Nothing Lasts Forever – The Living End
Today has actually been shockingly bad. But more on that later.
We’re back at school. Yeah, not too fun. Biggest stress, actually. See, in Australia its Term 4, aka the last 10 weeks before our summer holidays. Usually this is when we have final exams, or finish up the grade. Nope, this year things change for me, and I’m starting the HSC course (making me year 12). Which means that last ‘grade’ (year 11) was only 3 terms long (which suits, because the Preliminary HSC course is only meant to be that duration). Which also happens to mean that this time next year, I’ll be doing my final high-school exams (uni-entry ones). Mental stuff. Typically, you’d expect to come back to a really full on first week with heaps of homework, etc etc, but no, not really. I think they’re slowly dipping us in, which is really good because after coming back from holiday, intense school is the last thing I want. Its also really good because I dropped Modern History (meaning I do 5 subjects this year, which is the minimum), which means I get free periods to do work, and some in the afternoons so I get to leave early. Its a lot to adjust to (I finish school at 12:30 on Tuesdays, with only one class that day).
Even though school isn’t as full on as I anticipated, this week has still been incredibly stressful. Exam marks back (did reasonably well in everything, sans maths which I did ok in, but we all know that “ok” isn’t enough), having to re-organise all my school belongings for a new year, teachers telling us about the course for the next year… its intimidating.
Anyway, besides all that, weekend. Most interesting part of each week, right? Saturday had the most stressful lead up (Dillan wanted to see me before he went on camp for half the week, his family wanted him over, had to fight to be able to do both… stressful !), but it was nice. Got up stupid early, went into the city, had breakfast, saw Let Me In (I’ll review it when I get time, aka when its not late & I don’t have school in the morning review here !), which I rather liked & found interesting to compare it to Let The Right One In, there were lots of similarities and lots of differences, lots of parts included from the book that weren’t in each film, etc etc. Still rather Let The Right One In though. But yeah, other than that we hung around, I bought magazines, maintained our usual habits. We went home early so he could see his family, won’t be seeing him for half a week, so. I mean, its not bad cos I have gone much longer without seeing him, s’just knowing that othertimes, he was always 30minutes away, but god knows where he’s going to be.
But yeah, that night we had a family dinner, which was pleasant. And then today I had to go to a church service for a christening… I’m going to leave my personal views on religion out of this in case I offend anyone, but that wasn’t the most enjoyable experience. And then today I got to work for 8 hours, which is actually more stressful than anything. I’m still not finished the job, and its 10:18 right now, and I only “finished” 10 minutes ago. Working for your father’s home business sucks a lot.
Sorry this entry is so bland and picture-less or whatever. As you can imagine, stress = words. Late o’clock = lazy. I’m sorry. I’ll do you a favour & end here? Excellent.
Anyway, Monday night was Social. Spent the morning bumming about, Dillan came around in the afternoon & once I was dressed, etc, we went over to Stacey’s (mainly to dump my stuff). We all (there were heaps of us; Stacey, Blake, Fletcher, Jarryd, Grant, Maddie, Emma, Stella, Loretta, Harry, Yasmin, Daniel Dillan and I) caught trains/busses to the warf, considering out social was on a boat. Saw everyone at the warf, heaps of ‘oh you look nice / so do you‘ bullshit but y’know how it is with these things. Got on the boat, everyone did their own thing. It was nice, the boat toured around Sydney Harbour, spent most of my night with Dillan, Loretta, Harry, Yasmin and occasionally Daniel. It was nice being able to see a lot of people, such as the boys from camp & meet a lot of people that everyone seems to know that I never met. It was quite cool how the boat had 3 levels, if you wanted to dance you could go to that level (naturally Dillan and I didn’t, like, at all, lmao), if you wanted to eat there was that level, or you could chill up on the roof (which is where we spent most of the night making endless dougong jokes about Lo). There were obviously downsides to the night (cold, bit hard to hear/see people sometimes) but in all it was really nice and brilliantly organised (Eleanor, a girl in our grade, did it all. She’s amazing). After the boat party, a bunch of us naturally went to McDonalds (there was a shortage of food, see) & then we (Stacey, Blake, Maddie, Fletcher, Grant, Stella, Dillan and I) went back to Stacey’s. We legit spent 2 hours trying to erect this massive tent, in the end we all gave up and watched Grant and Dillan build it. By the time that was done and we were all settled, it was like 4am or something, so we all went in that tent and slept (hardcore, right?). Left at about 10 the next/that morning and just attempted to catch up on life that Tuesday. That tent party though was brilliant, Stella kept us all entertained and I think it was especially great because everyone got along well and it was just us and noone being annoying and it was just great; in a lot of ways probably better than the social itself.
The few days after that were a mix of going to school (Wednesday & Thursday – so incredibly boring because A) hardly anyone turned up and B) our year 11 course has finished so they’re legally not allowed to teach us at all) and chilling at Dillan’s. Meant I finally saw Zombieland which I loved – can’t believe it took me this long to see it. Saturday came around again, and Dillan and I maintained our Saturday habits by shopping for magazines (NO and Russh [which I've already read lmao]) as well as buying 
This week has been pretty… blank, I guess. Nothing much has happened. On Monday both art classes went on an excursion to the Art Gallery of NSW to visit the Archibald Prize & look around. We got there (my art teacher was late so she txted me. Yeah, we’re FULLY tight now), chilled in the Domain for a while, went in & looked at the permanent collection – they COMPLETELY surprised me, having a Bacon piece (he’s my absolute FAVOURITE painter, so I naturally had a little spaz and danced around for a while. Then stopped and stared. I must have spent 5 minutes infront of that piece. It was Study for Self-Portrait (1978) btw). We then went in to view the exhibit for the prize… it was all so boring. Seriously, Australian artists SUCK.
On Sunday I went with Christine, Naomi and Shivani to see the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. It is such a good film. I adore Lily Cole. If you get the chance, watch it! Its really trippy at times, but its really awesome. The SFX were really interesting, and the story itself is really good. It would probably make a lot more sense, though, if we saw the beginning (we missed it buying candy, lmao.) After, we went to a book store and I got Handling the Undead (by John Ajvide Lindqvist – he also wrote Let The Right One In which I loved) and a Wolverine graphic novel. I also got my Kris Kringle gift. After we went back to our local shopping mall and just hung out, seeing our teachers at the Latin Store (that place is strange – but SO COOL! It has a stuffed lama in the front of it).
Monday and Tuesday were nothing much, Wednesday was formal. Wheeee formal. So many people were so excited for it, they’d been looking forward for it for like, 6 months. I’d only decided to actually go 2 weeks ago, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. My dress (ordered from England) came the monday before, and Mum & I had gone to get shoes etc. the Saturday before. 
Anyway, after I went to the place in Stacey’s Mum’s boyfriend’s Monaro. My god it was a beautiful car. I was sat at a table with Stacey and her date Jared, Emma and her boyfriend Griffin (?), Maddie and her friend (Jake?), and I think Kelly and Fiona and their dates. I was the only one without a date. It was kinda upsetting, but whatever. Not everyone had dates so its ok. Just sucked that I was the third wheel (in a group of 11…). But no, it was good, the food was tasty (even if it did look odd and I wasn’t quite sure what it was) and the place looked really nice. Basically we got there, took an official photo (Melanie, Belle and I), sat down, ate, got up and took a bunch of photos, ate main course, more photos (and photobombing! WHEEEE! Love doing that so bloody much), desert and awards (didn’t win anything, surprise surprise), then dancing for the rest of the evening! I danced on and off, my feet were sore and it was rather hot. The sweaty look is never cool.
