The weirdness of being stress free

It's exam time and if you know me, you must also know that during exam time I completely lose my mind. But this term, there is something wrong with me. I don't know if it's just that I don't have time to stress, or if my stress mechanisms are completely out of whack, but I seem to be incapable of feeling stressed out. In a way, that's good, since I can actually look at a question and think it through without my brain blowing up. On the other hand, it means that I'm not stressed out enough to go sit at my desk and study. Every time I try, I feel like "meh, just another exam. There's always a next time." WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Anyway, I entered some writing competition. In fact, it's one that I entered last year and you'll be able to notice just how strangely stress free I've become since then. Last year, I wrote my story two months in advance, got three teachers to check it and sat in front of my desk, worrying about the similes and the metaphors for days on end. This year, I wrote it one day before the due date, wrote precisely one draft, and even though I knew that my story was a load of crap, submitted it anyway!

Well, I've got maths exams and a biology assessment this week and hopefully they'll be alright. I'm pumped for Variety Night on Wednesday (a.k.a the day before the extension maths exam) and can't wait to see all the performances! I'm so happy that there are so many performers from our grade this year :D Hopefully it'll be a great night!

Now, I'm off to avoid studying for maths. Ciao!

- Zarin.

What would have been Athletics Day

Friday was Athletics Day. PUH-LEASE! I'll go next year though :) Instead of going to some place in Leumeah, Aswathi, Charis and I went to the State Library. Nerd's day out woohoo! Haha, it was actually very fun!! We went there to do our ancient history assignment but instead, spent half the day wandering around the city, eating and sitting in Hyde Park. Oh well, that's what the city is for! 

Aswathi missed the train despite the fact that she woke up earlier than me and Charis, so it took a while to meet up. Once Aswathi and I actually found each other, she realised that she forgot to bring money. TO THE CITY!! I guess in one day she lost the title of 'the most organised person I know'. Then when we got to St James station this guy was playing the accordion, except he was at the end of the tunnel thing so we couldn't see him and it sounded so cool! He sounded amazing! It was like we were walking through Paris or something. 

The State library is so huge! And the security is unexpectedly intense - c'mon, it's just a library after all! But we couldn't take our bags in and there was this security guard station thing at the entrance to the library. The librarian ladies were so nice to us, even though we asked them at least a thousand questions! 

So when we realised that our stomachs were eating themselves, we decided it was time to eat :) Aswathi insisted that we should eat at some Malaysian Laksa House thing and I excitedly bought these strange looking noodles. I have never seen so much oil in one dish. Our food was literally shining with oil. When I looked at my spoon it was covered with oil so it seemed like I had just washed it. But one good thing came out of this - I ATE WITH CHOPSTICKS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE! Ask Charis, she'll tell you that I'm a natural :D

Of course, no day out in the city is complete without something sweet! We went to The Cupcake Bakery, and looking at it was enough to make my day. The cupcakes were so cute! Aswathi and Charis bought a red velvet cupcake: 

It looked too cute to eat! 

 I ordered THE BEST ICE CHOCOLATE IN THE UNIVERSE. GAAAH IT WAS SO GOOOOOOD! YOU MUST TRY IT!!!!! 

So anyway, I had a lot of fun, especially because I don't go out to the city half as much as I'd like to. Thank you Charis and Aswathi for such an awesome day :D 

And now, for my ancient history essay. DUN DUN DUUUN. 

When you try your best but you don't succeeeeed

Hello. 

:( 

If you can't tell by the extremely expressive sad face up there, I'm quite sad today, because it's Friday and despite calling Today FM more than 1000 times (literally) I could not win tickets to see Coldplay's Mylo Xoloto tour for me and Aswathi. We tried so hard, and I actually thought we would get tickets. I guess I thought wrong.

Aswathi, Marija and I registered for this call for Coldplay thing, where Kyle and Jackie O call you and if they like your story/think you're entertaining, they'll give you FOUR tickets to Coldplay. On Wednesday, some lady from the station called up Marija and said that Kyle and Jackie O would be calling the next morning at 9 o' clock. Our heads nearly exploded with excitement. We came up with an awesome parody of Viva la Vida but on Thursday morning the station did not call us, and some lady with stupid hypothetical questions won instead. Puh-lease, they should've heard our song. We even went to school 20 minutes late so that when the station called we wouldn't miss it! Well I guess one thing good came out of this - it was heaps of fun making the song!

Marija is so awesome that even though she had tickets she registered for us and helped Aswathi and me make a song up. She wasted so much time for us even though there was nothing really in it for her. Not all friends would do that! That just shows what a great friend she is. So, thank you, Marija.

So anyway, Coldplay blues aside, this week's flown past really quickly and I cannot believe it's Friday already. People tell me that year 11's get their report cards on Thursday. ARE YOU KIDDING? Why didn't I get the memo? Gah, 3 unit maths, you're going to bring me doooooown. Other than that, I think I'm quite happy with how I've gone so far this year. I've worked really hard so I hope my report card's alright!

Also, REVENGE GAAH SEASON FINALE WHICH I HAVE NOT WATCHED! IF ANYONE SPOILS IT FOR ME I WILL STAB YOU WITH A FORK!! THAT MEANS YOU KISHANI, YAFA AND MONICA!

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

Hello. I figured I needed something productive to do when I'm avoiding doing work, so here I am, rambling uselessly on this awesome (?) blog of mine, although I'm not quite sure if blogging is very productive. Anyway, I really want to go to an old church/cathedral! There was one in Brisbane that we used to pass every time we drove into the city and every single time, I told myself that I would go in there. But hey, I never did. Oh well. There is still the whole of Europe to scour after I've finished the HSC.There's something about old things... old houses, old churches, old books... that make me itch to find that answers to their mysteries, even if they're just really boring nothings with no mystery at all. You know what, STUFF TRYING TO FIGURE OUT FUNCTIONS AND GEOMETRY. I do not really have the funds to go wandering around London right now, so I guess the next best thing would be to go out one day and just spend the entire day exploring the city. One day...




Westminster Abbey, London.




Cathedral of the Resurrection, St Petersburg.



Freedom of Speech

I must say, this blogging world feels kind of empty without Richie! Let us all have a moment of silence in memory of what a great blog he shared with us... I just hope it'll come back soon!

School certificate approaches and so our teachers find themselves wondering what to do with themselves and the class they're supposed to teach. They have a few options -
a) make the class mindlessly do past school cert papers,
b) shove textbooks in their hand and say "STUDY",
c) lecture the class about how important (but not really) the SC is,
d) talk to them about nothing in particular or, last but not least,
e) let the students run amuck like the insane animals we are.

Whatever option the teachers pick, I find myself sitting in class wondering why I bothered to walk the few metres to get to school. But over the past couple of days, I've found myself in science having really interesting conversations with my friends. Among these discussion topics was freedom of speech!

So if you were to rant about your teachers on your blog (which, I might add, seems perfectly normal to me since the point of most of our blogs is to speak our minds) and your teachers happen to find out, can they really take any action against you?

We live in a free society where we supposedly have the right to freedom of opinion and freedom of speech, right? No, not really. Though legally we're allowed to say whatever we want, society dictates what we can and cannot say. Take away all the legal mumbo jumbo and most of us would still be sitting there like polite little children wondering what the right thing to say is. I read an interesting line somewhere on the net the other day - are we more afraid of being lied to or does our real fear lie in the possibility of the truth? Now I'm not saying that we should all start screaming about how much we hate someone's hair or how ugly we think someone is, but sometimes I just wish people would say what's on their minds. A lot of the time, people are left in the dark thinking they're one person for so long that when they do finally get a reality check, it's almost too hard to bear. So if someone is annoying the hell out of you, tell them! What point is there in letting them annoy you when you could benefit the whole of society (so maybe I'm being a little over dramatic) by telling them what your problem is!

I'm also sick of all the drama that goes on because two people can't face each other and really tell each other what they think. Instead, they store it all up there in their heads and finally, one day, they explode and everything is blown way out of proportion.

I hope that made some sense. Wow, that was the longest post I've written in a while!

- thelazydreamer

I NEED TO RANT!

This week has been terrible! That's because we got our trials back. I didn't do terribly, but in my eyes I could've done much better. Yes, people are going to get pissed at me for saying that. That's the thing - even I'm pissed at myself for thinking things like that. I have such gigantic expectations for myself! Maybe, even if I got a 100% in every trial, I still wouldn't be satisfied. At my old school, I really didn't care how I went in comparison to other people. Here, that is all that matters. WHY WHY WHY ZARIN MUST YOU BE SUCH AN IDIOT FOR THINKING THINGS LIKE THAT? I'm too tired to rant anymore. What a lame rant.

MASQUERADE!

I'd always wanted to go to a masquearde but nobody had thrown one so guess what I did? I threw one! Most of the people I invited didn't come because they either had tutor (pfft, nerds these days) or were not allowed to come. I laughed because some said that their parents wouldn't let them come to Mac Fields at such a late hour. hahahaha.

Anywho, the people who did come made by belated 16th birthday extremely awesome. I was kind of scared because I thought it would be really dead and nobody would dance. But as promised, Cleo and Durga... NOT TO MENTION RICHIE! started the party. It was so awesome - although it was cold, we had a 'picnic' outside in my backyard for dinner, we danced like crayzay and flaunted our gorgeous masks. One of my favourite parts of the party was when Kishani commanded me to go on my balcony and when I did, I saw everybody standing outside looking up at me singing happy birthday. If my neighbours decide to stab me I'll blame it on you guys :) But regardless of my neighbours' annoyance, I must say, you guys sure know how to make a girl feel special.

Thank you to all of you who came. I had a really great time and I hope you guys did too. Thank you for all your awesome presents and to those of you who I invited but decided not to come, you missed out on a pretty great party :) ... well, in my opinion.

*sighs* ah well, time to go back to attempting to concentrate on English.

Adios amigos!

-thelazydreamer