Tabooland

So, for the sake of Ermantrude’s sanity I am currently in an internet cafe in a dreary, rainy “Tabooland”.

And in the residence in the land of Taboo, there is an invisible gaping hole that is the lack of WiFi and television. Additionally, mostly the radio is hit and miss plus, it’s almost always in Ir Tabooish and O2 Taboo hasn’t got great coverage on the coast, so I ventured for something to do. I started reading a book, Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children, which is tremendous however, I started to forget which pages I’d already read, too tired to figure out what’s going on but too awake to go to sleep. (I’m not extremely lazy by the by, we got an overnight ferry and I’d only had a few hours of mediocre sleep)

So, I rooted through some CDs and found ABBA’s greatest hits. Great for me, amusing for the passing ramblers, not so great for me parent’s hope for a peaceful half term.

Me + no inhibitions + ABBA’s greatest hits = a dangerous combination of joy, embarrassment and dancing.

Guten Tag!

So, I’m not uber great at German and it doesn’t show more than when I’m trying to say how are you to the exchange students, basically shouting jibberish at them. Probably making them feel more intimidated than welcomed.

Anyway this is just a short post (mainly for Ermantrude) to thank them for putting up with the bottomless pit that is a mainly sausageless Neston and the cave of mundane that is our school.

Auf Wiedersehen!

(And I only know that from the famous musical)

As the nights draw in and Halloween season creeps in behind us my favourite passtime becomes more acceptable. Watching movies!

As a sleepover host yesterday, we baked wonderful whoopie pies and our table manners were tried and tested by the fabulous spaghetti bolognese. Later we even delved into the apocalypse style of things, playing scrabble although we used an online dictionary before lazing on the couch and watching some films. Having already seen both, I was delighted to rediscover the hilarities that I’d forgotten about like the feeling when you forget how pleasant a bath can be after a week of camping.

Surprisingly for a sleepover, we actually did a lot of sleeping. Then, when a cool sun rolled over willaston and into my window we had a greasy breakfast with a side of pan au chocolat. Three brilliant flicks and two bellies full of crisps later it was time to say au revoir, giving me that sobering thought of “Oh back to me and my boring life then” until you eat a whoopie pies and watch 8 out of 10 cats. My solution to pretty much everything.

List of watched films:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Get Him to the Greek

The Orphanage

Hot Rod

I Love You Man

Whoopie pies:

Pot full o’ perks

So, yesterday I was enraptured into a youtube yoyo. Several hours and vlog brother videos later; I saw something so cute I nearly melted into a thousand kittens, love stories and Disney films.

Vlog brothers did an advice video once upon a time in which real nerdfighters pose questions to the wonderful John Green. One of these questions was something along the lines of:

“How can I become more optimistic?”

The fabulous author suggested that everyday, you write a small note about a fond memory that took place within the past 24 hours. You then collect these notes in a jar and on New Year’s day, open up the jar and recall the 365 memories that made your year utterly lovely.

I am so enchanted by this adorable ritual I have now conformed to the cuteness. I’ve coined it the Pot full o’ Perks and despite complaining about the sight of mince pies in Sainsbury’s earlier in the week, I am now very excited for New Year’s day.

 

Indian Summer?

Going for a walk does everyone good. You can let of steam or simply bask in the brilliance of almost inaudible “Hi” s you get from strangers passing by plus there is an excellent satisfaction knowing that you’re willingly participating in this alien concept, a thing called exercise.

But the type of walking I partook in this quite tranquil morning wasn’t a hobby. It also served the purpose of getting from A to without poisoning the earth’s airways and potentially lightly tinting my skin (there was some sun guys, fingers crossed for an Indian Summer!).

So yeah, I felt positive about physical activity. That’s new.

Overton Princess

Princess? Who am I kidding? From now on I’ll probably be known as Overton Bitch.

So, you guys ought to have a little party in the name of me becoming Head Girl of Overton! Woo!

Honestly, I’m overjoyed and I am proud to be the successor of Last Year’s “Overton Queen” as she called herself although it will be downright difficult to fill her shoes…

I know I shouldn’t complain – how ungrateful would that be? But there is just this one tiny thing, it barely matters in the grand scheme of things. I probably shouldn’t even—

Just gonna interrupt myself there. It’s the the tie. Something I must wear everyday to school. Do you remember my last post about the colour orange? Well, it basically expressed how awkward the colour orange is. And guess what guys?

My tie looks like an advert for frickin’ Halloween.

 

Any. Other. Colour.

Today was one of those days where we pay a pound to go to school and be frowned upon for not wearing a skimpy skater skirt or our outfit isn’t so fetch! But to make matters worse there was a criteria for today’s humiliation. Not only did we have to suffer for our un-on-trendiness we had to be patriotic about our houses (difficult maintaining I am currently quite annoyed at our head of house, but that’s a whole other post) and wear our house colours. Yeah, in writing that was a nice idea but just please, next time you get a ‘nice’ idea just remember dear school of mine: it’s not a brilliant, a perfect or an idea that actually works in theory, it’s just nice.

Back to the rant.  So anyway, each ‘house’ is basically 1/5 of the school who, as a whole, raise money for charity, have group snooze sessions during assembly and share the same colour on their ties. (As a mini anecdote there used to be a sixth house – Bushell – which for some reason disappeared) So the house colours are as follows:

Stewart – Purple

Talbot – Blue (but they changed from white a couple weeks back)

Grenfell – Red

Summers – Yellow

Overton – Orange

If you haven’t already sensed the tone from the post yet, I’m a little angry. Because fate (& three sisters) mean I belong to Overton.

Do me a favour, would you? Imagine (or if you can actually do it, that’d be great too). Pear into your wardrobe and pick out the items that are orange. No peach or “burnt umber”. Literally orange. Okay, now if you think you’ve beaten me because you do, indeed, have an orange article of clothing then think again. Create an outfit.

If you’re this far you’re probably a prisoner who’s institution class orange jumpsuits as a uniform. Now picture wearing that not only in front of your friends or past crushes, but in front of your mortal enemies. It’s like asking The Wanted to write a song called One direction: They are going to be ridiculed. Anyway, if you passed that test then let’s face it, you’re a liar.

Reverting back to the list. If you’re in Talbot = jeans. Simple. Grenfell wear red, everyone has at least a slogan T-shirt with red font on it. Stewart – I admit this is difficult for lads- but they deserve the hardship because

a)They get the biggest hall

b)They don’t have to put out the chairs for assembly

c) 3/4 of the time it’s set up for exams anyway, so they don’t have to sit through an assembly about how important it is to be punctual: Making you late for lesson anyway.

Yeah, summers is difficult but that said, I have a bright yellow t-shirt I would be willing to wear. Plus they just win everything all the time. Ugh. Just orange. I mean, orange. Any other house colour, I could’ve actually looked patriotic toward Overton heck any other colour in the universe I would have been fine. Sod’s Law I guess.

Oh, I did actually wear some orange! My sister’s belt (Thanks!) plus a hair band were sufficient.

So, we payed £1 to not wear uniform but the twist is, we are required to wear something that identifies us as part of a group. Sounds a little bit like a uniform to me.

Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

Today in French me and my neighbor were, let’s say, unentertainned by the task set before us. So we created our own.

It all started when she wrote “meow!” in my book. With the eye-for-an-eye attitude I returned her serve with a “woof!”.

And so the battle began.

ggrrr!

squeaak!

*snap*!

moo!

oink!

roar!

hello!

de ne, de ne. dene dene dandandandandan!

Naturally, there was a song to match the occasion:

I would be so lucky

Do you ever just get an overwhelming feeling of positivity and luck? Well, I do. And so yesterday, I decided to take full advantage of this optimistic mood. I entered every competition I could.

As if it was fate, a TFioS competition turned up on my Twitter:

“The chance to visit set and meet all the cast, including John Green”

I got the gooey feeling you get in your head when you have that “It’s a sign!” moment. I was dreaming of a free holiday, a chance to even breathe the same air as Green would be unfathomable. With these eager thoughts, I liked and favourited and followed the required pages. I got the jitters as I filled in the fields. Name, age, address, State, phone number… HOLD THE PHONE?!!? State? Are you saying I have to be a Us citizen for this?!?! Ugh, America gets the Taco bell AND John Green???

Lets all curl up in a hole because we’re teenagers.

When you watch the family rom-coms about temporary, petty divorces or affairs or people taking up obscure hobbies or getting fired or needing money or taking a vacation, something they are always highlighting is the featured character’s mid-life crisis. But no-one ever tells you about the crisis that starts in year 7 until you complete education.

Just this week alone, I have witnessed three friends crack under the pressure and burst into tears in front of me. And it’s difficult. Because no matter what you try to do, it seems patronising or nosy or childish. Plus high school is just hormone haven, once one goes, they all start dropping like flies.

Then again, it is important to let out your emotions as it is these mini-meltdowns that carve our own personal coping mechanisms and teach us composure for the future. Bottling it all up is not the easy route. Because eventually it’ll explode like bubbly and the cork could do some serious damage.