Can't touch me!

All the best, everyone! Hardly anyone has time to update now, I'm no exception. But my love for Family Guy has been rekindled and my love for Craig Ferguson of The Late Late Show has begun. Oh, google/youtube Craig! He's fabulous. He's handsome. He's funny. He's charming. And he has a *drumroll*... Scottish accent *squeals*

Next Paper: Lit
Ok Lear, you don't like me, and I don't like you, but we're going to have to be bedfellows for the next five days. (Bedtime reading, perverts! What were you thinking?!!)

Try to get a hold of the Punch magazine cartoon "At Last", and all my jumbled nonsense will make more sense.

I started off thinking, “ok, this must be a Marxist cartoon, since the role of the masses, represented by the big hand, is emphasised. Done! Then I got around to thinking, “but where is Lenin, and where are the Bolsheviks”? They aren’t anywhere to be seen! Doesn’t the Soviet view always try to emphasise the role of Lenin? So maybe this is a revisionist cartoon, the revisionists focus on the role of the masses as well, except unlike the Marxists who see Lenin and the Bolsheviks as guiding and shaping the reactions of the masses, they see the uprising of the workers and peasants as being quite spontaneous. Futhermore, don’t they talk about the collapse of autocracy under its own weight? This cartoon is a marvellous revisionist depiction. But then, I got around to thinking, “but hey, didn’t the revisionist view only emerge in the 1970s”? This cartoon was published in Feb/March 1917, as the revolution was happening! No time for 60 years to pass to develop a revisionist view drawing on previous historiographical viewpoints! This was on the spur. “Not Liberal”, I think, because Pipes would scoff that the masses were a uniformly passive grey blob with no capacity to take the intiative to overthrow the Tsar. The proximity of the throne to the edge of the cliff suggests a degree of inevitability about the collapse of Tsarism, something Pipes would disagree with. I went on to the internet, tried to do a bit of research on the different historiographical viewpoints of the Russian revolution, somehow made up my mind that the cartoon was libertarian, then realised that the libertarian viewpoint emerged post Vietnam-war; plus we didn’t really talk about the libertarian viewpoint in class. “Oh my,” I thought. “I’m going to have to go with Marxist.”

Complacency is my new enemy.
Goodbye, arrogant jack-squat. I hope you die.

Oh, just when I think I'm done with the whole schmole!

Two days ago:

Me: Hey, you know what. I don't think I'm completely over him.
Sis: Oh. I saw him today.
Me: ??!!
Sis: We had lunch.
Me: ??!!
Sis: As a big group.
Me:How big is 'big'?
Sis: Ok, not that big. Seven people.
Me: Who?!! Who?!!
Sis: *listing names*... P---, M-----, M-----, him, a friend of his, then this girl joined us later.
Me: Did she have long, wavy hair??!!
Sis: Yeah.
Me: Was she skinny??!!
Sis: No, not that skinny... normal.
Me: What was he wearing??!!
Sis: erm *giving me strange look* SHIT-coloured khaki berms. Puma sneakers, hmm, black sunglasses.
Me: What top was he wearing??!!
Sis: I don't know ok? I didn't take extra notice of him. I shouldn't have told you about this.
Me: Ok ok, I don't care anyway.

*silence* My sis goes back to her work, I try to read my history notes.

Me: *meekly* Where was he sitting?
Sis: *lists positions*
Me: HE WAS SITTING NEXT TO YOU??!!
Sis: I didn't talk to him at all!
Me: Did he say anything??!!
Sis: Not to me. He talked to the girl, and to his other guy friend mostly.
Me: What was he eating?!!
Sis: Sausage sizzle.
Me: Yuck, that's disgusting. Who else was eating a sausage?
Sis: Pretty much everyone else except me and M-----.
Me: What was he drinking??!! Coke? Cream soda?
Sis: Beer.
Me: What type? VB??
Sis: It was just beer from the keg.

(YUCK... an alcoholic, Leanne tells me the next day.)

Me: He likes you right? (That's why he sat next to you) He finds you prettier than me! (everyone does.)
Sis: *indignantly* Look, he's a piece of shit ok? I don't give a shit about him!!!!!
Me: *mournfully* No! Don't be so mean!
Sis: He IS a piece of shit, ok?
Me: Yes. Yes he is.
------------------
For the next two days, my 'over-him meter' slips from 83.6% to about say, 45.8%.
I'm pathetic. I'm pathetic. I'm pathetic.

So yesterday, while I was at Pick-and-Save, I decided to chat with the cute Indian cashier. Found out that he's studying at Box Hill TAFE.
Pffft, I'm good at this.

H---- Garner, author of my lit text The Children's Bach came to school today. Preoccupied as I was with practice exams, practice exams and more practice exams, I nearly forgot about it; consequently I didn't know what to expect when I came tromping out of Homeroom and into lit class. I suppose if I had given more thought, I would have imagined a slightly snobbish, cranky old eccentric writer.

But then, if I had given it more thought, I would easily have come to the conclusion that the author of such a beautiful novel could never be herself anything but lovely. Oh, she really was! She's in her 60s but looks like she's in her early 50s. She's petite, dressed sensibly (plain, no-nonsense long brown coat, black pants and strange brown shoes), bespectacled. Nothing at all intimidating about her appearance, althought the sheer force of her intelligence hits you the moment you enter the room; this woman exudes intelligence. She's the kind you imagine chatting to for hours, talking about just really smart things. Oh, and not just intellectual things, you could talk to her about pop culture and she'll probably have things to say that would fill pages and pages and pages of notebooks (her daughter is an actress, and she has rock musician friends - but she didn't at all name drop, that was just background research on my lit teacher's part.)

Probably the most incredible thing about her is how down-to-earth she is, completely without any airs or irritating affectations. In fact she was a little nervous at first and gradually warmed up to us; she had a lovely sense of self-deprecating humour and the most glowing smile. Ms Garner obviously isn't used to adulation, blushing when we gave her a standing ovation. And she never, ever put anything we said down. She always listened attentively, was always open to our intepretations. She even brought her diaries from the 1980s, at the time when she was writing the novel, and read out little excerpts for us (whoa - we got a peek at the diary of one of Australia's contemporary classic novelists. Tell me that isn't giving you a literary orgasm!), shared her frustrations and fears about writing the novel. In short, novelists are humans too, no matter how bursting to the seams their brains are, they share the same fears and anxieties and neurotic tendencies that we plebians do.

Oh, isn't she lovely? (And aren't I a major boot-licker?) She's not going to ever read this, but...
Ms Garner, your novel has been bumped up to my second favourite novel of all time.

Do you get those days when you wake up with a horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach? And nothing quite goes right. I had a free period 3 and 4 today and could have gone home at 10.45am , but because we had compulsary assembly in last period, we had to stay until 3.30pm.

I left. I left at 12, feeling guilty and a little bit scared of the consequences of leaving when I wasn't supposed to. I trammed down Camberwell to the train station. Walked into the station. Waited. Train to flinders came. Doors opened. I stood at the doors and thought, "This isn't right. If I step into that train, I am going to take a step in a moral direction I don't want to go. This isn't right."

So I took a step back, walked out of the station, and took the tram back to school. I can imagine how stupid the world thinks I am. They must be thinking - Oh stupid you, you could have got an extra 4 hours of study done, but you decide to go back to school, you chicken. Do you want a pat on the back for doing the 'right thing'? Want a party thrown in your honour? A statue erected along St. Kilda Road? Do you want it to read - "Here stands A.C. Integrity and rock solid conscience, or a foolish, chicken hearted time waster?"

No, I don't want a pat on the back. I don't want a statue along St Kilda road. All I want is a world (that doesn't exist anymore.)

So I do the 'right thing'. I didn't expect to be rewarded for it. BUT I DID NOT ASK TO BE BLOODY PUNISHED FOR IT. (as in, divine punishment) because things took a turn for the worse after I went back. Like the most shit boring assembly in the history of assemblies. Like having the bloody tram after school take 15 bloody minutes to come. Like sitting across some annoying gabbling year 9s. Like having bloody carey people on the tram (no there's nothing wrong with them, it's not their fault, it's just that their school conjures up unpleasant associations in my mind because of...) Like being laughed at again and again over some money thing (can't explain this) Like exploding over something small. Like coming home and taking out my frustrations at my mum and sis. Like walking along the Tam and getting sand in my shoe. Like sitting on the grass near the botanical gardens and getting ants in my pant(ies). Like slipping down the steep slope and getting a few scrapes because of that. Like getting locked into the gardens and having to walk all the way to gate F. Like having to pass by Sturt street and having old wounds reopened. Like listening to a song and having my iPod die on me. And it was a great song, too.

Ok. Self-pitying rant is over. I'll be good now.
--------------------
"A ring has been created that reminds men that it's their wedding anniversary. The Remember Ring heats up every hour the day before the chosen date to remind the wearer of its significance. The heat is created by a small internal device. All you have to do is specify your anniversary date when you order the ring and it will be programmed accordingly. " the Age oddspot, Friday September 29 2006

No frickin way. Helping men get away with not knowing their anniversary dates? That's bullshit. What, you mean their brains are too occupied with sex, cars and booze to remember the anniversary of oh, a 'tiny, insignificant, unimportant' thing like the day they formalise and ceremonise their commitment to their partners, whom they choose to you know, spend the rest of their lives with, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy that they need to rely on this?? Bullshit! Don't let them get away with it!

Am I turning into a femi-nazi? Maybe.
But men, they're all the same, all the same after all.
Apt to whack in a quote from P&P (never diss the Austen, man!)
"Careful my dear, that savors strongly of bitterness."

Physics Cheat Sheet: I spend hours slaving away on an A4 piece of paper, cramming my squashed writing into as little space as possible. And for what? For something that lies practically untouched during the exam? For that lovely sense of security. Because we are all kisau, (yes believe it or not, private school ang moh girls can be smart and kiasu and work way too hard and pretend they're not, just like Singaporean muggers. Not that different after all.)

Took a 20 min walk at quarter past eight along City Road, St Kilda Road, and Southbank Boulevard. Beautiful street names, pretty terrible walk - loud trucks rumbling by spewing stink gas everywhere, construction dust in my face, motorcycles BBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAZZZZOOOOOOZOOOOOOOOOOMMMing by (assholes!)
On the bright side though, it was green lights all the way at the pedestrian crossings, every single time. My lucky day!
-------------
I wish I didn't have such large, knobbly knees.
-------------
"I believe Man and Fish can co-exist peacefully."
Who said that?
Whoever can guess, will earn er, a big pat on the back from me!
Hint: He's a politican. He's an idiot. And oh no, I've given the answer away already.