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Monday, December 17, 2001 Two days in a row and I am posting. It seems so bizarre. Almost wrong. But I shall type it anyway, not that there is much to tell. I have spent much of the day piercing my fingers with stainless steel and grappling with knotted cotton - I tried my hand at sewing, in other words. I sewed and (eventually) was successful. I managed to create my costume for the ball on Convention, which I will be going on this weekend with everyone from my youth group and which promises to be huge amounts of fun and incredibly tiring. The theme of the ball is 50/50.... some examples of costumes therefore are man/woman, smart/casual, human/alien etc. Mine shall not be told here because I shall probably be posting photos after I come back from holiday and then you can see my sewing skills in all their glory. Have also devoted much of my day to reading the first in the trilogy of "Lord Of The Rings" as I shall be seeing the film on Thursday with Mikey, Joe and Tom. It is so gripping that I could hardly tear myself away to come online. I am 486 pages into the 535 page book. Stuffs to do tomorrow in preparation for convention. Pinner posters etc. Sara xxx (09:04 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, December 16, 2001 Well, I seem to have neglected my usual Friday updates until Sunday *gasp! shock! horror!* but I have my excuses. Which I won't list here. It has been quite a hectic week, generally and emotionally. I seem, quite inexplicably, to have been having obscure mood swings and have thus been switching between bouncily happy, melancholy, numbness and utter depression. Have some snippets: Wednesday evening (melancholy) - at my youth group painting BIG banner for use on Convention. Me in charge due to my (supposed) creative talent. Not feeling terribly much about anything but not numb to it either. Pensive and quiet. Thursday school (happily bouncy) - Much fun at Xmas quiz but wasn't overtly bouncy due to fatigue. Friday school (happily bouncy) - End of term celebrations. Much into jubilant mood. Secret santa revealed, presents exchanged etc. Too many sweets eaten. Friday after school (depressed/melancholy) - others all gone out in large friendship groups to shops/cinema/swim/skate. Me? Gone home. Friends (yes, I have those I think) all assumed I already had plans, or just didn't want me to join them. Hmph! Well anyway, went to Watford and met Hollie. Watched "What lies beneath" at hers after shopping. I think there must be something wrong with me, because Hollie and her sister sat petrified hiding their eyes behind their hands. I was calm and entirely unaffected by the body in the bathtub. Friday night, bedtime (hysterical depressed) - Due to lack of parent/child communictaion, my weekend plans thoroughly buggered, I decided (or rather some part of my subconscious that I never knew existed decided) to have some fit of hysteria and so it was that at half past eleven, I lay in bed, shivering under my duvet as tears burned salty tracks down my cheeks until Brandon Boyd's voice through my discman headphones soothed me enough to sleep. Saturday late afternoon (happy again) - Weekend plans all resorted and organised plus bonus of going out to Emma's party (hippie theme). The party was tres fun. Drank too much (oops!) and am on antibiotics so that probably wasn't a good idea. Sunday daytime (tired) - Finally, the Pinner magazine is finished! *feeling of satisfied contentment* Day spent at exec meeting and convention musical rehearsal (don't ask). Then on to Hollie's again, for Xmas present giving to everyone. Only thing was that "everyone" wasn't there for various reasons, so Hols, Sarah and I took the piss out of crappy daytime sky tv. Fun fun. Which leads us to the now. I am tired. I am pretty much melancholy. And I believe I have actually finished writing this now. Except that: Rhian has done yet another layout which simply puts my own to shame. Love the snowflakes! Sara xxx (07:51 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, December 7, 2001 Difficult though this may be to believe, I actually had people moaning at me about why I hadn't written in my blog for almost a week. Well now it is actually a whole week and I'm as surprised as they are. No. Scrap that. I have had so much to do over this past week that it is just ridiculous. Most of it is for my youth group, so it's not like it was terribly dull or annoying, there was just way more of it than I would have liked to have at once. Still, at least I can say that the powers that be have decided to give up on trying to enlighten my mind outside of school hours. In other words, I have no homework this weekend. *gleeful grin* Tomorrow I have more youth group stuff to be doing in the morning, after which, Reean will be coming back to mine. Babysitting in the evening, followed by a very early, in fact rather too early, start on Sunday, to catch a train to Birmingham because We're going to the The Clothes Show!!!!! I can't wait! And I apologise if my lack of deep insight in this entry disappoints any of you.... my last one was a rare product of too much time to think during the week. Still, I may well be in a more pensive frame of mind before the weekend is out. Sara xxx (08:04p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, November 30, 2001 Combine an oddly pensive mood with an excess of Friday evening time and what do you get? A long, probably rambling post about whatever it is that is on my mind. Tonight the topic is love… how clichee? Well no actually… I hope not and I hope my babbling mess of words make sense. It’s not often that I am convinced of the wisdom of any of my subject text books but, as we are studying the topic of amour in French or Lieber in German, I think I can safely include a poem which made quite an impression on me. I like it but, rather than harking back to GCSE style poetry analysis, I shall let you see what you think of it without explaining why it appeals to me.
Je T’aime, par Paul ‹louard
Je t’aime pour toutes les femmes que je n’ai pas connues
Je t’aime pour ta sagesse qui n’est pas la mienne Well anyway, now comes the bit where I explain. The love described in that poem felt more real and more tangible than in any poems I’ve read before and I guess that it depicts, if not exactly, pretty much what I want from love… what I want a guy to feel for me some day and what I’d feel for him in return. So I’ve established that I know what I want. I, supposedly, have all the time in the world to find this. I mean, I’m 16 years old. Love could whack me on the back of the head or whisk me off my feet, or whatever it is that love does anytime in the next however many years. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In theory. I mean it when I say that love is everywhere. Whether it’s the all consuming passion of an early relationship which obliterates all else so those who are a part of it wander dazed and dreamlike until they are either thrown back hard against a towering brick wall from whence they have no choice but to pick themselves up and begin the search again; or are able to calm themselves and let the intensity develop into closeness and friendship so that the love outwears all else; Or whether the love evolves slowly from what is at first an easy friendship and grows, flourishes even into an enduring and deep sense of companionship and trust, it is everywhere. There’s barely a song in the charts which doesn’t deal with passionate longings or the pain of betrayals. Celebrity love affairs are splashed all over the press and the breaking news is almost impossible to avoid should a couple split or be discovered. The soaps are full of happy smiling couples or bitter twisted souls who stalk the streets depressed from lack of love. Teen magazines give impressionable expectant tweenagers guides on "How to impress your crush" and "How to tell if it’s just a fling or the real thing". Those beautiful people, whose clique I used to dream of being a part of, but now abhor in part because of how they shunned me and in part because I see now just how shallow such people can be, they spend the long hours of lunch breaks in the common room cooing over whichever of them most recently said "I love you" to their now longstanding boyfriend. And so I am surrounded by it. And it is inescapable. And however resistant I may be to the peer and media pressure towards smoking, drinking or drugs, that think called love just manages to dig its claws into my skin and I am transformed into a sad case, searching prematurely for what I don’t yet need. And I don’t need it. I am not so disillusioned as to honestly be able to take the optimistic view that what constitutes a meaningful relationship now will be able to outstay the changes we endure as we grow older and will continue forever as in a dream. So to save myself the strife of break ups, I should stop my longing for love at this age. It would be wiser and less painful to wait it out. But nevertheless, I want it. Not desperately… at least not most of the time… and, contrary to what you may be thinking from this hastily spewed out prose… not desperately now. Nevertheless, the idea appeals. Sara xxx (08:48pm) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, November 25, 2001 This is perhaps the sixth time I have gone online with the intention of doing a massive posting and I have failed every time before now due to my procrastination with other such gadgets as msn. I was planning on writing a bit about the whole french problem, so here goes: I have always loved french and have never had any problems with it. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to read French with something at university. More recently, that something has been chosen as law. The particular course I want which gives two degrees at the end of four intensive years is a very competitive one and interviews for it have to be sat in French. Hence I need to vastly improve my fluency in under a year. What is the problem? I think it lies in the fact that one of my teachers is nothing short of absolutely totally utterly terrible. She is unable to explain what would otherwise be a most simple new grammar rule and leaves our entire class (whose size has dropped from 10 to 7 since the beginning of the year - no prizes for guessing why) entirely confused at the end of most of her lessons. My dad even rang the school to ask (subtly) about her. I was told by the head of the french department that this teacher is finding the pace of work rather hard to deal with and I should try and lay off her for the first term. Hmmm... That aside, I am still ill with my cold. Last night I babysat two rather brattish youngsters and tonight I am again earning in much the same way. This house has the benefits of nicer kids and the use of the internet though. I was in fact supposed to be talking to Tom online this evening but neither he, nor Mikey, Joe, Reean or anyone else seem to be online. Hmph! How dull. Mikey and Natalie had their two week anniversary today. It is sweet how well they get on but it did get a tad sickening when he texted her throughout the film we ewre supposed to be watching. And the amount she has freaked me out by telling me about what they... err.. "get up to" is quite ridiculous. :p Anyway, think I shall go now. I shan't sit here moaning on about how nobody is online to speak to anyway. Sara xxx (08:04 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Thursday, November 22, 2001 I can't spend too long on here as tis late and je suis fatiguee but I felt the desire to post.... I am terribly worried about Reean, partly because of something she told me at the weekend and partly because of the sheer despondency of her last blog posting. Ree, you are one of my two closest friends in the entire world so please, don't scare me with this web posting, talk to me! Honestly. I wonder about my school sometimes I really do. I haven't the time now but I will explain the entire french situation on some other occasion. Sara xxx (10:07 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Monday, November 19, 2001 Shopping, shopping, shopping! That's what I did this afternoon... double free at the end of the day was spent en route (bus 142) to Brent Cross.... you wouldn't think a 30 minute journey should take 1 hour 10 minutes, even by bus but no! That was the length of time it took. Ick! I hate buses. Still, I got a gorgeous skirt and a sweater out of my excursion so it wasn't a wasted effort. Don't want to go to work tomorrow. Am ill with my cold - which isn't too dreadful I admit but still, smiling at customers for 2 and 1/2 hours is not exactly the way I would choose to spend my evening. Had politics test today at school. Wrote for 35 minutes straight. My wrist felt like it was about to drop off at the end. Still aches a bit now. I feel so weak. The test wasn't that difficult and it was on an interesting topic but ow! my poor arm! Sara xxx (09:41 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, November 18, 2001 Well I hope that you all enjoyed those fabulous pictures. Wednesday evening was indeed hilarious. I didn't watch Children in Need on Friday night so I don't know if they showed any of the photos or not. Why did I not watch Children in Need? Well, Reean and I went over to Hollie's for some pizza..... a few other people came round too and we watched Dangerous Liasons - it was so much more scandalous than the modernised Cruel Intentions. It was a good film and in general an enjoyable evening, nothing in particular to relate. Reean and I stayed over at Hollie's and, as is to be expected, chatted til about half past one in the morning about random stuff. This meant that we didn't get up til 10am, and hence didn't leave the house for Harrow til half past 11. Consequently, all the tikets to "The others" were sold out for the one time I could make. Instead, we shopped.... I bought the new Bush album and the new PJ Harvey album, both of which are excellent. Saw Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone at the cinema with my family last night. I thought it was quite well done but nothing near as good as the book. They'd missed out some of the most important scenes too. Afterwards we went to Benihana which is a Japanese restaurant in Swiss Cottage. Yum! Teppanyaki! And got dessert from Baskin Robbins as we walked back to the car. Baclava ice cream is simply divine. Try it now!!! Today I did homework (after I dragged myself out of bed at half past ten, feeling icky as I seem to have caught a cold) which was rather dull. Am revising for a politics test which I have the pleasure/torture of tomorrow. At least the subject matter is interesting. And after lunch I had a tennis lesson (first in aaaaages). I couldn't help but burst into fits of giggles every so often because of how crappy I was. Still, it was good to get some exercise (which I admit I haven't been doing much of lately). Sara xxx (06:38 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Thursday, November 15, 2001 Very quickly just to say that the waxing on Wednesday was absolutely hilarious and the photos are now up so click here to see them. Tee hee hee! Sara xxx (10:25 p.m.) ------------------------------------------
Sara xxx () ------------------------------------------ Tuesday, November 13, 2001 Can I just keel over now? The worst time at work today! I thought some guy was shoplifting because I saw him put packs of Haribo from the front pocket of his hoodie into the carrier bag I gave him when he paid for a chocolate cake. Naturally, I called the supervisor but for some reason she (a) did not seem in any way pleased that I was observant and (b) let the guy go with no sort of check up. It was highly embarassing because there was a massive queue building up and I just bet I blushed unbelievably bright red. Ack! Anyway - my life seems ridiculously dull at the moment, whatever aspect of it I look at. There seem to be so many other people who have more exciting lives than me. And no I don't have a sad and sordid case of celebrity obsession/envy. Even my friends have more exciting lives than me. *I am in no way a boring person - I am just suffering a lack of social activity at the moment* Ack! Off now. Msn, if anyone actually is online to say anything. Sara xxx (08:55p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, October 12, 2001 Bleh! I am tired in the extreme. For some reason, which even now remains in obscurity, I was totally unable to sleep for about two hours last night after I went to bed. What was more weird was that normally when I can't sleep, it is because I am too preoccupied with something but last night, I wasn't even mulling over the stuff I am currently preoccupied with. So now I am having to actually make an effort to stay awake, in the middle of the afternoon. Add to that the fact that I am currently not in the most cheerful state of mind but am in fact feeling rather despondent (spelling?) for various reasons which I shan't go into in detail or in any sort of comprehensive manner... Envy of situation of various others, bafflement at apparent unjustness of my own situation, the list could go on but it would only be likely to confuse even me. What I need really is that kind of sugary sympathy which I usually hold so much in contempt. Simple comfort. And if not from a person then from chocolate - which I am still not eating after France. *Some sort of silent invisible sobbing* Enough moaning. Despite my overally despondency and my current identification with certain defeatist sounding song lyrics (see msn screen name), I am now able to smile and gloat because: I am going to the clothes show on 9th December and on 19th January I am going to see Incubus live at Wembley!!! Yayayayayayay!!! Enough gloating. Mikey and Natalie went out yesterday. Then afterwards they were wondering how to kill time before going home to the neglected piles of schoolwork, so they decided to pay me an impromptu visit. They are so sweet together! They were holding hands and just looked like such a happy little couple. (I informed Reean of this and her only word was "sickening"). Natalie phoned me half an hour after they left my house and said "Hi Sara, I know you wanted to talk to me but I only just got in." No prizes for guessing what kept her so long. And anyone who knows Andrew Singer, here is your chance to laugh. At my youth group this week, we are going to be waxing his legs to raise money for charity. I suspect it shall be a highly amusing evening. Well that is enough for now. Free period to have, time to waste. Sara xxx (03:18 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Saturday, November 10, 2001 If I had been able to drag myself to the computer last night then I suspect I would have followed what seems to be a trend for "faded" posts. Invented by Zeruel, I reckon I would have rather enjoyed writing one. Oh well. Last night was rather fun. I watched "Legally Blonde" with Natalie.... slightly amusing but certainly not worth real aclaim of any kind. Apres, I happened to meet up with Hollie and Anna, Sarah, Emma, Tris, Andrew B, Andrea and someone I have never met before whose name I forget. T'was a fun filled dinner of interesting, if somewhat disturbing, revelations. Wine was generously served yet my (approx) half bottle seemed to have a comparitively small effect on me, considering that Hollie and Andrea both became somewhat intoxicated after far less of it. Hehehe. Happy birthday to Tristan! Today has been of far less interest... homework was in plentiful supply and I am currently babysitting chez moi when actually, I could have gone to a massive party. *sniffles in annoyance* Off I go, nobody to see, nowhere to go. Sara xxx (09.23p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Monday, November 5, 2001 Nothing of particular importance. I was just amused by the fact that one of the first things Mikey said to me that he was in awe of and utterly amazed by the fact that Zeruel actually linked him. Hehe - Zeruel told Mikey off for not linking. So did Reean. Someone needs to educate ickle Mike in internet etiquette. Finally, I say hi to Joe, Tom and Mark - I asked Mikey to say hi to them from me but doubtless her will have forgotten to pass on the message. :) Sara xxx (07:43 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Monday, November 5, 2001 And I have returned. In truth t'was over a week ago now but laziness and business have prevented further elaborations. So here we have it: Saturday: 3.30am, my alarm clock goes off and I slap it into silence, not quite realising what it is. I lay awake for five minutes and suddenly grasp the fact that I have 1 and a half hours until I am supposed to be at the school to catch the coach to France. Much frantic getting ready and I am in the car, screaming at my dad for being late because when we reached the house of the girl we were giving a lift to, her mother came out in her dressing gown to tell us that Amy had panicked and left five minutes ago because we didn't show up. The coach departed at 5.30am and we reached Dover in time to get an earlier ferry than the one we were booked for. Me and the four other girls from my school sat and drank coffee on the ferry while the guys all queued up for burgers and chips (at 8.30am). Lunch time came and went and I realised as the others tucked into their sandwiches that I had neglected to pack my lunch. I sat starving until our 3.30pm stop when I bought a delicious warmed Panini with goats cheese and tomato. Four rounds of Uno later, we climbed back onto the coach. Many boring hours passed and finally, at 8.20pm, we pulled up in the car park in Obernai. Salmon for dinner at my exchanges house and I tumble into bed at 11.30pm, having sat through Roswell High in French, understanding scarily little of the plot. Sunday: 10am - wake up and wander down to breakfast. When asked what I like to eat, I reply cereal and am handed a box of Chocapic. Yummy, I think. Breakfast done and I go for a stroll about the village with my exchange, Berangere. We chat (yes, I manage to actually chat in French) about school, shopping, cinema, boys... all the girly small talk. She tells me about her boyfriend, who is 17 (she's 15) and that they have been going out for five months and she loves him loads. How cute, I think. I explain a little about the disaster history of my love life. Lunch is the regional delicacy of Sauerkraut (or Choucroute in French). Not particularly to my taste but edible nonetheless. We then take a trip into Strasbourg to admire the pretty quaint buildings of the old town and the beauty of the old cathedral. Dinner is more Sauerkraut and we sit down to watch Friends, their video is in English with French subtitles. Quite relaxing. Monday: 6.30am, get up and dressed. Walk in the cold fog to the bus stop. Bus gets us to school at 8am. Far too early for my liking. Group breakfast in school of pain au chocolat. Us English board the coach for our trip to Strasbourg. Traffic means we arrive too late to take our guided boat tour of the town - quel domage! - so we hop on a tram and kill time to the European Parliament. Our guided tour begins in a cream carpeted conference room - surely in a country with the highest amount of dog shit on the streets they know better than to use pale carpets in important buildings.... you'd think. Francesca left the ministers a nice little present from the sole of her shoe. Lunch was a packed one in the town centre, followed by three glorious hours of shopping. Knee high boots and a gorgeous top from Zara depleted my holiday money a fair bit. Another evening in front of subtitled Friends. Tuesday: Day in school. Most boring time of life ever. 2 and 1/2 hours of A-level equivalent chemistry... something weird to do with acids, followed by 2 hours of biology... genetics, which was surprisingly easy. I did the A-level equivalent class's homework with not much difficulty at all. Still, it was mind numbing in the extreme - sciences send me to sleep when they are taught in English. After lunch in the canteen - an unidentifiable mushy risotto thing which made me really appreciate my own school cuisine - I had an hour of philosophy. I managed to understand it and got quite interested in the idea "I think, therefore I am". What surprised me was that, contrary to my expectations, the lesson involved no discussion at all. The teacher merely dictated notes for an hour straight. 2 hours of free period spent checking email in the library and reading and it was back home to an after school snack. I said that I would have whatever my exchange was having. What lay before me on the tray in front of the TV was two slices of nutella smothered toast and a chocolate yoghurt. A veritable chocolate fest. I enjoyed this but did not venture to dip my toast into my chocolate yoghurt as my exchange did. Wednesday: French and English together get coaches to Colmar, the other principle town of the Alsace region. Morning is a guided tour, in French of the old town centre - more pretty buildings. Lunch and a little free time for shopping. Guided tour of religious relic museum Unterlinden, which used to be a nunnery, gave the five of us from my school an interesting variation of our favourite word (clusterfuck, meaning orgy or gang bang) was developed to give cloisterfuck, in the nunnery. Little more free time and we sit in a streetside cafe sipping coffees. This takes longer than planned and we are the last ones back to the meeting point. Jeers from the guys that we must have gone off to get pissed are shrugged off. Amy however proves herself a veritable pisshead due to her stories concerning her various drunken experiences and is hence the subject of our teasing for the next few days. Thursday: Morning in school of video about the French system of student representatives, followed by a trip to the town market in Obernai. Terribly quaint in the extreme. Lunch is another disgusting one at the school cantine. Mmmm... Fish and practically raw potatoes. Next we watch Farenheit 451, in English French subtitles, directed by Truffaut. Bizarre is the only word I can employ for it. Many of the boys plugged themselves into discmans and one actually fell asleep, head on desk for two hours. On the coach we go to the marquetrie. Pretty wood art things explained. My exchange and I go back to Fanny's house with her and her exchange, Reena. I get to speak English for a bit of the evening (necessary relief) and I escape the usual chocolate snack. Reena and I discuss our music tastes whilst taking the piss out of the cheesy euro-pop on their music channels. We adopt the vaccuous lyrics and ill-choreographed dance moves of "I'm in heaven when you kiss me" as our laughter song of the week. Friday: Morning and we're on the coach to the Kronenburg brewery. A tour later and we're sipping 1664 in the bar, whilst munching on fresh bretzels. I buy a variety pack of six beers for 250 francs. A £2.50 alcoholic bargain. The boys also buy these variety packs, many also opting for a litre sized beer mug. After lunch in a centre commerciale in the slums of Strasbourg, nicknamed by us as "le trou de merde" or "le shithole", we pile back onto the coach and drive up intp the Voges mountains to visit Struthof concentration camp. A very sobering experience unlike any I have had before. A couple of hours later and we're back in the car park by the school. David (one of the more mature of the bunch of juvenile freaks) was begging his loser of a french exchange, to let him go to the party that evening. This party was the only actual social activity of the week and many of the french had got themselves incredibly excited as to them it was a very rare occurrence. Kate and I and our exchanges arrived at 6pm. Alcohol arrived at 7pm ish but I did not go excessive as I knew I would be leaving at 8.30pm for dinner with the family as Berangere's uncle was over for a visit. I enlightened Reena, Kate and Nekeeta as to the edtails of my disasterous love life and they in turn gave their own stories. I think mine was more embarassing by far. More people arrived as we were leaving. Dinner was interesting. I learnt the origin of the word fuck from Berangere's uncle, due to his studying english at Liverpool for 2 years, he knew more about the language than I did.
Fish: A great game we played on the coach journeys. Kate was the winner by a mile but it was a fun distraction from the view of the road. Aim was to score as many points as possible by catching people asleep on the coach. Points were allocated as follows: Biscuit crumbs: the boys decided to have fight on the coach on the long journey back. They started throwing biscuits about and one hit the window above my head. The biscuit shattered all over me - I had crumbs in my jeans. It was most uncomfortable. I had to shake them out when we next stopped at a service station. Chief cluster: Imagine the ugliest thing you possibly can. Multiply that ugliness by 1000. Picture a porcelain Indian Chief ornament that is that ugly. There you have Chief Cluster. The present we gave our French teacher who came on the trip with us. We bought it on the ferry. I am heartily ashamed to have ever paid money for something that disgusting. Fortunately, she saw the funny side. I finally saw Moulin Rouge last Sunday. One of the best films I have ever seen. So sweet and sad but not at all cheesy (unlike most love films these days). I cried. "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to just be loved and to love in return." I had a party at my house last night for Rhian and that was rather a lot of fun. Jokes were had at various people's expense, not least mine (remember Andrew? the drunk one? No? Well everyone at the party did, more to my dismay than enything else). The other Andrew who was there was subject (unbeknownst to him) to jokes about polishing his double bass.... read Angela Carter's "The man who loved a double bass" to see what exactly I mean.... Natalie spent much of the evening all over Mikey. He noticed of course but I am yet to discover if anything is likely to come of that. There were some tensions between people there and that kind of reduced my enjoyment of the thing slightly. I'm not really one for witnessing or getting involved in the problems of others where I can help it (except of course for lending the obligatory shoulder to any friend who might need it, which I have no qualms about whatsoever and I do in fact like to be a "good friend", or so to speak). It was a fun evening nonetheless. I saw Andrea, Tristan, David and Sarah, who I hadn't seen for aaaaaggggeeessss. That was great. Punch was yummy, as was the amazing cake, hand made and iced in black with a white biohazard symbol on it. Twister was entirely uber - Two twister mats and one spinner made for many interesting bodily contortions and much falling over. Rhian loved her presents - celtic oracle tarot cards from me and Alice, a black mug (for use in the common room) with flames up the sides from me and Mikey, a paire of black and purple striped thigh high socks from Mikey. They are unbelievably cool but not as great as Rhian's dress. It's just indescribable. Long and black with dark purple satin, HUGE flared sleeves, trimmed with intricate black lace. It's just gorgeous. If I could wear one, I would. Last night was fireworks avec my youth group which was rather good fun. Must dash, Chinese takeaway dinner. Sara xxx (06:24 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Tuesday, October 23, 2001 Happy Birthday Rhian for yesterday!!!!!! Sara xxx (02:12 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Tuesday, October 23, 2001 Salut! Je suis en France maintenant pour une echange scolaire... En ce moment je suis dans la bibliothéque du lycée parce que l'élève qui était ma guide ce matin n'a plus de cours et je dois attendre jusqu'a 2:30pm pou aller dans un autre cour. C'est bien, ça parce que je peux faire de ce que je veux sur l'internet. Mon échange s'appelle Berangere et elle a 14 ans - très jeune je sais mais elle est sympa et nous aimons les memes choses. Hier j'ai fait du shopping en Strasbourg - j'ai acheté des bottes (je les porte maintenant) et un t-shirt. Les garçons (nous sommes allées en France avec des gens de l'école Habs alors il y a beaucoup de garçons ici) ont bu de l'alcool hier et leur prof était tellement en colère quand ses élèves étaient ivres. Aussi les garçons aiment mon échange. Ils m'ont demandé si elle a un copain et quand j'ai dit "oui" ils n'étaient pas hereux. Alors, maintenant je termine d'écrire en Français. J'éspere que vous avez tout compris. Sara xxx (02:11p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Tuesday, October 9, 2001 Well it has certainly been a while since I've written in here. Not surprising really given the total lack of time I've had. Hum. If this is a repeat of something I've said previously then I apologise but - after I went out with Nick a couple of weekends ago, I was talking to some friends on the net and all three of them, who knew what I'd done that weekend started conversations with the words "Hi. How was Nick?" Not "How was your weekend?" oh no, they had to imply that something would have happened. When I informed them that nothing did happen, one was disbelieving while the other twothought it necessary to console me. Well I wouldn't mind consolation but their motive was such that they thought there was absolutely no way that I wouldn't be entirely devastated by my weekend and its lack of romantic action. Whether or not I was upset by that is not the point - they thought my character is such that I would be. In simple terms, they thought of me as a tad desperate. Offended? Me? Since then I have been up to my ears in school work and this weekend I went on CLTC with my youth group so I got absolutely no sleep whatsoever. I had an amazing time though and I learnt loads about being on an exec. The only downside was that on Sunday night when i got home I had four subjects of homework to get done for the next morning. Hum, what else? Not much, only that Hollie got very pissed this weekend and I am entirely disgusted with what she got up to. Whether or not she writes it on her site remains to be seen. Well anyway, now for the off. Things to do, sleep to catch up on. Sara xxx (08:32 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, September 30, 2001 I have been rather busy this weekend, so I shall attempt to describe my experiences without too much detail as that would take me entirely too long. Friday - had haircut. I was incredibly nervous about this as I went to a different salon and had a different stylist as my usual hairdresser was on holiday and I was badly in need of some form of haircut. I continued to be nervous as she was styling my half-dried cut hair... at one point it was stood straight out from my head simply from the amount of wax she used. Fortunately I was not left looking as though I had just suffered a near fatal electric shock and am, in fact, highly delighted with my new hairdo. Still Friday - went out to Charley's house. Met many random but very nice new people. Managed (somehow) to get hysterical having drunk absolutely no alcohol whatsoever... all I had was fruit squash but I may as well have been utterly pissed. C'etait tres amusant. Reading the Cosmo article on "How to flirt with your whole body" produced much fun for myself and Jenna as we attempted to put all their advice into one fluid action, thus contorting ourselves into various totally unsexy shapes, stroking our arms and shouldres whilst titlting our heads, crossing our legs at the ankles and dangling a shoe from the tip of one toe and wiggling our bums.... I have no idea what the guys thought we were doing, but we certainly got laughs. Saturday morning - shopping with Natalie in Watford. I managed to get two of the many items on my winter shopping list. A nice pair of fleecy slippers and a gorgeous crimson sweater. We splashed out on lunch at Ask... oh yaas darlings, we are ladies who lunch, starters, maincourses and side salads indeed. Delicious but a tad more costly than I had planned. Saturday afternoon - rush through as much homework as possible in the few hours I have before going out again. Saturday evening - To cinema with Nick. Arranged to get onto train which he would already be on as he was travelling from further out than me. Got to station on time. Waited. Nick not on first, second or third train. Unexpected meeting with Tristan and Andrew who got on fourth train to go to a party. Nick texts me to say meet him at cinema as only fast trains coming now from where he is. Wait ten minutes on platform. Announcement "Due to early signal failures, severe delays are expected on all Met line trains. Next train expected in ten to fifteen minutes." Five minutes later, Mike arrives on platform and I meet his friends Joe and Mark. They are going to "grunge around for the evening in Harrow". I am totally baffled as to their choice of location. I mean, it's Harrow. Who in their right mind would actually want to hang around in Harrow? Next announcement "I wasn't told about these other delays. I think, but I'm not sure, that your next train will be in about half an hour." This is at 7.40 and the film starts at 8pm. To cut a long and frustrating story short, I eventually get to the cinema, where Nick has been waiting, at 8.30pm. We have missed the first ten minutes of the film. Incidentally, A.I. is quite a good film but I agree with Mike (who saw it before me and was trying to ruin it by telling me the story line as we were waiting for the train) that they shouldn't have tried to takc on a happy ending. Still, was a good evening. Sunday morning - stop in optician's briefly to check if i am settling into contacts properly - I am. Family day out at theatre workshop. Play is called "Red Red Shoes". Workshop connected therefore with shoes. Fun, but aimed at the ten and eleven year olds who were the main participants. Lunch in random Euston coffee bar. Watch play back at theatre. I really enjoyed it but it was very dark and deep - I doubt that any children under about 13 9most of the audience then) could understand what was going on half the time and if they did, then I won't be surprised if they all have nightmares for a while afterwards. Sunday evening - that would be now. A bit of leisurely internet time. (Finally). I am exhausted. Sara xxx (08:49 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, September 23, 2001 Well I have spoken to Nick and all was as I had predicted. The phone had been taken by one of his friends who had, apparently, sent this weird text out to loads of people in Nick's phone book. I believe him...... after all, I once received a text from Mikey which simply read "I am gay." I later found out that his friend Ahran had nicked his phone to send a prank text to the first girl's name he found in Mikey's phone book. Because they are really so funny. What else? Well yesterday was my Waitrose induction day which, apart from giving me an enormously painful headache, was relatively fun. I'm quite good at the button pressing, product scanning, credit card swiping checkout girl bit. Which is useful as that's where I shall be working. The people I was doing the induction with were quite nice. Amar, Ushma and Paul, who was a bit inept in that he managed to break the till in the training room no less than three times and of course I was the one who had to go and fetch the supervisor. Last night I went out to the theatre with my parents and my friend Natalie to see Alan Ayckbourne's "How the other half loves". It was brilliantly amusing. Also really well acted. I reckon you should all go see it. It was the last night of performances at the theatre we went to. As we were walking back to the car, I noticed a huge group of skaters hanging around outside the shopping mall...... Some were evidently stoned and you could see the quickening pace and disdainful looks of all the elderly theatre goers as they made their way to the car park. Not that they were entirely wrong in that..... a few of the skaters got up and jeered, making various sneering comments about culture and royalty. Today I went to the optician's (second time in two weeks and I have to go back next week as well). And I GOT CONTACT LENSES!!!!! It's so amazing and really disconcerting that I can actually see without my glasses. I'm so happy! But now I have to get ready to go out to an exec meeting for my youth group which is highly likely to last most of the afternoon. Sara xxx (03:05p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, September 21, 2001 I am so unbelievably tired, not to mention a tad pissed off with the world and everything in it. I mean, the world, currently is one major shit hole. Everything is messed up and the tension is palpable. Add to this the fact that I haven't had a particularly good week and my plans for a fun weekend were buggered up completely, and the result is a depressed and moody version of me. Seriously, the amount of work the teachers try to pile on me is ridiculous. I have a major research project for the biology bit of SPU and a book to read which will later be part of my coursework for the physics bit. I have been given countless french exercises from the text book and on various work sheets and as for politics, well, I will just say that making notes would be a hell of a lot easier if i could understand the text book and didn't violently detest one of my teachers. Enough school orientated moaning. I got a really weird text today from Nick (who I am only vaguely ashamed to say I met on the internet)..... Oh, I have suffered various instances of weird correspondence with people on the internet but to all intents and purposes, Nick seems perfectly normal. So, you can imagine I was a tad surprised when I received a text from him which said, and I quote: "Hi, I jus wanted to tell u that I wank alot and am highly ashamed." I can only assume that one of his friends hijacked his phone to send prank texts. Hmmmmm......? As for the weekend, I have an induction day at Waitrose all day tomorrow and then on Sunday an optician's appointment. Oh, the fun! Sara xxx (09:05 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Monday, September 17, 2001 Oh I am so bored. I think I will write part of this entry in French. J'ai trop de devoirs. J'ai deja fait beaucoup mais j'ai toujours encore. Je suis fatiguee mais c'est seulement le debut de la semaine. Je ne sais pas de ce que je ferai au fin. I have so many things I want to do now but the school computer system filters the URLs it thinks unsuitable for our fragile little student minds. *Glares* No, I do not wish to view internet porn (ick!), merely update my diary and read my emails (ok, so hotmail isn't actually filtered but the hawkish stare of the librarian is currently directed at me and we aren't allowed to check email in school hours because the computers may be needed for research - how inconvenient!). Plus I am not exactly what one can call cheerful right now. I am bemoaning my lack of social life. I say this because I crave a party. It is, in fact, one of those rare occasions on which I feel the need to get thoroughly inebriated, or at the very least a little tipsy. Alas, there is no such prospect in the near future. Oh well. As if that is not enough, I have to take the day off school tomorrow for Rosh Hashannah - all well and good except that I will have a tonne of work to catch up on when I get back and some iof my teachers are often less than sympathetic. Enough of my moaning. Yes. I will shut up. Sara xxx (03:44 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, September 16, 2001 Finally - the website is complete..... No, I tell a lie. I need a counter and then it will be complete.
I am tired. I also have a headache from sitting for too long in front of the computer. Fortunately I have done almost all of my homework and the part which I haven't done I am not going to do. Not now and not ever. I have a rather incapable teacher for one of my subjects and this "homework" involved flicking for hours through a foreign language dictionary in order to find words of a particular gender which had a particular ending. Plus I have hardly had what one can call a "fun" weekend. Saturday - ok, that was fun. I went into Covent Garden with Hollie, Jess (who works with Hollie at Waitrose) and Melissa (one of Jess's friends). We shopped and ate pizza which was really rather yummy. Mmmm..... and cafe mocha from Starbucks. That is good. Loads of people went off to see Moulin Rouge but malheureusement, I had to babysit. I earned £12 so it was ok and it gave me some time to get my German homework done but still, babysitting has got to be the most boring job on this earth. This morning I had an optician's appointment - I'm getting contacts! *Smiles in anticipation* and I have to go for another appointment next week. Oh! and I'm getting a job in Waitrose (finally). I applied in June and they said they would ring me when they got vacancies. They did and I start next week. Only downside is the uniform. It's err.... interesting. Sara xxx (10:02 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, September 16, 2001 Wow - My first entry! I would say that I am really proud of my own skills with html but it would be quite a lie. I did try to write the html for this page but unfortunately I made rather a large mess of a lot of it and if it wasn't for my good friend and html genius Reean being around to put it all together properly for me, this page would still be non-existent. I shall write some more in a while probably. But yeah, now I'm just thanking Reean. Sara xxx (06:39 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ |