Christmas is a time for public service announcements

Last Tuesday my Year 9 English class was lucky enough to head off to St Pats to move the contents of a library out in preparation for renovation (exciting times). Outside the library all the little kids were preparing for the nativity scene (with carols!). I managed to annoy all the teachers by pushing a trolley around piled with books, which distracted all the children during 'Holy Night'. Good times.

Anyway, we all gave up on the books and sat down to watch the kids, and one classmate said that they think Christmas should be a time to warn everyone about the dangers of unsafe sex. After we all told her we had no idea what she was talking about, she explained that the whole story about Mary is basically about covering up an unwanted pregnancy, and that you should always plan your births or people might just go on about it for 2000 years.

This idea evolved into the whole message of stranger danger; Santa Claus is the creepy, old, paedophile figure. Somewhat ironically, the kids then started singing 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', which seemed only to emphasise the message. The lyrics are incredibly creepy when put in the context of an child molester:

Oh! You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why:

Santa Claus is coming to town!

He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
He's gonna find out
who's naughty or nice.

Santa Claus is coming to town!

He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!

Anyway, I suppose that's just what we do when we're bored.

In other news, all the Christmas decorations are up. How wonderful. Here are some photos:

Click to see it bigger!

Click to see it bigger!

More will come when I get back on my normal computer/take some more.

Also, I'm really annoyed with sunburn now. It's quite painful. The five hours swimming was totally worth it, though. Someone had an underwater camera, so I might have photos from that in a bit. I know you're all super excited to see those.

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick.

Summer is Here

I can see the joy on all your faces.

The Tree of Eternal Wisdom has grown a incredibly large amount of leaves in an incredibly short of time because it wanted to. It can do that, see. Someone has also put up a few Christmas decorations, which I'm sure you all just love. What a wonderful tree.

Anyway, the exams are over, school is a bludge, Christmas is coming round and everyone has given up at trying at anything (even me with this blog). TV has gone downhill since the ratings period ended (except for The Office; that was a good move), and all the ads are incredibly terrible. Especially BCF. I hate BCF. Fuck off, BCF. It has made the list of places/products/services which I'll never go to/buy/employ the use of because of terrible ads. Rivers is another one. As is Continental cup-a-soups.

A quick Google search reveals that other people on the internet share my views. One person summed it up nicely:

Haha – aren't they classic. I think by targeting various smaller groups (and some larger like the HT lovers here) they have collectively alienated their entire customer base.

There is even a Facebook group on the matter. Although it only has 41 fans.

I put up the Christmas decorations today, all by myself (aren't I special!?). We haven't got a Christmas tree yet, though. Everywhere seems to think that if you buy one now IT WILL DIE. Whereas if you buy next Wednesday (when they're getting their stock of trees in), it'll be fine. I do not follow this logic. Apart from that, everything is looking pretty Christmassy, and I'll be taking some photos with my wonderful DSLR for you ALL to enjoy. Soon enough.

Today was a super exciting day: things started well with Christmas shopping (I managed to find one present!), then I got a haircut (I didn't really get as much cut off as I'd wanted), then I was lucky enough to go to the Mirador Christmas Party, which was rocking. Lots of drugs for all the old people there. Good  for them.

I am sure you are all super keen to hear Part Three is the series surrounding the adventures of my knee, which was promised to arrive on December 3rd. Well, basically, mum said that it's not going to warrant surgery, so there's no point going to see a surgeon. I was rather disappointed.

Anyway, that about sums things up for now. The skies outside are dark; I am hoping for much rain. Hope with me. Oh, the countdown has also begun to Project 365. How exciting. I'll have to design a nice background for that blog, too.

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick.

Social Gatherings and a Nikon D3000

And, most unfortunately, exams.

For almost every day last week I went into the local photography store, looking for the store owner, as he was the one who was willing to give me the sale price on the Nikon D3000 early. Every single goddamned day we missed him. On Tuesday, "He won't be back 'til Wednesday". On Wednesday, "He gone out for a few hours". On Thursday, "He's gone out, we're not sure when he'll be back". We went home and waited thirty minutes before calling, "He won't be back in today". On Friday, "He's not in today." I had the feeling I was never meant to get a DSLR camera.

On Saturday, the clouds aligned and I finally met with the store owner. He talked me into a deal which means I now own the Nikon D3000 with the kit lens, a Nikkor AF-S 18-55 mm, a Nikkor AF-S 55-200 mm lens, two $22 UV lens filters, a 2GB memory card, a $60 tripod and a $50 camera bag. All for $1100. The only downside is the I now owe Dad $300. Ah well.

So, anyway, I now own a DSLR camera. How wonderful. I'm yet to find a spot to make good use of it yet, but here are I few shots I took when I traipsed through the garden after the 1 hour 40 minute wait for the battery to charge. You could view the images in all their fine details by clicking on them. But only if you want to.

 The pointy little plants. In pots!

The non-pointy little flowers. Also in pots!

The random creepy little inanimate men at Magic Mountain:

 

One of the many Lorikeets which we've successfully tamed without the use of animal cruelty:

 

So, after the novelty of walking around taking photos had worn off (slighty), I went to a wonderful social gathering at a friend's motel. You can't, of course, sleep at a social gathering with  friends. Especially when you have Twister! We all conveniently forgot about the four exams we were to have throughout the next week,  and spent the night swimming, playing ping-pong and doing all those drugs.

The next day (Sunday), I got home wide awake and full of energy, completely motivated to start studying for the next day's Maths exam. That lasted five minutes. I slept for the next six hours, and I was lucky enough to get up just in time for The Simpsons. I then did a little more studying. Just enough to know that I don't know enough about any of the topics that were to be covered in the exam.

Anyway, the exam went alright, I think. I had to guess a dozen questions and there was one I didn't have time to answer, but apart from that I think it was passable. We'll see. I have Geography up tomorrow, and I'm writing this blog instead of studying for that. Good times.

Tonight's Simpsons episode was a rather good one. Sideshow Bob becomes mayor, don't cha know. When his fraud is revealed in the courtroom, he comes up with the wonderful A Few Good Men parody, "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! No truth handler, you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Wonderful.

That's all the super-exciting tales from my life that I have right now.

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick.

A Week in Review

This week, surprisingly enough. Summed up, for the most part, by a Facebook status I saw yesterday: "Another boring week at school."

I don't know if it's because our usual Computers teacher is so lax with the actual teaching part of his job or we just don't have enough variety in Computers teachers, but whenever we have a substitute teacher they always seem really strict and uptight (see my second blog post). On Wednesday, when we had a double lesson of Computers (that's a straight 104 minutes), we had yet another annoying Computers substitute teacher, much like the one I wrote about earlier, except this one thought he was much cooler. He looked a bit weird, too.

Friday was the day of assessment tasks, starting with a HSIE in-class essay on "The Challenges and Changes Faced in both Urban and Rural Communities", in which I managed to write two and a bit pages in the 50 minutes allocated even with the precious little preparation I did. I then had to present my HSIE speech, which involved reciting the 23 lines of Romeo and Juliet I'd memorised. I think it went alright, although I'm not sure anyone was listening to the quality content because they were all so busy laughing raucously at the many hilarious puns I'd subtly added into the speech.

Yesterday, (that's Saturday) I was lamenting the loss of the internet, which was due to the terrible internet provider we're with, when Dad offered to take my sister and I down to the beach. We were getting ready when Danielle announced she needed to buy new swimmers. A relatively easy and quick job, I thought. How wrong I was. We spent over 90 minutes (only 14 minutes short of a double Computers lesson!) going through every surf and swimwear shop we could find in Merimbula and Pambula. We met one of the store owners, who seemed to be like that creepy uncle that no one really likes, who only owns a surf shop so he can convince teenage girls to wear bikinis, before we went down to spend only half an hour at the beach.

Today Luke is coming round so we can do our Health homework, which will just be lots of fun. I then have to try and remember some of the highlights from the Sydney Camp, as I have to present a thankyou/highlight speech to the teachers on Monday. Joyous days.

In better news, I'm about 80% sure on the DSLR camera I am going to buy, which is the Nikon D3000. It has almost identical specs to the Canon EOS 1000D, but is several hundred dollars cheaper, and all my Dad's and my Uncle's old lenses should attach to it, which will save me even more money. It is only $800, so I can already afford it, and I may even be able to buy it this week. Here's hoping.

Anyway, anyone who has read that should now go and blog some more, as no one else seems to be doing it at the moment.

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick.

Sydney Camp 2009

As outlined in my last post, Year 9 of my school was lucky enough to head to Sydney for three nights. For the most part, it was fun. We camped out on Cockatoo Island, an industrial ship-building site turned camp ground, and my friend Luke and I got a tent on the waterside by chance. We had a good view of Sydney harbour.

We travelled around Sydney looking at all the highlights, like the Jewish Mueseum (wow!), the Maritime Museum (exciting!) and The Rocks (amazing!). It was basically four days of doing nothing with friends, which I was perfectly happy to do. I also wore a tuxedo for one of the days, which was fun.

Here are some photos:

There I am on the left.

At Luna Park.

And on the monorail.

That's all for know.

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick.

"You can't step in the same river twice!"`

We had a wonderfully insightful Science substitute teacher, yesterday, who imparted so much philosophical wisdom (in the form of analogies), he felt it necessary to compare himself with the prophet Jesus Christ, teaching with parables (not blasphemous enough? The comparison was made just underneath Jesus' own crucifix, in the middle of a Catholic school!). Being a very lazy agnostic, it didn't bother me, but I like to think someone in the class was offended, although I doubt many of them were even listening.

We were discussing the Tectonic Plate Theory, a topic we'd finished studying the previous term, and this teacher seemed to think we were primary school students, who couldn't grasp the idea that all the countries on the world were sitting on massive 'plates', which were moving very slowly, some pushing up against each other, others moving apart. He thought a childhood story would help us all take in the mind-blowing idea, so he told of when he was young, and his mother left a bread and butter pudding unguarded on the kitchen table. He and his brother would each get a fork and jab them into two pieces of bread floating on top of the pudding and push them around, having bread and butter pudding wars (ah, the good old days). He said that was like the Earth's crust, with plates floating around the 'magma custard'. I think it confused more people than it helped.  

• The world, now in an easy to digest dessert!

This somehow morphed into a discussion about change, and how things are constantly moving and evolving. He, being the wondrous literate that he is, said that the term 'river' was not, in fact a noun, but a verb! The water which travels through a river (if river were a verb, then using it in that sentence, as the teacher did, would be incorrect), is, in fact, rivering! He stated that if we were to put our foot into a river, then remove our foot, and then to place it in the river again, we wouldn't be stepping in the same river, as the water we had previously placed our foot in was now some metres downstream. Fair enough, I thought. Doesn't make river a verb, though.

In the end, he didn't manage to relate that analogy back to the Tectonic Plate theory, and instead went on to talk about volcanoes and some traveller who wasn't a tourist and refused to give 40 cents to the indigenous Balinese people. Or something. I'd stopped listening. He gave us some text book questions to answer, answering each as he finished reading the question, then went around handing out musk lollies to everyone.

I was rather confused.

In other news, I'm still swamped by homework, much to my displeasure. I get to study for an HSIE essay, interview an seasoned local about the changes they've seen in the area, finish writing an English speech, finish several Maths questions, pack for next week's Sydney camp, and scan 360 slides for Dad (not technically a homework, but a chore nonetheless).

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick.

PS. Happy Halloween, to anyone who celebrates it. I enjoyed the Google Doodle.

Back to School Tuesday!

After 17 days of school holidays, today was the first day back to school. Hooray.

It only reached 24 degrees (Celsius!)today, but playing softball in full sun with no cool sea breeze with Osteocondritis Descans mad it feel like much more. A rather annoying day to end the run of clouds and rain we've been lucky enough to experience for the past two weeks. I was really enjoying them.

There really isn't too many exciting things to come out of school, so I'll leave that drivel there. Oh, I will rant about all the annoying homework I have to do at the moment, which includes, but is not limited to: six questions on solving simultaneous equations with addition and subtraction and plotting equations on graphs, a science assignment in which I have to create a tourist booklet advertising the many wonders of an Australian fossil site, an English assignment in which I have to discuss the themes, motives and use of language devices in a fifteen-line soliloquy or monologue from Romeo and Juliet, a website for Information and Software Technology, and a body of work of two or more surrealist images and three or more bulb photographs for Photography. Life is wonderful

Anyway, moving right along, I'll fill you in on the much-anticipated but little-delivered Blood Tests and X-rays (Oh, and a Birthday) [Part II.5]: The Unexpected Appointment, which turned out to be much less exciting than I had originally hoped, in that the doctor didn't actually want to see me, the receptionist had just made a mistake about whether or not we'd discussed the results of the X-rays, which we had (we're yet to get the X-Ray negatives back yet, though!). It did give me a chance to ask the doctor about the small, hard lump growing out of the gland in the back of my neck. He wasn't worried, and said it was probably because of the tick I pulled out of my ear a while back, and that it'll probably stick around for about a month. How boring. At least I get out of sport until December 3rd, though.

Onto the birthday(s), I'm yet to find an appropriate present for dad, but I'll keep you all informed. It's not looking like he'll even be here for his own birthday, as he's gone travelling up the coast for surfing and sailing endeavours. As for my own birthday, I still hope to go to Mumbulla Falls (picture below) with a bunch of friends, and I've done a little research into hiring mini-buses to see if I can convince my dad into driving us all up there for the day. From what I can see, the local transport hire business hires out mini-buses for $143 a day, so I could invite 12 friends and charge 'em all ten bucks to cover the costs. From the many wonders of Google, it would also appear that you don't need a special license to drive the 12-seater buses, which would be a wonderful advantage. The only problems I could see would be cheap-skates not wanting to pay ten bucks, dad not wanting to be in charge of so many kids at a place with lots of dangers (bring another adult?!), and the bus struggling along the steep hills and dirt roads. I'll keep you posted.

The image below is the best I could find to show of the many wonders of Mumbulla Falls: slide (usually with more water) in the middle, jumping rock to the right, and big, dry slide in the middle (which ends at about the same point as the water filled slide).

Image taken from http://members.ozemail.com.au/~claw/frankenblogger.htm, via Google Images.

That about wraps things up for now, and I'm surprised with how long this post turned out to be.

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick.