Genre-spanning, kebab-grilling bank holiday fun

Saturday morning I was saddened to realise that the sleep button on my radio remote does not, in reality, make allowances for extended snoozing. When I rang the Hairdressers I was offered an appointment for in five minutes time, and went for it. I was only fifteen minutes late. This was followed by a trip to Rhode Island, then to Niall's house (to get said Niall) then to Manchester. There was no foreseeable space in the multi-story on Deansgate (yes, we foolishly travelled by car), so after much aimless meandering we parked near Canal Street.

We were being fashion gurus, shamelessly style-hunting in all manner of shops. It was disheartening to find nothing of worth in all of Manchester. All manner of establishments were graced by our presence, including the Disney Store, Harvey Nicks, Affleck's Palace, Topman, the Arndale Food Market and Queer.

We decided that a BBQ was necessary, so on Sunday, instead of going to Varsity, we went to Niall's house. That was fun. We ended up watching various comedians and tormenting the many cats.

There was a crazy gizmo for opening wine bottles. So we used it. It looked like something used to put the corks in, but it wasn't. Now there's a full, open bottle of white wine in my fridge. Not for loonnnggg.

Today (Monday) was a wasted day. I got up too late and couldn't motivate myself to do any work. Ah well. Four days on, then study leave time. Gahh. Exams.

Death by mockery

I feel rather swamped. Perhaps because I am.

This evening was an interview skills affair at school. Interview practice, in short. Louise's Dad was doing some interviewing, and hers was (with someone else, called Dr Christmas. I colour to admit, I giggled) early on. I was looking for Mikey, and she for Elliot. Then we discovered that they had both gone, so we decided we would follow suit. Her Dad was still interviewing away (very well, I might add) so I offered a lift home. She lives nowhere near to my house as I thought. I got lost on the way home, and had to call her from a library car park. I now realise where I was, but had no idea at the time. Regina Spektor kept me calm.

As I type, the bell on my desk, the kind you imagine on the reception desk in Fawlty Towers, attempts to sound. It's most odd.

My words-underlined-with-a-red-squiggle count is now up to four. Werhayy.

Anyway, as I adverted to before, I have much to do. So anon.

Andante in Db

Twitter + Wordle =

My delightful Easter is over, much to my chagrin. I went to see Mikey in the Lakes for a day, and climbed Skiddaw. A play at FLT, a dinner party. Rather good, all in all.

I seem to have lost the facility for prosaic verbal effusion, thanks to twitter. All my words want to come out as snippets suitable for a Tweet. This must be rectified with haste.

Mechanisms of chemical reactions are calling: we expect a surprise test in chem tomorrow. God, she's evil. Can one expect a surprise test?

Oh, and I passed by driving test. There is much more smugness behind that sentence than you can see.

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with C...

CAKE! Crispy cakes, chocolate chunk cookies. All in all, a good baking session, even if Dr Oetker's icing did fail us. The Backstreet Boys served as a perfect background to our Delia-inspired all-in-one sponge "]. Our cookies combined forces to form two giant supercookies. And as crispy cakes can't go wrong, they were flawless.

Fuck you, Dr Oetker

However, we have found that Delia isn't as saintly as we all thought: the first F in her index is "Faggots and peas." We'll give her the benefit of the doubt on that one, though.

This is mine and Kath's amazing cake.

Amazing, non? Bien sure (j'adore le franglais.) We really have baking skills, as an article I was reading yesterday would have put it.

<poorhumour> What a mess! And I got the oven glove dirty  HAHAHAA </poorhumour>.

I wish I could carry on, with more of the wonderful pictures we took, and details of the jollies we had. But I need sleep. Perhaps on the morrow.

Out to lunch

We were getting more and more listless, so Kath and I decided to lunch out together today. Two o'clock may be a little late for lunch, but we were desperate. And hungry (I'd had breakfast at twelve, ten minutes after I woke up). We chattered about the play, and how awful it's going to be. Costumes were planned, then we went to The Phoenix and chanced upon Wendy in the costume room. That was a shock. Great fun was had by all as we planned our characters' outfits, and Wendy offered to lend us various garish items for the weekend.

We decided that one round of "coffee" (I usually have tea, and Kath a milkshake or hot chocolate) is never enough, and went in Nero for the first time in ages. Loyalty cards and free drinks ftw. Thinking of possible costumes increases one's propensity to peoplewatch. That was entertaining. Creme eggs were bought, then we went to out respective stations of public transport, pour rétourner home.

My driving test is in less than three weeks! Aaaaaghhh! Hopefully, it will be fine. Then I will be able to drive wherever and whenever I want. Except to school, because my Dad feels the need to drive several miles away to the tram station, when he could walk to the train instead. What silly parents I have.

I want to screenprint something. Cakeybakey delights tomorrow, at Kath's house, with a number of people from school. Then off to the theatre. Reports tomorrow, perhaps.

Oh-wa, ta-gu, Siam.

A day of wins and losses

I woke up hideously early (fifteen minutes more so than usual) inorder to get to Bolton to take my driving theory test, which I passed with one wrong answer. Win 1.

A nice walk to school, then I was going to get some work done. It should be noted that today was house day, so chaos was very much the theme. There was biology to be done, and still is, but Michael was managing year 8 board games on his own, so I stepped in to help. Witty epigrams on the board much? Actually, no, witty is far too optimistic. Amusing year 8's though. I think Manchester won. Win 2.

More free time, so I sat in the library and tried to fill in a form and do the omnipresent biology. I ended up reading the studentBMJ. Loss? Perhaps. Loss 1?

Lunchtime was results time - module 1. Pandemonium in the library, then a great deal of mixed feelings. Lots of reconsidering to be done, apparently. And a lot of resits. I did quite well, although my general studies mark beat my chemistry one. Shameful. Win 3, loss 2.

The afternoon meant managing year 9 climbing. Jonny was doing nothing, so I dragged him along. It was quite amusing: timed relay climbs finished with a shout of "STOP COOKING!". Then some year 11s who were doing the same thing after break came into the gym and started dicking about with astounding proficiency. We wanted to go, so had to spend ten minutes getting them to leave so it wouldn't be our resposibilty if they injured themselves and/or each other. Win 4, loss 3.

The language quiz was amusing. Enough said.

Then the BEAT final. We didn't win! I'm livid, but I did a good job of convincing everyone, inculding myself, that I didn't mind. We had a nice chat over food with our supportive teachers. That was nice. Win 5, losses 4, 5 and 6.

Dad was late, so Michael was late to cubs (I'd offered to drive him there). Took Jonny home, then realised I was supposed to be at explorers, so went. Madness.

I want to talk about yesterday, but this post is too long already. Calssics reading. Fisher won everything (actually all three categories). David had me in hysterics. It was a very gay afternoon, in all regards. Definite win.

And that's more than enough. And you just lost the game.

I know a title that'll get on your nerves

Niall rightly pointed out that we were in need of biscuits. He went to the shop and bought a large pack of bourbons for 90p. We decided to eat them all. After finishing his half he felt rather unwell, and tried to lock me in the kitchen until I finished my half. I was not impressed.

Beavers was otherwise quite demoralising. I hate it when that happens. The room is full of people who aren't beavers is ludicrous. Even after we got rid of two there were too many. They're really impertinent too. I can't stand it.

I managed to drive home without putting anyone in danger, which is more than can be said for Phil on the way there: he came very close to knocking into of the Beavers as he parked. The mother didn't look happy.

Too much maths. Always the way.

Dancing through life

We've salvaged the drama situation. It's fine. It's hard work, but we're getting there. The tea run in the middle was certainly needed. I had to foot the bill, but Luke was there, as ever, so it wasn't all bad.

On Wednesday I trekked out to the deepest darkest depths of Wigan to watch a performance of The Last Five Years. It was good. Unfortunately, the girl's voice was beginning to go by performance time, but ah well. The temperature was about minus four for my return journey, which involved a lot of waiting around and reading Wilde.

Tonight has been extremely fun. Mr Brown is still rather distant, but that didn't stop us. Driving home through Boltington, Chris decides to turn the music (Wicked -  What is This Feeling?) exceedingly loud and lower the windows, bathing the townsfolk in our musical glory. We so nearly crashed. In units of fun per second, that was the most intense it's been in a while.

Now, back to the Personal Statement writing. "/.

On a besoin d'un coup de théatre

Today has been a very odd one. I remember doing little other than playing games and telling bad jokes in biology. Then nothing was done in maths, apart from Michael telling me about how he was going to buy a Rolly Royce Phantom from the 1940s and drive round Worcestershire with driving gloves and goggles, going "TOOT TOOT!" in the manner of Toad of Toad Hall. I was in hysterics at the prospect.

Yesterday afternoon was ruined. Hunter spent the first twenty minutes of the thirty-five we had for maths complaining about people (two, perhaps, in this case) not handing in homework on time, and being petty by way of revenge. It's all Raja's fault. He seems to follow me round, appearing in half my lessons, and being deliberately irksome. Perhaps that's just paranoia, but that's not the point: by consensus he is unnecessarily irksome.

Oh, and I'm going to fail physics. I wonder whether AS module 1 results are significant enough to warrant a results party. I'm leaning towards the positive, understandably. A chance to unwind after all this stress is needed. There seems to be so much to do.

I haven't talked about the title. It's our drama, which is on track to be dire. Lily is supposedly directing it, hence the need for a coup d'état , or more appropriately, un coup de théatre.

I shall go back to my inertial mechanics.

I made my début radio appearance yesterday, as I've been so eager to tell everybody. It was hugely exciting. Then I went and had a cheese and ham toastie and cup of tea in Rhode Island Coffee, where the lovely Luke was, as ever. I also had a crispie cake, extortionately priced.

Going home on the train, I saw Maddie, who was a drama buddy years ago. No time to reminisce, sorry.

I then drove to Grandmama's house, and had tea and cake and a chat. That was nice.

And when it had gone dark I went up to Giant's Seat where the explorer crew were camping. They then convinced me to stay over, so we walked back to my house for sleeping gear and wine. We made toast on this gas heater, which was like a jet engine but with a big gas flame inside. It was hot hot hot. Bedtime came around at about three, then I was up at half nine making beakfast in pyjamas. Everyone except me thought I was organising it, so it was disastrous. As a consequence of this utter nonsense, I am frightfully tired, with far too much work to do. Young Musician of the Year heats or whatever. Gahh.

And now snowwww. Nuff said.

Good times

When I found out that Rachael would not be partaking in this evening of fine food and cracking conversation, I was slightly unwilling to oblige Gemma, Cath and Phil, my favorite members of the LGBT community. But then I discovered that Lesley would be present, and I was sold.

A very nice meal in Velvet, half price thanks to Gem's savviness. A drink in Churchills, then off home. That makes it sound a bit naff, but I assure you that it wasn't. This blogging lark is proving difficult, as my brain seems to have ceased function.

I might be making a radio appearance tomorrow. Bolton FM. Fun times. This is if I get out of bed and into Bolton before Thorrun finishes her show. Humm.

Today was BEAT. We didn't win by as much as we should have, which was most embarrassing. Using the Mac caused technical problems, so we were a bit flustered, and consequently less impressive. But gift vouchers for the win.

Back to this evening. Apologies for the absence of coherence. Drama was hilarious: we created a kind of interview scenario where characters were interviewed for jobs. Then we decided who to give which job, and the characters decided who wanted each one the most. Then we talked about it briefly and they stayed in character, and got into a fight over it. It was extremely surreal.

Manchester is where it's at. This is undeniable. I babble. Goodnight.

Too many ISAs spoil the day

As I sat down to the titular test, I was in two minds as to whether that should be the title. It was all going very well. To start with. It all went downhill after that. To clarify, it was a physics exam-kind-of-thing. But all was well.

Tomorrow, we are to make our presentation in the BEAT compeition. Business and Enterprise Awareness Training. Oh, the joy. I have this feeling we'll win, possibly because we shall. I shan't say that we will: I'm not that confident.

Ooh. The concert. It was good. I went into town after a BEAT practice, since going home in the interim was a silly idea. I'm beginning to love Rhode Island Coffee. All was very good.

Anyway, I have lots of work to do.

So many titles, so little time...

There really is so much going on that I haven't the time to write elliptically about it all.

Par exemple, today was spent playing through the newly written orchestral suite, Scenes from Bolton, with members of the Northern Chamber Orchestra. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The form tutor still managed to excoriate me for an apparent lack of work on my part. She pointed out how little work I'd done, and I agreed. She even hinted that it was not worthwhile, wherein I left, for orchestra rehearsal (because I clearly hadn't played the violin enough already). However, after a very reassuringly productive musical day (like Christmas Festival day, but more relaxed), orchestra went very well. I could play nearly all of it (pretty much at sight)and all was well.

I fear I am using too many brackets (but how many is too many?). Shame.

And it snowed. Silly Southerners couldn't cope. We ploughed on regardless. Three cheers for the work ethic. =/.

Soz, no woos

Tonight's performance of Wyrd Sisters went better than Saturday's. For me, at least. The audience were rubbish: they didn't laugh. I blame them entirely.

I got a cheer though, in the bows. It was the youth group. I fear it was on reputation rather than merit. Ah well, a cheer's a cheer.

It's snowing. I hope the coaches are off tomorrow, 'cause that effetively means no school. And no, it's not college, it's school.

There are new keys on my desk. I lost mine, as did my mother. How careless of us. Ah well.

I'm running out of things to say. Anon.