Anyhows, I’m interested in IT. Decided that I was more of an IT person than Engineering, even if it was a computer oriented engineering course, and once again I’ll complain about how hard it is to type on my iPod Touch. Complaining done. USyd or UTS? Who knows. I like the sound of USyd more. It felt nicer to be at whenever I’ve been there. Is that another grammatical error there? My mum advised me to choose with my head, not my heart, when deciding which Uni/course to choose. Considering the options available (or should I say advertised?) to me and the advice from different people, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two universities. One is more industry ‘grounded’, with work experience and practical learning (supposedly) whilst the other is a more traditional academic approach. One purports a higher rate of graduates having jobs in the industry by the end, the other… Well, I didn’t ask as much at the info day, but the examples I’ve heard/seen/know suggest that it has a similar success rate for after grad jobs.

I think in the end I chose (preference wise) on my heart rather than my head, but I can use the excuse that it’s my life, and I can waste the opportunities the way I want to. I just feel so conflicted. And again, iPod Touch is annoying to type on. I think I’ll try to write up more on an actual keyboard. Another time then.
Oh, and my friends and I had another sorta-movie marathon. Don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it already. At the rate we go through movies, no thanks to Kausthub, we’ll be finished with our current list by the time we’re 25. And I don’t think that includes TV shows. I should also talk about my info day experiences later.

Anyhows, TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

So, let me see… I remember it was fun… and there was food. And friends. And fun. Oh, and at least 2 movies. And popcorn. And Skyrim. Lots of Skyrim.

Ok, well, first their was a friend’s belated birthday ‘party’, where several of us met up at Castle Towers to watch Puss in Boots (3D!), and then a rather enjoyable dinner at an Indian restaurant afterwards. Besides all the laughs, the conversations, and meeting new people, or eating a lot of food as I seemed to do, it was great to be with friends again!! Even if I had been with them just a few days before… You can never be with friends too often, right? Darn, this widescreen is messing up with my ability to judge how long this post is… Time for a blog redesign, I say! I just wish someone would do the visual designing for me, I’m awful at creating designs (I just find something I like on the internet, and make my own version of it).

I remember that there were some rather funny presents given to the friend (I remember saying that I would avoid naming people on my blog, because of the way the stalkerish internet works, so I’ll just name the friend Kau***. Those that know him should know who I’m talking about, right? NTS: go back over old posts and edit the names), who is a fan of Cricket (the sport invented by the English, and dominated by their colonies =P  That’s what they deserve, for never actually giving us the real ashes!)… Well, they gave him a box of crickets among other delicious gifts. Can’t quite remember how amused he was, but everyone else watching laughed our heads off, as he knelt on the ground, treating the box like a live bomb. And that was before he opened it.

Amongst all the outings with friends was video gaming, such as Half-Life 2, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim, Counter Strike: Source, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Skyrim, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim… you get the picture =P   Scarily (blasphemicly… that is now a word) I have not felt urge to play Portal 2. I think I need another HSC for me to play it late into the night and far into the early morning, trying to beat my friends best times on the different levels…  And maybe there was some Minecraft, Dead Space and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, and some other games, in there as well. I don’t remember too well.

Regardless, I have my new PC now. It’s all mine! And I let my brother use it as well sometimes… Anyhows, It’s powerful, fresh, and heavy. I can certainly do all my work on it for several years to come. Sure, it’ll probably slowdown with all the bloat I put on it over the years, and with newer technology coming out to make it look slow. But still, it’ll be great for years to come! That’s the way I like choosing computers, a little extra oomph now to make it worth the 5 – 8 years you use it for (or sometimes longer).

And by heavy, the case alone is 11.3Kg, and I’ve no idea how heavy the components inside it are (1 DVD drive, 1 3.5″ HDD, 1 mobo, 1 CPU + stock heatsink, 1 PSU, 2x 4GB RAM, 2x GTX 560 GPU). But it’s definitely a strong case. And it’s got enough fans built in to be well ventilated (and also a dust sucker, but that just means I have to be bothered to clean it more often).

What else have I done over the last month or so? I remember a movie marathon at Sat***’s house, were Oreos, chips and drinks were consumed, until we went for pizza and microwave popcorn. We enlightened (read: forced to watch) BMCB about Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and also watched the first Matrix movie (for those that had not seen it yet, which is a surprisingly large number of 3 amongst the group of friends who were there that day). It was a highly enjoyable experience that I/we hope to experience again many times this year, and for many years after =P  Especially considering the list of movies/TV shows we thought would be great to watch, we may need a few years to reach the end of the list. And by then there’d be some new movies we’d like to watch as well XD

There was also the small matter of us receiving our HSC results and consequently our ATAR. Speaking of that, I’m still not entirely sure as to which university I’d like to go to, or which would offer me the best education/opportunity in the course(s) I’m interested in. I must continue to consult my friends who are all giving me different advice! And of course asking the universities themselves would be a little silly, as they’d try to sell themselves as the best.

There were carols nights (which I had mostly avoided because I didn’t feel Christmassy this year, except for one at my church, because my mum wanted me to give a gift from a family to both Pastors, simply because she didn’t feel like going herself and giving it to them). There were Christmas nights. Wait, only one Christmas night. And one Christmas day. There was a movie night with friends from church (PotC4! 2nd half of Robin Hood: Men in Tights!), and BMCB visited to see how nice Skyrim was on my PC. There were BBQ lunches at some point, and warm days, humid days, and cold days. Oh, and my mum decided it was a nice time to repaint the house. I managed to get out of doing a lot of work for that by being out with friends. Like at Dam***’s party/gathering/get-together in the city! Sadly I could not stay for dinner with them, but I did have a wonderful lunch at a noodle bar (I have totally got to try more foods so that I don’t stand there, looking at the menu and think to myself “Will I like that, or will it taste it and be like ‘…ehh… not eating that’?”) with the twins (why did they leave for James Ruse?! Also, I think I remember which one is And*** and Pet*** now). And then there was the Secret Room Cafe (Pictionary: 99.95 ATARs vs everyone else, with Dam*** hosting. We (everyone else) won =P  Actually, I don’t remember who won, but I remember it being close). Afterwards was internet cafe, and then they went to dinner at Blackbird (some restaurant of some type I guess? I wasn’t there at that point). Has*** asking for a fork at the noodle bar was highly amusing. Just putting that down so I don’t ever forget it.

I’m sure that there were more things that happened during December, but I’m at a loss as to what they were. Oh, wait, there was the annual Band Christmas party at Mar***’s house this year! Sadly it was a bit of a rainy day, but there was Pictionary, brawl, piano playing, poker, darts, food… friends, fun… any more alliterations I can use? Regardless, it was fun to be with friends yet again, be they from The Stoop, Backstoop, (umm… Matthew Wong group?), Band, or any number of the many groups of friends I have/know/hang-out with. Ahh… I would enjoy being in a band again, but I’m a little too shy to bother joining another one, and too lazy to really practise my flute playing. I remember on the night of the Band ‘Christmas Concert’ I finally admitted, in front of an audience which included the band committee, that I had not had a flute tutor since Year 8, despite the band member agreement stating that I should have one. Not that I think they cared. But it was still funny to see (or hear) some people’s reactions to it. And I was also an MC that night with Mag*** C. (haha MC with MC). Now, I don’t enjoy public speaking. I’m usually quite fine with handing it off to someone else. Be that debating, speeches, presentations, or in this case, ‘running’ a concert. In Yr 9, I was selected by Ms. Swe*** to be on the class debating team (funny story, because she knew I liked video games, she put me on the affirmative team for “Video games are bad for your health”. We won the debate), but I declined, because I was semi-morbidly afraid of having to debate in the next round of the inter-class competition (against Mr VL’s Yr 9 class, which our class lost? I cannot remember), because it would’ve been in front of more people, and required me to be ready to debate. I’ve never enjoyed being on a debating team. I like to have freedom with my debates (that is, I like to able to go on for hours, or just rant. As the year book says I do. Who wrote that anyway?). Funnily enough, since I’m continually told to lessen the amount of time I spend gaming, I knew plenty of arguments to use in the class debate…

Anyhows, this post is now really long. Looking at the word count, it has gone pass the 1550 word mark. Or 1570 work mark by now (the word ‘now’ just there is word 1571). I should stop that, it’s just making it longer. I remember an awesome Doctor Who Christmas Special (on boxing day for us Aussies, because the BBC cannot possibly let it air anywhere in the world before it airs in the UK……………….. WHY?! We’re your best customers outside of the UK! The Australian ABC has bought every single one of your episodes since you’ve been making them, and we’ve been doing reruns longer and more often than you have!). I also remember seeing a trailer for the new Hobbit movie, starring Martin Freeman (who until recently, I’ve only seen in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the BBC’s The Office (the original show, I might add. The US ripped it off with their own version)), who is Watson in ‘Sherlock’, which I am still yet to watch.

Oh, and I went and got some new soundtracks and albums during this time. And I’m going end the post here, as I’m off to Church right now, and, well, this post is really long. I’ll start a 2nd one when I come back from Church =]

If the world were to end now, would I have any regrets about my life?

And yet, despite the simple nature of the question, I find myself thinking that its answer is a very deep and complex one, an answer that causes me to think deeply, relive yet more memories, and an answer which I am finding it very hard to, well, answer. I suppose that like most people, there are things I do regret about my life, things that I wish I had done differently or not at all, but large portions of my life I do not regret at all. In fact, I’m quite glad to have such cheerful, supportive and fun friends, and I can only hope that we continue to be good friends throughout our lives and well beyond our high-school (or uni) years.

Then there are the moments that I ponder about, wondering, if I had done something different, then would these events have unfolded like they have, or would I be a different person (e.g., an obvious one, say I didn’t make it into Baulko, and I went to Girraween instead? What would I be like then?). I suppose one thing to do is to say “what’s done is done” and just look to the future, take the days as they come and thank God for the blessings he’s given us. Another thing would be to dwell on the past. But that sounds lonely.

But ignoring all this, I’m just going to briefly mention that I’m a little scared of the future ahead of me. I’ve absolutely no idea what it’s going to be like to apply for Uni, or even starting it. It’s just so different, and like most humans, I don’t like change. And looking for a job (I’ve mentioned all this before, haven’t I? This morning, I believe) is somewhat daunting. One of my friends is continually ‘worrying’ about not seeing any of us regularly, and I’ve just realised that this will be sadly true, since despite regular get togethers, it won’t be the same as seeing each other every weekday at school. I’m all grown up now, and I need to start taking on the responsibility that accompanies the independence that comes with growing up. Speaking of growing up, my mum spent 10 minutes this morning telling me how she was proud of how I’d grown up to be a fine young man (paraphrasing a bit). I’m wondering, do I really downplay my abilities? I don’t think I ever downplay myself, I’m just being honest about how I view myself compared to others.

Anyways, time for some well earned sleep. And I can return to looking through photos and getting a little emotional tomorrow.

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

So to start with, we have my HSC completed. That was simultaneously the most stressful and oddest set of exams I’ve ever done. They were odd in the sense that I treated them like my school exams, and spent way too much time procrastinating. But I simply could not bring myself to work anymore. School was over, this last hoorah was killing me. And I think when I get my results back, it will kill me. I dread the day they hand out our marks.

After the HSC, a period during which many people I know had a birthday (well, as my HSC took a whole month, I guess that isn’t too hard), requiring several parties (I sadly could only attend one for my friend, and one for my mum), I have exercised my laziness to it’s higher levels. I sometimes get a sense of guilt, thinking that I should be studying instead of playing games or going out, but then I remember I’ve been working towards this for 13 years now (although I may not have realised that when I was younger). It shouldn’t be surprising me, and yet it does.

I will be going on ‘schoolies’ with some friends on Friday, 5 nights up at the Entrance, which is presenting us with some interesting organisational challenges. Sometimes I wonder if the leadership stuff mentioned in my resume and principal’s reference is really applicable to me. I’ve never felt like I have shown remarkable leadership, whether it be in Band, Flute ensemble, Peer Support, group projects, Soul Purpose or DoE. But I suppose the idea of a resume and its references is to make you sound good, and that’s what the word ‘remarkable’ does!

Last night was the Year 12 formal, and what an awesome night it was. All the girls/ladies dressed up, their hair, faces and gowns looking wonderful. It may still confuse me as a guy why they would spend so much time and effort too look so wonderful, but I must admit that the end result is amazing. Not that any of them really need to go through all that effort to look wonderful, but women don’t seem to believe that on formal evenings. Or maybe it’s some preconception that society has created. Whatever. They looked beautiful, and that’s what counts, I guess.

They guys, all of us comparatively lazy and less stressed than the ladies, wearing our suits. I reckon the guys looked awesome. Nice and fine. I was never much of a suit person, but I think it may be growing on me. Well, the formal(ish) dress style is, at least. E.g. Collared shirt and tie on Band Tour (Se** and I said to ourselves “Why not?”) for the last day.

The evening was highly enjoyable. Mrs Pigram’s choice of Oatland’s house was highly beneficial (I do not wish to imagine where the committee would have chosen if not for Mrs Pigram’s experience of past formals, making her choose the place over any objections from some certain members of the grade), with the lovely scenery of the garden and sunset providing rather wonderful photos. The food was nice, and the time with friends was great. I still don’t understand the modern youth’s idea of dancing. Whilst bouncing up and down is easy to do, it isn’t that much of a dance, so when any of you did anything differently, it was nice to see. But whatever you did, I enjoyed watching you guys looking silly as you ‘danced’ while I myself was happy to not make myself look embarrassingly silly (in my opinion at least). I spent a large portion of my time standing around outside, speaking with people. And trying to not fall asleep. Towards the end of the night, I felt strangely tired. Don’t know why. The music was, as to be expected, loud and not of the nest taste. Knew barely any of the songs, and only the pulsing beat of the bass was interesting (must be some psychological thing, like why they use bass drums to excite soldiers in ancient society).

Hopefully I will be having my braces removed soon, probably early next year my orthodontist says. As I’m not entirely sure how much more my teeth need to move or be aligned, I’m going to leave that to his capable judgement. I must say that having braces is an interesting experience. I can now personally relate to other people who have had braces instead of just trying to imagine what it must be like (in retrospect, my imaginings of the experiences of wearing braces were woefully short of the mark, as to be expected). It has been painful at times, other time just plain annoying. Throughout it all, I have felt rather self-conscious about them, and I wonder how I’ll feel afterwards. In case you were wondering what the back-story of my braces was, long story short I had to have some teeth removed, and pull the ones behind them down my jaw to fill the gaps. If you want the longer version, ask in person. It’s a little quicker that way.

Closing off the long post, I’ll make a mention about my job hunting. Last night Mr Van Loon told me that most places have got their Christmas staff already lined up, or are conducting the interviews, making it much harder to find and land a job right now unless you plan to work for the longer term (e.g. throughout Uni), which would be hard when I’ll try to do full time study next year. Anyways, I have no idea where I’d find a job, what field it will be (probably as a cashier or similar) and if I feel like doing it. I’m actually afraid of getting a job. Not only does the idea of doing an interview make me nervous, I don’t like change, and getting a job is a change from my school life. But I suppose there are plenty of people like me, and most of them get used to the change, as shall I eventually.

Well, I feel like ending this post. There was probably a lot more I wished to talk about at some point, but it’s lost now. And besides, this post is getting long enough as it is. I’d just like to say a huge thanks to all my friends for the most wonderful 6 years of high school, and the immensely enjoyable night last night. I don’t know where I’d be without any of you.

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

But, intriguingly, I’m wondering if I’ll decide to replace my iPod Touch with the “6th Gen” model or not. As this year’s model is literally the same as last year’s, only with White as an option, I don’t know when the official 6th Gen will come out. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a curious habit of buying even numbered Generation iPods (2nd & 4th Gen iPod Nano, 4th Gen iPod Touch). Conveniently they have also been every two years, with increasing capacity matching the rate I would increase my music library, although recently both my music library and the iPod sizes have stalled…

Anyways, all my non-procrastinating time is dedicated to studying for 2 & 3 Unit maths. So…

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

How on Earth are there 4,550 folders in my Documents library alone? Wait, I know how. Automatically created folders by programs such as iTunes and various games. Which probably end up holding a single 4KB file. Each. Anyways, I see I have a big task ahead of myself. Sorting through the hundreds of photos from my phones over the years is going to be a nightmare. Img0001.jpg, Img0002.jpg… Oh, wait, this phone labeled them Img001.jpg… and this phone labelled them 19102008.jpg, 19102008(001).jpg… I hope last modified puts them in a reasonably accurate order.

But enough about boring you with that. I’ll bore you with the thought that all those files did not include my music library. Thankfully though, that is an awful lot more organised (although I would like to eventually go through them and give the files a unified naming convention). And thank goodness for them being more organised, because there’s 7,178 files alone, measuring a massive 26.2GB. And I’m planning on adding more to that… Wait, I guess it’s kinda obvious to be planning to add more to a music library when new music is continually being released that may interest me.

My Pictures library, which I’m sure has some duplicates in it somewhere, has only 1,521 files (1.16GB) which makes me wonder just where on the computer I put the family photos. I suppose they’re still in the public folder… haven’t checked in a while.

Anyway, onto a different topic, I wish my friends and myself, along with every other student doing the HSC, the best of luck with their/our exams next week. I’m really not looking forward to the next 4 weeks. I am however looking forward to the weeks after those, so I suppose I can use the thought of “one last time” to get me through. Although that won’t help with spewing out 4 English essays and a short story, or remembering 2 years worth of Chemistry which I hate being tested on, but find an interesting subject. Or actually remembering what the stupid IEEE Floating Point standard is and how to work it out. Or remembering those maths formulae on the fly. ARGH!!! Uni is going to feel like this as well, isn’t it?

Anyhows,

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

So, latest big event to happen to me was I met Matthew Reilly at the book signing in Parramatta last Thursday (13th Oct.). He was very friendly, and warned me to not read the new book until after I finish my HSC. Advice I plan to follow. Sadly, it is awfully hard to do that, and I am continually tempted to pull the book out and open it up to find out what happens in the latest instalment of the Scarecrow series. I’m hoping I can at least manage some level of self control and not read it until at least near the end of my HSC. And speaking of the HSC, I’m trying to not think about the looming nature of it, hence the title. Yes, I know, that doesn’t make much sense.

So, besides that, this week saw public schools returning for Term 4, which meant that I decided to attend Concert band and Orchestra rehearsals again =]  They were plenty of fun (band more than Orchestra, because so few people turned up for orchestra). I really don’t understand my school sometimes. Because we’re a massive bunch of nerds, there seems to be this strange belief that they can just not show up for rehearsals when their exams are on. Partially it’s the students, partially it’s the parents. While their exams are important, only the year 12s (and to some extent the year 11s) should really be that worried about their exams. The year 10s aren’t going to be leaving the school, they’re all staying to the end of their HSC, so how on Earth is waking up a little bit earlier to go to school for a band rehearsal in the morning (which is probably more relaxing than worrying your head off about an exam) harder or worse for them to do than skipping it? For me, I find it relaxing, enjoyable, and a good way to wake myself up on Monday mornings. In Year 11 particularly, because the 1st lesson of the day would’ve been a double English session. Not fun at all. Band made my Mondays so much better.

In fact, thinking about it, the students of the school have a mixed level of willingness to participate in any extra-curricular activity. Plenty of them don’t mind spending heaps of time studying, doing practise exams, doing homework, or doing a job. Ok, a job pays you, and some of these kids may have the need to finish homework so extensively forced upon them by their parents that if they didn’t they’d be stuffed (AKA Asian parents. If you think I’m being racist, then I direct you to the plenty of Asians on the internet who concur with this, or even any of my friends). But many of these kids seem to have trouble participating in an extra curricular activity. Thankfully there are many who do participate, although a sad portion of these people only attend to get it on their report/resume. Then you have the amazing kids who are involved, and actually participate more actively. And then you have the crazy kids who are part of several extra-curricular activities, and participating actively in all of them (I am, I suppose you could say sadly, a member of the “crazy kids” group I just described, having actively participated or been a member of no less than 4 extra curricular activities, or up to 6, depending on how you wish to count and group the activities). And then you have the students who actually lead these groups. They are amazing in their own right, because they go through the trouble of organising the group and maintaining it (e.g. one friend leading the Baulko Bulletin, or another two running the Singing Group, or the group of my friends running Soul Purpose, or my friend who ran the Philosophy club…).

And I was going to try and make this a short post. In other news, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality this week. I can’t quite remember exactly when I started, but I do believe it did not take me more than 2 weeks. Mostly because I ended up skimming large portions of several chapters, because while it was funny, interesting and deep (and in some places rather observant of the absurdities of the ‘Harry Potter universe’), it was rather long winded, and I still got the gist of the story despite reading only a few words in each line of several paragraphs at a time… That author has a well developed vocabulary. Not because they managed to spout out many fancy words, but because they managed to continually utilise more specific, eloquent or uncommon words, which shows a higher level of English (because typically a person will only a tiny percentage of the words they know, with the people who have larger vocabularies utilising a larger variety of words more often than the average person).

Something else that I wanted to talk about has completely left my mind, so I’m just going to try and return to attempting to practise my English essays. That will not go well. My exam(s) are in less than 4 days. Then I get a tiny break before my Maths week, then the Science week, then last is my SDD exam. So while a large portion of my friends finish in the 4th of November (Physics or Geography), some of us are stuck with waiting for the last exam (VA on the next Wednesday, or SDD on the next Thursday). At least it gives me nearly a whole week to prepare for the exam…

Anyways.

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

As I head towards my HSC, the distractions that a procrastinator looks for drives me to read stuff other than my text book. One of the things I looked up was the prices of unlocked phones. Needless to say, the prices for certain models have come down, although that has more of the fact that prices come down over time rather than the exchange rate changing, which recently has dropped us below parity with the US dollar, but that’s a whole other story. Anyways, what I want to know is why the Galaxy S II was listed on simplymobiles.com.au as $729, but the “Optus version” and white version are listed as $685. And they’re all unlocked and have the same specs listed. So what’s the difference in the price? Two got updated and someone forgot the normal Galaxy S II? Or is it about the popularity (supply & demand)?

But anyway. Another thing that has been bugging me is emotions. Why do humans have emotions? I don’t know. Other animals also have emotions. So why are they so annoying at times, and other times so wonderful? I also don’t know. And I can’t be bothered thinking about them. Needless to say, I don’t understand my own emotions very well sometimes.

Moving onto something less confusing, I’ve begun reading Harry Potter fanfics again, because some friends suggested a particular one, “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality”. It’s a alternate reality (and hence has Out-of-Character characters) where Harry was not brought up in the Dursley’s family, but the family of a brilliant biochemist (who is science through and through). Petunia isn’t as cruel, and Harry is loved (and a child prodigy). It sounds, as far as I’ve read, that the author is using this comedic story to pick at points that annoyed them with the Harry Potter universe, or “potterverse” as some people would like to call it. While most of I find quite enjoyable, funny and accurate (the person has taken great care into planning the story and using real science, not stuff they just made up), there are some parts of it where I feel so pained by the responses Harry presents. Like after he observes Prof. McGonagall changing into a cat, he thinks about how the laws of physics can be broken down to different levels, and it’s all just maths, and can apply to everything. I think the author forgot Quantum Physics, which was devised to explain why ‘Classical physics’ wasn’t working in certain cases (and has gone on to explain much about the atoms, their sub-atomic and sub-sub atomic particles, and lots of weird stuff).

Anyhows, it’s funny, and I’m so far enjoying it.

In other news, I’m slowly trying to update my music library with new additions of recent releases, such as Owl City’s All Things Bright and Beautiful, and I need to remember to look up Switchfoot’s last few albums, and see if I can get copies of John Foreman’s solo works from a few years ago. Relient K are supposedly re-releasing their Is for Karaoke EP today, and the Apple “Let’s Talk iPhone” even or whatever is happening today in the US (so probably around 4am tomorrow, Oct 5th, for us Aussies). Facebook is causing an aweful lot of strife around the world once again concerning privacy (I’m starting to worry about Mark Zuckerberg. Where is he getting this deluded idea that we all want to give him every detail of our lives?). And Zuckerberg came up with “Zuck’s law” recently, which goes a little something like this: Facebook users double the amount of information they share with Facebook, every year. My response to that is as follows: Well, of course we double the amount of info we share with Facebook every year!! If you create more and more actions that we do on or with the site which are shared, then we share more information without even doing anything different. That statistical ‘law’ is so silly, that it’s like saying that each year, the population of the Earth will change. Of course it will change, people are being born, and people are dying, all the time!

Anyways, I should get back to studying.

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

During the assembly, I felt mixed emotions. The songs were touching, the slide-show was great and nostalgic, watching my friends and I go up on that stage to receive our portfolios, after watching the years before us do it… I don’t think I can describe it now. The aftermath, the photos, signings, hugs, tears, laughter, well-wishes and snacks… It was memorable. It cheered me up (smiling supposedly releases endorphins, which makes you happy) smiling for all the cameras. It was nice to see the entire grade milling about, taking photos. Stuff.

Hanging out with my friends afterwards was great. We watched Johnny English Reborn, wonderfully funny movie, another great work from Rowan Atkinson (is that how his name is spelt?). I miss my friends already. Afternoon tea afterwards, for me consisting of a KFC Ultimate Burger Meal, followed by the group aimlessly wandering around Castle Towers, for an enjoyable day out, despite it being a school day =P

I honestly cannot thank my friends and grade, their parents and the support of the rest of the school (including teachers, students and administrative staff such as Mrs. Brown in reception) through the last 6 years. It has been a great time through thick and thin, and I can not, nor will not, imagine it with anyone else, any other way. The memories that you have imparted on me will last for a long time (or so I hope. I do wish to not forget any of you), and will serve to continue to shape me even beyond the life changing experience that is Baulko XI. I know that many of you won’t read this, and that is fine by me. I’ll still think of you dearly whether you see this or not =] Except you K. Z.. Not you K. C. Y. Z., the other one. Yes, you, the one who hit me in the back with a water-bomb yesterday. You. Are. Going. Down! Just as soon as I work out a suitable comeback.

As I sit here typing this, I see that on Facebook you are all crazily uploading your photos, with people tagging away like journalists trying to make the deadline (speaking of tagging, someone mentioned that they wished for our grade to attempt to crash Facebook with our uploading and tagging. Sadly, that hasn’t yet happened, and is very unlikely to happen), commenting, liking, and all the while, I’ve propped my iPod up beside me as I type on my mum’s laptop, waiting for Facebook to finish receiving my photos from the memory-card reader. So as I type, I hear the notification noise go off continuously, the screen lighting up telling me what has happened. And you guys are scaring me with the number of times that is happening. Is like half the grade on Facebook right now??

Anyways, back to what I was talking about. The relationships I have formed between my friends will probably not be replicated for many a year (because I won’t be seeing people for over 6 hours a day, 5 days a week anymore. I’ll be stuck with “free-roaming” at uni), and I will sorely miss seeing almost each and every one of you on a regular basis. And yes, I’m implying that I won’t miss some of you as much as the others, but that’s understandable, right? If not, too bad. I’m being honest. They say that you won’t really understand how much something means to you until it’s gone. I never realised just how much school meant to me until time itself wrenched it from my life (although I suppose having so far had an existence dominated by school, that is to be expected), leaving me with a feeling of “Oh my! What do I do now?!”.

I don’t believe that I’m very good at writing down what I’m feeling. Perhaps there is the partial fact that some of what I’m feeling is so deeply personal that I don’t really want to have the world hear it. Especially as anyone on the internet can read this. Hmm… should change something in this post then. There, done. Anyhows, I’m going to give up now, since I simply cannot express how I’m feeling, nor am I awfully good at writing sentimental, nostalgic and thoughtful messages (look at the message I wrote on Facebook for an example).

So I’ll say this to those from my grade who are reading this: Good luck in your HSC! Good luck in the times ahead! May you enjoy life to the full, have success in your life, and (at this point I would raise my hand in a Vulcan hand salute, which is easy by the way… I can’t understand how people cannot do it, probably because I can do it…) Live Long and Prosper. I look forward to seeing you at the formal (if you are not on holidays by then), especially my closer friends. I miss you all very much already.

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

While a part of me is happy to be finally finishing my 13 or so years of schooling, to be moving off into the wider world filled with new amazing possibilities, there is a large part of me that is actually afraid of the future. Now that I no longer have a law forcing me to do something, I have to actually make my own choices. And the responsibility is scaring me. All this emotional turmoil is not helping my already stressed body. I continually find myself trying to distract myself from my work, from tomorrow, from the things happening around me, just anything that reminds me of what is coming. And it’s not working too well.

I wonder what it’ll be like tomorrow. Standing there, in front of the school for one of the last times ever. Getting my portfolio, performing in front of the school (in two separate items. One of my friends has actually managed to convince me to do some singing. Albeit as a tenor/bass, but still, I don’t really like singing in public much.), and then the Year 12 finale performance before we walk out the hall for a last time. What will I think as it sinks in that it’s over? That all I have left is the 7 exams spread over 4 weeks, countless hours of study leading up to them, infrequent meetings with my friends in the mean-time? One last Band Christmas Concert? I don’t know, but I’ll most definitely find out tomorrow.

I’m really going to miss my friends. I look forward to the Year 12 formal, a week off with schoolies (how does that even make grammatical sense? Schoolies? Is this some colloquial term that Aussies spell their funny way? Look, ‘Aussies’ has it too.), just hanging out with my friends every so often. When I was in Year 7, the older people told me that High School would be the best time of my life. I didn’t understand what they meant. Now I do. I wish that young minds could better understand what the older minds say, it would save older-younger-minds so much time trying to explain it to the new-younger-minds. Does that even make sense?

Anyways, this is has been a rather emotionally charged blog post from me, or at least more emotionally charged than I usually write. I think. I’m going to stop writing now and let my heart become queasy with surging emotional outbursts of nostalgia, happiness, sadness, longing and regret.

If only we had more time. But alas, our time has expired.

I wonder if I was quoting anyone? Even just paraphrasing? I’m sure my mind dug that up from somewhere…

Anyhows, TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!