This was the week I found out that I had been spelling the word 'practice' incorrectly for most of my life. I always thought it was spelled 'practise' but apparently not.
This week was also the week good old Practice Exams started. Now, I am apparently a freak for feeling this way, but I really enjoy the whole exam process. I like the idea of testing your knowledge. I also like the idea of 100+ people being in one room in silence.
Practice exams are especially useful because they are where I found out most of the semester's curriculum.
I do not, however, enjoy going to Practice Exams on my holidays.
Today I had my English exam, which consisted mainly of me retracting long and overly-wordy sentences from my anus. I think it went quite well.
Went out for lunch with CookieDough and Betty's Driver after the exam. Spent the majority of the time screaming and laughing at CookieDough and his horrendous loss of virginity to someone literally twice his age.
Tuesday
Italian exam today. Arrived late, realised as I hurriedly sat down and caught my breath that i had FORGOTTEN TO BRING MY DICTIONARY. For anyone who has never done a foreign language before, a bilingual dictionary is an essential survival tool when you come across a word you don't know. Which, for me, usually happens at least 3 times per sentence.
Bluffed my way through the exam. I don't know my results yet but it is likely that I interpreted the completely wrong meanings of the articles. Good day!
That night, I had gone to bed at an acceptable hour but was woken to a phonecall at 4:00am from my ChineseWasherWoman. Expecting a phone call consisting of blaring music with a distant "LUKE!!!!! HELLO?!?!" I was surprised to hear no loud noises. I was also surprised and concerned to hear her sobbing and crying incomprehensibly. Asking her what was wrong, she replied "She's dead, Luke. She's dead." Obviously shitting my pants and thinking that someone close to both of us had died in some alcohol-related freak accident, I was stressing out. However, the 'she' referred to was actually her beautiful little dog, Tara. While Tara was not what I considered a close friend, I have never known a dog to be so constantly excited and happy as she, and it I was very sad for my friend! I would be forever traumatised if one of my dogs had died because I know how much they can mean to an owner. R.I.P Tara!! Xx
Wednesday
Today I had two exams - Media and then Music. Totally aced the Media exam without actually knowing any of the curriculum before Tuesday night. Music exam did not include any of the Aural component, so basically did not count.
Went through all my old things trying to find a box full of old tap shoes from my childhood, which brought back a lot of memories. Eventually I found the particular pair I was looking for, to lend to Buddy for an audition. Was offered money, DVD's and many other goods and services in return for the shoes, including illegal drugs. Unfortunately, the offer of weed was only a joke.
Thursday
Had my last Practice exam today, Psychology. Thankfully, my 12 minutes of studying paid off when I was generally familiar with the content of the exam. My 'study', which consisted of completing 15 multiple choice questions the morning of the exam, caused a momentary panic in which I realised that I was going to fail. When I looked at all of the answers, they were ALL wrong. Freaking out, I was confused when every basic principle of psychology that I had applied in giving my answers seemed to be contradicted in the 'correct' responses. I was extremely relieved, however, to realise that I was marking my answers to a different set of questions. VCE is really, really stressful.
After my exam, I had to catch the good old bus back to Greensborough and wait for another connecting bus home. While waiting at the bus stop of Greensborough Plaza (a truly lovely place, might I add), I was disgusted at the people that surrounded me. I, like most people, claim to be a generally non-judgmental person, however, it is impossible not to feel somewhat repulsed by the people who spend most of their time hanging out at shopping centres. Neither coming nor going somewhere else... their destination is the entrance to the plaza and there they will stay for hours on end.
There is one girl who I often see on my bus in the mornings, wearing her school uniform and catching a bus in the opposite direction of her school. I am not one to condemn wagging at all but this girl wags school in order to hang out at the local shopping centre in her caked-on makeup and skirt that looks like she's cut it in half. Many times she has caught my bus early in the morning and has STILL been there, smoking cigarettes and polluting the air outside Greensborough at the end of the day when I am on my way home.
I go to Greensborough Plaza all the time and am more than used to seeing the odd bum crack of a 17yo mother of two. Another favourite sight at Greensborough is the man who carries his pet rat around - on his shoulder. One jolly afternoon I had the pleasure of witnessing a gang of fun-loving youngsters smoking weed at a crowded bus stop. I have also sat next to a woman who was holding a huge tuft of hair which she bragged about ripping out of another woman's scalp. She tied it onto a nearby pole, just like a pretty ribbon.
As I said, it's a lovely place and I am more than accustomed to the type of people that frequent it. On this day, however, I was SHOCKED at the concentration of freaks that seemed to have tripled since I last went there. I thought that maybe it was a Carer-free day at the local mental health facility. Wanting to avoid the body odour and screaming bogans, I sat down at the part of the bus stop away from most other activity. Then, along came Little-Miss Bourbon and her anorexic velvet-tracksuit-wearing friend, who sat down right near me. Without my headphones and obviously being too close to other people to talk to myself as I so often do, I instead observed these two specimens, trying to figure them out. While drinking bourbon and coke (it was 4:00 in the afternoon), the overweight woman belched several times. She then got up to check the bus timetable, generously parading her oversized muffin tops (is there a term for muffin tops coming from over the armpits of a singlet top?) right near me, she then started shaking in a very odd way. Expecting some sort of seizure, I then noticed the headphones in her ears and realised that apparently, she was dancing.
Here are just a few reasons why she should not have been dancing: it was 4:00pm and broad daylight; she was rather overweight and severely under-dressed; her dancing looked more like a disabled person trying to escape from an invisible straight-jacket and oh, I almost forgot, SHE WAS AT A BUS STOP.
I must admit, though, I was highly entertained, even though I had to try and hide my smile/laughter as she probably would have punched me out if she had noticed.
Now seriously, people can do whatever they want. If people want to be bogans that's their choice, I don't have a problem with it. But they don't need to go throwing their lifestyle choices in my face!
Friday
Had approximately 3 hours sleep, despite the fact that I went to bed early. This was because I was woken up by another call from my ChineseWasherWoman, this time at the more reasonable hour of 1:00am. Concerned that this time a friend of ours had really died, I picked up in a hurry. Thankfully, there had been no tragic accident involving a beer-bong and a falling roof panel, resulting in massive trauma to the esophagus causing instant death, as I had originally feared. Instead, she was bored and wanted to come pick me up.
I have written about these events partly because they occurred, technically, in the wee hours of Friday morning and partly because I already wrote way too much in Thursday's entry. Sorry everyone!
Anyway, after waking up and getting dressed, I then snuck out of the house (which I hadn't done in a surprisingly long time) and met her halfway up the street, waiting for me at the wrong house. The first 5 minutes consisted of me laughing uncontrollably in a misplaced fear-response to the fact that this mental driver was legally allowed to control a vehicle on our roads. Fed up with the countless roundabouts in the northern suburbs, she literally DROVE OVER one of them in order to give her arms a rest from steering. We then both felt extremely anxious driving past a police car, despite the fact that no laws were being broken (except for her dangerous driving, perhaps, which was suddenly very slow and controlled). In pyjamas, it would not have been surprising if someone had reported two 12yo adopted siblings going for a joyride in their unsuspecting parents' stolen car.
When I got home around 3:00am, I simply could not get back to sleep. This normally would not have mattered much, except for the fact that I had a very big day coming up!
You see, Friday was also the day that I shot my Media photos. After doing the majority of my folio in a record 24 hours, I had yet to actually produce my final piece. The premise of my piece was "to create a series of images that challenge and question society’s tendency to make judgements about someone based on their appearance. In the individual shots, I will be using the same model in very different styles of clothing and appearance, highlighting how one can be seen very differently based on the way the choose to look."
I had booked the studio of my acting classes so that I could use their professional lights, etc. My friend and hair-product model of the year, Selena, was the subject for the photos. I had spent $50 at Savers (in the beautiful Greensborough, might I add) buying mostly hideous clothing to go with each image but thankfully she was able to bring many of the costumes from home. We met in the city early and headed in to the studio.
Turns out, the actual taking of the photos was not something to be dreaded. I actually had a really fun time, forcing Selena to dress up in hideous costumes and laughing a lot at the ill-fitting maternity-wear. Costume pieces included bright orange Sailor pants and velvet tracksuit pants (Greensborough plaza-style) as highlights. I was very very grateful to Selena for agreeing to do the photos and was really happy with how they turned out. Once they've been edited, etc., I may even put some on this blog.
After she left to go to work, I met up with my grandparents in the city to go and see the Salvador Dali exhibition. I know I must sound pretty cool to you right now, but I really enjoy spending time with them and had wanted to see the exhibition for ages. After lining up for literally an hour and complaining the whole time about my sore feet to my 70+ elderly grandparents, we finally got in. A lot of the art was seriously incredible and I especially liked the animated short film. As with most creative/artistic geniuses (geni...?), Dali was absolutely fucked in the head.
Saturday
Was very disappointed when nothing exciting to do came up for Friday or Saturday nights. In the end, however, Tevye came and picked me up and we went to Sondheim's parentless house. Unable to find the energy to explain why I was leaving the house at 10:30pm, I decided it would be much easier on everyone if I sneaked out. Unfortunately, had to resort to the old Slow-Motion Slide to get out unnoticed. The Slow-Motion Slide involves creeping at an extremely slow pace from one place to another in order to create minimal noise. I literally slid my feet down the hallway so slowly that you probably wouldn't even have known I was moving, if you had been there to watch.
Eventually I got out and we went to Sonheim's. Not having anything to do, I ended up drinking an oversized bottle of bourbon and coke. This is my death-drink and it makes me feel sick just smelling it, but I felt some craving for contamination and it was my only option. I was disgusted further, however, when I read on the label that it only consisted of 5% alcohol... definitely not enough for the pain and suffering I was going through in trying to finish that heinous drink. I would rather drink my own piss. If it had more than 5% alcohol concentration, that is.
I was disappointingly sober the entire night but this was probably a good thing seeing as I had absolutely no reason to be drinking.
Sunday
Got out of bed at around 1:30pm. For some reason I was in a really, really bad mood - the sort of mood where you scream at the t-shirt you left on the floor for "getting in the way".
Wanting to get out of the house where I am less likely to scream at inanimate objects, I mustered up the motivation to take one of my dogs for a walk. This was a bit of a risk considering my bad mood, seeing as she can be really annoying with her incessant energy. It was only supposed to be a short walk but I ended up going for more than an hour, exploring a new-found nature reserve with an actual river running through it, with rapids and everything. I was slightly calmed by the scenery, only to have another outburst whenever the dog's leash got entangled around a tree trunk, which was at least every 5 minutes.
Got home and was privileged to look forward to my return to that wonderous place of joy, love and fulfillment: Parade College!
