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.

Eight Hours - Twentysix Hours - Four Hours

Asleep. Awake. Asleep.

Let me run you all through the past 48 hours:

5:00pm Monday-
On comes the Channel Ten five o'clock news. Me and my dad are watching.

5:30pm Monday-
On comes Tim Bailey, and he plugs his "Take a Pic" competition, in which you take a photo of the weather, send it in and you go into a weekly draw for a $270 Panasonic Lumix camera.

5:32pm Monday-
Dad suggests I enter it, win, then sell the camera for a free $270 towards my DSLR. I laugh.

4:30pm Tuesday-
Dad points out a large rainbow nearby our house. He suggests I photograph it. I attempt this. I fail.

4:40pm Tuesday-
Dad suggests I send the photo in anyway. I say I'd be better off taking a shot of the sunrise. He says that's a good idea. I say I will. He is doubtful.

11:30pm Tuesday-
Danielle, my sister, gets dressed up in fancy clothing out of boredom. I say, sarcastically, "You should come down to the beach at sunrise tomorrow with me." She likes the idea.

12:01am Wednesday-
I say I'm going to bed. Danielle says it's not worth it, sleeping for only 5 hours. I, with my exquisite late night decision making skills, think it's much more sensible to stay up the entire night.

2:00am Wednesday-
I look up the sunrise time online. Discover it is 6:18am. All is well.

4:00am Wednesday-
Danielle and I realise that staying up all night was a terrible idea. This is just the point were it's not worth going to bed. We persevere.

5:00am Wednesday-
Danielle starts to fix up her fancy clothing in preparation for departure. I worry about clouds ruing the rise.

5:35am Wednesday-
We are ready to go, and are heading to the door, when mum wakes up. She thinks we're crazy. We leave.

6:00am Wednesday-
We take many photos (which totalled 242 shots) of Danielle, me the sunrise and the beach. Clouds are not obscuring the sunrise too much.

6:18am Wednesday-
First sliver of sun peaks above the horizon. We are impressed with the accuracy of the online sunrise predictor.

6:25am Wednesday-
Sun has already disappeared up into the clouds. We continue to take photos of Danielle and things.

6:40am Wednesday-
We head home, battery empty.

7:30am Wednesday-
The effects of staying up all night prior to a thirty minute return walk to the beach start to show. We are both very tired.

8:30am Wednesday-
Danielle collapses on the couch, delirious.

9:30am Wednesday-
I send in one of the best shots of the sunrise I could find.

11:30am Wednesday-
I collapse on the bed, delirious.

3:00pm Wednesday-
Danielle awakes. I awake. The four hours sleep I got didn't help.

5:00pm Wednesday-
Five o'clock news begins. I wonder if they will announce today's weather winner before I finish writing this  blog.

5:26pm Wednesday-
They announce today's winner. It's not me. I, in my arrogant opinion, think my shot is better.

There you have it. The past 48 hours. Happiness, sadness, regret, disappointment, tiredness, awe etc.

Below are some shots of the sunrise. More will come with my next blog post about my photography.

The shot I entered into the weather competition. If only I had a DSLR camera!

--

A shot by Danielle, which she uploaded to her blog.

--

Danielle's outfit, and one of her many, many sleep-deprived poses. (6:10am)

--

Danielle drew those onto her face all by herself.

--

Wearing the fancy clothes that had fallen off Danielle on the walk down, I was looking a little retarded awesome.

---

I'll leave that there, as I'm slightly incoherent during my sleep-deprivation. More hilarious pictures of Danielle begin a little bit weird to follow, amongst many other, more interesting things. I'll also bring you Part II.5 in the Blood Tests and X-Rays (oh, and a birthday) series, "The Unexpected Appointment", on Saturday.


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

Blood Tests and X-Rays (oh, and a birthday) [Part II]

The following is part two of the three part mini-series on the medical ailments of Nick's knee. And a birthday.

I left you all (ie. the massive, captivated audience that doesn't really exist) on the edge of your seats last week waiting to hear the results of the blood test and X-ray on my right knee. Well, I have another enthralling tale to... enthral you all with. It begins at 2:30pm on a Friday.

I arrived at the doctor's surgery with my mother at the aforementioned time, and, once again, I found myself sitting in the waiting room for a time, before my doctor asked if I would mind seeing a training intern who was down for a few weeks. My mother said I'd be happy too.

In we went, and the intern ("Jess"), sat me down and took a fairly extensive family history on everything from skin diseases to breathing problems before we starting discussing my knee. She asked me to do a few walks, and the 'duck walk' (an excellent look, for anyone with dignity) was the only one awkward enough to make the ball pop out again. She gave me a knee exam, mainly for her practice, before taking a look at the results of the tests.

The blood test was fine, completely normal (my veins are good, apparently), but the x-ray showed something a little more interesting: Osteochondritis Dissecans (oss-tee-oh-con-dry-tis des-ee-cans). The intern didn't have a clue what this was, which made me very happy, as I hated boring illnesses. Then the doctor entered, and yelled at the intern for looking at the test and x-ray results without making a prognosis. 

We went into a different doctor's office (I'm not sure why) and the two made a list of all the possible problems that my knee may have been experiencing (I'm happy to report that Osteochondritis Dissecans was the most interesting sounding of the lot). My doctor then explained that the problem was a little bit of cartilage had broken of and was floating around my knee. This was a pretty common thing among teenagers, as the growing bones mean the blood flow doesn't quite reach the outermost parts of the bones and cartilage, causing the part to die and fall off. 

The doctor said we should go and see an Orthopaedic Surgeon who would most likely do a CAT scan on my knee before deciding whether or not to cut up my knee and pull out the little bit of cartilage. We are booked in with him on December 3rd. For the time being it's looking like I'll  get out of sport for a while and stick to some exercises my mum instructed me to do to strengthen the muscles surrounding my knee.

Anyway, the next birthday on the agenda is my dad's (October 28th), which I now have to shop for. Kinda sucks (for me) that it's so close to Father's Day. Oh, I've also felt a strange, hard lump about 1cm in diameter on the back left part of my neck, which both my parents think is related to the tick I found in my ear yesterday, which caused my left ear to swell wonderfully (and somewhat painfully). Provided the lump isn't cancer, I'm still hoping it's something more interesting still.

Still more wonderful things to report on, but I'll wait for another post for all of them.

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

Blood Tests and X-Rays (oh, and a birthday)

Anyone who has spoken to me for a space of time over the last month will have probably heard me complaining about my sore knee, and, if they were lucky enough, would have seen the little round ball of something which rolls up from underneath the kneecap and sits underneath the skin until I roll it back down. Quite an event, I know.

Anyway, I showed my dad the little ball one day and his limited knowledge of the medical profession did not extend far enough to have any idea what the hell was going on. He booked me in for a doctors appointment and off we went. 

After sitting in the waiting room for 25 minutes, the doctor (described by my dad as "one of those old, trustworthy, country GP's") showed us to his office. I described my ailment to him and he, too, was at a loss, even after poking around my knee for a few minutes. I don't think he quite grasped what was going on with the little ball, but he narrowed it down to three possibilities: it's rheumatic (he reminisced about a case from 30 years ago where someone came in with a sore knee and left with rheumatic fever), it's localised arthritis (my Dad quickly dismissed this after we'd left as it didn't fit with his limited knowledge of medicine), or it's something else. That's the second time in six months (after four and half years of never seeing the doctor) that I've gone to the doctor and they've not known what's wrong with me. 

Anyway, he prescribed a blood test and X-rays, so ff we went to the nice lady from Capital Pathology who fell in love with my veins as soon as she saw them. After suggesting I join the 'vampire club' and admiring my hair, she jabbed a needle into right arm and, low and behold, nothing happened. She told me that it wasn't the fault of my wonderful veins but that of the needle she was working on (something which offered surprisingly little comfort). I rolled up my left sleeve (more exclamations about my wonderful veins) and in went another needle, and, low and behold, nothing happened. She laughed that off, and, with the needle still in my arm, she switched cartridges and found success. She taped that up and off we went to Radiology.


We sat in the Radiology waiting room for another ten minutes before I was taken into the radiation room and told to remove my shoes by a lady who had the air of someone who likes their job but knows it isn't going to take them any further in life. We tried out a few different positions under the big, awesome x-ray machine which I was rather impressed by and she took a few shots and sent them off to the doctor. I should hear the results of both tomorrow, and I have a horrible feeling that the doctor's going to say "we're not sure what's happening there, but it should fix itself up if you take it easy for a few weeks". I had disappointing results (localised arthritis sounds much more dramatic than "I don't know.").

In other news, I celebrated my fifteenth birthday on Monday, after waking up to an empty house (my mum at a conference, my dad doing maintenance work up the mountains and my sister working at McDonald's). Once my dad and my sister got back we went out to lunch and I received $300 towards my DSLR camera (amongst other things). I now have a grand total of $407.15, and I'm aiming for $800 by the end of the year. Wish me luck.

My birthday party with those pretend friends of mine will be happening when things warm up a little later in the year.

I think 636 words will do for now.

In memory of the wondrous art of pre-emptive gluing,
Nick. (654 now)

You know what I hate?

Teachers who care too much.

I mean, seriously. Get over it. I get that you are paid to teach us and all, but it's about time you realised that no one cares.

I don't have a problem with the ones that tell us what's going on and half-wish some of us were listening, it's those teachers that sit you down and don't give half a rat's arse about anything other than making sure everybody in the room is giving them their undivided attention, especially the ones that think they have some control over the room but don't.

Take, for example, the substitute teacher we had for computers recently. He was attempting to extend a little authority over the room, and had the following conversation with me (now, this is paraphrasing, because it was a long time ago and I wasn't paying much attention):

Teacher:

Nick, sit down.

(I suppose I should set the scene a little. This was in a computer room, and I had wheeled myself [as I was on a wheelie chair] over to some other people's computers. The aforementioned teacher was determined to put a stop to this)

Me:

I am, sir.

Teacher:

[fuck me.] In front of your computer.

(I should point out, anything in [square brackets] was only thought, not actually said)

Me:

[fuck me.] Okay, sir.

(I wheeled myself back over to my computer)

Teacher:

Now, Nick, I don't want you leaving this spot again, okay?

Me:

I was only trying to help Anna, sir.

Teacher:

[like fuck you were.] If she needs help with anything, she can ask me.

(I didn't realise everyone swears so much in their mind until right now, either)

Me:

But you're not the IST teacher, sir. She asked me because she knows I know the way to do it, sir.

(I didn't have to call him 'sir', I was hoping it'd annoy him more)

Teacher:

No. Nick. This here (He gestured to the computer I was working on) is your space. I want to stay in your space, and use your computer. Okay?

Me:

[fuck off.] It's not really my computer, sir. It's the school's. Technically, this space is theirs, too.

(the teacher gave up on me at this point. I spent the rest of the lesson playing games, because I'm such a vindictive rebel)

I'll end this here, because I've forgotten the point of the story.

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

And so it begins...

Hello, agitated readers. Consider this a post of sundry greetings and meagre welcomes. Come; take a seat under the metaphorical tree of Eternal Wisdom, a tree of wonder and glory, full of happy fruits and mystical leaves. At the moment, the tree is in spring, full of buds and berries. This tree, if it were to exist, would grow indefinitely in the thick forests of a magical reverse-Siberia, a place with endless horizons of forests which also happens to follow the seasons of the Southern Hemisphere.

This is my small corner of the internet, where I shall spend a little time each week to speak with my very own captivated audience (that one that doesn’t actually exist), if I can be bothered. It is a place where I will share my thoughts, my photography and my wondrous tastes in music and television. I’m sure you’ll have the time of your life. Do read on.

So, what can you expect from this wondrous little blog? Pretty much what you’d expect from an hour with any near-fifteen year old introvert (albeit one that likes being the centre of attention) with a wonderful sense of pseudo-intelligence. Not all that much, really.

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

Nick.