Awaiting Punishment

Okay, so I haven't posted in three days, which technically because of the weekend isn't so bad, but I'm trying to keep up a constant schedule here, and I've posted on every Sunday this year so far, so really I've missed two days. So, roll on the punishment.

We're All Going To Die.

And by we, I mean humanity. Or all living things really, but I'm using humanity as an example because y'know, its more relevant than anything else, given that we're human.

The sun is a star, and like a lot of things it has a sort of life cycle, except stars aren't living things so it's not exactly a "life" cycle, but it's just terminology I'm going with. So all stars start out life as just clouds of gas and dust in space. Then, because of gravity, all of the gas and stuff comes spiraling in and the gravitational energy turns into heat energy, and the temperature rises so it's really really really hot, and eventually some nuclear fusion happens and it forms helium nuclei with give out immense amounts of light and heat and stuff. This is where it becomes a star and it's oh so magical. Straight away it enters a stable period where it's all nice and neat and it isn't killing anything because all of the forces are balanced, and it's called a main sequence star. It's also at this stage where our sun is now, except it's about halfway through this period. But on the bright side, this period can last millions of years. On the not so bright side, at some point it's gonna stop being a main sequence star and to cut a long story short, the Earth is gonna be engulfed by the sun. It's kinda like the sun is initiating karma, because it's like it's saying to the Earth, "Hey! I'm the reason you have life living on you, but that life is slowly killing you and that's not fair so I'm going to kill you! Eventually..."

So yeah, when the sun finishes it's stable period and becomes a red giant, it's gonna swell to a really really big size and get really really cold, and there is absolutely no chance of the Earth surviving that. Again, we're back to the bright side, and I'm just suggesting that humanity is maybe, probably, definitely not going to be here by then.

With the rate we're going at, destroying rainforests and using all of the non-renuable fuel sources and burning them and ripping holes in the ozone layer (French translation: ozone nappy), if we don't kill off all of the life on our planet in the next few hundred years and we don't kill off the whole world with war against martians, unless we can evolve into something which can live without oxygen, food and clean drinking water, we're all just going to die out. This could be from what I mentioned before, or maybe the radiation we cause in our day to day lives will just become too much for us and the whole world will become infertile and cause self extinction. Basically, by my rough estimation, in less than a thousand years, there's a high possibility that there just won't be anything left living.

So, when the sun finally reaches the end of it's stable life, we'll be long gone. Well, probably. Due to the rate that revolutions have been happening in the past two thousand years at least, there's always the possibility that if we can last a few thousand years, we'll have advanced enough to build a spaceship to take the entire content of the world away from the earth to live in a different solar system. It could happen, but personally I think that if we're going to survive the next few hundred years, we're going to have to evolve, and the most likely way of whatever we evolve into surviving is if we evolve into something which transcends matter, and personally I don't see that happening. So really, in a few hundred years, we're screwed. Then in a few million years, the Earth will be screwed. The sun will be okay though, it'll just be little different, and a little lonely.

A Pledge To A Best Friend.

I'd do anything for my friends. If you need a shoulder to cry on or hug or rant at then I'm there. I'll talk you out of stupid decisions and make up ridiculous examples of morals for advice using highly complicated plotlines and predefined characters, if that's what it takes to make you see sense. I'm always here to listen and give you whatever advice you need. I'll tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth whether you want to hear it or not, because it's highly likely that you'll need to hear it. I'll always do what I see best, and I'll force you to do what you need to do. I'll cheer you up in ways only a beat friend can; terribly, but effectively, kinda like a derp. You stopped me in the middle of a blog who I now can't continue, so I'm stuck doing this one but I'm not complaining. I sometimes feel like I know so well I could pick you out of a line up, blindfolded, and you know that I'm right because you know I'm nearly always right about these things. I'm always here for you, no matter what, and I promise this to you now.

But jeez, I've gotta get to sleep.

My Hands Smell Like Cheese and I Am EXCITED!

Those two things aren't linked, by the way. I tried goats cheese earlier and it tends to leave a strong scent which I really hope will be gone by morning.

We started a project today, 'Padfoot', 'Wormtail' and I, and it's incredibly exciting. I have no doubt that Wormtail doesn't know the point behind this, and we're not planning on telling anyone about this. Our plan has so many flaws but if this goes well, we could be living legends. Anonnymously. I can't really give details, but involves a lot of creativity in writing and thinking and creating and plotting and the lark. It's incredible, but I think we might actually manage this. Even if the plan doesn't work in the end, the end product will be a magical thing that we'll keep for eternity.

I just want to make it clear, the way I've said that makes it sound like it's a plan for a prank, which it definitely isn't. If anything, it's the complete opposite. We're doing good here. Very very good, and I'm proud to say I'm part of it. I daresay word will spread eventually of our plan, maybe in a year's time or so. And when it does, well, I can't wait.

Catching Up

It's been a good couple of days, to be honest. They've been going at a relatively slow pace, which I'm incredibly grateful for. It's been filled with good music (even if some of that was forced upon me during a lesson yesterday) and a lot of laughter. A little guilt, yes, a little angst, yes, and even a little sadness. But not a lot. I've gotten an exam out of the way, I'm all set for parents evening, and I'm just starting on my way to learning The Sound of Silence on the guitar, with my makeshift cappo(capo?) and untuned guitar. I really can't complain at all. I'd quite like a new book to be reading but I guess I can't have everything. I don't really want everything, I mean can you imagine how hard it would be to keep my bedroom tidy if I had everything in existence crammed i here? That would be ridiculous.

I feel like I should say something smart here...

Ah well.

The Big Question

I think I am now able to answer that age old question now that I am wise enough... I have pondered this since I heard it asked on Friends many many many years ago, and I must conclude my answer thus far.
I pick Garfunkel.

Proving The Point I Just Made.

Watch "Simon & Garfunkel - The Boxer - Madison Square Garden, NYC - 2009/10/29&30" on YouTube

These guys are life-long friends. They met when they were 11, and had their big break at 22. They were amazing back then and they're amazing now. People say that they used autotune in this concert, but they never have. They'very always favoured putting echoes on the mics and the rest is just pure talent, and that is why I admire them. You can tell by the look of pure enjoyment on Art's face that this is what he loves doing, and the same goes for Paul, who instantly slotted himself back into the life onstage, as he looks so at ease and relaxed here, perfectly content. They're amazing now, just as they were amazing back then. I qouod give anything to see them in concert.

This version of The Boxer is very different from the original studio recorded version, and I miss the cymbals crashes and the unique bridge that they changed to an opera singer, but this is perfect in its own way, and I still love it.

Proof That Just Because They're Old Doesn't Mean They've Lost Their Touch.

Watch "Simon and Garfunkle LIVE 2011" on YouTube

Incredible.

Moustaches!

Just look at this moustache! As a general rule, Paul Simon (pictured moustached) is not terribly attractive, but slap that particular moustache on him, and suddenly, well, it's a very good look for him. On the other hand, Art Garfunkel (pictured, afro-ed) is slightly more attractive. still not great, but not half bad. He doesn't look like he'd suit a moustache, though.  Art has more of a masculine yet relaxed aura about him and a good smile, which works in his favour for some people, and he definitely suits the 'fro, and I guess Paul suits the mad hair under a hat, too. I feel like I should point out that out of the two pictures on the CD case, Paul wears the same hat in both, with different outfits. I'm taking this information as a sign that the hat should not be removed, or else all hell would break loose. Who knows what he kept under that cap? In my opinion, in these images, Paul comes across as a rather sophisticated guy. Certainly in the front cover image, he has one of those smiles that just says "heyyy ;)" and it's pretty much the same on the back cover. He just seems to be flirting with a look! It's very disconcerting, because moustaches should not be sexy!
Simon and Garfunkel work well together in the visual aspect in the same way that they work together in vocal harmony. I'm not entirely sure how to phrase it, but they just seem to collaborate very well together. They've been friends since they were eleven and I don't know if it's just me, but it just seems obvious in this picture that they are close.
I've been obsessing over these for the past few hours, and I'm rediscovering them in a sense, not that I ever forgot about them, I'm just reading a lot more into their lyrics today and picking up on more of the details of the songs. I can confidently say that I can tell their voices apart, and I can't describe how much I love them. They are what proper music should sound like. Songs like The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Sound Of Silence to name but a few, they're just incredible. The harmonies are as beautiful as try lyrics, and the music is so powerful, I can't describe how much I love their music. Their voices are incredible. I could listen to them on loop for hours and hours, just the same album on repeat. Their songs vary so much; some make me happy, like Cecillia and Mrs Robinson, but then there are the complete contrast of those, like Scarborough Fair which has a deep hidden meaning that you'll only pick up on if you read the lyrics or listen very very very closely, and Bridge Over Troubled Water, which I'm not ashamed to admit, frequently makes me cry.
I don't want to ramble on for too long so I'm going to end this here, but hear me now, you have not heard the last of this fantastic duo.

I Miss You

I'm really bad at poetry,
As I'm sure you are aware,
What I think is good turns out like mulch,
It really isn't fair.
It was so many years to the day today,
It could be eight or seven,
That God put his hand down on the Earth
And took you up to heaven.
I cried and cried and cried that day,
Why did you have to go?
You were a beacon my life,
Set here to help me grow.
I'd never really thanked you,
Or told you how I thought
You were the kindest person,
A better Grandma I could not have saught.
I miss you like you wouldn't believe.
Even after all this time,
And I'm fairly sure in thirty years time,
The pain will still survive.
You taught me some valuable lessons,
The day you left the world,
To go and comfort the angels,
I'm assuming, from what I have uncurled.
The first is that every day,
I tell my parents I love them,
Because one day your loved ones are there,
But as you proved, I could very easily loose them.
The second holds the same meaning,
That the ones who I hold dear,
Might leave the house without saying goodbye,
Then suddenly disappear.
Your death raised insecurities in me,
Things of which I always live in fear,
And every time I think of you,
My eyes produce a tear.
I really love you Grandma.
And I'm sad you had to leave us,
But I know you're here in spirit,
Sending love from up above.

A Letter To a Friend Who's Driving Me Insane

To an outsider, the following letter may sound a little harsh. However, the person I'm aiming this at knows that I'm writing this for her, and believe me, it's necessary. 


Here goes.

I have no doubt that you love him. Hell, I love him, he's awesome, but I'm not in love with him, and I'd hazzard a guess that you're not either, you just think you are. The boundaries of where we define love and being in love are different with everyone, but I believe that nobody can really be in love unless they really know the person well, and I'm sorry, but even though you may think you do, you don't. In fact you're nowhere near.
You realise that after September, you're probably never going to talk to him again? I mean, you're hardly part of the same social group. Sure there's Facebook, but he doesn't really seem the type who chats with everyone, so unless there's some obscure social gathering where you happen to meet, it's not likely that you're ever going to. You barely even speak to him now, even if he starts the conversation!

Let's create a completely hypothetical situation where you don't lose contact with him, you talk to him fairly regularly and you consider each-other friends. You're still not going to get close to him, and certainly not close enough for anything to happen between you. It may sound harsh, but it's true; I don't think you're his "type".

I admit it, I love him on some small level. I'm no more his type than you are, and I've acknowledged that as I hope you have too, because at least I know where to draw the line. I know why you think you're in love with him. He tends to come up a lot in conversation and yes, your dreams have been a bit strange, and I see how that would be confusing for you. You really need to drop this though. I used to (briefly) think the way you did, but I controlled it. It took months to gain control over that part of my mind,  but I've managed it, and I know that you can do it too, you've just got to stop giving in! What are you going to do when you've lost contact with him? Mope around for years because you never told him that you were in love with him? I advise that you don't say that to him because it'll only end badly, but I also advise that you don't mope around thinking that you'll never meet anyone, as you said to me only a few hours ago. Not everyone meets the love of their life in school! In fact, it's shockingly rare, and it's stupid to hope really, but then I guess in that case almost everyone is stupid, myself included.

You want me to post this now, and so do I to be honest, even though I'm nowhere near done, so I'll leave you with this message, which I mean wholeheartedly and honestly in the nicest way possible... Grow up. You're an idiot. You're a derp. You're living in your head and you need to come back down to Earth, because it's really not that bad down here, and I want my happy friend back.

AND STOP SNIFFING YOUR SETTEE!

Volvo B9TL/Wrightbus Eclipse Gemini seating

The above title consists of the details of a type of bus. I spent about two hours getting to that, and it's still not exactly what I need. I didn't think it'd need this much research, but its for a future blog post, and I think I'll probably just do the manual research tomorrow morning instead of spending hours and hours tomorrow evening doing hopeless secondary research.
Yes, this is another short post, and I apologise for that, but I'm working on something. Seriously I am.

Just Realised...

I can't believe I've only just noticed that you can't spell stitches without itches. It makes so much sense now!

Losing Hope

I don't think I'm going to manage this task. I've lost sight of my love for blogging and it's becoming more of a chore unless I actually have anything interesting to say, which I usually don't. I'm too tired to even make this an interesting post, even though I know what I want to blog about today. It's just going to have to wait until tomorrow for now. I'm sorry that I can't keep this up. I'll go to the end of February with this schedule, but otherwise I'm uncertain about the future of this blog. I don't like it but that's life, I guess.

Astronomy and Mutations

The tides of the sea are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon. Because the brain is the most moist part of the body, it is pulled by the gravitational forces of the moon and disfigured, just as the tides are, causing a mutation. Ergo, the theory of werewolves is possible.

This was pointed out on the Stargazing Live, and I can't even explain how excited this made me, although if you know me at all, I'm sure you can guess. I'm unaware of how the full moon would make the transformation of a werewolf more likely, but I'm liking the theory.
I love astronomy. The stars, constallations and the planets, they are endlessly fascinating. I think that if I do well in A level physics, Astronomy could well be a career area for me. I could spend hours on my Google Sky Maps app, even indoors on a cloudy night, as I haven't had the chance to test it on a clear sky yet. Maybe I'll go camping on a full moon, and spend the evening stargazing. Actually, I now have a ridiculously large desire to do just that. If anyone fancies that, I have a tent and three-season sleeping bags. All I need now is a telescope.

Hm.

I'm going to go and consider my career choices.

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I can't put what I'm thinking into words, or even coherent thoughts. I apologise for the lack of interesting posts recently but I don't have a clue what's going on in my head right now. I think I'm tired, stressed and overworked, my head hurts and i need to sleep. I wish I didn't need a shower right now because I'm so bloody tired, the pain in my ear is going beyond my pain barrier sometimes and I just need a night of full, uninterrupted, peaceful and dreamless sleep.

This is a...

Blog.

The Irritation of Time

This is yet another one of. Those times when one great event clashes with (several) other large events, even if it turns out that the first event wasn't as great as the first event, but it's still pretty damn epic.
I'm going to get the second event out of the way because I'm probably about to go on a rant about the first one.
The second event is exams. Horrible mind-crushingly painful exams. They require quite a lot of attention, which clashes with my first and most important event, the publishing of John Green's long awaited novel, The Fault in Our Stars.
I'm already very close to finishing it, having started reading at around six this evening, and I have read with many distractions up until around eleven. Five hours of not-quite-solid reading, and although I refuse to post spoilers, I've wanted to cry on multiple occasions already, and I have no doubt thy I will before the end of the novel. I'm nearly crying right now just thinking about it. I love all of John Green's books, not because he is a Nerdfighter, but because he is one of the most intelligent people I know of, and his books are more than amazing, they're awe-inspiring, and TFiOS is definitely some of his best work so far.
I do have one tiny issue with it, though.
Just a small thing...
A tiny little problem.
It's not John's fault at all, but when I pre-ordered my copy of TFiOS, I ordered it under the impression that I would be recieving a signed copy, as he promised over and over again that all pre-ordered copies of The Fault in Our Stars would be signed. In order to ensure that this happened, he had to sign 150,000 pieces of paper which were then bound as pages of the books. However, in order to make that happened, he also had to print copies of the books that WEREN'T signed. These are less common, but of course, everybody would prefer a signed book over an unsigned one, myself included. Unfortunately, when I arrived home from school this evening, extremely excited that the book I'd ordered months previously had arrived at last, I carefully tore open the Amazon packaging to reveal my long awaited (and extremely shiny) copy of TFiOS, imagine my horror to discover no wonderous mark of J-Scribble inside. My book had not been signed.
My first reaction was to search through the entire book, cover to cover, looking for J-Scribble's J-Scribble with shaking hands of desperation, but once I'd recovered from the shock to a large enough extent, I immediately pulled out my phone and went in search of @realjohngreen on twitter, where I found him to be tweeting about how overseas pre-order companies such as Amazon had screwed up, and hundreds of people had recieved unsigned copies.
I feel very sorry for him right now. He'd gone to so much effort (and given himself health problems) to ensure that 150,000 copies would be signed by him, and he's spent the past five months worrying and being reassured constantly that every pre-ordered copy would be signed, and all hell has broken out. He's trying to fix it, but he's out of the Great US Tour de Nerdfighting 2012 at the moment, so there's little he can do except aak everyone who recieved an unsigned pre-order to email their name, adress, and company they used to pre-order to sparksflyup (@) gmail (.) com.
He doesn't know how he'll fix it, and it may take a while, but my copy shall be signed.
In the meantime, I'm probably going to cry in school because it seems like a likely place for me to finish my book.

Last Minute Thinking

I'm a last minute thinker. I prefer to laze around and watch the world go by and then suddenly spring into action, rather than have it the other way around. I'm not entirely sure why this is but I guess I just lack motivation unless time is kicking me up the arse and telling me to go faster, and usually this works for me to a reasonable extent, but of course not always.

Reasons Samm is Going to the Prom

1. It's Prom
2. It's a tradition
3. There's only one of these in your life
4. You'll regret not going even if you don't want to now.
5. Really you will.
6. I look shit in dresses.
7. I look shit in makeup.
8. I look shit with my hair up.
9. Basically I look shit when I'm dressed up.
10. I'm going.
11. You look good in dresses, I've seen photos.
12. You look good dressed up.
13. I'm not sure if he will be there. He might not be, he doesn't seem like he would.
14. Even if he does go he'll be just as awkward and easy to avoid.
15. You'll enjoy it once you break the awkwardness barrier.
16. EVERYONE makes a fool of themself at Prom at some point, but never anything major.
17. I can guarantee I'll be the first to trip over my dress.
18. I'll need you to help me up.
19. Part of me doesn't want to see him either but still, I'm going, because I know that really do want him there.
20. It's going to be fun.
21. What isn't stupid?
22. It's not really goodbye, not at all. Merely farewell.
23. Popular kids make everything rubbish, it's nothing we don't deal with every day.
24. Watching the popular kids fight is funny as hell, which I guarentee will happen and you won't want to miss.
25. Nobody has money.
26. You don't need to have your photo taken. I'm not.
27. You SHALL NOT just sit there!! Oh we shall get you on yor feet and you WILL do the Macarena, the Time Warp and the food chain song.
28. And you WILL enjoy that.
29. Nobody can dance, it's part of the fun.
30. It's not boring.
31. Of course there's lots of people. It means that if. U don't wanna be seen by anyone but us, you won't be.
32. If you don't like eating in front of people, don't.
33. You won't be laughed at.
34. If anyone laughs at any of us we'll go ninja on their ass.
35. You'll only feel ridiculous if you look ridiculous and we won't let you out the house if you do.
36. Better a retard than a slag.
37. You don't have to say goodbye. Say au revoir.
38. Hello, LIMO!
39. The only time I've ever been in a limo was my Grandma's funeral. I'd like to have a pleasant experience in a limo.
40. You only live once.
41. I've put a lot of effort into this blog which I could I've used for revising. Don't let it be a waste.
42. If this was a waste, I will blame you.
43. If you refuse anymore we WILL force you out the door and into the limo.
44. You were just talking about going a few hours ago, and only doubted it when I said I didn't want to go.
45. You really do want to go.
46. It could be our last chance to be retards together for a long time!
47. You don't want to miss that.
48. If you don't come I'm not getting the flat with you and you'll go hungry because you fail at making cheese on toast.
49. You know I'm right.
50. I made 50 points. I win.

I'M GOING TO PASS TOMORROW.

A little bit of positive thinking there.
... Or reverse psychology.

Humiliation

I've under a lot of stress lately, mostly caused by the aftermath of the operation and worrying about exams. For those who don't know, after the operation, I spent a large amount of time knew bed, drugged up on pain medication and in no mood to revise. I'm partially regretting this now, in the sense that I really regret not being able to revise but I don't regret the pain meds in the slightest, because although I've stopped taking them on regular doses and just have them when I need them now, I'm still in quite a bit of pain sometimes, so yes, I really did need the pain medication. The inability to revise during that time was not something I'd previously anticipated. It's not just revising that I'm finding difficult even now, I'm struggling to speak coherent sentences or get my point across in any way shape or form, just in my day to day life. This really genuinely worries me, because for one thing I have exams all through the next month, but the most immediate one is this Friday, a French speaking exam which I've had far longer than anyone else to practice for, and yet I haven't been able to until these past few days. Obviously I attempted the revision, and I actually made some quite good notes and got a good start the evening before the operation, but now I'm starting to panic because although I think that I know the first few paragraphs, ish, I'm completely lost after that, and I still have to write my cuecard tomorrow.
I'm going to attempt to ignore the raging winds  outside now and try to sleep. I have a hospital appointment for my wrist first thing in the morning so I'm missing the first few hours of school, but unfortunately I don't get to choose my appointment time.

Changes

I'm going to get straight to the point. I've realised that I don't think I'll be able to manage blogging every single day for a year, even with my six days holiday, so I've decided that I'm going to restrict it to weekdays only. I mean that's not to say that I'm not going to blog at all on weekends, I'm just saying that I won't have to.
Instead of my previously stated schedule, my rules are as follows:
The seven days holidays are still in place, but I must state in advance when I'm going to use one. Yesterday counts as neither a holiday or a missed day because I hadn't decided on the actual rules yet, plus it is exam season.
Any day that I miss which has not been previously stated as a holiday requires a punishment to be set. These should be either humiliating or mildly disgusting, but not both and not dangerous. I have the power to reject punishment ideas. They must also be able to be filmed.
Days which are exempt from punishment without prebooked holidays are: up to two days before and including the day of an important exam, my birthday, important holidays, days on which or directly after I come into possessing of a new or long anticipated book or film, or in the unlikely event of death of me or a known person.
So there are quite a few changes there, and it might change again from this point on if it still doesn't work.

Thoughts From Places: Whitby

We're always told that family is the most important thing in the world, and that we should treasure every moment with them, and really that's one of the main things that my belief system consists of, among many other things. I love every member of my family, and my grandparents ae no exception. I guess now that I've lost two of them I've grown a lot more attatched to the two remaining. That fact is really the only reason that at twenty past nine this morning I found myself squished on the back seat of our car between my Nan and my Grandad, my phone in my lap and a folder full of revision tools placed awkwardly between my legs, which I didn't end up using at all on either of the journeys.
I woke up this morning to the sound of mum threatening to leave me behind if I didn't get up soon, because she intended to leave in less than half an hour. After two minutes of pointless arguing we establihed that she'd come in twice previously to wake me, and I'd spoken to her in some way, but I had no memory of this at all. This had, apparently happened before, and I think she accepted it better this time, which I'm incredibly grateful for. Eventually I dragged myself out of bed an got dressed, while still being shouted at for not going fast enough. It irritates me beyond belief when my dad feels the need to shout me from downstairs to tell me to get up, when in actual fact he has no idea that I'm already dressed. Mum then came in to steal some of my CDs, which admittedly I borrowed from her a while back. I hadn't even listened to all of them because for some reason my docking station/FD player was taken downstairs for Christmas where it promptly stopped working. Again, mum began to shout at me that I'd lost her Simon and Garfunkel CD because it wasn't in the case and she'll never let me borrow her CDs again etc. which we go through every few weeks, and I always find it in it's case within two minutes. However, I really hadn't seen the Simon and Garfunkel CD, it was one of the few that I hadn't gotten around to listening to. She still doesn't believe me. Paul Simon, for the record, had/has an amazing moustache. I mean really, it's incredible, but I don't know if he still has it. I hope so.
I deeply considered staying at home today. I knew that staying home to revise would certainly be a wise thing to do, but that I'd regret not going, and I'd probably waste most of the day anyway if I stayed. I tried to get mum to convice ke otherwise, but she understood that I'd want to go with them from about ten minutes after they left, if that. At this point going seemed to be the logical thing to do, and so I went.
We were out the door on time despite yet anoher debacle over where the car keys were, which turned out to be in my Grandad's car for some reason that none of us can quite work out.
The journey was long, but it gave me time to think. What I was doing with my life, why I wasn't revising (conclusion: I'm lazy), what I was going to blog about, and why The Pogues are so damn good? I nearly fell asleep in the last ten minutes, stress on the word 'nearly' because as I am now fully aware, I cannot sleep when I'm moving or when it's light, so I've got no chance in a car.
I love Whitby. I love its history and the beautiful old streets, the quirky shops and the people to go with it, but of course like everything, I found flaws in it. The first thing that irritated me about Whitby today was the fact that it was so cold. Apparently it was reasonably warm at home, but no matter what time of year you go, it is ALWAYS incredibly cold, except for the area direcly outside the kipper smoking house, which radiates not only warmth but the most delicious smell of smoked kippers.
Whitby is of course famous for being the town in which Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, and so it features quite a lot of vampire memoribillia and creates a gothic atmosphere which appeals to me for reasons I can't quite explain. Part of the character of the town is also given by the buskers situated in various places on the street. For example, today there was a man stood on a corner playing the accordion and singing Irish shanties. He had vast and obvious talent, and his music was brilliant, or at least to me because as I have mentioned, I love Irish music. Unfortunately the most noticable thing about the talented musician was that attatched to his belt, on a long wooden pole, he had suspended a marrionette, of about the size of a two year-old child, which quite honestly freaked me out. I couldn't tell whether the face was made out of china or wood, but it was creepy with huge, staring eyes and a fixed smile. I suspect that it was wood but I didn't really want to look close enough to tell. It, or rather she, was wearing an old style grey dress, which had been sewn to the wooden hands to give the impression that she was holding her dress up to dance, revealing creepy little wooden legs that had a mind of their own. When I first saw the puppet from a distance, I admired it and the man's act. However when we had to walk past it, I started to notice all of these little weird characteristics, and how they contrasted with the man operating it, who seemed like a nice enough person. Eventually I was forced to come to the conclusion that if you give any normal looking person a creepy marrionette, they instantly also become creepy.
For the record, I don't like bridges, piers or boats. Basically anything suspended over water where there tends to be high winds. I refused to go on the boat like always, and we got halfway down the wooden half of the pier before I claimed that my ear was freezing, which to be fair it was, I just also didn't want to go any further. I used to argue about the bridge but there's really no point anymore, I always lost that argument.
I'm glad I went today. I spent time wih family, I realised a fear of creepy old puppets, and in the end, I still didn't get a lot of revision done.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Let the 2012 blogging challenge commence. 

My new years resolutions? 

• Work harder in school.
• Keep up with the blogs
• Learn all the words to Auld Lang Syne 
• Be more tolerant of those who irritate me. 

Revising and Excuses

I'm not great at revising. If anything I'm really quite bad at it. Focusing on one thing and trying to remember it, there's just something in my head that thinks of that and goes "NOOO! NO! No, I refuse to focus. Look, a pigeon! Ooh, isn't that pencil interesting. Oh! Think how many things you could do with those post-it notes!" or "Yeah, I'll revise in a minute, after I read this," and I never do get any revision done. Then I get to school, get into the exam and think "hmm, I'm pretty sure the answer isn't  pencil, post-it note or pigeon."
Of course I can make excuses but they never work when somebody asks and they certainly won't get you through an exam.

New Challenge

Okay, so I think I have some explaining to do. My blogs this week have been more than a little irregular, and I don't really have any decent excuses other than christmas and just forgetting to blog, which is a shame because I was doing so well with the blog every day in December thing. This brings me on very nicely to my purpose of this particular post, which is that I have decided to set myself a new challenge.
Starting o New Years Day, I will be starting a project of blogging every day in 2012, although to make it managable, it won't be every day. I'm going to be allowing myself a set number of holidays for the year on which I wouldn't need to blog. This should cover the events of illness, memory malfunction and insufficient equipment for blogging.
My theory is this: there are 365 days in this coming year. It would be unreasonable to expect a blog on every one of those days. I considered. just making this a weekday thing, which would allow me 104 days of not having to blog (52 weeks in a year, two days of each of those weeks) but that just seems like a very long time to not have to blog, plus the holidays which I will still certainly require.
I think it would be fair to allow myself a week of holidays for the year. That is seven days which could be taken consecutively or randomly throughout the year on which I could take a guilt free day away from blogging and then return with little or no explanation needed. If at any point I exceed my days of holidays, I will allow my friends to challenge me to do something as a punishment which I will then video and blog.
To make this period of consistent blogging more interesting and manageable, I'll be accepting challenges just like I have been doing for the past few weeks. I'll need challenges every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Now also I'm considering making this blog more public than it already is. I'll start using the tagging words system and sharing interesting posts on my HP Facebook page, where I have an audience of about 400 people who I have never met and yet share an interest in the magical world, hence why they like my page. This should help me to obtain a slightly wider audience, as I'm not expecting a lot of people from the page to actually pay any attention to me and start reading this, but I know for certain that a few will because they seem to like me.
Some of mg posts may be in video form, like a vlog, which is going to be an interesting experience for me but its something I've always wanted to try, and I think I might finally give it a go.
So, as a final summation, I will make a blog post every day of 2012 with the exception of seven days. Challenges every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and punishments after the 8th day that I don't blog. Don't forget to be awesome, and I'm gone.

Discovering

What you're seeing before you is me, working out how to use my facetime camera, and also bding extremely pleased with my headband, which I'm really starting to think suits me more than I thought it would, but I'll let you make your own decision on that.
I just discovered the speech recognition thing and it actually works, to an extent. its name is jesus god I can't think of me.
That last sentence was supposed to say "It's moments like these that I'm glad I can speak properly," which I'm guessing just backfired because that really didn't work.

New Head

It feels good to be finally rid of the bandages, and I'm perfectly happy with the results of my ear, but that doesn't mean I like looking at it. It's still painful to the touch and it's discoloured and swolen, it's numb in some and bruised in the rest.
Still, no bandages.

Merry Christmas, Sexy.

Yeah, that's really all I wanted to say. I was planning on doing a blog challenge and stuff, but then of course stuff happened as it always does, and I wrote a Christmas Harry Potter fanfiction instead. Well, no, I've been writing it for three days, I edited it tonight, with a lot of help from the most wonderful person ever, Iymea, who is not only a second-to-none beta, but also so dedicated that she took time out of her busy family Christmas Eve to help me make my chapter of reasonably readable quality, which it definitely is now.
I don't know if I'll blog tomorrow. I probably will, describing the wonders of whatever I get.
So yeah, merry Christmas. :) xx

Blog Challenge Four: Christmas

I don't like it when people say that they spend Christmas alone, because for me Christmas means family. It's not about the presents or the food (although I certainly enjoy both of those aspects), it's about 'peace and goodwill to all men', which I interpret as spending time with the ones you love and putting up with the ones you don't, because it's Christmas. Unfortunately everybody seems to have forgotten this over time, leaving everyone hungry for presents, selfishness and every other material thing you could wish for, and of course I include myself in this.
I love Christmas. All of the tinsel and the lights, the Christmas tree and everyone is generally in a better mood, it's impossible not to be happy. I'm not going to pretend to fully understand why someone wouldn't like Christmas or would choose to spend it alone, but I guess that if you are forced to spend it alone, then I can see how that wouldn't be very enjoyable. It isn't, after all, a holiday for solitude. Even something as symbolic as a Christmas cracker requires a second person to pull it with and listen to the terrible jokes.

This video pretty much sums up what I hope Christmas is never like for me. It's called Misery Christmas and it's hilarious in a sad kind of way.

Blog Challenge Three: Mushroom or Llama?

Would I rather be a mushroom or a llama? Again, I think we need to establish the definition of 'be', which in this case I'm assuming would be my mind in a different body.
Well for one thing, mushrooms don't have brains or lives, so I'm assuming that being a mushroom would be pretty boring. Even if I had a face I still wouldn't be able to go anywhere, and if anybody saw me, they'd probably stand on me which would be a pretty painful way to go, and that's assuming that I'm a wild mushroom, and not an edible one. Edible ones have to be harvested and then shoved into boxes for days, and then they sit in a shop until someone takes them home, chops them up, cooks them and eats them. I don't know at which stage I'd die but none of it seems like a particularly enjoyable experience.
Now being a llama would be much more preferrable. They have lives, the ability to move, they won't get lonely and if someone stands on them they won't be squished and they can fight back. They spit at people, which to be honest I can't imagine myself doing a lot of. The conditions they live in aren't great but I'd rather live in squallor than be a mushroom. Also, llamas are awesome. Obviously I'd prefer to be human but forced to make a choice, I'm going with the llama.

Catch Up

Well, isn't this nice? Let's sit down for a virtual cup of tea and a chat... Wow that was cheesy. I mean even for me, that was really really cheesy. Ugh.

Here's a few visual representations of my life.

 A knee discovers the joys of Christmas and reindeer antlers.

 A helmeted madman with a suspiciously shiny moustache appeared in my bedoroom. O.o

And a zebra fell from a great hight but thankfully, is still stuffed.










That's my life, thank you and goodnight.

Blog Challenge Two: If You Could Be Anyone For a Day, Who Would You Be?

It's a hard decision to decide on a different person to be, because really what I have to define is the word "be". Would I be completely myself, body and all, but in their life? Would I have their skills and talents but be as normal in my own life? Would I take on their personality and their memories, or would I remain myself but in their body? Is it possible to be a fictional person in a fictional world? Are time lines a barrier? If I was someone I knew, would I be able to see my normal self?

If I was to remain with my own personality and be able to remember all of the experiences, but in a different life and a different body, I'd probably say that I'd like to be a boy for a day, just out of curiosity. As strange as it seems, the mind wanders, and in a weird way, I'd quite like to try peeing standing up and things like that, but I'd have to be able to tell myself what to do.

If I was able to maintain the experiences and memories as well as the body of the person, but still remember them after the day is up, I'd like to be an old person. Nobody in particular, but hopefully somebody interesting, somebody with experiences that I'd probably never know otherwise.

If I could just have their talents, I doubt I could do an awful lot with them in just one day, but assuming that I have the power to steal someone's skills for a day, I'm assuming that I have the power to go wherever I want, too. In this case, I'd borrow the talents of a bilingual person, and I'd travel the world, learning about various cultures with ease and hopefully capture it all on camera, which I hope I'd be able to do, but assuming that I can do everything else fairly simply, I think I probably would be able to.

Under the circumstances that I'm myself but in somebody else's body with their thoughts still intact as usual, I'd love to be somebody I know, just to see their real opinion of me and what they're thinking if, for example, my normal body is going about as usual and we talk to me. Perhaps this would work better if it was a scenario in which I could read minds.

If it was possible to be fictional characters, I'd like to be one of three people. The first would be Nymphadora Tonks/Lupin, preferably in a time period when her and Remus are together, but not when they're married because that's really where it all starts to go wrong for her, even though it corrects itself just before the end. Alternatively, it would be just after they get married, in the short honeymoon period where everything is perfect. Tonks has a unique personality, which I'd love to be able to maintain. Really all I'd like from his experience is the memories of being Tonks, of spending time with my favourite fictional character, and of being able to change my appearance at will. I'd also like to point out at this time my thing for werewolves and how that might have impacted my decision, although I won't say it directly.
Being Remus himself would also be an interesting experience, although I'd prefer this to be a longer experience than any of the others, maybe over two or three different days; one during a full moon, one the day before and one on a completely different day when the moon doesn't have any effect on him at all. I want to know what it feels like to transform and to run around as a werewolf, but also just to face the normal side of his life, even. If it's just to grasp a better feel for his character.
My last fictional character is Esme Cullen, mostly to know what it's like to be a vampire, and also not feel guilty for staring at Carlisle, which obviously I would with the enhanced vision and everything.

All of these people are inspired by curiosity, a wanting to know more, but really that's the reason we do a lot of things, isn't it? On a temporary basis we'd love to try being other people, it's the reason we ask these questions, but really I think I'm quite happy being myself.

Blog Challenge: Pandas

I have been challenged to talk about Pandas today, so off I go.

I think the first thing anyone will tell you about pandas is that they are incredibly cute. Their distinctive features of fluffy coats, dark eyes and a sweet little muzzle which sometimes appears to smile are irresistible to almost everybody.

They're easily cartoonised, and when they are, they're just as cute.

How can anybody not love them? Clearly they can make the most of every situation, showing that although he may look sad, this panda is clearly either thinking "WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!" or "Oh shit..." , both of which I find highly amusing.

Look at his face. Look at it. He's pathetically adorable.

"Talk to the paw, cos the face is eating your food."

They're entertaining to watch, as they seem to have their own personalities, and they certainly seem to be almost human sometimes.

I'm not even going to bother captioning this one... I think it speaks for itself really.

So that's what I think of pandas.

Night.

Appreciation and Shredded Wheat.

Often in life, we don't appreciate everything we should. We tend to overlook the simple things, and they get left out and forgotten. These are things like friendship, company, parents, and the fact that most of us will always have a roof over our heads. I'm not going to go off on a rant about charity or friendship, but the little things people do for us that we take for granted do not get enough appreciation.
Through my own doing, I'm stuck inside for a while because of the freaky pineaple thing with Postman Pat going on up on my head, and rather than leave me lonely, I had a lovely visit today from my very awesome friends. We were very hyper, watched some strange things on YouTube, had a coffee with my Nan and then went upstairs for a hearty chat, basketball failment and tinsel.
There are rather a lot of photos as evidence, too.
I appreciate that they took the time out of their busy schedules to visit me, and we had an excellent time. I also appreciate that my mum didn't have a terribly good day today but she's still very much as awesome as usual.
Now I admit that I'm not the best host. In fact I'm really quite terrible. My guests often go hungry and thirsty, because I generally don't get hungry or thirsty a lot, so I don't really think that other people do. Thank god for mum, saving the day, and for shredded wheat, which isn't too bad dry. I'd eat more of it, quite happily. Obviously the mess caused by it was a little unsatisfactory, as one of the first things I did was Hoover up the bits of shredded wheat from my bed. I appear to have done quite a bit of hoovering in the past few days, but only with the nozzle on surfaces, I let mother dear do my carpet, becase she does it so much better than me.
I think my zebra might be suffering a little, and in danger of falling from my bookcase. I'd better go and rescue it.

100 Questions Answered

IT'S QUESTION MONDAY!
Vlogger John Green answered 100 questions in 4 minutes. It took me considerably longer.

1. How many puffs in a puff can a puff with a puff to the puff puff?
What?
2. What kind of dog is Willie?
West highland terrier. 
3. How will the world end?
When the sun explodes. 
4. Favourite picture book?
Who's Making That Smell? 
5. Do you like your bobble head?
I have a bobble head? I have a pineapple head...
6. Nikon or Canon?
Canon. 
8. Favourite Disney movie?
The Jungle Book.
9. Would you ever get a cat?
Yes. 
10. Favourite year of high school?
This one. 
11. Will Paper Towns be published in France?
Ask publishers. 
12. Are you a ninja?
Yes. *runs and hides* 
13. Cheese?
Falling off toast. 
14. Height?
Not tall.
15. Who the eff is Hank?
An awesome person. 
16. How long have you had the puff?
I don't have puff. I have a limp pineapple.
17. Favourite Hank song?
This Isn't Hogwarts!
18. Can I hug you?
Yeah sure, if you can catch me. Ninja. 
19. Why?
Why not?
20. New Star Wars trilogy or old trilogy?
I'm yet to see either.
21. Big Macs or Whoppers?
Big Macs!
22. Where is the puppy?
There are no puppies. Only inexperienced dogs. 
23. Do you like apples?
I prefer bananas... but yes.
24. Favourite band?
The Beautiful South
25. Second favourite band?
The Pogues
26. Third favourite band?
Muse
27. Fourth favourite band?
Boyce Avenue
28. Favourite shirt?
Bazinga.
29. Paper or plastic?
Paper.
30. Favourite scent?
Old books. 
31. Do you like the hunger games?
The what?
32. Argyll?
On socks, yes!
33. What's next?
Question 34.
34. Favourite city?
Paris!
35. First job?
Non-existent.
36. IKEA bookshelves?
Billy bookcase. 
37. Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Trek!
38. Will you be ... Looking For Alaska ?
I get that this question was something about Looking For Alaska, but what?
39. Did you like Kenyan?
Huh?
40. Wait, when?
Always. 
41. Joyce or Yates?
Yates?
42. Best video editing software?
I don't make a lot of videos, so  Movie Maker :D 
43. Anagram 11 + 2 ?
12 + 1 so yes you can have anagrams in maths. 
44. Link or Mario?
Mario.
45. What's the meaning of life?
Instead of being interesting here, I'm going to agree with John ^ and say other people. 
46. Why do you sweat so much?
I don't...
47. Favourite time period?
Now.
48. Are you worried about balding?
Looking at my dad, yes.
49. Can you speak Klingon?
Non.
50. Alaska, Lindsey or Margo?
Alaska. Although I haven't read whichever book Lindsey is from, so I can't realy make a fair judgement.
51. Unstoppable force or immovable object?
Unstoppable force!
52. Who?
Everyone! 
53. What?
They're important!
54. Where?
Everywhere. Watching.
55. When?
Constantly.
56. Why?
Because I told them to.
57. What's a question?
Curiosity voicing itself.
58. Falkner or Whitman?
John says Whitman... I'm gonna go with Whitman.
59. Briefs or boxers?
I'm ignoring this question.
60. Favourite arcade game?
Tetris.
61. Do you wish you had a different name?
No. No matter how hard you try to convince people or yourself, in the end your name defines you. More on this later.
62. Worst president?
I think I'd be pretty bad... I don't know many actual ones and certainly not enough about the ones I do to judge them on it.
63. Ketchup or Mustard?
Tomato sauce.
64. Socks or Yankees?
Huh?
65. Favourite type of pie?
Cake Pi.
66. What's your favourite word?
Lycanthropy
67. The accidental onion ring in Burger King fries, annoying distraction or pleasant surprise?
Pleasant surprise!
68. Favourite play?
Oedipus.
69. Where's Waldo?
Grrrrrrrr... 
70. Wassup?
A lot.
71. Favourite teacher?
Current for/French teacher or my old RE teacher. 
72. One thing you can't live without?
My parents.
73. Who loves you, baby?
My parents?
74. Favourite Beatle?
John Lennon.
75. Favourite colour?
I don't have one but I'm gonna say orange because I never say orange.
76. Monet or Mayonet?
I don't know if that was the actual question but... Monet?
77. Near or far-sighted?
Near.
78. How's the weather?
Cold!
79. Do you like pizza?
Yes I like Pizza.
80. Am I too nerdy?
You're never too nerdy.
81. Do you like your iPhone?
I don't have an iPhone or anything like it. Yet.
82. Worst impulse buy?
Weird piece of heart-shaped wood  with a  message to my mum on it which I'm pretty sure she doesn't like but loves me too much to say so.
83. Pie or cake?
Cake.
84. Who's your hero?
David Tennant.
85. Glasses prescription?
Really quite bad in right eye, not quiet as bad but still quite bad in left eye.
86. Favourite veggie?
Green beans.
87. Picard or Kirk?
Kirk. For the eyebrows.
88. Muffins?
Yes!
89. Nirvana?
Yes?
90. Hope or despair?
Hope!
91. Am I cool?
You'll always be cool if you sit in a fridge.
92. Colin or Cue?
I don't think I head that right.
93. Lefty?
No, righty. 
94. Do you love me?
Yes.
95. Are you happy?
Generally.
96. Is this the last question?
No.
97. is this the last question?
It shouldn't be but apparently according to John, yes. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MY FRIENDS AT MY DISTRESS THAT THERE'S ONLY 97 IN THE VIDEO:

98. Have you ever wanted to ride a giraffe?
I'd probably fall off. 
99. Why is glitter so hard to get rid of?
Small things come in irritating packages.
100. What's your shoe size?
Usually a six but in Converse sizes, my right foot is a 7. 

Traditions

Technically this is late but technically I don't care. This counts because I'm not asleep yet.

It's getting to that stage now where I'm really excited about Christmas. I know exactly what I'm getting, and I know that part of that won't get here until possibly around february but I'm still really excited that it's going to get here at all, my main present is wrapped and everything, and I'm buying myself two books because I really want them and I've already got £20 in a card, and I know that I won't have them bought by anyone. I think I might buy them and then ask mum to wrap them for me. I'm already doing that with my Michael Bublé calendar, which I bought in September and have already looked through and admired. Come to think of it, I think I'm aware of every present I'm getting this year. My main present, my things I saw dad order online for me yesterday, the books I need to buy and the calendar. I'm not getting anything else except for maybe a couple of stocking fillers. I really can't wait for my main present, it's the sort of thing I can fiddle with for ages and not get bored of, like my Camera last year. I still sit with my camera just to play around with it now, even if I'm not going anywhere. Mum wants to open the presents in front of the tree this year as opposed to their bedroom, but I don't like it. For one thing it's always freezing downstairs on a morning, and for another, traditions are traditions for a reason. Traditions work, so we keep them. Like having turkey for Christmas dinner, it's just the way things are and that's not going to change! But maybe it is time for a change this year? My brother will be with his girlfriend so it'll be different enough already. I don't like it when he's not there on Christmas morning, it feels lonely. He'll be coming for dinner but still, I'll miss him.
I suppose everything has to change every now and again, but there'll always be those things you wish will never change.

Dream Interpretations

I think I know more that I thought I did about dreams. Obviously Google has been a helpful tool in discovering the meanings of the appearances of odd objects in mine and friends' dreams, but now I'm starting to use basic logic and pre-existing knowledge to interpret dreams without any help from the internet's unreliable sources. It's really interesting, using what I know some things symbolise, for example cows or bulls represent anger in most cultures, but bulls also commonly represent fertility.
You can also dream what you want to surprisingly easily. It's not worked so far for me and I don't quite understand the logistics which is probably why it hasn't worked. I'm not going to attempt to explain it, either.

Who Killed The Cat?

Curiosity killed the cat.
No, stupidity killed the cat, curiosity was framed.
Don't be stupid, stupidity doesn't have the brains to frame curiosity.
Fine, it must have been ignorance.
Or that woman who put the kitten in the microwave.
Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/14/woman-killed-kitten-microwave-jail?newsfeed=true

This is disgusting, yes.

Pineapple Head

Okay, so you'll see now why I think I look a bit like a Pineapple. First things first, the hair sticking out of the top is irritating beyond belief. The bandages make my head itchy pretty regularly, and I have to put up with them for another two weeks. In these photos, I'm not wearing make-up and I was still partially under anaesthetic and a bit drowsy, so I do look stupid, but looking stupid is unavoidable because obviously, I look like a pineapple. 

Click an image for a larger view.

 PINEAPPLE CLOSE-UP!!!

The lights say "Bah humbug" which pretty much sums up how I'm going to be feeling on Christmas morning when mum wants to take photos and yet again, I'll be looking ridiculous. And yes, those are Zebra pyjamas. 

Not the nicest photo of me, but It shows extent of how big the bandages are, and why my glasses don't fit and i can't get headphones under there. 

I know that I'll look stupid for a few weeks, but on the bright side, it's done, I've got it over with, and I'm happy with the results, even if I can't see the results for 14 days and there's still the risk of infection. If it does get infected, it'll eat away at the cartilage still in there until there's nothing left, which would obviously be catastrophic, but it's not very likely. I'm glad I had this done.

Mmmm... Drugs.

I'll blog some photos of my head tonight. I'd do it now but I can't be bothered to find the camera USB cable, so I'll get dad to do it when he's home.

Oh stuff it, I'll find it when the ibuprofen kicks in. I don't know where I'd be without painkillers. I'm on two paracetamol and an ibuprofen as often as I can. It makes me drowsy but even with them it feels like I've got a needle sticking in the back of my ear that digs further in every time I turn my head. I'm also getting headaches because my glasses don't fit with the bandages so I'm having to strain my eyes to keep a polite conversation going with my Nan. I'm glad Nan came down to keep me company, I have to tell her how to work the TV and the cooker but she's made us boiled eggs and now we're watching old movies together, except I'm hardly watching because I can't really see the screen. Still, it's lovely to have some company.
The Christmas lights are on, which is keeping my eyes open for one thing. However they're a constant reminder that Christmas is coming in eleven or twelve days and my bandages can't come off until the 29th, which is 14 days away. At least I should have friends coming to see me next week, with one deffinitely coming on Monday, which I'm extremely grateful for. I love my friends, and given that I'm housebound for two weeks, I think I'd go insane without visits from my very awesome and insane mates, even if they do want to draw on my bandages.

Blogging? What? Now?

Yes. Because now if I don't feel like it tonight, I won't have skipped a day. It's not the best but to be honest there wasn't going to be anything interesting posted today anyway. Who knows, maybe something incredibly interesting will happen today that I'll instantly feel the need to share it.

Preparing

Blogging isn't a lifestyle choice or an activity for me anymore. It's a necessity. I mean nearly every day I'm reminded "you need to blog", and yes, honestly, if I wasn't reminded periodically, some days I would probably forget to blog.
I don't even know at what point I decided to carry on blogging throughout December. I said I would do every day in November which I did until two days before the end when I missed a day for some reason I can't remember. I don't know, maybe I was ill or busy or something. Then without really mentioning it at all, I just sort of flowed into blogging every day of December, too. I know I missed a day last week but I was really really very ill that day, and if I miss tomorrow, don't be surprised, either. I'm having an operation, and I believe that medical reasons is the condition on which I do not blog, which when you think about it is a pretty damn good reason if not the best. Well, I guess death would be another reason to skip a few days, be it mine or somebody elses, but I hope it doesn't come to that any time soon.
I'm finally getting my operation tomorrow. Hopefully. I said the same thing last week and that didn't exactly go to plan, did it? I did ask for a book to read in the hospital in order to evade boredom but that isn't going to happen. I can't text anyone because they'll be in school and I can't get Wi-Fi in the hospital so that leaves me with three choices. 1) take a book that I've already read and read it again. I mean c'mon, would reading Hector Kipling or Prisoner of Azkaban again really be so bad? No, so I might do that as well as doing number 2. 2) Revise. I'll be taking my French book with me, my independant workbook, pencil case and some lined paper, and I'm going to revise, hard-core. I've already started writing out paragraphs and analysing them, it was surprisingly fun to do it neat and organised. When I'm done it's all going into a folder with sections and partitions with labels. I think I might have OCD because this, among other things this style, is brilliant for me, I'm seriously loving it. Then of course there's option 3) either play games/write on my iPod all day and risk running a low battery or take my charger and try to find a plug socket.
To be honest, I'll probably do all of these things. I'll do them all to be prepared for anything and then be called in first and out by three. Except that isn't going to happen because I'm not an urgent case in the slightest so I'll probably be last. Last to go in, last to eat. Not fair.

The Duck Naming Fiasco

I never thought there was so much effort that needed to be put into naming rubber ducks! What I thought was going to be a two minute process ended up spanning over two hours and 86 comments. That seems a little excessive, but hey, I'm not complaining with the awesome. However, while five awesome people were quarrelling over Ducky McDuckworth of Duckington (which I disregarded because I already have a duck of that name. Seriously), over on my Harry Potter fan-page (where I go by the pseudonym Remus), I mentioned the four ducks in need of naming and instantly received the suggestion of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, and I kicked myself for not thinking of that first. I have to say it, I love being an admin; I'm respected and happy, but that's a blog post for another time. Anyway, I'd already decided to let my IRL friends decide on the names, and so they did.

During the deciding debate, names suggested include Ducky McDuckworth, as seen above, Puddles was an instant favourite of mine but unfortunately it didn't make it into the final four. Squaddles and Quackers were next and I liked both of them, even though I have an old toy duck from when I was little called Quackers, as I'm sure most little kids with toy ducks would have. But then, joy of all joys, Shredded Graham popped up and brightened the event. For those who don't know, Shredded Graham is the product of Shredded Wheat mating with Golden Grahams, and I'm sure we can all agree, they would taste delicious. At first I disagreed with calling a duck Squishy because Squishy was a jellyfish not a duck, but eventually I agreed to let that slide because these ducks are particularly Squishy-like. Of course Cedric McHookaduck stuck his beak in and then withdrew, being the awkward name he is. 

I don't know why I assumed all of these ducks were male, considering they all seem to be wearing very elaborate eye make-up. 

So that's pretty much all of the names, but then there was a big thing about which ones to use and how everyone should have one name each, and even when we FINALLY decided on the final four names, we waited for everyone's approval so that I could al last tattoo their names onto their arses, so I shall never forget this wonderful event. And now, sitting on my computer table, there are four ducks. Their names? Shredded Graham, Crispin, Squaddles and Squishy. Together they shall embark on a journey as soon as I have finished writing this post, and they shall travel up the stairs, into by bedroom, and spend a large portion of the rest of forever in my bookcase, as four of a collection. Four very proud assets to a team, and for that, I thank the wonderful person who presented them to me. 

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My conclusion from all of this naming business? I should not let my friends name my children. Not that I would, but y'know, if we named kids any of the majority of the names that we suggested for the ducks, those kids would be in a for a lot of trouble. 

Drapple

There is a surprisingly large online fanbase for Potterheads who ship Drapple. That's Draco Malfoy, and an apple. Allow me to explain.

First, I'll explain some of the above terms, for you muggles and people who aren't even slightly addicted to Harry Potter fanpages, or any fanpages at all, really. A Potterhead is a person who is obsessed with/knows a considerable amount about the world of Harry Potter. I class myself in this group. Draco Malfoy is one of the school-age baddies in Harry Potter, who receives a lot of atttention from fans due to his superawesomehotness. A ship is a pairing that you support, this can be canon (usual) or not, for example I ship Remus/Tonks (canon) and Remus/Sirius (possibly canon, but we're not sure).

The apple comes from the above screenshots from Prisoner of Azkaban. It's completely insignificant, but I guess people must have just seen his agressive manor of eating said apple and thought "ooh, sexy", which I guess when mentioned online would spread like wildfire. I understand where this comes from, but then you get even weirder images being created, which I guess I'm going to have to post. Ready for this?

I guess this one isn't so bad... 

Not quite as imaginative, but okay. 

This is a bit more of an inside joke within an inside joke so this made me laugh more than anything.

And this? This is just creepy. Brace yourself. 

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Told you. I mean LOOK! This is the weirdest photoshop ever! He has boobs for God's sake! It's just so disturbing... Ugh. It's so strange, but if you think this is weird, you haven't seen Snapple.

Proving a Point

Just proving a point here. It says charhe.

'Ear 'Ear!

I'm starting to think that I might not want my ear doing. It's such a small thing, it's at an inconvenient time and there are people far worse off than me waiting for an operation. And yet I've been waiting for this for so long. I knew that I wanted it doing when I first went to the doctors about it. I knew that I wanted it when I was sat in the specialists office. I was excited about it on Wednesday evening when I thought that in 24 hours I wouldn't have the odd ears that have bothered me for so long! Then the si ckness got to me and I started double thinking, perhaps over thinking. What if me being ill was a signal, an omen that I shouldn't have it done? I'm not even sure if I believe in omens but right now I'm almost convinced that it was. But I'm going for it anyway. I've waited too long for ths to just throw it away now and regret it later.

Ah. Well. That Didn't Work Out, Did It?

No. I won't go into detail but I was really very sick yesterday, so the operation didn't go ahead. However, I've been rescheduled for next Thursday, exactly a week after the original op, so it's not so bad. No I didn't blog yesterday but I had a bloody good reason so piss off.
Anyway, I'm struggling to remember who was in my dream last night but I do remember that my bus got hijacked, the driver got lost so I directed them to my house and then got off, at which point the bus turned into a van and me and some unidentified friend ran around my street until the van drove off so the driver wouldn't know where I live. Then something else happened and I can't remember the rest in a great deal of detail. Ah well. I'm knackered so night.

Oh Yeah, I Forgot

My operation is tomorrow. Since I probably won't blog in the morning, tomorrow's blog will probably be entitled; "Living With a Slightly Smaller Ear Which I Can't Look At Because of This Ridiculously Large Bandage. Day 1." Than as I'm sure you've already guessed, the post on Friday is most likely to be exactly the same, but instead of ending with "Day 1." it will probably end in "Day 2." because that's the general pattern that numbers tend to take. Sorry, I can't control that.

Now seriously, I'll see you tomorrow.

Talking Pictures

Today, I bring you a video, and I urge you to watch it. Then read what I'm planning on writing underneath it, if this works.

Pictures do talk. Pictures have a way of summing up what we can't quite say, in such a way that pictures sometimes say more than words do. There's an old saying that actions speak louder than words and I believe this to be true, but what speaks louder than any regular action is the action of pressing the shutter button to take a photo or moving a paintbrush or a pencil across a page, because those are the actions that stay forever preserved, as long as someone cares enough to keep them. Because pictures aren't just a documentation of a place or a person or a group of people or a dog balancing a ball on its nose, pictures are rarely even "just" anything. For want of a better word, pictures are magical. Pictures can capture a moment so perfectly and preserve it for the rest of eternity. Pictures can tell a story. Pictures can capture a persons personality just by their face and what they're wearing and what they're doing. Pictures can stir up memories and create the greatest forms of nostalgia. Pictures can lie. Pictures can deceive. Pictures can bring evidence to a crime scene and fill in gaps. There are an infinite number of types of picture, and out of every photo in the world, every single one of them represents something different and means something to someone. The messages on the back of old photos are even better, as they do fill in the gaps or sometimes create a whole new world of thoughts and stories in your mind. Photos can be a great source of inspiration for novelists in the same sense that cemeteries are. They present you with a little information and your mind has to make up the rest, and I love that. I think that's incredible.

I'll see you tomorrow.

There's Glitter Everywhere...

There really is. It's a bit ridiculous to be honest. I've wrapped all of my presents for my mates, done some cards, although not a lot this year. It all sort of squishes into a superdrug bag, but I'm not taking that on a bus so it's gonna have to be transferred into something bigger before I go anywhere tomorrow. If I forget them I'm screwed. None of the presents have names on, But thankfully they're all different shapes. It should be interesting to see what people think they are before they open them, based on the size, shape and texture. I know a few of them are deffinitely not going to be guessed, but two are blatently obvious. The rest, not so much. But what's the run in a present you can guess? :D

Prepared

I think I'm ready for my time off. I know what I'm doing to prepare for my French exam, I have lovely soft PJ's to wear during the op and after, junk food like pot noodles and Oreos to snack on when I have to fend for myself (I can't cook, I'm awful), I have the new big TV and I have the promise that my two best mates are gonna cone over to keep me company, draw on my bandages and bring me colouring books. I actually can't wait.
I'm still going to go mental though. Loneliness and boredom are sure to attack, despite the homework I've already been set. I asked for a book to read, but no, apparently I'll survive with the ones I have and homework. Yeah, I'm gonna die. Because no matter how glorious it's going to be to not have to get up to the freezing world every morning, I know that I'm gonna miss school. I'll miss my mates and the teachers and some of the lessons. I'll miss the structures and the bus drivers and the people-watching every morning. I'll miss the stupid little people running into me in traffic and the Crow... Yeah okay, maybe that's a bit too far. But everything else I said, yeah.
I kinda want to tidy my room just to be even more prepared, but that's more for Christmas too, because OHMYGODITSCHRISTMAS! :D

Oh. Hello.

Thank god we don't show Argentinian Strictly come dancing on the BBC. That's all I have to say. :)

Oh and Ed Sheeran is very sexy.

Thoughts From My Bed

I wrote a Facebook status today regarding my appreciation of the term "best friend" and I was planning on blogging it but now I'm on my iPod so I can't copy and paste it and I can't be arsed to re-type it, so if you're interested, which I'm guessing you're not, just go and find it, or else I'll probably blog it tomorrow. That was a long sentence.

I'm very tired and comfortable right now due to a sudden onslaught of exhaustion that I didn't feel this morning and suddenly hit me when I was being bored on the computer. I now realise that that time being bored could have been spent A) blogging or B) revising. Instead I did random things on Facebook and watched Vlogbrothers videos. It was what some would call a waste of time. I did not at the time but now I'm starting to reconsider.

I'm getting on alright with Claude-Mark the Second but we're still not as close as Claude and I were by this point. I had less than 30 texts and CM2 decided that he didn't have enough memory so I deleted all of my messages. On the bright side, CM2 has a cheap version of Bejeweled and a reasonable battery life, which I guess was one of Claude's faults. Plus it's only 3 weeks until Christmas. Yay, Samsung Galaxy Y or W, I can't remember. I'm too tired for thoughts now. Au revoir.

Exercise Will Kill You

Please don't make me go back to the gym again. I have several issues with it, which I will now describe in far too much detail, in order of which I discovered them.

There was a distinct lack of busses and bus stops around the Keepmoat, and the busses we did catch were packed beyond measure. At one point I considered that staying upright on the moving bus was part of the exercising experience. My next point was the bus stop was ridiculously far away from the entrance. It took three minutes of fast walking to get from the bus stop to the entrance and I was out of breath already by that point. In the changing rooms, the lockers are operated by pound coins which they expect you to supply. You get your pound back again anyway so what's the point? What if I had a pound coin but I had to use it for bus fare? I'd be stuck and my locker would be left open. Then they advise you to tie your hair up so I borrowed a bobble from a friend, but due to my uncooperative hair, I looked like a complete and utter pollock as usual. Then they made me fill out a form, half of the answers I didn't know to a well enough extent for them to be useful. We then split into two groups of eight to go in different rooms. I've always wanted a go on a treadmill, but they're not all they're cracked up to be. I don't like running so I ended up feeling stupid speed-walking between several people who were running at full speed. When my half-mile was up, I got motion sickness and walked dizzily to the exercise bikes. The exercise bikes had adjustable seats that I couldn't adjust by myself, making me feel pathetic and yet entertained by my weakness. I then biked for another two miles or so, and by the time I got off my legs were stiff and burning like mad. There was a far too brief break, during which all sixteen of us plus several trainers gathered around one water cooler. The water was stale, but we drank it anyway.
The second half was even worse. The warm-up alone had me feeling dizzy again, and then we started with the weights and the lunges and the oh my god. I thought my arms were going to drop off. Twenty minutes of that later and we returned to the usual gym for two mintes. We tried out a strange machine which felt a bit like rollerblading, just safer and eaisier. I burned 30 calories on that one. That's less than one kitkat finger.
By the end, we staggered exhausted back to the changing room to discover that we had 6 minutes to catch a bus or wait over half an hour in the freezing cold. We gave up on the idea of hurting up and opted for normal speed, until we got outside and saw the bus halfway down the road, so we did a bit of traffic dodging and ran. Of course we couldn't get a seat on the bus; the school of chavs that got on before us took all of the remaining seats. Leaving us stood far too close for comfort.
I didn't necessarily hate the days experience, I'd just compare it to an hour in hell.
Night.

RIP Claude

I think Claude might be dead. I'm heartbroken, but I'm slowly coming to terms with it, and I now find myself able to write his Eulogy. So, here goes.

Claude was a good phone. He was reliable, a good friend, and in the past few months, he found companionship in Melvin. He had a beautiful voice. The sound of his inner duck made him who he was, and what we all know and loved him for. I'll be honest, the first impression I got of Claude wasn't great, but nobody likes change, and I really really didn't. However, within days I had fallen for Claude's natural charm.
Of course Claude wasn't perfect in every respect, but he was the ideal companion for me. Yes there were more high-tech phones on the market and given the oppertunity, I would have taken one, but I'd never give up on Claude, because Claude was perfect for me. His camera was pathetic, but I have a compact and an SLR for photos. The video was even worse, but I could survive without it. The Nokia text system was strange at first but now it's second nature to me. The radio had no signal but that was just even more entertaining on the coaches. Yes Claude had faults, but they made him who he was. He was simple, reliable, and convenient. He served me well over the year and a half, and he and I were inseparable for good reason. I couldn't have wished for a better phone, and now as I lay him to rest on my shelf with the other ducks, he shall never be forgotten.

<3