Back To School

ACK. First day of school.

I love holidays. I'm always grateful when school ends, and I thoroughly enjoy the holidays themselves while they are happening. But somehow, I never pray for holidays quite so fervently as on the first day of school.

I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed at an unreasonably early hour (6:30 a.m), find everything I'd lost in various places throughout my house over the holidays, and catch the bus to school. There, I was relieved to find that Chinny had already arrived.

NB: Being my first day of school, I'm going to have to mention a lot of my friends in this post. Hope you don't get too confused with the nicknames.

Chinny is an expert in three subjects: maths, Japanese, and music. She is a piano genius.

Ness turned up soon after, and Peanut arrived after that.

I'm starting a new paragraph now, because Peanut is a girl who needs a lot of space. She tells me frequently that she 'doesn't have an inside voice'. She has an interesting - if somewhat perplexing - sense of humour, and unashamedly loves Pokemon.

I saw Marie-Clare, who was thrilled to be back at school. Not because she loves school work, or anything like that, but because she likes seeing friends again. To which I say: you can see friends in the holidays. You don't need to bring school into it. Anyway, that was her opinion.

I somehow managed to bluff my way through the first two periods without falling asleep and/or going mad, then escaped into recess with a glad heart. Peanut and I discussed a project we had a couple of years ago. Basically, we were going to make a film starring all the main characters from Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Spiderman, and Shrek. It fell through after we realised we had about 27 characters needing to be played, not counting the storm troopers, and only four actors. We are considering bringing it back, but this time making it work as a book. We might be on to something. Or, more likely, we might not.

I had English with my friend Gwen in the middle of the day. Gwen is appallingly brilliant at science - she topped the previous two units we did. However, she is also better than me at English. It doesn't seem fair, really, as she wants to be an environmental scientist (probably) and I want to be a journalist. I have sworn to beat her in physics this term to make up for it. Let's be honest here. It's not going to happen. But I can always hope. The race is ON.

Spent lunchtime being berated by Giuseppe about this blog. Apparently I have unwittingly incorporated a number of 'factual errors'. If so, reader, I apologise. At some point I will get a full list of these errors and put them in a post, clearing everything up. The only one I can remember at the moment, however, is that in the post 'Shoelace's Folly' the Yoda on Aviator's shirt was actually wearing shutter shades. Oh, and she disagrees with me about the fashion status of Aviator sunglasses. She thinks they're still popular.

I don't agree with this, but it's probably safer to put it in, or she'll verbally murder me tomorrow morning.

We had dance last period. That is to say, we would normally have had PE, but at this time of year it's too cold to go into the change rooms, and so we are taught the niceties of social dance instead of playing soccer or doing archery.

We did line dancing to begin with. I was standing next to Vyvyan, who kept kicking me in the ankle. Fair's fair, though - I did kick her back.

I have given her the nickname of 'Vyvyan' - despite her strenuous objections - because she reminds me of Vyvyan from The Young Ones. They both have red hair and homicidal tendencies. What more evidence do you need for a nickname?

Partner dancing was painful, both physically and emotionally, and I won't go into it. Made it home with a minimum of mental damage, considering it was the first day.

I apologise, but I feel the need to go into a spiel. What annoys me the most about school is not the work - not the assignment I should have done over the holidays but didn't - not the strict uniform requirements - but the knowledge that on the other side of the world, school students are happily on their summer break.

Take, for example, a friend of mine, Phoenix. She attended the school I currently go to (in Australia, if you haven't picked that up yet) until about two years ago. Then she moved to Washington D.C. For her holidays, her family flew to Europe. France, England, and Italy. Right as I'm typing this, she is in Rome. Yet the rest of us are back here in Oz, dreading school and avoiding homework (at least I am. I should have started my French homework an hour ago. Instead, I've been writing this post). It doesn't seem fair.

Not that I'm begrudging her the Italian trip. Far from it. I just wish that I could be there too.

(Told you I'd be able to mention you in a post, Phoenix. You may have moved to the other side of the world, but you can't get away that easily!)

Anyway, school today, and tomorrow, and for the next two and a half years of my life. Fabulous.