sweet, sweet solitude

It's Exeat Weekend again, and everyone's left the boarding house.

Except me.

Well, ok. Me, and the Year 12s. But I've got the whole floor all to myself and it's never been better. The BH stayed open this exeat weekend because the year 12s are in the midst of their VCE/IB exams. Technically, everyone else is required to clear the BH, but I asked Mrs. FW if I could stay, and she agreed without much drama.

I wanted so badly to stay in (ironically) cause firstly, I feel a little out of place at my guardian's, and secondly, the finals are in 2 weeks and the best opportunity to study is when you have all your books with you and everyone else gone. It's hard, sometimes, to get down to work when you've got noise echoing up and down the corridor and people popping in to your room every now and then for various reasons. A fine break it is, from the usual bustle of the BH. The 2 solid hours of maths I did last night had never been so fulfilling.

Meanwhile, apart from study, I've been up to some pretty silly things, all of which, has been faithfully recorded by Charlene on her blog (the link down there!) much to my embarassment. But to make life easier for you, here's what we've affectionately dubbed specimen 1. If she's posted more by the time you read this, scroll down and look for the heading 'specimen 1'.

Well now, that's enough. It's time to carpe diem, don't you think? ^^

end of school: a release from sexual repression?

I was going to post more about Final Day at school, but no mood lah. Been busy recently, and with the finals 2 weeks away, ngh. It was entertaining nonetheless. The Year 12s replaced the big PLC sign at the main gate with a sign saying "Virgin Megastore" (*ba-dum-chinggg!* *laugh track*) and showed us a video, some mutilated their school uniform to fit with the theme and basically mucked up the school grounds.

Incidentally, the theme was, to my distaste, BARBIE. Great. Talk about the epitome of bimbo-ness. So we had year 12s dressed mostly in modified hot pink uniforms, black and white photographs of naked Barbie and Ken dolls copulating, having sex in various positions and gang banging in the sink, on the piano and any other 'creative' places the Year 12s could think of. Then we had the usual vegemite and honey on stair railings, glue on water taps, butter on toilet seats stuff, with the new addition of condoms on the railings.

I hear Scotch College had LOTS of stink bombs let off in assembly and halfway through, had a guy wearing only a mask and a thong run across the stage. But...it was probably worse in other schools.

Sigh. So Graduation Day in CHS came and went...photos please, I guess. The Ed-board lunch sounded very cool too, pictures Hui Lynn! ^^ Well guys, rock on. Time for me to return to my World Lit reading of Albert Camus' The Plague.

Final Day in the BH

Year 12's final day. I won't say I enjoyed it terribly, but it certainly was a memorable experience. Nothing like the subdued, boring, teary Majlis Perpisahans in CHS. But then again, they get a lot of chances at that, with their Valedictory Dinner, Final Assembly (where they all receive their testimonials and awards), Final Day (a.k.a. Muck Up Day) and finally the Graduation Dinner Dance.

The boarders had their fair share of final day rituals, which started the night before and stretched right through the next morning. 5.30 am this morning, we were all unceremoniously jarred awake by torturous strains of the school song, the song that never ends, and a medley of others blaring over the PA system. They were all sung by one of the Year 12's. Oh god. On top of that, a few of them were running up and down the corridor, pounding on doors and yelling "Get up! Get up!", armed to the teeth with shampoo-bottle-water-guns.

Eventually, grumpy, sleepy, unamused non-year 12s emerged from the rooms, with faces that reiterated the "This is so retarded." that Sarah grumbled. Some time after having to get past the newspaper stuck to our room doorways, the upturned chairs and string obstacle course, we were herded like sheep onto the boarders lawn, where we were greeted with an assault of cold water down our heads. I was lucky enough to dodge away and get only my back a little wet.

And of course, what better way to start the day with a group jog on the school field on grass heavy with ice-cold dew in slippers at 5.30 am in the morning. Only to meet at the pavilion to have your hair slathered with toothpaste, shaving cream and/or odd smelling hair gel and have your face drawn all over with lipstick, glitter paint and your nose rubbed blue. Officially, the Boarders Yr 12 Final Day was a day for them to celebrate the end of school by sharing their fun and festivities with the younger year levels, unofficially, it was the day to exact revenge on your enemies.

My group got off pretty light I daresay, having not crossed the Year 12s in any significant way, so I got off with a bit of gel and makeup. By the time Cheau Wern was done with me, you could play tic-tac-toe on my left cheek, darts with my forehead and start a star chart on my right cheek. But it wasn't half as bad as some particular people. Too bad for them, really. I shan't go into detail about the activities they prepared for us, this post is long enough as it is.

Only, it involved a dog shampooey, shaving creamy, toothpastey, watery, soapy tarpaulin slide down the relatively steep two-tiered slope on our school field; a huge tub of muddy, raw-eggy dark brown water; runny flourescent red and green jelly; and lots, lots, lots of water. By the end of it, though we had it mild, we were all waddling, trudging and shivering our way back to the lawn with sore, soggy, soapy, grass-stained bums and covered with things that you don't normally cover yourself with...willingly. ^^

More waterfights (with the aid of the lawn sprinkler system this time :) and revengeful dumping of buckets of aforesaid raw-eggy dark brown water on certain people ensued, before we broke into a mad rush for the showers, four cubicles for each floor. Fortunately I was quick in dodging about and managed to stay relatively dry from the waist up, and had a spare towel stowed away in my room so I got to the showers pretty quick. Some of them were still frantically searching for towels which the Year 12s had conveniently removed from each of our rooms.

From what I hear, PLC's pretty strict on the rules regarding muck-up day, and of course the police department have sent out their guidelines to each school to try and keep celebrations under control. In previous years, the Year 12s were allowed to use food in the muck-up and mess up other people's rooms, but not this year. Sure, they bent the rules a bit and snuck an egg here and there and let off a stink bomb in the corridor, but nothing too out of hand.

Ho. Wait till you hear about Final Day at school. Gone, I tell you, the image of PLC as an upright, Christian college. ^^ But I'll leave that for tomorrow. Too long this post, and too short a time you have available to read it presumably. Meantime, I'll try to get my hands on some photos, and hopefully, the hilarious boarders video they screened last night. =) Laterz.

the rut I'm in

It's been ages I know. But barely two weeks since I've been back...feels like forever. So I've been busy this two weeks with athletics mostly, thank goodness it's over now, and all the post-season competitions are finished. *sighs dramatically* That's the problem when you keep winning and qualifying for the next level. Hahah...kidding. Thought you might'ave missed a dose of my narcissism. =)

This weekend was such a whirlwind of activities, I haven't had any time to start on my 2 days overdue English essay. Friday night, I was waitressing at school for the Year 12 Valedictory Dinner (no champagne this time, it was a no-alcohol event =) It seemed like loads of fun for the Year 12s even though I was just there to clean up dirty plates, do the washing up etc. Standing at the back of the hall in the usual white/black waitressing outfit, it was hilarious watching the antics on stage, especially when they started giving out the prizes for the Voteds. Like the girl voted most likely to save the world, or the girl most likely to stay at home (who got a toilet brush thing), the girl who least fits the PLC mould (who got stick-on dragon tattoos) etc etc.

Of course, there was always the inevitable part of any high school function, especially the valedictory dinners. Someone HAD to trip while going up/down the stage. This one looked so hideously painful it was worthy to be in one of those silly teen flicks. The girl voted most likely to first have a baby (who was given a bib saying Mommy Loves You) turned to shout something out to the crowd on her way down the stairs, but on the second step down she slipped down a rung. She looked as though she regained her balance but then in the next fraction of a second, she flipped and fell headfirst down the rest of the way.

Thud.

That, and the ringing silence that ensued was all I heard. I couldn't see anything anymore cause I was at the back of the hall. Thankfully she got up after awhile, apparently unhurt. See? That's why 6-inch heels should be banned. =) Anymore drama after that I missed it all, having had to wash a hundred over wine glasses (used for the soft drinks =) in the home econs room. Went pretty well, I daresay, except for two wine glass casualties, one by me, and the other was killed by someone else in the drying process.

Saturday I spent almost 3 hours at K-Mart, Coles and Video Ezy just drifting along every aisle with Lynn, further evidence that I have no life. Immediately after that, it was a whole day of window shopping at the city, which was as lovely as ever albeit a little chilly. Sunday, out again for some 'retail therapy'. Not that I ever needed any. Had to get the Year 12 boarders committee farewell presents at Target. Came back, bummed around all day, watching snippets of movies and lounging about other people's rooms. It's hard to get down to work in the BH with so much distraction around. =)

And now, here I am, typing up an update, at last. I miss you guys so much...*sniffles*! Ahh...I reckon it's about time to start studying for my finals this mid-November. I'm doing fine for every subject except Physics. I've fallen into a rut and I don't know what to do. Zoning out every class, clueless when it comes to doing the problems, and silent during discussions. Gah. I need help, I need a renewed motivation to spur my waning interest.

Maybe I'll find that in the movie I'm planning to watch tonight, when I'm really meant to be studying Physics. 0:-)

um gesh dee bork, bork!

Recently, when I was on the net surfing through the history and development of 1337speak (for no particular reason), I stumbled across Google h4x0r which is none other than Google in 1337speak! Needless to say, I was most entertained.

Yesterday, on one of my surfing sprees again, I ventured into Google's Language Tools page, a place I've been to a coupla times but never quite paid sufficient attention to. Curiosity and too much free time (which really should be spent doing my holiday homework and studying for my Chem test) led me to see if Google h4x0r was really listed as a 'language'. And so it was! And along with it, I unearthed even MORE novelty Google interfaces. It was absolutely hilarious.

There was Google igpay atinlay - Google in Pig Latin! The window title read, "ooglegay imageyay earchsay"...it took a while to stop laughing and recognize it as Google Image Search.

Then there was Google Elmer Fudd. You'll probably remember Elmer Fudd from the Bugs Bunny cartoons as the infantile hunter fixated on driving bullets through Bugs Bunny, and as PK puts it perfectly, that "wascly wabbit" guy. "Google Diwectowy," Elmer says, "De web owganized by topic into categowies." ^^

Finally there's Google Bork, bork, bork!...I hadn't any idea what Bork, bork, bork! was, but a quick search on urbandictionary.com defined it as an exclamation commonly used by muppet swedes. Like The Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show. "Google Imege-a Seerch - Zee must cumprehenseefe-a imege-a seerch oon zee veb." And for some reason, just about every sentence, especially in the Google-a Gruoops, ended with a "Um gesh dee bork, bork!"

I had a gala time clicking on all the links from the Google main to see how they looked in their various 'languages'. Heh heh heh. Looks like this is how I've been spending my holidays. *blush blush* Carpe diem, indeed. But it was really entertaining and funny. Google was cooler than I thought! Yay Google!!

Okaylah, to make up for this waste of time, I will now be studying twice as much Chem today. So, thas' all folks. Um gesh dee bork, bork!