touch the sky

okay i lied, i'm back. i had a sudden epiphany, and needed to express the fact that despite the fact that i found the classes incredibly grating and can't do the subjects very well at all and i find them both quite difficult, i will really, genuinely miss literature and philosophy. the subjects themselves and everything we have to study in them are so so beautiful. goodbye keats, aristotle, chekhov, sophocles, murdoch, socrates etc. - sorry for complaining about you for so long, i love you all.
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bright star, would i were stedfast as thou art--
not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
and watching, with eternal lids apart,
like nature's patient, sleepless eremite,
the moving waters at their priestlike task
of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
no--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
to feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
and so live ever--or else swoon to death.

- bright star, john keats

beatniks are out to make it rich

i've got my last two exams conveniently scheduled on the same day - next monday. so far i have been spending my final studying period doing the following:

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- drinking tea

- facebook

- going on tumblr

- making myself french toast

- making myself fairy bread

- going for long walks in the sunshine

- browsing various opshops

- not studying

yeeah, need to do something about my motivation levels. especially considering that these are my two most difficult subjects and i got a c+ and b+ on my philosophy and media practice exams, respectively. so i'm taking a leave of absence from this blog until the 15th of november. all things aside from exams, life is good.

currently listening to:

ride a white swan - t. rex

shimmy shimmy ya - ol' dirty bastard

try a little tenderness - otis redding

buffalo stance - neneh cherry

time has come today

it's the night before my first year 12 exam. i probably ought to be panicking right now, because while i tend to do quite well in english without making much of an effort, i am really a bit underprepared for this. and since it's late there isn't much i can do right now but hope for the best. at the moment i'm just waiting for the terror of this to hit me.

but the plus side is, in exactly 18 days i will be free from school. and then:
* schoolies
* blondie/the pretenders on december 1
* girls on december 10
* christmas in new york
* summer
* whole life being ahead of me etc.

ps. this song is PHENOMENAL.

graduation

officially graduated from school today. it's a bizarre feeling and i don't think it's quite sunk in yet, possibly the reason why i didn't cry at all, or feel any urge to do so. of course there are still exams, but the bottom line is that today was the one of the last times the entire year 12 cohort will be together and it's so strange to think that i might never see most of these people ever again by the end of the year. i generally don't cope well at all with change but i hope that leaving school and starting all over again will be a good thing for me - i just can't comprehend this concept properly at the moment.

i'm always dreaming and it's never for real

okay so as i found out today, apparently someone i know read a blog post that involved her long long ago (like back in the starting months of my blog) and got upset. which is just awkward. this however, is weird because i deleted that post before i made my blog public to people from my school soooo, apparently my blog was being stalked by people i know somehow even before i made my blog link available and presumably still is. heaven knows how many people are reading my blog that i don't want to. the sentiment about the blog post in question is still there i suppose but i don't really care anymore, fuck school and all these petty stupid school things that everyone gets wrapped up in, sick of all this rubbish

season of the witch

school will be the death of me, it's all reaching fever pitch now with final exams beginning in a little over a month and about a gazillion assessment tasks being thrown at me in the space of the next two weeks. i've already decided to skip a party which anyone who knows me will be aware caused me to die a little inside, but my media final desperately needs to be finished as soon as possible and i have literature and philosophy to worry about and basically i am constantly on the verge of spontaneous combustion from stress. which is really unlike me, considering i have rarely at any point in my life cared about school, but i guess it counts for something now.

however i have spent hours on the ATAR score calculator recently and have decided that as long as i do decently (A or A+) on most of my exams, i may get 94-ish which will be enough to get into arts at melbourne uni, and if i get in the mid-80s i'll still get into arts at monash which is less cool but still quite decent. and once it's all over, freedom. in two months! when did this all happen so fast, i'm not ready for the real world yet!

"i used to think i was the strangest person in the world but then i thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways i do. i would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. well, i hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true i’m here, and i’m just as strange as you."

- frida kahlo

currently listening to:

get ready - the temptations
heartbeat - annie
just - radiohead
territorial pissings - nirvana
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cherry flavoured antacids

distill the life that's inside of me
sit and drink pennyroyal tea
i'm anemic royalty
- pennyroyal tea, nirvana

i've been listening to nirvana and dinosaur jr. a lot lately, i'm not sure why. i never got into them that much originally but they both seem to fit right now.

i officially have 22 days of school left, ever. i'd like to say that this upsets me, but it really doesn't. school has been one of the most depressing and awful components of my life for a long time now, and the last few years have been a slow downward slide into a complete lack of motivation to do any work anymore. which is fortunate because i'm almost certainly going on a gap year next year, after so much of my time spent convincing my parents that it isn't, in fact, going to cause me to throw in the towel and never go to university. it's weird to think that i'm almost finally free, to an extent anyway.



currently listening to:
just like heaven (the cure cover) - dinosaur jr.
nothing but a heartache - the flirtations
back on the chain gang - the pretenders
daddy never understood - the folk implosion
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l'enfer, c'est les autres

this is the most boring year of my life yet. all i do is lie at home watching the office and avoiding doing homework, i never go anywhere anymore and i am so sick of high school but it's dragging on forever. and i am utterly resigned to not doing that well at the end of the year, i have never been motivated to do well in my life and it's not going to start now because everything i do is just an endless pathetic learned-helplessness cycle

currently listening to:
don't look back in anger - oasis

back on the chain gang - the pretenders

silver soul - beach house

will you still love me tomorrow - the shirelles______________

idiot wind

generally i keep to myself most of the time, and i like to think that i'm not universally hated because i don't do anything to directly piss people off. however, their are a number of total fucking bitches that exist in my life that dislike me for whatever personal reasons and i would prefer to be rid of them permanently. fortunately this song exists to make me feel better.

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i woke up on the roadside

daydreaming bout the way things sometimes are

visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head

and are making me see stars

you hurt the ones that i love best and cover up the truth with lies

one day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzing around your eyes, blood on your saddle.

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idiot wind, blowing through the flowers of your tomb

blowing through the curtains in your room

idiot wind, blowing everytime you move your teeth

you're an idiot babe, it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

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without you i'm nothing

these days after the conclusion of year 11, my life consists of this:

- wake up at 9 instead of 6:50
- lie around for most of the morning
- get dressed and walk down to camberwell
- smoke a couple on the way
- put a trashy magazine and a pack of gum on my parent's account at the newsagents
- withdraw some money and buy something at the opshop
- walk around target checking out the cheap shoes
- check out the cheap asian store on the way back
- walk home again

so yeah studying for my year 12 health and human development exam is not a part of this schedule at all. really, i should be studying, because this is the one whose results actually count and could potentially decide my future if i do really well or really badly. but frankly i have never studied before in my life and i don't plan to start in year 11, or next year for that matter. thankfully most of my subjects are english based ones that you can't really study for, or folio based ones that don't have an exam.

i was looking for a job and then i found a job, and heaven knows i'm miserable now. new waitress at a dodgy italian restaurant that gave everyone salmonella a couple of years back. anyway, it's $8.50 an hour for not having any idea what i'm doing, so i can't complain.

i think a boy likes me that i don't like, well i like him as a friend but i'm not attracted to him, awkward

i really should get around to watching true romance one of these days

currently listening to:
trigger ~ sandrine
sonic reducer ~ dead boys
lust in the movies ~ the long blondes
bad romance ~ lady gaga

saw this photo in a magazine when i was 12 and, without knowing who marianne faithfull was, took it in to my hairdresser and asked for the same fringe. true story

saw this photo when i was 14, took it in to the hairdresser and asked her to cut off all my beautiful waist length hair. true story

rebellion (lies)

well things sort of turned out okay. i am not out of the woods yet but i did not get caught, i have not been suspended, and my dad is the best dad in the world for covering for me.

i continue to astound myself with my ability to weasel my way out of drama

cannot wait for this year to be over. everything has happened to me all at once, it's ridiculous. most of it good, some of it terrible. i'm sick of this school bullshit though, i'm a good girl at heart and i feel like i should start acting like one again.

currently listening to:

white rabbit ~ jefferson airplane

chelsea hotel #2 ~ leonard cohen

i'm so bored with the u.s.a ~ the clash

here comes the summer ~ the undertones

.

ridiculously fucked

my school has cracked down on wagging, i've been all but caught and i need to go and do a tearful confession as soon as possible tomorrow if i want my parents to remain in the dark: so far, extremely unlikely that my coordinator will abstain from telling them

i have forged countless notes, wagged countless times, and now i'm fucked. they might even suspend me.

and i have less than a week left of school. what a joke. i cannot believe this has happened, when things were going so well for me. life is a bitch

aw

my facebook activity tonight ~

me: (comments on link posted by friend)
random year 10 girl called isabelle: hi alex, i don't know who you are, but i saw you in the library today and every time i see you around i think 'wow, she's pretty'.sorry if i creeped you out o.O
alex: haha thank you (:

it's the little things.

eewwwww school

homework i have not done these holidays:

- psychology survey. i still have to write the actual survey, survey 15-20 people, write up and graph the results on a scatter-plot, or something like that. due on tuesday (although i'm planning to wag to buy more time, and my teacher's a pushover).

- history essay on socio-cultural movements of the 60s/70s. none of the fun mods-and-rockers stuff, though, it's strictly politically-related movements. due in two weeks.

- literature debate speech. i have it easy, being first speaker, but i still don't know when i will be fucked to write this. due sometime next week.

- study for my health 3/4 SAC. it's not that far away, and being a year 12 subject it actually counts for something. fuck.

homework i have done these holidays:

- .............nah, i got nothing.

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i often wonder whether there is a psychological basis in the phenomenon that time flies when you're having fun?

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currently listening to:

primary colours ~ the horrors

bookends theme ~ simon & garfunkel

hi ho silver lining ~ jeff beck

come monday night ~ god help the girl

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2009 GAT = george clooney

today i completed the general achievement test, which is an exam that basically tests your stills in all areas and creates a generalised score that helps examiners make sure all your assessments are marked accurately. it was three hours long, so it wasn't so fun. however, an elaborate plan was cooked up not long before all of victoria's students sat it: to mention george clooney in one or both of the written exams, to mess with the examiner's heads.

unfortunately, i kind of forgot about mentioning him, but countless other people remembered, and i've been trawling the facebook groups devoted to the plan and reading some of the hilarious ways george clooney was worked into people's written tasks.
by the way, the first written task was about bees, and the second was about material possessions. here are the highlights from both:

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"george clooney is considered a busy man, statistics show that he is in fact as busy as a bee."
"george clooney is not a bee. passing thought."
"although this could be argued to not be a possession, if i was to have a boyfriend who looked like george clooney, i would want to be able to enjoy him, and not constantly feel guilty about such a pleasure."
"in ocean's 11, george clooney's character was a very materialistic man. he was also very sexy in that suit."
"george clooney is the bee's knees."
"the role of the drone bee is one consisting solely of reproduction... not dissimilar to george clooney."
"the pollination of bees is a vital role for the germination of crops. without the bees' pollen the fruits would not seed therefore we would not have the fruits we have today. without the fruits our bodies wouldn't function as they do today and george clooney's movies wouldn't be as good as they are."

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"and that is how materialism can lead to a selfish behavior, much like how george clooney robbed a casino."
"if there's one thing that george clooney can't do it's make honey. we'll leave that to the bees."
"she was just like george clooney if george clooney was female and a bee."
"while they're no george clooney, the male drone bee still manages to attract the female queen bee, and reproduce."
"george clooney strides into the room, nespresso in hand, reminding us of the obsession in our society for possessions. brilliant, george clooney endorsed possessions."
"there are some bees that look exactly like george clooney."
"people are always striving for the best, for the best home, the fastest car and the broadest dvd collection (including the 1994 batman movie, where batman was played by george clooney)."
"george clooney turned down a role in "bee movie". had he known more about bees, he just might have accepted the part."

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i could go on for hours. people who wrote george clooney into their essay, i salute you.

the passing of time leaves empty lives

being a psychology student means i accumulate a lot of irrelevant knowledge about scientific studies. i recently gained an interest in stanley milgram, who is infamous for his studies on obedience (look it up, the results are fascinating). one of his lesser-known projects examined the ‘familiar stranger phenomenon’.

familiar strangers are people that you see most days of your life, but never interact with: people that you might have seen for years at the train station, whilst out walking your dog, or at the gym, but have never even said hello to. in an innovative study, milgram took photographs of people on train platforms during rush hour, and then asked commuters to look at the photographs and circle the people that they saw almost everyday of their lives but had never spoken to. the typical commuter in new york city knew about four familiar strangers.

milgram became fascinated by this strange phenomenon, referring to them as a “special kind of frozen relationship”, and noting: “we spoke to people in station after station, and this is what they told us. as the years go by, familiar strangers become harder to talk to. the barrier hardens. if we were to meet one of these strangers far from the station, say, when we were abroad, we would stop, shake hands, and acknowledge for the first time that we know each other. but not here.”

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all these things that i've done

today was my unofficial birthday. my actual birthday is on march 28, but that would prove difficult to celebrate with my family considering i will be on the plane to germany at the time.

i actually have an extended birthday ~ i hop on the plane at 5pm on the 27th, sometime during the 24-hour flight it becomes the 28th, and then since germany is ten hours behind melbourne we arrive at about 8am on the 28th again. only five days left until i leave :)

since today was the day we chose to celebrate my birthday, i got some presents: a new nikon coolpix digital camera [i can test it out on all the castles in germany], a book of andy warhol portraits, and a $50 gift card for cotton on body. i spent it on two sets of underwear, and eventually went over the $50 limit with a white bathrobe and some adorable grey over-the-knee socks.

we also went to the camberwell markets this morning, where i bought a pair of nicola finetti studded platform heels for $10, a first-edition of the edie sedgwick bio edie: an american biography for $4, and a silk scarf for $20.

i started officially packing for my trip today, and limiting how much i put in my bag is proving a little problematic. normally i'm not a gratuitous over-packer, but there are so many things i want to bring to germany, along with several things i don't really care for but have to pack anyway ~ an awful navy waterproof jacket, an ugly maroon umbrella [mum inexplicably bought one that "matched my uniform" .. ugh], etc. but whatever. i guess if i buy stuff and i have to make room, i can always surreptitiously throw things away. after all, who needs a towel anyway ?

currently listening to:

love is dead ~ brett anderson

dancing with myself ~ nouvelle vague

mersey paradise ~ the stone roses

bubblegum ~ brigitte bardot

psycho for drum machine

several friends and i hit the melbourne grammar social last night, it was mediocre at best. nobody was attractive [my creepy penchant for older men aside], the music was awful [the only highlight was pokerface .. it's a guilty pleasure], and there were 70 people there, max.

i only found out about the social earlier this week so i kind of threw my outfit together, it's not amazing but at least i fit the theme of "white". [spot the odd one out.]

tallest .. but WHY am i standing like that ??

i luv this photo because everyone looks incredibly high and i'm just smiling away obliviously .. my friend was actually falling on me as the photo was being taken [hence my baby-deer legs] but as you can see i am still making a concerted effort to look nice

bathroom photos are classy

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i think everyone enjoyed taking photos more than than the actual social lol