Bitten to HELL

Portugal in late October is gorgeous, no joke. Average temperature over the last few days has been about 26 degrees C, and has gone right up to 30 at some points. There's a cool breeze, and it's that time of year when tourists have mostly given up and gone home, so right now, I and my family practically have the whole of the Algarve to ourselves.

Paradise, one might say.

Except at night.

At night, the bugs come out to play. But instead of being decent, stand-up insects, they're pure cowards. There was no sign of them during the day. Nor did they show themselves in the evening.

But at some point during the night, one decided my temple looked niiiiice and juicy. So I look as though I have some weirdly-placed hicky on the side of my face.

Who said bugs don't have a sense of humour?

Happy

Happy... but not high. It's an interesting concept; these days, so many harmless words can mean something utterly different. For example, I can not help but laugh when my piano teacher tells me 'You have the basic tune right, but your fingering is clumsy' ;p

'Gay' simply used to mean happy. Now, not only does it mean homosexual, but 'Oh it's so gay!' implies something is bad, rubbish, suckish, you get the idea. And with no bearing on the original or subsequent meaning! The word has changed three times!

I just told a friend I'm happy, and they immediately asked 'Why, what are you using?'

I am not using. I am just incredibly happy because, as per, Bagelfish has made me smile :) love you hunnie xxx

Cringe Time

Bagelfish - see list of my favourite people :) - and I had the most awesome of awesome conversations the other night.

During our usual bout of emailage, I got called away from the computer, so I bid him goodnight and told him I would email the following day.

So he said 'KK, night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite' (as you do) '...although technically they're only trying to live and reproduce in a continous cycle as any other living thing does. They eat you alive to continue that cycle.'

So I go to bed in the middle of a bed bug orgy.

Crying ;(

The most gut-wrenching video by MCR ever. Made me cry.

I love the Way brothers. Classic comic-book geeks turned rock stars.

An inspiration to all us geeks.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4310217

Hysteria

Maths lessons are never particularly awe-inspiring. It’s not the teacher’s fault – the world’s greatest Professor of Mathematics could not, and never will, capture the attention of a Year 10 class. It’s simply not possible. However, our teacher does his best and usually dismisses us at the end of the day having vaguely enjoyed his lesson. And how does he manage this? Simple.

The wonderful art of sarcasm.

He must have invented sarcasm. Must have. It’s simply not possible to be that good at it and not have been around when it was first developed.

It was our usual weekly double-lesson, and unfortunately for him it falls at the end of the day when, quite frankly, we’ve all had enough and just want to scream ‘Sod it all, I’m leaving’, or words to that effect. Now, in that lesson, he had been particularly sarcastic and had given the class cause to break out in deranged laughter on several occasions, none of which truly warranted such a response. But the last time this happened had me seriously flawed, and I could not for the life of me work out just what everybody found so funny. Perhaps it was the dry comment I made when the hysterics had died down, or maybe just that we had, on that day, been pushed just a little too far by spending an hour learning about gradients.

The teacher went up to the Smartboard, went into the tools tab, and dragged out a ready-made axis. This was one of those cross-shaped ones with negative and positive numbers as oppose to the more simple ones we use more regularly with just the positive numbers. There were sudden hisses of ‘Wow, look at that’ and ‘Oh that’s just so cool!’ from all round the class. Apart from anything else, it was just these two phrases with hardly any alteration, being repeated by nearly two dozen people, which got more than slightly annoying after a while.

But what I was really confused about was the fact it was an axis. An axis.

Friggin’ hell guys, it’s two sticks crossed over with numbers stuck on. Get lives.

I am a bad person!

I did an article for the newspaper a couple of weeks back complaining about the postal service in my area, because my GCSE result that was coming in the post didn't get to me until 3 o'clock so I was totally bricking it.

But my postman came round today, apparently. He was very upset and had been very distressed about the article.

I feel awful. How to explain I look for things which I can take the piss out of? How to explain that I'm not an evil person sent straight from hell to torment the postmen of this world?!

HOW?!

I am a bad, bad person.

And to make things worse? This picture is going to haunt my dreams.

THE PEOPLE FIGHT BACK!!!!

Where I live, there are very few free parking spaces. Even less since... well. Since forever, to be honest. The only place where there was any significant number of free spaces was at the castle, but no longer! They - they being spoken with an evil, nasal voice that sounds like something out of looney toons - have made sure that even that car park now has a fee!

But the people will not give in so easily. We are not so faint of heart. In fact, just across the road and over a couple of fields, there is another large car park which the council has yet to get its claws into, so people are just parking there and walking via the icecream parlour instead. LOL it's all good.

So we are cheating the council out of money! Much more than that, the stupid little stickers that they give you upon entering the castle to prove you have paid have now found a role in life! Their role? To be stuck on all of the lamp-posts between the castle and the still-free car park!

So up yours, council! You make us pay? We go somewhere where we no pay! And more, much more than this, we did it o-o-o-u-u-u-r-r-r way!

(WITH STICKERS ON LAMP-POSTS!)

Girls: Spiky, with weird nutritional needs

We got a cactus in class today. Our form tutor decided we needed a class pet due to thefact there are only 19 of us in the class and he wanted 20. So he said, 'Bring in a plant. Something that reflects the attitude and personality of this form.'

And so we bought a cactus. It's spiky, hard to handle and has weird nutritional needs.

Sid - he's called Sid (not sur why he's called Sid or why he is a he at all, come to that) - was borne very proudly to the front of the class... when his carrier promptly dropped him.

Sid came out of his pot.

Soil went flying.

Spines snapped.

Tears were shed.

But a girl quickly came to his rescue and picked him up using the plate on which his pot was to rest. Except, she tilted it a little too far, so Sid rolled off the plate, and as a knee-jerk reaction she tried to grab it before it hit the floor...

Two words: Spikes. Pain.

So Sid hit the floor for a second time... this time minus even more spines. He now sits in a plant pot with a tad less soil than originally planned, on the window of our form room. There is a notice up on the wall next to him. It reads:

"Be nice to Sid. (The cactus). (No we don't know why he's called that either.) His favourite song:

I'm a survivor

I'm gonna make it..."

WARNING TO PATRONISERS...

As one of six children, I’ve had my fill of being patronised. Older and younger siblings alike, they’re all good at it. So when I went on holiday, I had the vain hope that I might escape it for a few short days.

At least, this was the hope.

My plan for a frustration-free week in the New Forest kinda went to pot when I was forced to, on behalf of my sister, pay for a very conspicuous, fluffy-tailed, pink unicorn about the size of a dog at the Beaulieu Motor Museum. I’m not quite sure why there was a Barbie-pink mythical creature on sale in the gift-shop of a car showroom; maybe that’s their new ‘green’ method of transport?

Anyhow, I arrived at the till, having received many a knowing glance from the impossibly good-looking German boys who were visiting, begging silently that the student with manicured nails serving me would have some sense and put the darn thing in a plastic bag. Of course, that was wishful thinking – futile, in fact. She smiled at me, blissfully unaware of my angst at being, in the rest of the customers’ eyes, the fifteen year-old with a unicorn fetish.

“It’s not for me,” I told her hurriedly, thrusting the twenty-pound note at her desperately. “It’s for my sister.”

“Are you sure?” She grinned naughtily at me, using a tone not unlike that of a dog-trainer to his charge. “You’re not fooling anyone…”

If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was perfectly well aware that my mother would have kicked my sorry ass all the way back to the car, I would have said exactly what went through my mind at that moment.

“I assure you, it’s for my sister. The Kalashnikov concealed under my hoody, on the other hand, is very much mine. Can I have a bag with that?”

Wiki World

Someone should make a song up with that title.

Anyway.

Ah, blogging! Well. I have a cringe-worthy story for you that may make you think twice about ever even approaching a teacher.

I love Wiki. Wikiquote, Wikianswer, Wikipedia, Wikifur, all of it. It’s like a virtual world with just the facts, laid bare for all to see. So, innocently, I recommended it to a teacher, one who instantly drowned me in protests about the site’s inaccuracies. I, a stout fan of Wiki World, obviously denied all and defended my homework answer source. Finally, I won him over and he agreed to give it a go.

Approximately a week later, I spoke again to this teacher, who agreed that Wikipedia was certainly ‘interesting’.

I really need to learn to listen more closely to the use of that adjective.

I went on to be a tiny bit smug and, to my continuing shame, held the man up for a further five minutes by giving impressive examples as to how I had used Wiki over the years.

So. My teacher, looking at me the teensiest bit condescendingly, nodded. “Indeed?” Was all he replied to my inexplicit rant. Once I had concurred, he continued,

“So why did Wikipedia, apparently so beautifully accurate, try to tell me that Elvis Presley, two chickens and a cactus are living in a small farmhouse just off Aberdeen?”

Oh the pain. Wiki, you have let me down.

Classic Betrayal

Maths lesson today was pure class.

Mr S, the person who stands at the front of the class and makes a brave attempt at teaching a room full of teenagers, has caught the flu virus, consequently losing his voice.

To quote him: 'You are going to have to be quiet today, girls, because as you may possibly have noticed I can not speak louder than a whisper. In fact, I sound like a 13 year old boy. Oh god, that's made me feel worse. The one thing more terrible than being 50 - and believe me it's pretty terrible - is the thought of being 13 again. In fact, proof against the belief that there is an almighty, benevolent G_d is the very existance of 13 year old boys. They're so disgusting, they disgust even themselves.'

Oh how I wish this were true. If this were true - and it's not too far off being - and 13 year old boys did indeed disgust themselves, then they might have the courtesy to avoid inflicting their presence on the opposite sex.

But I thank Mr S for so fantastically and stylishly betraying other members of his sex. It really made my day.

*EDIT: Of course, teenage guys are not the only ones who suffer from being intensely grotesque during puberty (and not all teenage guys actually suffer). Girls can undergo a similar state, except that we do our best to minimise the effects, whereas a lot of guys do f*** all.

Letting go

I'm with the whole 'write-like-you-mean-it' scene, particularly as it's going to form the basis of my career. I've done the 'get-a-newspaper-collumn' thing, I've won a couple of competions - and lost a lot more :D - and I write my own little stories with the occasionally scene full of dirt. But honestly?

Bored.

Boredboredboredboredboredboredbored.

I wanna let go! Do something fun! Write something that makes people blush, or check behind them so that their boss ain't readin over their shoulder!

The best way to do this?

Watch american t.v.

Honestly, it's the way forward. It's so full of crap, it's genius. Frasier - classic. Crap, but classic. Sex and the City, an excuse for legal porn, and an attempt by the writers to see what happens if you throw 4 b*tches who hate each other in front of a camera for hours at a time. Sexcetera - actual porn. Southpark - WTF? Scrubs - cute, but it ends there.

And yet, it's so inspirational. I spend so much time watching the shock-horror she's-having-an-abortion of the soap world, or the oh-god-she-got-raped-and-now-her-love-has-disowned-her of the Hardy/Dickens scene, that it's hard not to get into a rut with my writing. I gotta liven stuff up! Yeah, so my character is seventeen and pregnant - but she had a great time getting pregnant, at least. And her boyfriend dotes on her - it could be a hell of a lot worse.

So attitude check, methinks. The deep, meaningful passages are great - fantastic, in fact. Earns you a lot of credit. But a laugh is better than a tear, as a wise woman once said.

...

Oh christ, I hope it wasn't Madonna... :S

Awesomnity, Mary Poppins and cock-eyed scanning (and other such crap)

Is this not the most AWESOME Tigger you have ever seen? Like, EVER?!!! This is not meant to be a funny blog, I'm afraid - this is genuine appreciation; no sarcasm, no crap.

Ahem... I do appear to have scanned him upside down, however.

This drawing - awesomnity itself - is by my awesome new nanny.

It's... well. Awesome, huh?

Today, I'm a feminist

I just listened to ‘Eyes of the Night’ by Starlight Mints, and for the first time really took note of the lyrics. I was actually searching for inspiration as to what I was going to write about in this blog of mine today, when it hit me in the face.

Brace yourselves, all you female readers.

‘There’s cookie monsters in the kitchen,
Keeps a knife tucked in her garter…”

Why are the cookie monsters females? And why, just why are we wearing garters? Is it me or have Starlight Mints been a tad sexist? I mean, I know that us girls like cakes and chocolate and all that lot, but does that make us all monsters?

And garters? Really?

To prove Emu can draw!

See below blog - basically Sammie at school had a bit of a blonde moment in thinking that Emu can't draw because she's left handed... but this is to prove she can!

Sammie-isms

Okay. I have this friend – for all intents and purposes, we will call her Sammie. I would also like to point out that though I enjoy taking the mickey out of her for these ‘Sammie-isms’ she provides me with, she is a good friend and I have no intention of offending her. And I’m not just saying that for legal purposes.

So. On with the blog. Sammie is extraordinarily gullible – I currently have her convinced that ‘automatic’ doors are psychic, which is why they open for us when we approach. The story is that they are fitted with an ‘intent detector’, much like a heat or light detector, which analyses the patterns of our brainwaves and decides whether we are intending to try and enter the building. Hence, upon us nearing these psychic wonders, they enter.

Basically, to cut an extremely long and complicated story short, she walked into the classroom of a close friend of mine. She is the future great cartoonist and – more importantly to this story - left-hander, Emu (her new persona). (To clarify, Emu prefers Goose, but I am calling her Emu. Just to be difficult.)

Emu is currently taking GCSE Art (ah the joys of Year 10) and as such was sketching in her standard-issue, slightly pretentiously sized notebook one lunchtime. Sammie walks in, and watches her for a few minutes, and then…

“I don’t think left-handers can draw very well.”

Believe me when I say this, because this Sammie-ism is so great that it is in no need of exaggeration, but the whole room went silent. This is quiet an achievement, especially if you consider that the ‘it’ girl of the year was discussing her new dishy boyfriend with the crowd of wannabes that follow her.

So Emu, freezing mid pen-stroke and remaining remarkably composed, demanded without so much as looking up what Sammie meant.

“Well,” says the blissfully oblivious Sammie as if she wasn’t on the brink of instigating a riot, “whenever I try to draw with my left hand, it looks terrible.”

Yes Sammie.

I must remember to pay her for her never-ending stream of inspiration for this blog. But I’m not sure how she'd explain this source of income to the taxman.