Tangent

You can't cast flippendo on Argus Filch. You can, however, cast flippendo on various bookcases, and I often find flippendo-ing random statues is a good source of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

It's been a while

...again. I'm not cut out for this.
 I had a French speaking exam the other day. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought, and now we get to watch Cyrano de Bergerac in lessons. Bonus. We should do this more often.
The most amazing thing happened on Saturday. I was in Game, looking for COD 4 as you do, (if you MUST know, my brother got an Xbox for Christmas and needed someone who is older than 16 to buy that game for him. Don't worry, I haven't converted to the Dark Side) and my brother spotted a blue, rectangular box just sitting on the shelf in the PC section. It took me a few seconds to realise what he was pointing at. I picked up the box, and who would have thought it? The Harry Potter PC collection, the first three games, all for £10! Well, I knew that was a deal that I couldn't pass up, so after borrowing a tenner from Dad I went to the till to pay. I don't know if the woman at the till underchared me, or if the price was wrong on the box, but somehow I managed to get it for only £4.99! I have in my possession the first three Harry Potter computer games, and I only paid £4.99! This is my childhood, right here in this box! I feel about 8 again.
   I still believe that there was an admin error that meant I didn't get my owl inviting me to Hogwarts. Even Dumbledore makes mistakes.
 Other than reminiscing about my incredibly sad and lonely childhood, I haven't done much this week. Well, nothing that I can remember right now anyway. Guess I'll just go and correct the spelling mistakes in the Radio Times while casting a flippendo spell at Argus Filch.

I haven't posted in a while. I'd say it's because I've been busy, but I haven't - I've just been lazy. New year, same old me.
I got a camera for Christmas, which I am very excited about. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to use it, as there are not many things in the local area that are interesting enough to take pictures of. When I say "local area", I mean the interior of my house and school. I haven't been out much lately.
Moving on, when I finally do find something to take pictures of, I shall be very happy. I might even put a few pictures here. Who knows?
I also got a lot of bath stuff, soaps and creams and scrubs and the like. I think my family may be trying to tell me something. Not that I don't appreciate such things, but there's only so many bath bombs that one person can handle. At least I'm all set for toiletries until next Christmas.
Mocks are over, so some of the pressure is off. Having said that, I'm supposed to be doing English coursework right now. It's due in for Wednesday, and I've barely even started. No change there then.
Maybe I'll go and do some coursework now. Or maybe I'll just not. I might even get out of the house, who knows?

3 days until Christmas!

I'm so excited. But not as excited as I feel I should be.Why is this? Is it because I'm getting older? I hope not; my friend has a theory that excitement about Christmas decreases with age, and by the time we are 25 we won't feel a thing. However, after discussing this with her, we came to the conclusion that excitement about Christmas must be inversely propotional to physical growth, and therefore the decrease in said excitement will cease at the age of 18. This way, we retain some excitement towards the Christmas holidays no matter our age. That's something. 
Another theory of mine is that we have a resurgance of Christmas excitement when we have young kids of our own. I'll get back to you on that one in about 20 years time.
Anyway. It's the Christmas holidays and that means no more mocks! Now we only have the real thing to worry about.
Still, I'm not about to let GCSEs ruin my Christmas. I'm supposed to be doing a french writing assessment and a music composition over the holidays, but I highly doubt that's going to happen. I'm being realisitic here -  how can they expect us to work when we are surrounded by chocolates, presents and good telly?
Speaking of good telly, the Christmas edition of the Radio Times is out! That's two weeks of TV all rolled into one, incredibly heavy, magazine. It makes me so happy just to look at it. I haven't even read it properly yet. But I have picked out some things I am DEFINATELY going to watch, no matter how much work there is to be done. The Doctor Who special is top of the list, of course, closely followed by the remake of Upstairs Downstairs and Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. There's a lot more but I can't be bothered to write them all down. 
On a slight tangent, Spirited Away was on yesterday, which is one of my favourite films. It was on BBC 2, which was even better considering it wasn't interrupted by ad breaks every 5 minutes.
I'm going to go now and see if I can find any more presents with my name on and guess what they are. Maybe that will make me feel more Christmassy. If all else fails, I have The Grinch on dvd.

Ugh.

Ugh.
Mocks.


They're finally here, after weeks of dread and fear.
Ooh, that rhymes!


Yes. Mocks are here. They officially started on Monday. So far we've done just over half of the 12 exams we have to do. Which is great, if you're a glass-half-full sort of person, which I'm not. Especially not when mocks are involved. 

 So I spent all week sitting in a sports hall in sub-zero temperatures filling out answers to questions I didn't completely understand, and now all I can do is hope and pray for that little "A" printed on a piece of paper. It's a crazy system. What's more, I'm sure that the invigilator with the glasses has got it out for me - I see him muttering to the other invigilators, pointing at me, judging me when I ask for more paper.  

 And to top it all off, I'm losing my voice, just in time for a drama assessment. 


In other news, I finally have an advent calendar, which I'm very pleased about. However, I was a bit disappointed to discover that it didn't have a square for Christmas day. I don't know if this is just me being greedy, but I feel a bit cheated...

 I mentioned in my last post that a particular purple hat is making a comeback this winter, to the annoyance of some of my friends. I have worn it constantly for the past few days, and although it is not quite accepted yet the disapproving comments seem to have stopped. I feel we are making progress here. They'll miss it when winter ends. You mark my words.

You know, I'm having an internal debate as to whether this has actually is purple after all. It's sort of an  unidentifiable grey colour which doesn't seem to fit into any category, so I just assumed it must be purple and stuck by this decision. I'll get back to you on this one. This is a matter that requires careful consideration. 

I have a song going round and round my head at the moment. It's a lovely piano piece called "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" composed by Michael Nyman for the film "The Piano". I have the sheet music and hope to learn to play it when I have the time. Occasionally it gets mixed in with "Lights" by Ellie Goulding and some of the pieces I am studying for GCSE music with interesting consequences. My head really is a jumble at the moment. I'm going to get some sleep.


...Or maybe I'll just stay up until the early hours of the morning cramming last-minute revision into any available hour I can find. I'll see how it goes. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

We had the first real snowfall of the season today, but unfortunately we still had to go to school. Snow at school is rubbish - it's all gritty and a bit brown and patchy and half of it has melted by break time. A few of my friends went to the park during lunch to experience proper snow, and came back with most of it in their shoes. I didn't join them; I stayed behind with the wonderful Rebecca, who, like me, is just getting over a cold and doesn't want to risk it getting any worse.
The chilly weather has allowed me to bring all my winter attire out from the back of the wardrobe. I trudged to school today in big green wellies and a stripy scarf, and I even wore my purple hat, which received mixed receptions from my friends. I plan on wearing it all the time - even indoors - until they are forced to accept it for what it is. This isn't just a purple hat - it is a mark of my  INDEPENDENCE!
Perhaps that's taking it a little too far, but I take my winter wear very seriously. I've been told that my coat makes me look "like a bodyguard" on more than one occasion, which I'm not so sure is a compliment. Not that I'm particularly fussed over said coat - I'm not too keen on it myself anyway and the buttons keep falling off. If anything was said about my purple hat, however, I don't know what I'd do. I'm very, very attached to that hat. There's a wonderful story behind it, actually...
December has started, and I don't have an advent calendar. I do have this week's Radio Times though, which  includes a preview of the TV programs that will be aired over Christmas. The most exciting of which is, of course, the Doctor Who special, which has Dumbledore in it! I can't wait!
In other news, I'm getting rather bored of this background, which is a shame seeing as I spent so long trying to get it there in the first place. Maybe I'll change it, but not now. I'm busy "working".
The mocks are getting closer, and still I have done nothing to prepare. I'm supposed to be revising now. Why am I not revising now? I'm going to go and revise now.


There's no way I'm going to revise now. I'll probably just open another game of spider solitaire.

Whoops...

Wow. It's been a while. And I told myself I'd post each week. Oh well, I don't suppose it really matters.
Still, I have an excuse; I've been so busy with coursework, revision and lazing in front of the TV that I simply have not had the time. 
Quite a lot of interesting things have happened lately, the most exciting of which being the release of  "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (Part 1) in cinemas on the 19th of November. Naturally, I booked my ticket weeks in advance and went to see it on the day it came out with a group of equally Potter-crazy friends. I was not dressed as Moaning Myrtle for this particular Harry Potter event, though. I decided that it was not something the general public would appreciate.  
Least exciting but unfortunately most important is the arrival of the December mock exams. 
Every morning I lie to myself that I will do revision when I get home from school, but then suddenly it's 10 in the evening and the textbooks are still lying untouched at the bottom of my ridiculously sized bag. I don't know how I'm going to manage in May when the real exams arrive. 
On a much lighter note, Christmas is fast approaching! All the lights are up now in town and it looks really pretty. I've been looking for a party dress (not that I'm invited to many, but it's good to be prepared) for the last couple of weeks now but I haven't found anything yet. Christmas, of course, means the Christmas holidays! 3.4 weeks to go, if you don't count weekends that is. That means I only have to endure 6 more lacrosse lessons. My friends have decided they really like lacrosse, but I fail to see the appeal. It's just another sport I can file under the "I'm awful at this" category. In fact, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a single sport on the planet that doesn't fit into this category. 


For those who care, and I doubt that there are many who do, spider solitaire is still an issue. I discovered it on my home computer recently as well as on my laptop and so now the addiction has spread. It prevents me from getting any work done whatsoever. 


Another distraction that I am NOT dealing well with is the fact that I have a lot of books to read at the moment, which normally I would love, but right now they are not helping me in any way with the mock exams.  Yesterday in the school library I found a proof copy of  "The Death Defying Pepper Roux" by Geraldine McCaughrean, which is really exciting! There are going to be so many spelling mistakes in it for me to correct! Speaking of which, I am reading "I Shall Wear Midnight" by Terry Pratchett at the moment which is a really good book (I might steal Rebecca's job and write a review at some point), but there is a spelling mistake in it! They typed "is" when they meant to say "it" at one point. I can't remember the page number - I'll find out. 


Anyway that's about it. Unless anyone wants to hear about the packet of chocolate buttons we won yesterday, which I'm not sure anyone does.