planning on using it anyway; I knew what I needed to do. Out came my pencil case and my exercise book, and I began writing this blog post. This helped immensely. Not only dis it semi-distract me from the eyes around me, but this post preserves my memories, a document of what went wrong. I looked up drom my writing occasionally. Each time, the stand-in teacher seemed to be looking at me, looking at how much I was writing. At the end of the lesson, I hadn't finished, and when the teacher walked back in, I think he saw all of my writing, or at least a page of it. I don't know what either of them thought it was, and I can't say whether they were right or not. I found myself avoiding eye contact with him after that, although I'm not sure why. I think it was guilt. Guilt from the knowledge that I had almost certainly gotten a bad grade. Guilt for failing myself. Guilt because he know knows how utterly terrible I am at speaking exams? They're all possibilities. My mind comes up with the most irrational theories.

I'm fine now. The thought of another speaking exam still fills me with dread, but I'll survive. Hopefully. To be honest, I'd rather sit in a room full of spiders than do the next exam. Just fill that office with a hundred spiders and stick me in there for four minutes. Or ten snakes. Or creepy stalker dude. Anything. But I'll probably do the exam. It wasn't so bad.

Yeah, The First Facts Post Was Awful. Sorry 'Bout That.

1) I collect rubber ducks with awesome designs.
2) I kind of want a dark-mark tattoo. Just to be awesome.
3) I love philosophy and paradoxes and things.
4) I have great respect for people like teachers who get bitched about for doing their job. It's not fair on them.
5) Snap. I just took your photo. Get used to it.
6) I'm irritatingly corrective. It even irritates me sometimes.
7) I don't like labels, but if I had to label myself, I'd call myself an eccentric style nerd.
8) I secretly love TV shows like Planet Dinosaur (the BBC version, not the American one).
9) I don't need material things like laptops and iPhones, so I don't own them. However, I'd still like to own them...
10) I love you guys :) <3 (my computer wanted me to change 'guys' to 'Gus', so I love you, too, Gus).

Loop-hole!

"Procrastination is life's greatest enemy."

However,

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

Therefore,

"You can beat procrastination eventually!"

Unless,

"You're not exactly going to be procrastinating when you're battling death."

Damn.

“True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care—with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world.”

Unfortunately, it's true.

Slam.

It's the sound of a door slamming.
It's the sound of anger pulsing through two sets of veins.
It's the sound of raised voices, of threats, of a fist hitting the table.
It's the sound of thoughts whirring in their brains, incomprihensible to even them sometimes.
It's the sound of realisation.
It's the sound of a decision being made.
It's the sound of desperate cries and pleading, begging him not to go.
It's the sound of the leaky faucet as the house falls into near silence.
It's the sound of quiet murmurs, of lost love and plans they'll never keep.
It's the sound of begging and quiet desperation.
It's the sound of regret and resolve to change.
It's the sound of tears hitting the stone tiles as he stands up to leave her.
It's the sound of his almost inaudible mumbled appologies that he can't bear to keep in, for who knows when they'll meet again?
It's the sound of her trying for the last time to make him stay, even though she knows that he's already made his decision.
It's the sound of footsteps walking away, of a door softly closing, and a squeaking gate in the distance.
But most of all, really, it's the sound of a heart breaking.

•••

I got the idea for this in English, and I've been developing it all day in my head, but it's only now that I've had the chance to write it down. There's also a blogpost written in the back of my French book which I'll probably type up tomorrow night. Right now, I have to sleep.

A Post to Explain the Absence of Other Posts

My sincerest apologies for the lack of posts in the past few weeks. I'm busy. Get over it.
...
...
Oooooo, it appears my writers block is gone. See ya.

10 Facts About Me (well, not really)

I felt like doing a "10 Random Facts About Me" thing, but they seem so clichéd.

Fact 1) I kind of like clichés. "A cliché has to be true, otherwise it wouldn't be a cliché." "Ah, but that is in itself a cliché." If you don't understand that quote or know where it's from, you need to watch Mike Leigh's Naked, which leads me very nicely onto fact 2.

Fact 2) I like the little things in life. Simple things can keep me entertained for hours, I'm never bored, ass long as I'm in an adapting environment, for example, a car or outside. People tend to get bored far too easily, and they really have no reason to. I think it's the media that did it: we've grown so used to having mobiles and computers in front of us that if they're taken away, we're lost. Even when they're at our fingertips, we often find ourselves with nothing to do, and there's just no need!

Fact 3) I care what people think. Over the years, I've created a sort of shell for myself, with a different me painted on the outside. It takes great trust for me to allow certain people to see what's under the shell, whereas with some people I figuratively rip off the shell, but even when I'm open with people, they don't always look hard enough to see what I'm showing them. People who really know me know what I'm like on the inside. They know my fears, my opinions, I find them really easy to talk to, and I'm grateful to have them as my friends. You know who you are. If you don't, you need lessons on recognising the obvious. 

Fact 4) I have odd reactions to and around certain people. I'm a completely different person when I'm around my friends, my parents, grandparents, teachers and complete strangers, but I'm never 100% myself unless I'm alone. Whenever I'm writing (be that fictional, blogs or homework), I prefer to be alone, simply because it's the only time I can completely relax. In myself, I'm generally a very relaxed sort of person, and that's what I was like around most people up until a few years ago, and I started caring what people think, so tried to be a little less strangely laid-back. Plus, y'know, school is like a stress factory. With my friends I can be really hyper, which sometimes I have to admit, isn't entirely genuine. I like having intelligent conversations, along with the utter randomness, but sometimes I think the strange side of things can get out of hand, so I do constantly have to reign myself in when I'm with my friends around people. Some people make me nervous, but I do ultimately want to talk to them, some people I seek approval from (it's a natural thing, not intentional), and some people just get on my nerves for some unknown reason. I'm extremely complex.

Fact 5) I'm a perfectionist. Sometimes. I constantly find myself being irritated by other peoples grammar, spelling and punctuation issues on YouTube comments and Facebook and Twitter and stuff. IT'S NOT THAT HARD!

Fact 6) Sometimes I just don't know when to stop talking. Seriously, I could ramble on for hours about some things. When I have point I want to make, by golly I will (really? Did I really just say golly? Golly gosh, Batman!). I'm also extremely defensive. I. WILL. WIN. EVERY. ARGUMENT! Then I really hate it when there isn't time in a conversation to get my point across. That's just really irritating.

Fact 7) I should really stop typing now in order to not cause severe damage to my hand, but I really don't want to. When I get an idea, I have to write it down or do it straight away, otherwise I'll just end up forgetting about it. This is really bad for my FanFiction.net updating schedule. The best chapters I ever wrote were written in one go, and I stand by the conclusion that the best chapters were written in one go.

Fact 8) I'm stating the obvious here to anyone who knows me in the slightest, but I'm a huge nerd. Books and general knowledge specifically. The tiniest little things excite me and make me giggle, but that's all part of being a nerd, and I'm really very happy to call myself not only a nerd, but a Nerdfighter, fighting for the awesomeness of nerds to defeat worldsuck. If you don't know what a Nerdfighter is, shame on you. Or, y'know, just click the link on the word Nerdfighter. All of them take you to the same place, so... CLICK!

Fact 9) I have a feeling that in year 7, I was one of the first people in my form to get an after-school detention. I forgot my first piece of French homework on the third day of year 7, and received an instant after-school. I received roughly another two or three throughout the year from different teachers, I wasn't counting, and then on the second to last day, my top button had popped open without me noticing and it showed only the tiniest bit, but I got another detention from that teacher straight away. I still have that slip somewhere, because I found it funny that the comment on it was "for inadequate uniform and bad attitude" when I hadn't actually said anything. Needless to say, that wasn't my last detention, and I doubt it will be my last.

Fact 10) I collect rubber ducks! Not in a totally obsessive way, but if I see a cool duck, I buy it. They all sit on a shelf in my bookcase. There's a shop in the Lake District that sells really cool stuff, and there's just a corner full of ducks with different designs on them called BUD Ducks, and it's the only place I've ever seen them, so I buy a couple every time I go in there. So far I have the Zebra Print one, the 'Ouchie' one which is covered with plasters, Space Duck and an Arty Splatter duck. Plus a load of random ducks people bought me for Christmas last year. FYI, still want ducks.

Fact 11) I'm really bad at maths, because there was only supposed to be 10 facts. Anyway, my bedroom is my sanctuary. Its contents are simple; the TV is ancient... okay, that's the only thing that isn't sort of new in my room. My bed is amazing, my wardrobe may be full of stuff I never wear (I choose comfort over style, but I'm frequently given things that I only wear when I have to if it isn't casual), but it looks pretty awesome from the outside. my desk is where magic happens. It's where I'm planning a huge new fanfiction, plus it looks awesome. There's an unfinished dolls-house underneath it that I got for Christmas when I was about 10, but we never finished building. I love my spinny chair, too. Technically it's a computer chair, but considering that there isn't a computer in my bedroom...

Fact 12) Nope, I don't own a laptop, or an iPhone or a Blackberry or anything like that. I don't need them. I'd love to have a laptop and an iPhone, but they aren't necessary, and I get on fine how I am. I do think I need an electric drum kit, though.

Fact 13) My two top hobbies are making people laugh and photography. Those two just slotted together in my mind.

Fact 14) I have everything that represents a piece of my life on cork display boards on my walls. It represents everything about me, from my taste in music, my hobbies, and all of the random things I get up to. Whenever I get a little memento of a day or an event, it goes on one of my boards.

Fact 15) My friends mean everything to me. I'm so grateful to have you all being so epic... words cannot describe. I love you guys. <3

Fact 16) If you've just read all of those facts, I thank you. You must be awesome.

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I bet you giggled.

Luke, I Am Your Optician *read in Darth Vader voice, otherwise that just looks crap.*

Yeah. I don't know.

Anyway, I need to go to the opticians. AND JESSOPS! I REALLY NEED TO GO TO JESSOPS! But first and foremost, I really need to go to the opticians.
I don't know if it's because I'm tired or because I just generally need new glasses, but my eyes are killin me. I have a HUGE headache (what's with all of the emphasising upper-case-iness? Geez. Bit over the top...) and instead of taking paracetamol and going to sleep, I'm blogging about it. I can't help it, I thought of a good title (really...?) and the blog just sort of wrote itself.
I like Monday nights. They're relaxing. I've already established that I like Mondays in general (or did I just think about blogging that?), but Monday evenings in particular are very relaxing. Doc Martin, YouTube, usually a good book (I finally finished reading Looking For Alaska, it blew my mind), and it's all just generally very nice. Of course, my bloody headache let me down today, but ah well, sleep is imminent. Night folks, stay groovy.
Oh, and before I forget his name, Liam Dryden (aka Littleradge on YouTube) is officially my favourite YouTuber ever. Or my favourite person, I can't decide. Either way, he looks like a younger, better looking David Tennant, he sounds like David Tennant, he's generally brilliant, his videos are funny, and he does a mean impression of Jack Sparrow (in his vid about memories inspired by film tickets). Oh, and he's in a band that writes songs exclusively about Dr Who, and he's a huge Dr Who / retro video games geek. So, yeah, I love him.

My List (revised)

Michael Bublé
Peter Facinelli
Sirius Black
David Thewlis
David Tennant

One of the sad things about my list is that they're all over the age of 30. The good thing is, they're all under the age of 50. Just. David Thewlis is pushing it. And I guess with the exception of Sirius Black, who would by now be 53 or 54. However he is both fictional and dead, so I don't care.

Over-run

Life's a bitch, and when life can't be bothered to be bitchy, it either leaves you alone, or it sends in the author's personal hell; writers block. I've been suffering from writers block for the past few weeks, it has been hell, but I got through it, and now I'm ready and raring to go, prepared to write a novel and a half. However, life wants to be bitchy again, in two oh-so-subtle ways:

1. Leave it to Psmith. When I first got my part in Psmith, I was really rather miserable for a while that I didn't have a huge part, but now I'm not quite as resentful, and for one good reason:

2. French exam. It's been looming for a while, and finally the actual dates have been confirmed. Basically, I'm screwed. The exam and preparations clash with the rehearsals for Psmith. Had I been given a bigger part in Psmith, I may by now have suffered a mental breakdown, because the stress is wearing me down already. Determination can only get me so far, far enough that I know that I have to take on each task to the best of my ability, and far enough to set me on my way, but after that, I'm going to need a lot of coffee. Common sense tells me that since the exam comes first chronologically and is, first and foremost, the most important, revision for that must come first. On the other hand, it's scripts-down on Wednesday, or Saturday by the time I get there, and I don't really fancy getting completely bollocked by Kevin AND Chris, which they have threatened to do to anyone who doesn't know their stuff, and since my part is reasonably small, I hardly have an excuse.
In all honesty, I'm considering pulling out of the play. I don't want to, not by a long shot, but if my stress levels carry on at thus height, I might have to. I'd much rather pull out of the French exam, but unfortunately, that really isn't an option. Damn.

Boring? Nope.

I've already established my views on the word 'normal' but now I'm having issues with 'boring' too. There is nothing in the world that everybody would agree is boring. There's an old saying that one man's trash is another man's treasure, and I don't believe that just applies to rusty old hupcaps somebody could turn into art, although now I think about it, that's a pretty good example of my point.
People think that silence in an empty room is boring, but why should it be so? You'll always have something to think about, and thinking is as good as reading sometimes. Some people actually thrive in silence, coming up with genius works from the dark recesses of their minds. That's partially the reason why I make the majority of these blogposts at night while laying in bed, aside from the fact that staring at the screen of my iPod in the dark makes me sleepy.
I've never been able to comprehend why people think that reading is geeky or boring. It's only classified as a nerdy activity because a large number of people consider it to be boring, but what is boring about losing yourself in somebody else's life or a fantasy world? What is boring about having your mind blown by the sheer genius of a person you've never met being able to manipulate your mind, your opinion of things, your life? What is boring about the millions of calculations your brain makes per second as you take in all of the symbols on the page and is able to recall what they represent and transform them into something you can make sense out of? What is not incredible about a person being able to write something down in such a way that makes us think about things we'd never even considered before, and make us think about them in a whole new light?
What really confuses me is that people think that thinking is boring, and yet the human race couldn't survive without thinking. It's the theories and conspiracies that confuse us that define the human race. How can that be boring? That's the problem with humans: We get bored too easily. We get brilliant things thrust at us, and what do we do? We examine them for a while, and then we just pass them off like yesterday's news.

"You sometimes think you want to disappear, but all you really want is to be found."

-- Unknown.

So true.

OH MY GOD, DIDN'T THINK OF THAT!

Remember the post I made about a time machine and Hitler and the Evil Baby Orphanage? Well I just watched another really old VlogBrothers video I'd never seen before and I'm not sure if I correctly interpreted what John Green said exactly, but this is what I got from it:
Imagine that I've been back in time and taken baby Hitler and brought him back to the 21st century, but then someone stole my time machine and used it to go back to moments before I took baby Hitler, shot me, and then left baby Hitler to grow up and become the adult Hitler that we know to have existed. Not only is there at this point a Schroedinger's cat paradox by my being simultaneously alive and dead, but Hitler now exists in the past, but also here, right now in the 21st century. Two Hitlers!!! So, obviously I would notice that there was baby Hitler in front of me and still the Hitler of the past caising havock in the 20th century, and kill the baby Hitler of the 21st century, making the whole of these two posts pointless, because it's all just one huge paradox.
I love being confusing.

I Need School.

It feels like a strange thing to admit, but I need school. School is often boring, dull, and sometimes it just seems completely pointless, but school is also where all of our friends are. It's where we define ourselves, whether that is within the confines of the school or just in the years that we are forced to attend it.
Unlike a lot of teens, I do not resent being sent to school every week-day, in fact, in the past few days, I've come to appreciate it far more than I ever thought I would. I need school to keep me sane. I need the routine of the timetable, I need the discipline of the rules and the punishments for stepping out of line. I need the ability to fade into the background when I need to, and then step out into the light and make people laugh when I've had enough of the dark. School is like a second home to me.
It still feels strange admitting this, but I haven't quite come to terms with it myself yet. I knew I was a nerd, but I never really thought of myself needing school. Really, I think we all need school in some way. Of course we need it to gain knowledge and be educated, but on far deeper levels, school is also more like a safety net.
Think about it. When you go to school feeling down, who cheers you up? Your friends do. They're all there, in one place, ready and willing to make you smile. When you feel like everybody hates you, teachers at least pretend to like you, because they have to.
What I'm saying is that we all need to stop complaining about school, because it's the best years of your life, and you'll miss it when it's gone.
Resolve is never stronger than in the morning after the night it was never weaker.