Some people are intentionally manipulative. Some people are unintentionally manipulative. And some people just preset the universe so it works out with them getting exactly what they want.

*

Halfway through first term and I am coping. Just. Emphasis on the just. It is hard. It is harder than I ever thought it would be. Every day is a toss-up between absolutely loving it and being on the verge of quitting.

"Go to Newcastle and be happy."

But I didn't. I came here. And now I am here, I want to make it work. Somehow.

I am a poor, penniless student, as I'm sure you've all worked out by now, and though I would really love to, I can no longer afford the extravagance of a paid journal. I got a paid account purely by accident, when light_spectre unexpectedly bought me one for my sixteenth (argh!) birthday, and I have become deliciously used to having many many icons. This cannot last. My account expires for good in a few days, and since the only paid feature I have ever used is the icons, it is time to say goodbye. But I have so many, mostly made by the amazing Dana, and it seems such a shame to lose them. Therefore I am migrating to a plus account (yes I am selling out, so shoot me), and have to downgrade from 44 to 15 icons.

And this is where you come in.

Some of them I was only keeping for the sake of it. Some I genuinely love. Below the cut are the ones I desperately want to keep, with a brief description as to why. You are my flist, you know me well. Some of you know me better than anyone else out there. So please, give me your opinions.

( Don't waste the pretty )

Okay then. Thoughts?

Also, just so you know, I am stressed out of my mind, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, loving Cambridge nonetheless, and generally insanely busy. It is not that I think my icons are the most important thing in my life right now, and therefore something I must post about. It is rather that I cannot get my head straight enough to post about anything else, and this is a nice procrastination technique. Now I must go off and translate Lysias and Homer with my DoS.

WHY DID THEY NEVER TELL US THAT CAMBRIDGE WOULD BE HARD WORK???

Lecturer: Virgil, Aeneid, contemporaries, Homer, reception theory etc etc.
Calli: I really ought to be listening to this, it's actually interesting, but so tired, messed up the test this morning, can't believe I actually got out of bed, when am I going to do my prose comp, how can I make my essay better, why am I so tired already, SLEEP!
Lecturer: Look at this example of PORN! See? This author has written a GRAPHIC SEX/RAPE scene using lines of Virgil! Just look at all the PORN made out of epic!
Calli: WTF???

Well, that certainly woke me up.

That is all.

Today was Yom Kippur, and, in keeping with family tradition, I went with my mother and my aunt to visit the cemetery, where their parents are buried. I have been visiting those graves - first that of my grandmother, who died a week before my mother discovered she was pregnant with me, and then later that of my grandfather, who was a constant through my whole childhood and only died six years ago - since before I can remember. We always go on Yom Kippur, and place pebbles on the twin graves. I love the inscriptions, in particular the names: Mirjam Brandler (Baby Rosenwasser), because no one ever called my grandmother by anything other than her girlhood nickname, and Ali Brandler (Opa), because Opa was what my sister and I called him, and it stuck.

As we were leaving the cemetery, I suddenly remembered my great uncle (my grandmother's bother). Uncle Harri who taught me Hebrew for my Bat Mitzvah, taught me everything I currently know, died in January 2008. I asked why we hadn't considered visiting him, and suddenly we were on our way to a different cemetery, one I'd only been to for the funeral and stone setting. When we arrived, however, we realised our mistake. Yom Kippur is a High Holy Day, and technically we shouldn't have been traveling at all. Well, that's our family tradition, and it's our decision, but the cemetery where Uncle Harri is buried is a Jewish one. When we drove up, the tall iron gates (about 3m high) were closed and padlocked. We read the sign in frustration, feeling somewhat cheated by it all.

"Why don't we break in?" I suggested, laughing.

My aunt turned to my mother and said, "Which side of the gate do you think is lowest?"

This is why I spent Yom Kippur this year helping my mother (age fifty five) and my aunt (age sixty four) over an iron gate into a cemetery. I didn't find it difficult (I am a rock-climber, after all), but I found an empty metal dustbin on the other side, which I upturned to help them over. Once in, we found the grave (Harry (Tzvi) Rosenwasser - husband, father, grandfather and teacher), and stood there with a sense of accomplishment. Yes, breaking in on the Day of Atonement to visit his grave would have made Uncle Harri laugh for hours.

On the way out, as my mother was stepping onto the dustbin to climb up, a car drew up. Being sensible, I attempted to hide behind the wall. My mother and aunt, however, stood their ground in defiance.

"Hello!" my mother called out to the man who stepped out of the car. "Do you have the keys?"

"Uh, no." He looked confused. "The cemetery's shut today."

"Yes, we know," my mother replied cheerfully, as I reappeared.

"Um. What are you doing?" he asked. Thinking about it, upon finding three women on the wrong side of the gate attempting to climb over, this is a perfectly reasonable question.

"We're just on our way out," declared my aunt, with conviction.

The man just stared for a moment. Then, "Would you like a hand?"

With his help, we all managed to arrive safely on the other side of the gate. Perhaps we should have been in synagogue (we went last night on Kol Nidre, which was a beautiful service as always), thinking about our sins and how we could do better next year. On the other hand, looking back on this Yom Kippur, I feel like I've really accomplished something, something more than just helping two relatives with vertigo over a gate.

Uncle Harri, it's due to you that I could read the service last night at all, and I wanted to come say thank you in person.

This is a story inspired by Dan's introduction to my family, which did in fact involve hamsters in a similar way. 1750 words, much much concrit needed. (This isn't quite right, and I'm very conscious of that, but it's the first original story I've written in months, so I thought I'd post it anyway.)

( Worst taste in boyfriends )


I am moving to Cambridge at some point this week! I do not know when, but it will be soon! If you want to see me before I go, please let me know! I will miss you!

There are many places in London, Above and Below, which seem to resent those who pass through them. There is something in or under or between the cracks of Soho which twists the streets around it, directing people around in circles, taking them along streets that lead to the wrong places, and a maze of buildings too closely herded in together to let the walker get their bearings. It's almost exactly like pouring iron filings in the space between two bar magnets to show the contour lines of magnetic force, and then dropping a lodestone in the middle to see what happens. There is something in Soho - under Soho, between the cracks - that warps space to its will.

--The Invisible City; or, Dick Mayhew and his Marvellous Cat by Calliope85, inspired by Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.


Yes.

Risked getting fired today, with two days to go.

Basically, over the last three weeks, one thing keeping me sane at my job as been the constant e-mails my friends (thank you!) have been sending me, especially an epic e-mail conversation with Dan (the guy who suggested Connor drop Emily). Topics in this conversation include (but are not limited to):

* Sex
* Oral sex
* Bondage (of various types)
* How bored we both are at work
* Threesomes
* Detailed accounts of my failed relationship history, especially the most current one
* Bondage gear
* My inexplicable crush on my hot female coworker

Most of this was originally in code. Recently, it has not been. But it's fine because I'm an intern so no one's going to check my e-mails.

Today I was sent to do some scanning, to be handed in to my boss, on the other computer, and I saw that Dan had just written me a long e-mail that I quite wanted to read. So I printed it off so I could read it and laugh over it as I did the scanning. Except it's an odd system, so I had to print the entire thing, not just the first page. That is two weeks' worth of e-mails.

Scanning sequence:
1) Take out staples from document
2) Scan document
3) Re-staple document

Yep. You've guessed it.

I was actually out of the office before I realised what I'd done. I had to race back in, sort through the entire pile of paper, before finding it halfway down.

This could have been really really bad.

I totally blame Dan.

I am alive.

I realise this is probably self-evident, but Dana was asking about it, so I thought I would clarify. Lots of stuff has been going on, mainly involving my internship at the bank, which is awesome but utterly exhausting. (I love getting e-mails during the day, so if you feel like sending them to me, drop me a line and I'll give you my insanely shiny work e-mail address.) I'm in one of those odd phases where so much is happening and changing, but I don't really feel like LJing it. Those who know, know. But rest assured that I am alive and well, and don't worry, I'll be back to fill your flists with my introspective drama soon enough.

Why does this time in August always feel like change?

Last night, I discovered something very interesting that I'd heard before but thought was a myth:

If you are on antibiotics, and you are drinking, each drink will make you considerably more drunk than it would without the medication. The increase in drunkenness is not linear, but begins as relatively unnoticeable after one drink, progressing to a factor of about ^5 by the end of the night. This can have interesting results.

Of course, I blame all of this on Emily, for hitting her head and nearly getting concussion, after which we all really did need a few more gin and tonics. Or I could blame Connor for being the one to trip and fall while giving her a piggy back, or Dan for deciding that a piggy back race (with me on his shoulders and Emily on Connor's) on the walk home after a night at the pub would be a good idea.

Regardless, the upshot was that when I took a cab home at 5am, I was pretty damn out of it. And we left for switzerland this morning at 7.30, so you can imagine how I was feeling for most of the twelve hour drive. Urgh, being kinda drunk and kinda hung-over and in a lot of pain from the thing you're taking the antibiotics for in the first place (tooth infection)? Not a good idea. On the plus side, I am in Switzerland, where the wifi internet actually works! No more ethernet cable that falls out every time I breathe on it! Life is good again... for a week. Hello internetz! How are you? Would you like a fanfic biscuit?

I still had a fantastic time, and it has reminded me that there is not enough Emily in my life. Or late night drinking. I need to be out doing stuff again, seeing people, getting my confidence back. I quite like Emily's 'Crazy Rae'. Change is good.

Write me comments with interesting stuff.

ETA: GT backwards is TG, as in Torture Garden! Isn't that cool guys? ...Guys?

So I took the Bank of America job.

It wasn't at all planned. In fact yesterday, after my first interview was laughably bad (a guy turned up who had no idea who I was and had evidently already decided to take someone else), I decided for definite that I wouldn't take it. In fact, I wasn't even going to go for the interview this morning. My mother convinced me. They called me less than two hours after the interview to tell me I had it.

I'm still in the terrified not-really-sure-if-I-want-it stage. It's not about the cafe, it's just... I don't know. My whole family are away for that entire month, so yes, I'm scared. But they wanted me. They chose me to do this, and that's not something I'm going to turn down. So yes. Thoughts are welcome?

Also, yet again I have missed my LJ anniversary. By three weeks this time. *sigh* It's been five fucking years since I started this thing, and in all honesty, I haven't changed at all. But I did remember another anniversary, and manage to mark it significantly. So that's something.

I received something today that I don't really know what to do with, or rather, I really really do, and that's the problem. It is both maddeningly exciting and kinda terrifying at the same time. And it certainly doesn't fix anything. But it's kinda sweet.

Can I stay with you during August?

So Jennie finally upload several hundred photos from Kephalonia up onto facebook. And since the weather in London right now is kinda cloudy and grey (I just typed 'green' there, what is wrong with me?), I thought some bright Greek sunshine might cheer everyone up. Oh, and shots of me in a bikini. You're okay with that, right?

The caption for Jennie's album:
13 IB girls, 40 bottles of suncream and 1 rubber ring let loose on a Greek Island. You say parties, we say Camus and Diet Coke.

( Bring on the Haloumi! )

Any questions?

Also, I have a job in a cafe/coffee shop on our highroad, so if anyone wants to visit me there, that would be awesome? It's so much fun! I get to work the coffee machine and the till and everything! Possibly quitting it for a city bank job if I get that, but still - I have an apron guys!

The only other thing worth mentioning right now is that I watched the Utena film again yesterday. It is even more crazy!weird than I remember it. I'm on a total Utena high right now, so if anyone wants to comment with musings/discussions on either the movie or the anime, I would very much enjoy it. (The end of the anime series does kinda make sense, right? I'm not just imagining it?)

Avenue Q on monday totally rocked.

...Going to Cambridge.

43 IB points. 7s in Latin, Greek, Philosophy and Maths (wtf?), 6s in Biology and English (WTF?!), plus 3 core points. Oh, and an A in my Extended Essay.

Also, special congratulations to chasingthecrow, who was one of eighty people worldwide to acheive a perfect score of 45, but was too modest to post it on her LJ.

As Shoults wrote on my valedictory report, "She is certainly ready for Cambridge... but is Cambridge ready for her?"

HELL YES!

I don’t know how to address this, and, when the time comes, I doubt I’ll be able to sign it either. Yours sincerely, the end of the world. You always had so many names for me, a different identity for every facet of my personality. And you weren’t the only one – I’ve been renamed more times than I can count. Does that bother you, knowing that you weren’t the first (or the last, now I think about it) to brand me in that way? It’s all George Orwell and Wittgenstein’s language games. Give a girl a different name and you own that small part of her.

I have been owned, marked and remarked. Or should that be remarked on? I forget. But I was thinking of how to address you. I never could find the right name for you, so I settled on nothing at all. If anything, you’re London to me. London, with its tangled streets spiralling into madness, its roads that lead nowhere, its buzz and its business and the sense that it doesn’t really care about you at all. But it does. A city that mourns the loss of every traveller to go missing, but lacks the means to express its despair. Yes, that suits you. London’s owned me for such a long time now. So to London.

I miss you. I suppose that’s why I’m back here, after all these years. I looked for you, you know, when I first came back. First: that’s an interesting word. I’ve had a lot of firsts with you. Not as many as I know you’d like, and never as many as you assumed, but more than I ever thought any one person could have. My first visit to that part of the city, my first night alone with someone else, the first time I ever

[fragment missing]

and I guess it was for that reason that I always imagined I might be special. Stupid, I know, but you see my point. You never did at the time. I don’t think I did either. For me it was just a flurry of tension and anticipation, followed by agonising release. Do you remember how I used to take half a step backwards whenever you came towards me? You thought that was my reaction to you, but you were wrong, and any one of the others, before or after you, could have told you that. I wasn’t backing away from you, I was backing away from the moment you’d realise I wasn’t all that special after all. Of course, you already knew that. I was the one who indulged in illusions.

I still panic sometimes, but never the way I used to with you. My world would close in, and I’d feel like a stranded tourist racing the wrong way up an escalator to escape from the underground, or a disoriented cyclist tearing down yet another dead-end alley. You were my city, and I was so utterly, utterly lost in you. You know how I used to hate clichés, but that one fits. I liked to play with words. Language games. You’d call me your

[fragment missing]

what I’m doing here. Wherever ‘here’ is, because it’s not you. I told you I tried to look for you, but you’d been gone too long for even someone like me to catch the trail. Or maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough. I know you didn’t look for me – I was so careful to leave enough clues, enough signposts for you to find, if only you’d open your eyes. Perhaps you didn’t want to. If that’s the case, I know I did the right thing by leaving.

There’s a song about New York being a beautiful, but deadly, woman. New York is a woman, she’ll make you cry / And to her you’re just another guy. Well, that’s what London always was to me. The symbol of everything I ever hoped to achieve, tinted with the stains of everyone else who ever tried to get there. I’m a city girl, not a city. If you’re the town centre, then I’m just another cobblestone street, there to be walked over by a millions pairs of shoes. It was the designer heels that always hurt the most.

You left. I may have found you again, but you left, and what I found wasn’t what I had come looking for. There’s probably a poem somewhere about how that is always the case, but I don’t remember it, and you wouldn’t recognise it if I did. I can’t even say that you looked the same. There was something dead in your eyes, or maybe it was the shoes. Not your shoes. I couldn’t face being in the proximity of those shoes, so I fled. And now I’m back here, writing a letter I know you’ll have forgotten how to read, wondering if it’s worth trying to remind you. What can I even say? Hey, I’m here. It’s me, it’s your

[fragment missing]

will probably happen if you ever do manage to find me. But I’ll hope anyway. I can’t – won’t – wait forever, I’ve wasted too much time as it is. If you finish this letter, you’ll know where I’ll be. Where did I always go when the ground started to spiral away from me? Yes, I thought so.

I still love you. I don’t know why, or how, and nor do I expect you to believe it. But my city is falling to pieces, and if you ever manage to find me in the wreckage, maybe one of us will remember how it can be possible. That’s a lot of subjunctive tense.

Yours sincerely

Love

[end of fragment]




The WiFi internet has been slowly dying for the last month and a half. Today, I finally broke and started using the ethernet cable. I now have internet again! Life is good. But while my internet has been in its death throes, I have been rereading Neil Gaiman's short stories. You can blame him for this.

Those of us who were abandoned here when we were four...



Form class KAH, with the incredible Mrs Hedges.



My dress is psychadelic, people!


Yes, I cried during the last hymn. I also received a prize for classics, which included £35 of book vouchers. (This should help me with my reading list.) The dress, for anyone who was interested, cost £8 from a Cancer Research charity shop. Anyone else watch Mary Queen Of Charity Shops? (Yes, I fail, I know.)

Will I miss it? I find it incredibly hard to imagine not, that place has been my life for fourteen years. But time to move on, no?

Okay, so some of you (mainly Dormouse) may have been wondering where I've been recently. The answer is partly shiny and exciting, and partly involves watching lots and lots of tennis. My instinctive impulse to LJ every aspect of my life seems to have faded for a bit, so I'm going to do the summarised version, with photos to help.

( May Ball )

( His name is Luca )

( Canon Ball )

( Posed? Never! )

Finally, I received my Cambridge reading list today. Theoretically, I should aim to have read them all in the original before term starts (assuming I get in, sssshhhh). Luckily, this included Lysias 1 which I read at Bryanston, and Herodotus 1, which was my IB set text. Yay headstart! Also on the recommended reading list is a Homeric dictionary edited by R.J. Cunliffe. It was meant to be, people!

No thinking about results in less than two weeks. Not not thinking about it.

Lurkers out there? People from fandoms and comms who know me online but have never met me in person? People whose fanfic I love but whose real names I don't know?

I need you now.

Sorry if this sounds cryptic. To my long-term friends, I love you all so so much. But I need distance for this.

My e-mail address is callita@gmail.com. If you have time to talk, e-mail me, or comment with an address (comments are screened).

Thank you to anyone who replies.

Well hello there from sunny Glasgow. I say sunny, because it is. Seriously, I have just had three days of glorious Scottish sunshine, made even sweeter by the fact that it is raining in London. I am up here for my cousin Joel's design show, to mark his graduation. He got a first - yay cousin Joel! After a very rocky start which involved having to redo the second year, we are all massively proud of him. And I finally made it up to visit my big cousin at university. Happiness all round.

The May Ball is on tuesday and I am starting to get nervous that I will not be able to survive in my new heels! Tips, anyone?

Keph 09 photos yet to be uploaded, watch this space.

And finally, a meme borrowed from emilyray:

❝who do you ship me with?❞

I can be found here: http://llwyds.livejournal.com/215880.html?thread=4617544#t4617544, because I'm still very much a fandom girl, and, as my facebook status says, Looking for love, will settle for sex. So ship me!

Love to you all.

Calli is back from Kephalonia! (Or Kefalonia. Or Kephallinia. Or Cephallonia. No one seems to know how to spell it, including Wikipedia, and that says something.)

Let's start again: Calli is back from Greece. And she is tanned. Not that fake orangey kinda tan, but the golden brown glow you can only get from a full week doing nothing but sunbathing next to a pool, reading Catcher In The Rye. Too bad it probably won't last the week. The tan, that is, not the book. I finished that already.

I feel so much better than when I left. Even after the exams had finished, I still wasn't eating properly, and the sudden rush of sleep made me feel drowsy and lethargic the whole time. And I have to say, missing a night's sleep to be at Gatwick airport by 4am for a 6am flight (which meant leaving at 2) did not help matters. However, after just half an hour in the Mediterranean sunshine, nothing seemed to matter anymore. The villa was gorgeous - six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a huge kitchen and an incredible swimming pool - and despite the numerous disputes, everyone just felt so happy to be there. We'd done it, we'd survived the IB. And this, lying back on sun-loungers whilst knowing that people back home were doing exams, was our reward. Schadenfreude, much? (I learnt how to spell that word from Avenue Q. This scares me.)

Anyway, I don't have a camera, and unlike many of my friends, I don't feel the need to document every event. ('Come on guys! If we don't have a photo of it, how will we remember it?!) However, since there must have been several thousand photographs taken in total, which will soon turn up on facebook, major picspam will be coming shortly. Prepare for images of thirteen bikini-clad girls doing crazy stuff. (Including reading Camus by the pool and graphically demonstrating how to insert a tampon. But not at the same time.) We also got some beautiful shots of the underground lake at Mellisani, and of course of the sea. I kinda miss it already. The food, of course, was superb everywhere. One night we did karaoke at a hotel the others were staying at, which was totally awesome. (I sang I Kissed A Girl and Gimme Gimme Gimme with a friend, and then did Melissa Etheridege's Come To My Window as a solo once I'd had a few cocktails. I love that song.) Oh, and we were regularly followed by Greek guys on motorbikes, who wouldn't take no for an answer. Jennie and I found this hilarious. Everyone else found it terrifying.

I write this journal mainly for me, but I do like the fact that other people read it, so I won't go into detail about the holiday. Just to say, for those of you who may have been worrying about me over the last few months, this holiday was really what I needed, topless swimming in the sea and all. Hopefully the photos will convey that. Now that I'm back, I can really start looking for a job, and carry on with the reading I've start. OMG, books! Like, books not on my course, that I don't have to make notes on! You have no idea how happy this makes me. I also have the Camberidge St John's May Ball to look forward to (16th June - I can't wait!) and my own Leavers' Ball, wittily named 'Canonball'. I have dresses for both of them (old ones I've only worn once, which makes me happy), and, strangely enough, a date for both as well, who happens to be the same person. I have always wanted to go to balls wearing an evening dress, accompanied by a guy in a dinner jacket. Oh, and believe me, there will be pictures.

I hope everyone back here in London is doing alright. Let me know how you are! (I have a LOT of catching up to do on my flist.) I missed you, and I'm going to be kinda self-indulgent and hope that you missed me too. But for these tan lines? So totally worth it.

Anna begins in the Notting Hill flat, when she tells him she knows someone there,
He points out that her stockings are laddered, but she laughs and pretends not to care,
The party is swinging, the alcohol's on someone else, she drinks vodka and lime,
And tells him to call her; they both hope that, maybe, things could be different this time.

He meets her at Earl's Court, though she protests, says the District line makes her lost,
He talks about engines and radio waves; she quotes Eliot and Robert Frost.
Somewhere above them the daylight is fading, someone calls him, or her, and it's late,
So she goes home alone with her nose in a book, and both firmly deny it's a date.

Anna begins to toss and turn, won't say why but she's there at his door,
He makes her some tea - one sugar please. She curls up in a ball on the floor.
Tears in her eyes but they're not about him, so he holds her like he understands,
Tight as the tangle at Tottenham Court Road, he kisses one of her hands.

Of course, two days later she's off the map, too far north of his Central line,
'You can't count on me' she throws back in his face at a party with too much white wine,
They don't talk of love: he says failure, she says tightrope walking and wire,
He sighs when she leaves, but there's pizza and beer, and absinthe laced with green fire.

Anna begins to change her mind at the corner of Carnaby Street,
Where Oxford Circus bubbles and spits, she steps back from the noise and the heat,
The world starts to spin, with her hands in her hair she lets go and turns round and around,
And somewhere out there he is watching her fall as she spirals her way to the ground.

Camden Town brings them together again, where the Northern line reunites,
Like a lover who's leaving, the Charing Cross branch returns for one last kiss goodnight,
He calls her the Curiosity Kitten; she's crying again - what else is new?
So they stand by the station. She won't say a word. He answers that he'll miss her too.

Anna begins to fade away in a web of bright colours and tracks,
There's still some faint spark of that Notting Hill girl, he sees when she tries to relax,
Gentleman of summer, she calls him, and shudders when he runs his hand through her hair.
A party, a tube map, and a lost little girl, pretending to know someone there.


*sigh* I wish it was possible to write poems like this about girls, but the damn pronouns always get in the way. This would never happen in Latin.

I wrote this as the sequel, or development really, of Stations. It is possible that is actually better. One point for every Counting Crows reference spotted.

Over!

Exams are over over over over over!

I have now officially left school (as opposed to just stopping going to lessons), and have nothing to worry about ever again! (Well, until results day on July 6th anyway.) I am no longer an IB girl. Hell, I'm no longer an NLC girl either. No, that can't be right. Once NLC, always NLC. I guess the same goes for IB too.

Don't ask me about the exams, or at least, don't expect answers. I have completely forgotten almost every paper already, and remember only that labantem translates as 'as you fell', not as the object 'suffering'. Ah well.

Summer is here and is summery! I really want to get involved with Pride, but it's probably too late by now. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do? I'll definitely be there, dressed up and marching in the parade, but since I now have masses of free time, it would be nice to do something more this year. Speaking of free time, I can read books again! Real books, that aren't even on my course. I already have a stash of quick, trashy novels, and a list of other books I've always wanted to read. And maybe now I can finally get back to writing. Money is limited, but right now that doesn't seem to matter. Nothing I do will now have any effect whatsoever on my grades. It's a terrifying feeling, but one that has cured the headache I've had for months, and should get me eating again. Mmm, food.

Counting Crows concert in Brighton tomorrow w00t!

Oh, and non-IB related, if you want to know, ask. I know you guys always do.

Exams are almost over! Only two left to go (both philosophy - LOL) at the end of next week. The classics marathon, which consisted of all four exams over two days, with two languages on each day, has ended, thank god. You try switching languages within an hour. I kept trying to find aorists in the Latin paper.

So this is going to be short, because I'm going to do a proper entry when they're over for real. However, since they finish so soon, I want to start planning things to do. That means lots of getting drunk, of course, although I have limited funds (like, srsly limited), so if anyone wants to take me out and pay for my drinks my morals would be decidedly questionable? And I want to go up to Cambridge before the May Ball. I also really really REALLY need someone to come see Counting Crows with me in Brighton this sunday. I can get tickets reduced from £35 to £25, but I don't want to go on my own, and I totally adore them, and please? I have been waiting over four years to see this band.

I belong in the service of the queen,
I belong anywhere but in between,
She's been crying, and I've been thinking,
That I am the Rain King.

Pure love.

I tried to go to Coffee, Cake and Kink today, but it was shut down! Back in a few months apparently - oh noes! So we went to Soho Square instead and sat on the bench dedicated to Kirsty MacColl. Observe.



I love this photo.

So yes! Get back to me on Counting Crows, and on exciting stuff to do, because I love you all and yay! I am happy so I am using my happy yay roses icon. Love to you all!

So I survived the first week of exams. That's kinda all I really want to say. Those of you who've been speaking to me the last week know what's going on (more than you should have to), and those of you who haven't, don't worry, I'm fine. The 'I'm fine' comment especially goes to Amy, and her new girlfriend Katie (wait, did I just out you guys on LJ), who should not under any circumstances be panicking. Think Hitch-hikers Guide, but with an emo twist. Anyway, the point is I have done six out of thirteen exams, and that means no more maths and biology ever. I'm half relieved and half nostalgic - I liked drawing biology diagrams and integrating sin(x). No really, I did. But I pleased it's over.

What's that? You guys want obsessive introspection, a detailed analysis of what my latest panic attack is about, how you can solve it, and which Imogen Heap song it most relates to? This one's kinda more Chris Pureka, damn it, why am I playing Autumn songs in the Spring? And it is Spring. All I need is a leg wax and a short cotten skirt to prove it. But I'm kinda liking my jeans and old fleece right now. Such is life.

I watch her stare into a mirror and see what isn't there,
Fingernails, painted dark of course, tangled in my hair,
She says I love you like it matters, I miss you like I care.
Expects me to stay, while she sleeps, awake,
And tells me conversationally how she knows she'll break.

I never did paint my fingernails dark. I only ever had pinkish nail polish.

But I has shiny things. Gay turtles aside - actually, why put gay turtles aside? Yes, they exist, and the next person who asks me how I can tell this one's gay... all I can say is see it and work it out for yourself. Village turtle! (Note to self: there need to be more turtle-lolcats out there. Really.) However, the shiny things I had in mind were the pictures Dana just sent me of the Seven Deadly Sins photoshoot. The edited ones, having been cut up and burnt by her. They are quite spectacular, proving that she is magic. Observe.

( Unforgivable sinner )

In other news, I have been invited to a ball. Since I already have a ballgown, this makes me very happy. Does anyone want to lend me a glass slipper?

I have lost sight of my floor.

I realise for a lot of you, this may not be a new feeling, but it is for me, it's a real surprise. I'm not a hugely tidy person by nature, but nor am I a hugely untidy one. Clothes live in the wardrobe or on the chair, and everything else (books, papers, books, folders, shoes, more books) gets put in piles and shoved to the edges of the room, where it sits quietly and unobtrusively humming to itself. I also have a desk, which has now been completely cleared (by my mother), but which I am refusing to use on principle. Don't ask me what principle, except the one that I now work exclusive on the bed or on the floor. Yes, I am fully aware what that makes me sound like, and no you can't beat me at the innuendo game.

My folders for six subjects (ten folders in total, plus lots and lots of loose paper) are spread out across my floor in a vast maze of paper that stretches from the door to the bed and back again. This is good, because it means I have all my resources at hand, do not have to sort through endless piles or worry about losing things (No one touches anything on the floor, got it?), and can visualise it all perfectly. However, it does have its downsides. Like tripping every time I try to leave my room, and having anyone else who attempts to enter trip too, or else skid on a biology practice paper or step on a Latin dictionary (yes, I have more than one).

The revision is going well. That is, I have done more work than I expected to, and almost as much as I hoped to do. My biology folder lies smugly closed, though it all must be relearnt before the exam, and my notepad is full of detailed diagrams of various biological functions, as neatly drawn as is possible from someone with handwriting like mine. There are two exceptions to this: the phospholipid bilayer of a cell membrane, and the male reproductive system. One of them has too many glyco-thingies with weird names that look the same, and the other has too many damn tubes that do weird twisty things that look downright painful. It does not help that we learnt to draw the latter diagram after the Canons Follies afterparty, when we were all hungover and feeling nauseous as it was. Copying giant diagrams of the penis really did not help. (Note: in contrast, the female reproductive system is undeniably simple. Anyone wish to comment? Thought not.)

As for classics, I've learnt the texts, and attempt a practice paper every so often. Need to reread the texts in english, damn it. I have spent today rereading old english essays and making lists of good quotes. I have 130 of them. My mother says it is impossible to memerise 130 quotes. I disagree. I am also doing handwriting practice again (taking dictations from Middlemarch, to save time), and theoretically making essay plans. Need to do some maths, damn it. I keep avoiding it because I don't think it's as time-efficient as the others, but the exam is in less than a week, so I should at least attempt to use the double angle theorem (the only thing I still get stuck on). Oh, and 3x3 matrices, but I'm okay with that.

Philosophy: LOL. Still.

In other news, I am on antibiotics again. This is the fourth time in eight months my tooth has flaired up, and it hurts like hell. Luckily I have five days to make it go away. Just as my floor is littered with books and folders, so my shelf is littered with various medication. These antibiotics. The last antibiotics. Nurofen, paracetamol, and those extra strong prescription pain killers they gave me last time. I feel like a junkie. I'm having it taken out over summer, which means serious injections. Great. Oh, and speaking of injections, my second HPV jab is tomorrow. Watch the kitten not panic, watch her not panic, watch her... shit. They're going to stick a needle in my arm, damn it. I can cope with this. Totally. Not going to faint. Not. And if I do, so what? Harmless. Painless. I can do this. *sigh*

My mother bought me The Princess Bride to cheer me up yesterday. I have now finished it. Zara would have got through it in an hour, I know. I've lost my edge when it comes to reading. Ah well. Back to Fight Club now.

My first exam is next Monday. It's the pract crit. I am almost looking forward to it. Dear god, I want them to start already. Oh, I took Wil rock climbing on Saturday. Exercise kitten does exercise! I'm a little out of practice, but damn it felt liberating, being up there again. Undercut, pull, balance, swap feet, up, rockover, smear and twist, and you're up there. It still feels like flying.

Jennie and Helena (the most laid back and the most exam-neurotic people I know, respectively) have both agreed that if you're not crying at least once a week, you're just not making the IB cut. Luckily, I still am.

Another stupid breakdown about work today. Not fun. Don't like. Can go away please? Kthx.

I was eventually thrown out of my curled-up-in-a-ball-on-the-floor-crying thing by a phone call from Dormouse, who set me straight, which was nice. And aside from that, Wil sent me this, which is the thing to cheer me up most today:



Note: Just because Emily got confused, the kitties can HAS the cheeseburger, but they are not actually IN the cheeseburger. I mean, they are, but not to be eated. They can has the cheeseburger, but you no can has kitty-cheeseburger. Y/Y?

I can't believe she got confused.

Major ETA: I have now been informed by two external sources (well, Wil and Dana, if you count them as external) that the kittens in fact are in the cheeseburger, like Emily thought, and that what I assumed was a cute happy picture of kittens frolicking in the cheeseburger they have longed for so much, is actually a grotesque and disgusting image of KITTEN EATING!!! It is no longer my favourite image. Thank you Wil.

In fact, this prompted an argument with Dana and Wil at the same time (yay phones), with me insisting my view was right. Is anyone here reminded of the Moppetra arguments with Chey? She sent me the picture of the kitten in my icon, and while I went 'Oooh, cute kitten with wings!', Chey went 'Look, dead kitten has died and gone to heaven'. Most of our relationship was based on that one misunderstanding. What is it with my friends, trying to do horrible things to adorable little kittens?! They are kittens! They need love and affection and cute little collars with their names on, not horrible images of death and carnage.

I have been betrayed by the internet.