Cairns

Rozzy is alive!

Sorry guys, I've been away having fun... seven of my friends and I went to Cairns for a supremely non-rebellious version of Schoolies. We watched a whole lot of Scrubs, went snorkelling and scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef and are now all really broke. It was AWESOME!

I'll update this post with some photomagraphs when my lazy friends bother to give me some (just joking, love you guys!).

For now you can have a map of Australia that shows you where I went. Yes I added the line in paint, don't judge me.

Quote of the Day:
Carla: Why is there a pancake in the silverware drawer?
Turk: You mean, why is there silverware in the pancake drawer? Wassup.
-Scrubs, Ep6 Seas3

Graduation

So, consider me... graduated.

Hasn't really sunk in yet. Had an awesome time though!

At my school we have our graduation and formal on the same night, so we get all dolled up for a night of formalities and frivolity.

Have some pictures:

This is my lovely boyfriend and me (excuse the weird expression):

I haven't mentioned him before, have I? Oh well, in this blog I shall refer to him as The Medic.

This one is of M and I:

So there you go. That was the official end of high school. It's been kind of drawn out - my last DAY of high school was more than a month ago (and it feels like a whole lot longer than that!). But there we are: it's finally over. Finito. Sudah.

It feels good.


Quote of the Day:
(regarding a photo in which M is leaning on Dippers)
Dippers: I'll always be your rock, Emma.
M: And I'll always be your paper!


Quote of the Day II: (can't believe I forgot this one!)
Fred: You can't graduate us!
George: WE QUIT!
-Hogwarts High, a fanfic by Siriusly Amused

Yeouch!

Ick. Is it just me, or has this week been particularly painful?

It's all my own doing, of course. I endure this pain completely voluntarily.

On Mondy (what am I, Irish? Lol) Monday my friend Kat and I gave blood together. I remember the first time we went, and I was really scared. I don't often walk into these unknown situations. But they were really nice to me, and it was (relatively) easy and painless. I've done it three times now.

It isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Having said that, they do stick a freakin' huge needle in your arm. In Kat's case, twice. (I'm apparently lucky to have very prominent veins. The nurses comment on it every time I go, in the same manner as "Wow, I really like your shirt".)

I did almost faint once. It was amazing how quickly the nurses reacted. Before I knew it, I was lying back in the chair with a glass of water and a fan blowing straight on me.

Anyway, I got this pretty cool sticker that says "Be nice to me... I gave blood Today". I wanted to take a picture of it for you but my camera has gone *POOF*... so you get a real blood blood drop instead. :)

However, not all my voluntary pain has been so selfless. Today I (dun dun dun...) had my legs waxed.

I mean, seriously, who the hell decided, "Oh wait, I know how to remove hair from legs! Cover it in hot wax and rip it out!"?

It probably hurt so much because I haven't done it in so long. I got sick of forking out $40 just to writhe in pain, so I reverted to shaving. It so happens, though, that my Year 12 Formal is on Monday night and I wanted to be properly defuzzed for my pretty purple dress, hence the forking and writhing. So now, my legs are covered in these horrific red spots, this sticky lotion stuff, little patches of wax (which is, annoyingly, clear, meaning I can't see it unless the light is right), and these stray hairs that, despite the torture, somehow survived.

And you know which one hurt more? Not the selfless act which can save lives, oh no. The was just a couple of needle pricks. It was the beauty torture.

Grrr.


Quote of the Day:
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

-Albert Einstein


P.S. If you haven't seen it, the wonderful Team StarKid of A Very Potter Musical fame has a new project on YouTube: Me and My Dick, surprisingly endearing and funny as hell. Check it out!

FREEDOM!!!

Hey guys, sorry I've been offline for awhile. I've been a little busy, what with FINISHING YEAR 12 AND ALL.

:)

Sorry, I'm totally not over it yet.

Anyway, so I had my last exam yesterday (Chemistry) and it went really well. Very exciting! And now I have lots of free time on my hands, which I will spend doing... lots of useful things, and lots of really pointless things as well, just because I can.

Seriously, I can't tell you how good it feels not to have to worry about study any more. I mean, I still have things to worry about (like university, earning money, teaching dance next year, etc etc etc) but this thing that has been hanging over me for so long is finally gone.

It's a bit weird, though. Final exams have been this massive roadblock for all of us ever since we started high school. For five years, they've been looming over us as the be all and end all of... everything.

My experience? They weren't that bad.

Sure they were stressful. Sure it sucked having to study every single day for months and months. But the fact is, they felt kind of like every other test we've done this year. They were even in the same room. And after sitting three (wait... four) trial exams, countless tests and supervised tasks and three proper exams (plus the three I sat last year) I feel like an old hand.

Just for fun, here's a list of things I would not have survived Year 12 without:

-My family. All of them. Even my extended family who sent me lots of encouraging text messages before exams. I love you all!
-My friends, aka The Bench Mob. I know not all of you have quite finished yet, but in just a few days it will all be over and we will have survived! Together!
-Scrubs. My brother and I have collected every season on DVD during the year. I've found episodes of Scrubs to be particularly good for study breaks, being the perfect length (20 minutes). I swear, watching this show has kept me sane.
-Minesweeper. Whoever invented this game should be made a saint. Not only have I got my best time on Expert down to 135 seconds, I've found it to be really good for getting my mind off exams. The same goes for Sudoku puzzles.
-Dancing. For those of you who don't know, I help teach Irish Dancing at a little school here in Darwin, and I'm so glad I made the effort to keep it going this year. It's been hard work, but it's a wonderful escape, and working with the little kids is so rewarding.

Okay, that will probably do. Here's to never having to do Maths or Chemistry ever, ever, ever again!


Quote of the Day:
"Procrastination isn't the problem, it's the solution. So procrastinate now, don't put it off."
-Ellen DeGeneres

English!

One down, two to go! How exciting.

Just a quick update to say that I'm pretty sure I didn't fail my English exam - and I'm very excited that I'll never have to write another English essay again! The questions were pretty good, including one that fitted my text absolutely perfectly (yay!).

Apparently Mr. English Teacher has been going around saying, "How banal, the questions were so banal." If you haven't guessed, intimidation through vocabulary is his thing. He even got an award on our last day to that affect, called the Pomposity award. He said, "WHAT!!? I'm not pompous!" and we were like, well actually, yes you are. Extremely pompous. Case in point, right now.

Anyway, enough about him. I never have to see him in his very scary footy shorts ever again... unless I accidentally run into him at Woolies, which I did once. I never want to again though. He's a BIG man, and the shorts are extremely disturbing, especially if you're not expecting to see them.

And oookay, I'm going to shut up now, before I accidentally declare undying love for my English teacher or something...



Quote of the day:
It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
- William G. McAdoo

Study study study

Number of hours until my English exam: 32

Number of quotes I need to know for my English exam: 44

Number of times I have stopped studying to check my emails/blog/play minesweeper: Too many.

I have a secret ... I'm not very good at studying. People assume I must be, because I get good marks, but I think it's more to do with the way I think, and my memory, than studying hard. I tend to get distracted (like right now!)

I'm currently surrounded by pieces of paper with things like "The horror! The horror!" (Conrad's Heart of Darkness) and "A shudder in the loins engenders there" (Yeats' "Leda and the Swan"). My room looks like a cyclone hit it - schoolbooks, pens, university prospectuses, eraser shavings and previous exams are everywhere, and I can't remember the last time I put any clothes away (although I have a theory that it is easier to find clothes on the floor than in my even-messier chest of drawers).

I know that this probably isn't the best environment to be studying in. I actually had plans to get a bit of a filing system going - Chemistry crap goes in this draw, Maths crap goes in here... it seems a bit late to do it now. So I'm soldiering on.

I've been told by every single one of my teachers that I should be studying for AT LEAST five hours a day. I know people who do eight hours a day. Me? I think I managed three yesterday.

I think that, at this point, I just can't let this get to me. There's no use cramming, for one. Also, I know that everyone learns in a different way, so it's possible I don't need to study that much (I've been getting good marks all year like this). It's also possible that that's just wishful thinking, but I'm sticking with it. And hey, it's too late to worry about it now.

Here's hoping this tactic doesn't fail me when it matters.

*

A shout-out to my new readers! It's great so see some people I don't actually know on here. Keep up the wonderful comments! I promise I'll try to reply to them all.


Quote of the day:
Hermione - This year I plan to study a lot--
Ron - Well, that would be cool if you were actually hot!
"Goin' Back", A Very Potter Musical

The End: Part II

An update on my end-of-schoolness: I've handed in my last piece of work EVER (my Composing and Arranging folio and major work). That just leaves three exams and my final Music Solo Performance moderation.

I've had so many "last"s recently. My last test (matrices, five weeks ago), my last assignment for an examinable subject (a chemistry prac), my last day of classes (on which we actually did quizzes and went out for lunch), my last actual classes (a few days earlier), my last day of school... it's exciting, frightening, a huge relief and sad all at the same time.

A huge relief, since this year has been tough at best (and torturous at worst), and I really need it to be over for the sake of my mental health.

Exciting, because a new phase in my life is about to start - adulthood.

Frightening, because I don't know where that will lead me.

Sad, because there are lots of people that I probably will never talk to again... plus I'm a big softie and will actually miss school once it's over, even the hard bits, and the teachers.

As a celebration of my wonderful life at school, I'll leave you with a quote from my hysterical chemisty class of '09, the day we were learning about cleaning agents.


Quote of the day:
Random kid #1 - What's hard water?
Random kid #2 (with a totally straight face and without missing a beat) - Ice.


EDIT: Whoops, forgot to wish a VERY HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY to CC!!