not.in.paris

Aaah, nine days and no updates. Really must get round to this more.

Okay, time to tie up loose ends. My list of things to do over the holidays:

• Read ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac: completed! Hooray! And it was a really good book. Hopefully I’ll find some similar things to read.
• Actually revise for SATs =O: Yup, did that! If you count about half an hour, anyway…
• Get all my homework done before the last day: well, I did all my homework, I just happened to have a whole bunch of extracurricular stuff left…
• Go to see The Woman in Black! Hooray! (okay, that’s definitely going to happen, but hey, it’s a task): yup, did that. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be, actually, though it was still definitely worth going to see. It chucked it down with rain that day.
  
• Sort my room: some progress.
• Learn my piano pieces and the Mexican Hat Dance I’ve got for recorder: yeah, I guess so. I learned the Mexican Hat Dance, though I still feel like there’s something to it I’m just not getting. I made a determined effort with the piano pieces, though I’ve been truly defeated by one of them.
• Watch at least one Michael Palin out of the pile I have waiting for me: I watched 20 minutes of one and then trashed the lot. Can’t be arsed.
• Do some laps on the treadmill at least every other day: pfft.
  
• Keep on top of my correspondence: oh yeah? Forget about it.
• Find a new hairstyle that I can wear  on the first day back to school: kinda. Relented to my old ways on the first day back, but I’ve certainly learned a few new styles.
• Hopefully go out with my friends a few times and have some fun!: success! Hoorah.

We’re back at school now, which is boring as fuck, but that’s just life. SATs next week and everyone is making a fuss about them. I can’t say I’ve particularly bothered to do any of the work, but hey, since when do I?

Can’t be bothered to do anything more right now. Hopefully this blog will see the light of day again soon, mmkay?

We went to Oxford yesterday: all four of us.

First of all, we walked out to see some of the colleges, which didn’t interest me in the slightest but which everyone else discussed with gusto because my brother’s applying to Oxford and wants to know which colleges to apply to.

Then we went to the Pitt Rivers museum and looked at the textile exhitibiton that was there and then at some of the other exhibits. I found the writing equipment stuff to be quite interesting.

After that, we ate lunch in Blackwell’s (I swear that the cafe there must be my favourite cafe place on earth) and then looked around. I bought two books: The Black and the Scarlet, by somebody I can’t remember, and Se7en 7Ies (on the cover the second 7 is upside down, so it looks like an L) by James Something. Haven’t started either of them yet.

After that we went to the Modern Art Oxford and saw some exhibitions there. First we saw some photographs by Ansel Adams. I wasn’t that impressed: they all looked like he’d got a lucky shot (obviously it’s more than luck for him to have that many ‘lucky’ shots, but it didn’t feel that way) or that it only looked nice because he was photographing pretty things. What’s more, all the photos were of pretty national parks: I’d have liked to have seen some variation!

Here’s an example:

There was also a thing by Mircea Cantor, which was undoubtedly the most pretentious art I’ve ever seen. The exhibiton consisted of three things: a peacock and a peahen in a giant cage, with a giant cage inside it, with another cage inside that; a photograph of a tree with a wooden thing on it; and a carpet suspended from the ceiling. What the fuck does it mean? I have no idea.

The one thing I did quite like was the work by Katie Paterson. It consisted of: a phone number in neon letters on the wall (when called, you get the sounds of ice at the Vatnajökull glacier melting) and a piano playing Beethoven. However, this was no ordinary Beethoven: this was Beethoven that had been beamed into the moon and then sent back, with some bits of it being absorbed by the moon, then played on a piano where the keys went down and the sound came out but there was nobody sitting there. All good fun.

And now it turns out that one of my best friends arrived in Oxford just as we left and went to see most of the same places.

Hot damn, Harley, I ain’t updated dis ‘ere fing in ages!

Here’s a whistle-stop tour of how my life has been going since I last posted:

• I’ve had an absolutely terrible cold, but fortunately I’m 98% better now. Majorly sucked while it lasted, though.
• I went to see The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre on Saturday. It wasn’t as good as I was expecting, but I must confess that I had seriously high hopes for it. It was pretty good, all in all.
• I finished On the Road. It was quite a breezy, refreshing read that left a good aftertaste.
• I trashed all the Michael Palins. Can’t be arsed!
• I made a hairdressing appointment. I’m going tomorrow at eleven…wish me luck!
• And while I’m in town, I get to pick up my library books. Hooray!
• I wore my hair in a French braid for the first time today. Woo-hoo!
• I’ve been to two sleepovers (cliche cliche cliche) which were both fun.
• I’ve watched lots of shitty films.
• I’ve spent far too long on the computer.
• I’ve played a lot of piano.
• I’ve discovered Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata 3rd (Opus 14) Third Movement and can’t stop listening to it.
• I’ve used BookMooch a lot. I’ve sent out two books and ordered one. Hooray!
• Life has gone on.

Here’s a picture of my hair coming out of its piss-poor French braid:

Too bad it had to happen in the holidays, eh? I bet they would have closed the schools for this. It was absolutely tipping it down with snow early this morning, but by about 9-ish it had all settled. This is what it looked like from my bedroom window:

I wasn’t going to bother going out, because I’m wimpy and I don’t like getting wet and cold, but then some of my friends turned up all excited (well, okay, it was mostly my friend’s younger brother and my friend’s younger sister, but hey, who isn’t excited when it snows?) so I tramped out and we messed about in the snow. After that, a couple of friends and I walked down to the wood and…uh…walked through it. The snow was really pretty there. Here’s some photos:

I have a feeling that the header image of my blog was taken in exactly the same wood last time it snowed, which was about a year ago (January ‘07, I think). We went down and did exactly the same thing…ah, how times change.

My social life has suddenly taken a turn for the better!

Yesterday, some friends and I went out shopping. We bought some things for another friend’s birthday and then I got two shirts (both stripy: pictures forthcoming if I can be arsed), some blue nail polish (which is ugly as fuck, but I don’t care because smurf-coloured nails = uberly awesome), a blue alice band and a comb and hairtie thingy for doing French twists. Haven’t quite figured out what to do with the ends of my hair, though. Meh, I’ll get there.

Today, I went to my gymnastics class. It was only me and one other person from our little group going, and unfortunately it sucked. She was the best of us at gym, but then she buggered her arm and she’s only just started going again but she can’t do anything that involves putting any weight on her arm. Seems a little silly of her to go, if you ask me, but hey, it’s not my problem. Anyway, she likes to treat me as if I’m refusing to do anything. Here’s an example:

Her: What do you want to do?

Me: Hm…I dunno. What do you fancy?

Her: Oh, come on, it’s your choice.

Me: Oh, all right then. I’ll go ask Jodie [that's one of the coaches] for some help with flicks.

Her: Aw, is lickle Ferny-werny going to try some flicks?

[I go do some flicks]

Her: Aww, did you do some flicks? Well, I’m glad I’ve managed to get you to do something then! You never do anything! You just sit there at home typing away on your computer. You need me to get you to do some exercise!

Me: …

Ugh. She kept it up for the whole two hours. It’s so annoying.

And in other news, my progress on things I will do this Easter:

• I’ve read 70-odd pages of On the Road.
• Almost finished my history homework. Done my English and I’ve corrected my French script but I still need to learn it.
• I’ve tidied my room a bit.
• Made plans for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
• Learned to French braid! I can’t tell you how ecstatic I am about that. I can’t do it very well, but hey, it’s pretty incredible progress for me.

Now I will spend the rest of my evening finishing up a bit of this history and then playing my Mexican Hat Dance. Oh, and I suppose I should really play my wooden treble recorder too. I haven’t played it in far too long and I don’t want to have to play it back in…

Finally! The holidays! Two and a bit glorious weeks off from school! Lie-ins! No more homework (God only knows I have enough to do already)! Decent shoes!

Honestly, it can’t possibly come soon enough. I’m absolutely dead. I’ve barely got out of bed for the last week, never mind been able to get through the day okay…and my ridiculously stressed life has reached fever pitch. I love stress because I can’t work without it, but sometimes everything just takes too much.

Anyway, this holiday, I’m going to:

• Read ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac
• Actually revise for SATs =O
• Get all my homework done before the last day
• Go to see The Woman in Black! Hooray! (okay, that’s definitely going to happen, but hey, it’s a task)
• Sort my room
• Learn my piano pieces and the Mexican Hat Dance I’ve got for recorder
• Watch at least one Michael Palin out of the pile I have waiting for me
• Do some laps on the treadmill at least every other day
• Keep on top of my correspondence
• Find a new hairstyle that I can wear  on the first day back to school
• Hopefully go out with my friends a few times and have some fun!

I have tonnes of homework to do over the holidays, so I guess I’d better get on with it. Now, how to connect this phone…