I really should've put NP Mass Comm/Film as first choice!




JC LIFE IS GARBAGE

I'm 17, I'm in CJC, I'm doing H2 Literature, Maths, Economics, Knowledge&Inquiry, H1 Geography, I (somehow) passed the auditions for Drama, I have secured TICKETS TO SEE COLDPLAYYY LIVE and soon tickets to The Importance of Being Earnest possibly?maybe?, I am in DIRE NEED of more sleep but other than that I'm as content as I think I should be!

It's a nice calm after the maelstrom.

I got into CJC. I'm not amused despite what the Mood indicator says because I CAN'T FRICKING CHANGE IT *kicks uselessly*

I was ok when I got the sms. It was at 6:59 AM. I just mumbled what? That's my third choice you utter lunatics. You utter, utter you bane of our lives you fuel of the fire of my everyday fury for all the time I've been under you urrrgh.

Too late for should-haves but I really should've put NP Film or Mass Communication as my first choice. God knows I'd be happier in a more creatively charged environment. Courses with unique souls, that prepare you for things, enagage you with life, send you places.
Instead of daily routine beginning at 7 AM ending at 4 PM if you're lucky, 9 if you're not, where you study little subjects you do well enough in to go to University and do something or another that you've Managed to qualify for and feel miserable the whole time because you Have to Get That and do This and hope it'll amount to such and such a Number of Credits which is essentially useless because you learn NOTHING about yourself or life or anything other than things that can only be best expressed in numbers and qualifications and stupid data and how prettiful and glorious the names of Good Universities sound.

Cynicism is no fun, none at all. And I'm...sure there's more liveliness and joy in formal education...somewhere...than I've accidentally potrayed above in a helpless fit of silly resentment. I'm more than a little biased, but this is what you get when you're conditioned to believe that your academic qualifications determine Who You Are.

I'd better stop here and sleep now, I'll just be up all night ranting like the insensible adolescent I am. I do apologise for the length I'll probably be more mature/sober/awake in the morning and delete this :\

~~~From his autobiography "Moab Is My Washpot"~~~

"I passed Maths O level, not with distinction, but I passed. The only exam I failed was Physics, a determined cock snooked at my father to remind him that I was still myself. He had not made me his creature, his good science boy. For physics, above all, was what Father was about.

I did not just fail Physics, I ploughed it spectacularly. Such was my pride that I could not bear to be seen to fail anything unless it was quite deliberate.

There had been a question in the examination paper which asked about something called EMF.
To many of you reading this, EMF probably means that Forest of Dean combo whose excellent single ‘Unbelievable’ had us all foot-tapping five or six years ago, to Mr Pattinson the poor sod whose job it was to try and get some physics into my head, EMF meant ElectroMagnetic Force, or Field or something vaguely similar, please don’t ask me to elaborate.

The question read:
Describe the EMF of a bicycle torch battery.
Well, I hadn’t the faintest idea what they were on about, so I spent the entire physics exam drawing a bicycle. I wasn’t bad at this, Object Drawing was the part of the Art ‘O’ level that I was best at, my painting had never again reached the heights of the IAPS award-winning Unforgettable Character, but copying, I could always copy.
The bicycle I drew had a crossbar, saddle bags (an open cross-section of which revealed the presence of a Tupperware box containing an apple, a Mars bar and some cheese and chutney sandwiches) and, naturally, torches front and rear.
My last act, at the end of the exam was to rule a line towards the front torch and write at the other end: ‘This is the torch that contains the battery that contains the EMF that the questioner seems so desperate to know about.’

O levels in those days came in Grades 1 to 6, which were passes, and then 7, 8 and which were fails. I achieved none of these. I achieved something far more magnificent. I was awarded an Unclassified, which included a letter to the school.
I don’t think my father was hugely surprised when the results came through in the summer holidays. At least I had passed Maths, that was the great thing."

...that I am writing.

Well.

Have started. REALLY writing.

I found my way back to it somehow. It's been months. I feel like I'm emerging from some awful exile I brought upon myself; I think it is, indeed, an emotional exile. As much as that makes me grimace from the triteness.

There are many things I want to say in relation to this...far too lengthy period of blockedness. It hasn't been so much 'blocked' as buried under the general facade, the fake everything, that I have used to get through this year. (School year, to be exact.) The funny thing is I hadn't even been aware - until, I think, tonight - how far away I've stowed the more, you know, writerly bit of me. The more Me bit of me. Perhaps subconsciously I did want to do that for convoluted psychological reasons etc. etc.
Or maybe it was school and the general not-fitting-in-ness. Which is another matter entirely, and would make up a whole novella if I cared to elaborate on it. I don't.

So ANYWAY. The slate is clean, my hands are rinsed, I've pulled myself up and I can see my feet. It is harder to get used to light than darkness; darkness is sort of warm and envelopes you in some probably false sense of comfort but it's light that challenges you to stand up, and start getting things done. (I can't help it if this comes off as the typical introspective, semi-self-absorbed journal entry you see now and again that seems to say "I'm the only one that feels like this" - I know I'm not - but it IS true and besides, I haven't typed/written anything like this in ages, anyway.)

So...here's to the mostly bitter medicine that was 2008(granted, it did have its good points but on the whole 'twas just painful) and to hoping for a much better 2009 with lots of good times, enlightening discoveries and general crack. And a good deal of fodder for the imagination. Happy New Year.