Doth Mother Know you Weareth Her Drapes

Hello again everybody!!
Last night was freaking awesome. The usual darkness didn't seem nearly so threatening as I lay in the shrubbery, gazing blearily up at the night sky and shouting, "Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?" at the top of my voice. Around me, the sounds of other happy teenagers rang out through the air. It was freezing cold, but I hadn't yet felt it. A few minutes later, and suddenly we're all diving and dodging through the undergrowth slightly drunkenly as one of our friends suggests that we have a race to see who can get to the other edge of the field after spinning for 30 seconds. It's harder than it sounds. I still managed to win though.

I had work again today. Although I was exhausted, I still really enjoy it, so spent a quiet day working with customers to find out what was wrong with them and what products they needed. I did a bit of helping out in the dispensary in the afternoon, and then plodded on home where I prepared myself for Doctor Who.

The rumours are true: this week's Doctor Who is most definitely a tear-jerker!! I spent 15 minutes afterwards crying solidly after Amy and Rory's sudden but well-anticipated departure from the show. It was just so sad, but so inspiring to see how Amy Pond has changed so much since the beginning of season 5, where she was simply 'the girl who waited'. Now, it's clear how much she loves Rory, putting him first over the Raggedy Doctor, her childhood friend. I suppose this is what made me cry the most. I'm glad there was a relatively happy ending though. Now officially can't wait for the Christmas special!! :D

I spent some time skyping with my friends today as well. One of which is an internet friend who I am incredibly close to. She's one of those rare people who I've never doubted could be a genuine teenager on the internet, and I've been right - we've spoken on webcam and everything. We spent most of the time with coathangers on our heads (long story) and then a few of my RL friends joined so we went on a site where everybody can draw on the screen, and then sat around working on some stuff independently: two of my friends were drawing, I was surfing the internet, and my other friend went to bed.

That's pretty much all I did today. I apologise for how boring everything must sound: I think tomorrow I'll write a blog post on some genuine tips about something.
Peace!
Rach

Triple English

I totally forgot to write yesterday - which is justifiable seeing as I didn't actually get in until half eleven last night, and then I had to go in to college to double check that I could drop Pre-U. Yesterday was pretty fun - we spent most of second period performing a quiet medley of loads of random songs, most of which I didn't know because they were from the 60s and 70s and stuff, but it was still fun. I have a friend who can do a really good Tenacious D impression which is pretty awesome :') normally Thursday is pizza day, but it was pouring with rain (again) and none of us wanted to go out so we stayed in.

I had triple English after this. Triple English I tell you. I bet you can't think of anything worse haha :P I had an hour of Language and then two hours of Literature, with 40 minutes of a breaktime in between. It wasn't too bad though - in Language all we really did was analyse a film review, but Literature was much harder work. By the end of the day I was exhausted, but pottered off to the train station and found my way into town to meet up with my friends from outside college. I love these guys so much - they're the handful of friends I have who I can totally and 100% be myself around. Like, I can say anything and they won't mind at all, it's awesome :) We saw Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark in IMAX, and then went to Pizza Hut. I'd never seen ROTLA before, and it wasn't completely my thing, but it was still really cool. The service at Pizza Hut was absolutely terrible though - the waiter kept forgetting about us. We actually had to go up and directly ask for cutlery when everybody else around us was given some, we also had to ask if we could pay the bill and if we could have a card machine, too :/ They wouldn't even let my friend get a discount when she works at the Pizza Hut takeaway branch just across the road. But the food was pretty good :)

So this morning, I blearily-eyed forced myself onto a bus at 8:30 in the morning and then off again once we got to college, before putting my points across to a supervisor about why I wanted to drop Pre-U. She first of all suggested that I should drop Psychology and do Lit, Lang, French and Pre-U, but that didn't seem to make much sense to me, doing 3 A-levels and then an extended diploma thing. I managed to convince her to let me drop Pre-U though, and she graciously accepted my decision. I'm just worried about the workload, 'tis all. I'd rather get my A-levels than worry about learning skills for uni now - and it's more or less essay writing and presentations, which isn't the main focus of Modern Languages, which is my strength. Afterwards I got back onto another bus, and well, here I am.

I'm meeting up with college friends in an hour. No idea what we're doing, but I'll probably write a post later on :D
Peace!
Rach

The rain continues...

Once again, it rained all day today, and there wasn't a single sign of a rainbow to act as a balm against the moody clouds that loomed overhead. Thankfully, I managed to find an umbrella so I didn't get too wet, but that didn't stop it from being cold and miserable. Good ol' Britain.

I started off the day with Psychology. Not much really happened - we watched a really interesting programme on Clive Wearing: the man with the seven second memory. It was both fascinating and incredibly saddening at the same time - the only person he recognises is his wife, and during the interview, he actually forgot why exactly it was he was being interviewed quite a few times. I'm definitely going to watch the rest of it at some point.

After Psychology, my friend and I headed to the Common Room where for once, our whole gang was together for all of twenty minutes. The thing about college is that people come and go all the time - if you don't have classes for the rest of the day, you go home. This means that your relationships with people are a lot less tangent than they are in a school or sixth form environment - which I kinda like, but it's great when we're all together. :) After a pretty fun breaktime I pottered off to English Language, where we were doing 'Introduction to Creative Writing'. This caused a small, sarcastic smile to settle on my face and remain there for the whole lesson. I've been writing novels and stories and goodness knows what else since the age of 5; the skill is no stranger to me. It was pretty cool to see how teachers present writing to teenagers who have probably never even put pen to paper with such a purpose before. The lesson was pretty relaxing though, and I enjoyed adding a subtle reference to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in one of the short stories we were asked to write.

Next up was my final lesson of Pre-U. We didn't actually end up doing any work - by the time the teacher had explained what to do, half the lesson was gone, then he handed out homework and wanted to talk to all of us who were thinking of dropping it. Of course, he tried to convince us to stay. My reasons were: I was worried about the workload; I didn't actually have time for French oral practice, which I need; I want to have time for creative outlets, such as writing and making my YouTube videos, and I wanted to keep my part time job. He did try to change my mind by telling me about a girl who submitted a portfolio of creative writing some years ago for her independent research project, but something didn't seem right to me, considering the fact that most others do 15 minute long presentations on whether giving to charity is the right thing or essays on international relations.

It poured with rain as we plodded back off to the bus stop, taking it slowly considering the fact that we had a whole hour to kill before the bus came. As the rain intensified a familiar melancholy tune suddenly drifted unconsciously from my lips - and it wasn't long before my two friends joined me: 'Summer has come and passed, the innocence can never last, wake me up when September ends...' None of us are particularly wonderful singers, so it was definitely a very monotonous drone, but I suppose we gave it good gusto. We took refuge in the Chinese takeaway for a while, and thankfully the rain stopped long enough for us to wait the last five minutes for the bus and then get on it.

Ever since then, I've been doing what I always do: homework, study, reading and now I'm going to host a small Heroes marathon for myself. Tomorrow should be a more interesting day to blog about, as I'm meeting up with some friends and we're going to see Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark in IMAX, which I've never seen before. It's also Pizza Day - more shall be explained tomorrow!! I also get Friday off so that should be fun, too :)

Peace!
Rach

Four shots of caffeine later...

There's only one way I can really describe today: wet. The rain seemed to follow me right from my front doorstep all the way to college and then back again - although on the bright side I did see about three rainbows which was pretty cool :P the worst thing was, was that I was wearing denim jeans and shoes that weren't waterproof, nor did I have an umbrella. Which meant that I spent most of today walking around with goosebumps permanently embedded into my skin. It was an interesting day though.

I only have two lessons on Tuesdays: French and English Literature. French was the same as it usually is, although I reached the conclusion that I'm going to have to drop Pre-U because I can't actually fit French oral practice onto my timetable :/ I mean, I have frees, but not enough to fit in with the teacher's timetable and everybody else's. I'm not particularly bothered though - Pre-U is a muddle of essays, presentations and discussions about affairs that, although I know are important, aren't something that particularly interests me, or my life revolves around. It more seems to be centered towards those who are going for a degree at either Oxbridge or in a humanities-based subject such as Politics, Economics, Law, et cetera. This also means that I wouldn't have to get up early on a Friday morning, I'd get to go home earlier on Wednesdays, and I'd also have a double free on Monday, which is nice :) also it means I'll get to keep my job without getting worried about not keeping up with schoolwork. It's not official yet though - I have to go and argue my case on Friday. Should be okay though.

So after an hour of French and frustration about my timetable, I had English Lit, where we tore apart Orsino's first speech in Twelfth Night: 'If music be the food of love, play on.' I have to say, I absolutely love Shakespeare, and got really into it. The teacher seemed really impressed with me as well :D afterwards, I met up with my friends in the canteen and we had lunch, and after that, my friend and I battled our way through the rain to get home. Thankfully, my friend had actually taken an umbrella to school, so we remained mostly dry for half the time. Whilst under the safety of an artifical canopy, it's easy to laugh at those around us who aren't so fortunate - although I'll probably be in the same predicament tomorrow as I was this morning, as I don't think I actually own an umbrella.

I then proceeded to spend an hour in Starbucks with one of my old school friend's boyfriends. Sounds a lot more 'cheeky' than it actually was - I don't really know him that well, so we spent the hour actually learning some things about each other, i.e. what A levels we are doing. Also, I'm completely socially awkward around most boys so there was no way in heck anything could have happened between us, even if I'd tried. It didn't help that my frappucino kept leaking everywhere, too, so I ended up even colder and now stickier than I had been before. I finally met my friend, and we walked into town before it started raining again. We then proceeded to spend the next hour in Waterstones, Boots and then Cafe Nero, where I had yet more caffeine. Add that to my frappucino and the two pepsi max cans I had earlier at college and, well, that's a lot of caffeine. Although to be fair I was exhausted; Monday is pretty much a full day of lessons, and I had a pretty eventful dream at an airport during the night so :P after a while I caught the bus home, and by this point it was freezing cold and getting dark so my Mum very graciously picked me up from the bus stop :)

That concludes my day. Since then I've been doing some extra study and now I'm going to start reading the 1,000 page long complete works of Sherlock Holmes because I'm just that boring.
Peace!
Rach

Tango'ed.

Getting up this morning was so hard. It's officially Autumn, which means that the nights are slowly beginning to get longer, darker, more unpleasant. I was roused by the sound of my phone's alarm at a wonderful 6 o'clock in the morning today, and sat, shivering in my bed, for a good 15 minutes before finally dragging myself downstairs.

First obstacle of the week: a concerning lack of coffee in the house. I emptied what little granules were left and tried to compensate by using a smaller mug. Didn't work. I was briefly roused by a brisk walk to the bus stop, although the strange warmth and wet weather didn't particularly help, especially as the bus heaters were blazing and the traffic was slow. Seriously. We crawled along at an agonising pace through Monday morning traffic today. I've never seen it that bad before. I suppose the wet weather didn't really help - but seriously.

It started to rain during my first lessons of the day - double Psychology, aka two hours of it. After one hour, I briefly left the classroom with my friend to grab a cappuccino from the common room, which helped me feel a little better. After another hour of learning about Bowlby's evolutionary theory of attachment, it was break time, so I topped up my sugar levels, now feeling a little more ready for the day. My friend and I always have such a great laugh during Psychology, so I approached Pre-U with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, there's very little ways in which Pre-U can be considered to be fun - and by this point, it was tipping it down outside. The sound of the rain pounding the roof above us was a little comforting, but the general murk of the day leaked into the classroom, dampening everybody's moods slightly. This was worsened when we were set an essay on whether we could say that the sporting ethos of the Olympics was fair. Everybody else seemed to have an opinion on this, but as one of those maverick teenagers who avoids anything and everything popular or mainstream, I realised I had no opinion or fact to base my essay off of. So yeah, that was a great essay in the end.

Thankfully after this, I had a free, which I spent with two of my guy friends in the common room. Insert more caffeine here, this time in the place of a diet pepsi, as well as a chicken sandwich from the canteen, seeing as it's about 12:30 by this point. I have to say, I do love these two guy friends in question. One of them is just so easy to talk to it's unbelievable, whereas the other one, like me, loves YouTube and actually makes videos himself. They're both guys who can really keep the conversation going, which is certainly refreshing to see, compared to my old school, where any conversation with any boy went straight to sexsexsexsex. We ended up talking about a whole load of things, including the moment when they tried to give me career advice. After a while, however, we drew the conclusion that I probably shouldn't become a Politican or a Diplomat, despite the fact that the only thing I'm really good at is Languages and English. Our other friends joined us at lunch time, where of course, we all became extremely hyper, and in true teenage style, ended up twisting each other's words into crude sexual innuendo. I'm not going to repeat some of the things we said. Most of the time, I consider myself to be above that sort of stuff, but it was a good laugh to have, especially when my friend started waving his Tango around without the lid on, and got my other friend covered in the stuff.

After lunch, I had one final struggle through French to survive through. I have to say, I love French, so I'd most probably be described as what a lot of teenagers would say was 'keen'. As in, I'm always putting my hand up, waiting for the difficult question, getting annoyed when somebody says something I want to say, etc. I think I sort of overdid it this lesson, still fired up from the excitement at lunch - a pair of girls opposite me, one of which I used to know at secondary school and don't particularly like due to the fact that she smokes weed and drinks excessively - started bitching about me. I could hear all their wonderful comments, and turned to look at them. One of them was glaring at me. A few seconds passed before I did something which was probably quite irrational, but I don't particularly regret: I crossed my eyes and opened my mouth in a huge wide grin. That ceased the poisonous insults, let me tell you. :P I can't help but laugh a little bit about it. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right?

One final struggle to the bus stop and then home, and here I am. Lessons from today? Don't throw away somebody's bottle cap for a joke unless you want you and your friend to get completely Tango'ed.

Peace!
Rach

I ran 2 miles!

I'm going to give you guys some advice today. Don't eat craploads of cake and bad carbs and then go for a run. Why?

Because junk food makes you feel like shit. Simple.

I've been running for about two months now - not intensely, just something that helps me think and makes me feel a little less guilty if I've eaten a lot of crap that day. Anyway, I wasn't really looking where I was going until I found myself turning up an incredibly steep hill in the middle of town. I was like, well okay. I don't normally go this way but I'll see how I do up the hill. It was hard work, but I made it, and kept running. Only when I got to the edge of town did I realise that I'd run a whole mile in one direction. Normally I only go half a mile and then stop and turn around, but this time, I'd been so lost in my thoughts that I ran twice my distance. I turned around and headed back home - but as I hit the home straight, a sharp pain suddenly shot through my stomach. I bent over a little and slowed to a walk, and then bam, a strange feeling of mental fuzziness hit me. I started seeing flashing lights and the world started spinning. I think it's because I increased my distance too much - I haven't run since the beginning of September or so. Add that to the fact that I made and then ate a crapload of cake before my workout, and you get one unhappy body! When I made it home, I didn't know what I wanted. I had some water, but it didn't make me feel any better. I took off my hoodie - no help. I went and lay down - made me feel even worse. I started shivering uncontrollably, but it helped when I took my mind off my imminent circumstances. Slowly, I've started feeling better, and now I feel incredibly proud of myself for running so far. I've worked out I could probably have run 3 miles without that steep hill in between - which means that I'm now going to be taking part in some 5K runs in the area. Really looking forward to it!! I think my first one is in mid-October :D

The rest of today was really nice. We went to visit my brother at university, and so far, I'm so impressed at how much he's already matured, having been there only a week. He's made loads of friends, when normally he's the outcast, and spent the last two years at college alone. Already he's been to loads of parties, tried different foods, danced, had alcohol and even has 'Fresher's Flu' - the true sign of a week well spent!! I'm happy for him :') and it makes me feel a little better about him being there, too :)

The weather's been terrible though. We went into town and found a pharmacy so that I could find the right products to get my brother while he's ill and get some strepsils for myself (I feel a cold lingering at the corners of my consciousness), and rain tumbled from the sky in thick torrents. After just 100 metres of walking down the road we were already drenched to the bone, and I've been shivering ever since, despite having the heating on full blast and getting changed into some dry clothes.

I should go. I still have a Lit essay to do for homework, and I promised people that I'd have another chapter of a fanfiction I'm writing on deviantART up by the end of today. Peace out!! :)
Rach

Of drunk workmates and kidnapped rabbits

I had work today. I work in my local pharmacy every Saturday from 9 till 5. At first I hated it - there was so much to remember, and it's not a kind of job where you can afford to make mistakes, from fetching the right prescriptions to giving the right advice and charging the right amount of money for medication - but now, I actually really enjoy it. In a time where my life is brimming with change, from starting a new school to making new friends, it's a breath of familiarity in a very unfamiliar world. I like helping people out too :) it gives me a really satisfied feeling when I figure out what product will be best for a customer, and they give me that wonderful, thankful smile :)

So today I went to work at the usual time. However, when I got there, I noticed that my coworker seemed very tired and unlike herself - it was only a matter of time before I found out that she'd been partying hard last night, and as a result had come to work half drunk, half hung over. This was quite an awkward position to be in. Didn't help that not many people came in so the morning dragged, and also one of our coworkers was away so there was only four of us: two dispensing, two dealing with customers. I thought she was going to go home at one point, but thankfully she stuck it out :D

We also found a secret compartment below the counter that we'd never seen before. When we opened it, we found a toy rabbit lying inside, with a post-it note saying "please rescue me" sitting on top. All my coworkers thought this both slightly disturbing, but overall completely hilarious. We decided to take this joke even further, sticking a piece of paper with a tally chart written on it next to the toy and strapping its arms up to the side. There weren't many customers all day so we had a lot of time to kill haha :P

There was one slightly weird moment though - I was walking back to work after lunch when I saw two butterflies, playing and dancing in midair. They pirhouetted towards the road, and I watched them as I passed, smiling slightly. I love watching animal nature in such a raw, untouched way - it proves love exists, even in the tiniest of creatures. Natural energy is all around us; we just have to know where to look. Anyway, they fluttered into the road, where of course, the inevitable happened. Unfortunately the car knocked both of them out of the air. One of them was able to get up, but the other was on its side, flapping its wings fearfully. The strange instinct to rush into the world and save it gripped me - but unfortunately, fate ran its course and another car went by. I turned away after that. The worst part was watching the other butterfly flutter round its mate until it too realised it was too late.

Since then I've been home alone; my parents are in London somewhere and so I've been left dogsitting. It's been pretty good though - I heated up some leftovers and I'm curled up on the sofa with the dog watching Doctor Who. After this I'm gonna make coffee and either watch the Avengers or maybe do some homework :) I have a Linguistic analysis and then an essay on Tennyson's Lady of Shallot poem for Lit. :)

Going to visit my brother at university tomorrow, should be nice!! :D

Peace!
Rach

And thus it begins.

I've been sitting on the idea for starting a blog on my experiences with A levels for a while, although it's only now that I've actually sat down at my computer and logged onto Blogger.

I've done it. I've actually started a Blog.

Well, to be fair, I did blog my experiences of Year 11 for a while last year, but I sort of... forgot... to tell the truth. I also started writing a book at the same time, and there's only so many hours a day one can spend typing away on a computer. This time, however, I vow to keep my promise. As well as all those other promises to do my homework when I say I'm going to, instead of logging onto Tumblr and spending the night wallowing in a pit of feels and everything else. I figured I'd have a go though.

So, I guess we should start with the basics. If you haven't read the large text at the top of this blog, my name is Rach. I'm currently 16 years old, and I'm in Year 12. I started the joy that can be known as A levels approximately two weeks ago, and I'm studying English Literature, English Language, French, Psychology and Cambridge Pre-U: Global Perspectives at my local college. I used to go to a private school, and I absolutely detested everything about it - from the teaching, to the pupils, and especially the work ethic and ethos of the school. For my GCSEs I got 4A*s, 4As and 2Bs in English Literature, English Language, French, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Music, Drama and History. I got 100% in both Lit and French. 

My hobbies include reading, writing, making YouTube videos, meeting up and talking with my friends, playing the guitar (I'm in a rock band with some friends), running, wandering round and exploring places and listening to music. 

I'm 50% introverted, 50% extroverted. Which is a total pain. It basically means that I don't really like to be around people much, but I hate being by myself at the same time. But also, it means that I can have fun both by myself and with other people, it just depends on my mood. 

I absolutely love the Avengers, Doctor Who, Sherlock and all those other nerdy things I'm sure you're sick to death of if you use Tumblr. I spend most of my time on the internet or playing Xbox with my friends. 

I have no idea what I want to be when I'm older: I change my mind every five minutes. Despite the fact that I got pretty good results for GCSE and I'm expected to go to a Russell Group university, I've never been that keen on doing something especially academic. I'm probably going to do either Modern Languages, English, Psychology or Creative Writing at University though.

So yeah, that's just some information about me. The official blogging will start tomorrow, so I hope whoever reads this (if anybody) will stick around and enjoy my other entries!!

Rach