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Tuesday, February 5, 2002 I apologise for my general lack of writing over the past week. I have no excuses except those of extreme laziness combined with extreme tiredness and sprinkled with liberal amounts of school work. I still cannot be bothered to recount the various trifling events which have occurred since my last entry, so I shall just do a few. Hollie has gone and got herself attached to a boy named Simon in her psychology class. He sounds like a very lovely person, especially as he's willing to put up with her obsession with Elijah Wood... when they went out on Friday, the film of choice was Lord of the Rings. No surprises there then. Their next date is scheduled for this Friday. As for my own vie d'amour, I can say that apart from a small web of bizarre conversations between myself and someone I don't fancy, but who thought I did fancy him, absolutely nothing has happened. I hope the person to whom I am refering is not in a weird mood with me after those conversations. Oh, and I sent a very obviously flirty text, on the subject of the DCB, to the person I do fancy, but it will only have any effect if my mobile number is stored in his phone because I didn't sign my name to it. Hmmm... The DCB is this weekend - it seems so soon all of a sudden because it has been so far ahead for so long. For once I am not having last minute clothing dilemmas although I do wonder how I shall manage to eat and get ready in the hour I shall have after my tennis lesson. My dress is fabulous but rather difficult to describe, so I won't actually attempt that. *laziness again* And now for something so typically British - a moan about the foul weather we've been having: Yesterday, I had to get the bus from school to go to a dentist's appointment. I walked to the station in the gale force winds, wrapping my scarf so tightly around me that I practically strangled myself, yet still it almost blew away. When I got off the bus on the high street, the rain was pelting down so hard as to actually hurt my feet through the stiff leather of my knee high boots and the drops were splashing high out of the deepening puddles. My scarf, which was by this time tied round my head to protect my hair from the rain, was soaked through within 5 minutes. Unpleasant does not quite manage to describe it. Enough ranting for now. If it wasn't for my morning coffee, I doubt I'd stay awake all day. Royal Canadian blended, your spicy aroma has mended me. Sara xxx (12:32 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Monday, January 28, 2002 Hum. Damnit. Crap. Bugger. Fuck. Hum. Damnit. Crap. Bugger. Fuck. And so on, you get the pattern. Please don't pay too much attention to the above. It refers, in a rather random way, to my current frustration with life and everything in it. Bizarre events have become commonplace in my life and in those of some of my friends. I have lost the thread. Gone insane. Temporarily. And almost cried. And actually cried. And failed to sleep. And listened to oddly calming music. And still failed to sleep. And read a lot. Ack. And don't pay too much attention to that either. Hum. So yes. Today I had to make up the SPU test that I had missed when I was off school, so I turned up when the teacher told me to, at the same time as some of my year had her for biology. She handed me the bit of paper and I sat down in the little side room she told me to use. Looked at the paper and promptly died. It was a simple fill in the blanks exercise on DNA - the subject matter of one single lesson where we had not been told to take notes. I filled in as much as I could and then wrote the teacher a little note saying how I had revised but that the test was not entirely what I had expected. At the end of the day, I was accosted by Fran, Megan and Sara who were in the biology class when I did my test. It turned out that I had been given the biology AS test on DNA.... they found out when Mrs. B sat down with Sara to go over things she had not understood in her test. Sara looked at the paper and said "But this isn't my writing". So I got 7/20 on an AS biology topic test, having never been to an AS biology lesson. Random. I was supposed to be going into London with Rhian to meet Serra, who sounds really nice, from what Rhian has told me. So I was all looking forward to meeting her and then the powers that be (parentals) told me it wasn't possible, for various inconvenient reasons. Hmph! So sorry guys, I won't be able to make it. But Serra please make sure that Rhian does tell the guy in Cyberdog that she likes his hair (and that she thinks he's gorgeous... if you can persuade her to be so forthcoming). Don't save me, don't lose me, don't wake me now. Sara xxx (09:25 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, January 25, 2002 I know it has been a little while since I last wrote only on a day to day basis there doesn't seem to be that much to actually say. It's not always that I have a long emotional rant and to be honest, most of my school days don't merit much comment. But anyway - I am ill. I went to bed on tuesday night feeling relatively fine but on wednesday morning woke up hardly able to breathe and spent the entire day in school sneezing. I had some soup at lunch to warm me up and I asked for a bowl but the dinner lady must not have heard me because she gave me a cup. I was trying to drink it from the cup and it had all these noodles in it which got stuck at the bottom of the cup. I tried to get them out by tipping the cup right up and made Rhian laugh quite a bit at the idea that I was petrified of tipping the cup that much in case the noodles all fell onto my nose. I made Rhian laugh again as we were walking out of school that afternoon. It was pissing down with rain and the winds were almost gale like in strength but in order to preserve my nicely washed hair from too much frizziness, I attempted to use my umberella. It is a rather poor quality one, in an interesting shade of fluorescent pink, although that's not surprising really given that I bought it in Brighton. So anyway - my umberella inevitably blew itself inside out. More than once. And I just happened to wonder if it could ever blow the other way and close around my head. Which we found rather funny. So after my youth group on wednesday night, I felt ill. Very. And tired. Extremely. So I got my parents to agree to let me stay home yesterday and relax, re-reading "Northern Lights" which is just such an amazing book. Of course I did have to go in to work in the evening which kind of made me feel really awful all over again but it wasn't as bad as it sometimes is. And my weekend hardly promises to be exciting.... homework, possibly small amount of essential shopping in Watford avec ma mere, babysitting, watching the video of Buffy because I missed it on Thursday due to being sat bored at a checkout. So generally nothing special. The sky to the south was profoundly dark, though billions of stars lay on it like diamonds on velvet. Sara xxx (09:30 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, January 20, 2002 This weekend has been so great - not only did it live up to my expectations, I believe it surpassed them in almost every way. I'll start at the beginning (strangely logical for me, n'est ce pas?) Friday: At 9am on the dot, I stepped nervously through the doors of the pathology unit of the local hospital, took my numbered ticket (51) from the deli-style dispenser and sat down to wait. Less than a minute later, a stereotypically kind middle-aged looking nurse called my number and I was told to roll up my sleeve, make a fist and look the other way. All went well, bar the fact that I looked back too early and I was able to see as well as feel the blood being sucked out of my arm and into the syringe. My legs shook somewhat as I waited to cross the road outside and, as a consequence of the impolite morning traffic, missed my bus. When I eventually got to the supermarket, I got a fruit smoothie, a fresh roll and a mini portion of camembert cheese for my petit dejeuner, which I munched on the train to Harrow. There I bought a cappucino from Costa and caught another train into London. Having met up with Rhian and Esther, we travelled in to Covent Garden, where shopping was very much the order of the day. I dispensed of much of my money on the following items: a pair of trousers from Mango, which have been haunting me since I saw them for £41 in France. They were £16 in the sale, diamantee dangly earrings and black elbow length lace gloves to wear to the DCB in February, burgundy leather belt with large rose, the ends of the belt are rose buds, pair of black Emily socks with an evil looking cat on them, beautiful orangey coloured hand made beaded cushion cover from the market, pair of thigh high pink and pale pink stripey socks, and.... no, I think that's it. So basically, I bought loads. The others also experienced the joy of depenser de l'argent, Rhian buying a rather amazing skirt from Cyberdog and Esther buying some equally interesting things, the details of which I actually cannot recall. At around 6.10pm, I arrived home, only to leave again in order to see Lord Of The Rings for the second time, with Hollie, Andrea and Anna. That film is just so damn good! Home at about midnight and straight into bed. Saturday: Quiet morning at home, doing some work - had enough of it this weekend, that's for sure - until Rhian arrived at about 3.30pm - quick dinner and much getting ready and off to meet Hollie, Anna, Andrea and Sarah in order to go see Incubus live at Wembley. We got there with plenty of time to queue and suchlike and sit watching the rather uninspiring support bands - there were two of them. The first we hardly heard as they went off just after we arrived but the second played for a full 45 minutes. Their attempts at originality verged on unbelievable, the guitar guy doing some weird quasi-cancan thing with his legs half the time and the singer bounding around the stage like a one man mosh pit. Eventually they left and after much stage setting up, Incubus came on. They are actually even better live than they are on cd! It was seriously so bloody amazing that I was rendered speechless afterwards. During it I was singing along to every song and jumping up and down (well, as much as I could given that my shoes were stuck to the floor, literally, from all the spilt drinks of past gigs). The atmosphere was so great, not because everyone seemed to be like one harmonious body but more like everyone just tuned in and understood the music in their own way. And Brandon Boyd is just the embodiment of gorgeousness. Even from however many hundreds of feet away our seats were, he is the epitomy of stunningness. It got so hot in there that after 10mins my jumper was off, another 10 and my long sleeve shirt went, about 20 more and the short sleeve shirt had to go. Two songs later, I was so hot that I rolled my vest top up so it became a cropped top. Except then I had to pull it down because I felt like the ugly guy behind me was staring at me. I only noticed this because I had turned round to try and identify where the intense smell of weed was coming from. A guy three rows back lit up every time I turned round. It must have been his 8th spliff by the time the encore came around. Afterwards, on the way to the station, I bought myself a cheap hoodie from a three fingered bloke outside. It's obviously a fake, and it doesn't even say the tour dates on it, which is kinda annoying as that's why I wanted to buy one there as opposed to at Camden market. It was only £10 so I wasn't too bothered as the official ones inside Wembley were £40. But when I got home, I realised that I must have given the bastard a £20 instead of a £10 note because I couldn't see in the dark. I was unbelievably pissed off with myself. Mostly I just ignore that because the evening itself was so brilliant but every time I think of it, it drills an irritating little hole in my mind and my pocket. There were probably also nicer designs on some of the other hoodies from other three fingered guys but I didn't know that when I bought mine. Hmph. I'm kinda stuck with it now. Oh well. Concert was SO GOOD!!! But when Rhian and I got back to mine, we were rather hungry, so to eliminate our midnight munchies, we cooked scrambled eggs, heated some baguettes and ate the two together with grated cheese. Yummmmmmm.... after which we each had an aero and a couple of jelly sweets. There was also the inevitable all encompassing conversation until around 2am, covering topics from the deep and controversial to the clicheed teenage angsty. Not waking up until 11am today meant that rather than breakfast, we ate brunch of melted cheese in tortilla wraps, followed by an apple and accompanied with a carton of Actimel. Dropped Rhian at the station on my way to tennis, which was rather tiring and have been doing German homework since I got home. The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds, strewn across the blue plain. Sara xxx (10:20p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Thursday, January 17, 2002 Two entries on one night? Mike did that not so long ago actually. I just took this test to see what type of drink I am. And it said:
Which drink are you? I don't even contain any alcohol. Not sure about the validity of this considering my holiday fun. Bizarre. I could go in for a rather long rant here. *Debates in head* Most people love holidays and I really used to agree with them. Some of you, who know me in real life may be aware that I go on a tremendous amount of holidays to many far away and exotic places. This might seem like a dream come true. It is for my dad, who insists that we go away because of how much he hates his job. Every opportunity to escape (and I mean properly, where he can avoid British news, and where his office can not contact him) he jumps at. For me on the other hand, these holidays are becoming more of a stress and a trial than anything else. Sure, I had a great time in Jamaica, but I ended up missing 2 days of school and being behind in my work for almost a week because I had the current homework as well as my catching up to get on with. There's also the fact that I have been away during every holiday since last summer and am going again in April and after that in August. I hardly ever get to relax, properly, in my own homw and the constant holidays really limit the time I spend with my friends. After we get back, my mother is in a foul mood for up to two weeks because of all the washing she has to do - no washing machines in 5* hotels. My dad is totally unsympathetic to this and is back to his work-stressed self in no time and my sister and I have to almost tiptoe round her for fear of provoking a "Why aren't you being helpful?" tirade. My sister doesn't travel well and we all get really irritable and irritated by long haul flights, disgusting plane food and terrible jet lag. We all end up eating too much while we're away and then feel fat afterwards but can't really do anything about it as the harm is done already. My dad plans holidays with fervour, organising every last detail of our "itinerary" because *sarcasm* we couldn't possibly enjoy a holiday without one. Relaxing? What's that all about? We've been a couple of times to places in the Far East and loved the luxury of our hotels and the quality of the food but I distinctly remember my mother hating to leave the 5* comfort and see the world around us because she didn't like to deal with seeing the extreme poverty that most people lived in. I remember all of us except my dad standing for what seemed like hours in our shorts and t-shirts, slowly sweating, gasping for a cool drink and shuffling out of need for a western toilet, rather than a hole in the ground. My dad was the only one videoing and photographing statue after statue of golden Buddhas in temple after temple after temple. They are beautiful, but having seen one or two, the others seem so much the same. I have great memories of New Year 1998 in Malaysia, at a magic show by an Australian magician. 1999, I was at home. 2000, was at a fabulous party with my friends as even my father admitted that he did not wish to be abroad for the millennium. 2001 was in Australia, at a terrible light show and thoroughly bored, missing out on parties. 2002, had a fabulous time in Jamaica. So why have I said all this? My father wishes to book another holiday. To the far east. For this Christmas. I have tried to tell him why I don't want to go. He refuses to be persuaded. I can't stand it because my holidays are becoming chores, routines, stresses and not things that I can realistically hope to enjoy. It is no longer a novelty. To coin a clicheed phrase, it sucks. But below are the reasons I gave to my dad for why we, or simply I on my own, should remain at home this Christmas.
Going on holiday this Christmas will mean that we will have been away during every school holiday this year: Christmas to Jamaica, Easter to Florida, Summer to Australia. In my opinion, this is a very excessive amount of time to spend abroad and I would like the opportunity to relax in my own home for a period of time longer than a mere weekend or half term. This summer, I am not only going to Australia, but also to France and possibly Germany in order to improve my language skills for A-level, as recommended by my teachers. This, combined with the fact that many of my friends are likely to be taking their annual family holidays at some time during the 8 weeks, means that I will see my friends for an absolute minimum amount of time, if at all. Staying at home this Christmas would therefore give me the chance to have more of a social life, especially as most of my friends tend not to go away over Christmas. Christmas 2002 would be the third year in a row at which I would have to miss out on the Christmas atmosphere and shopping. Whilst it may seem strange to you, some people, such as myself, do enjoy this. To be away for one new year was perfectly alright. To be away for two was somewhat irritating but to be away for three new years in a row just at the age where I have started being able to go out and enjoy myself with friends? In my mind it is not only unfair but is detrimental to my development as a teenager. A family resort such as Beaches where I could still have a great time would not amend this situation as not all family resorts guarantee making such good friends as I did at Beaches. Hollie pointed out the possibility that I may wish to revise for A-level mocks. Whilst you are probably aware that I won’t do a great deal of revision wherever I am, you must concede that the last thing I would need would be to arrive home jet lagged from a long distance holiday, a mere few days before the start of what shall be very challenging exams. If I were to stay at home alone over the Christmas holidays, it would give me a gentle introduction to something I would otherwise be thrown into almost entirely unprepared when I begin university life - looking after myself. I say a "gentle introduction" because I would be in a familiar environment where I know how to access everything I would need. Along the same lines, me staying at home could be a learning exercise in budgeting. If you deposited a certain sum of money in my bank account, I would have to make it cover food and travel costs for the entire holiday. As far as travel goes, I hope to have passed my driving test by Christmas this year, so I would be able to get around even in bad weather and I am sure I could get lifts from my friends’ parents to parties if there would be alcohol involved. To conclude, I would like to say that I simply don’t want to go on holiday this Christmas and to bring me would surely mean that there would be a bad atmosphere and you would not enjoy yourself as much as if I was allowed to remain at home. So anyway, I find myself stuck. I really don't want this holiday. I'm not ungrateful for the fact that I can have such exotic trips, I just believe that it should be kept as a treat. As something to look forward to. Once, twice a year at the most. Otherwise it loses all its magic. Sara xxx (09:57 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Thursday, January 17, 2002 Ack! Tiredness in the extreme. I've just been at work (Waitrose) for 3 and a bit hours and I am starving. Very hungry. Despite having eaten a sandwich on my way to work, my stomach was grumbling for much of the three hours. Thing is, I'm not allowed to eat anything. Huh? Tomorrow morning, I have to go for a blood test *feels somewhat squeamish at thought. Fine with injections where stuff goes in but having blood taken out is another matter. Ick* because some random doctor thought I might have diabetes. Hmmmm. Bizarre and somewhat inconvenient *craves pizza*. Plus, I am having to make my own way to and from the hospital because my mother is going with her friend Steph to some walking club in order to enjoy the beautiful.... err... countryside of Northwood?..... Well anyway, it's a bus for me. And after I've bought myself some sustenance in the form of breakfast, I'm hopping on a train to meet Esther at Harrow. We're then getting another train to meet Rhian and all 3 of us are going shopping to Covent Garden for the day. In the evening, I might be going to see Lord Of The Rings again because it's so damn good, and Orlando Bloom (Legolas) is quite unbelievably gorgeous. In case you were wondering, I'm not bunking. It's an official day off school. And Saturday, Oh well Saturday..... I am going..... wait for it..... to see...... Incubus live at Wembley with Rhian, Hols, Sarah, Anna and Andrea! It's gonna be so great. I get to see Brandon Boyd! *drools* Yay! Enough of me sounding like a little tweenage obsessee. Time to watch FRIENDS. Maybe I shall babble for a little more later. All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Sara xxx (08:50 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Monday, January 14, 2002 So my finger is not broken. No. Official diagnosis = bruised bone and sprained ligaments, plus a rather ugly cold burn from the ice episode. It's stopped hurting now (most of the time) but playing tennis yesterday was pretty difficult. I went out for Chinese yesterday with Hollie and her family and my family. Twas yummy, as Chinese food sooften is but, as I so often do when I eat Chinese, I ate rather too much. Hence I was forced to lay awake and fret about not a lot until midnight or thereabouts when my body finally decided it had burnt off enough of the excess calories I had consumed. Today I swam at school during my lunch break and ate a very minimalist sandwich and banana in order to further better my calorie situation. Speaking of calories, I have to do a coursework investigation into Slim Fast drinks and whether they are actually any good for losing or maintaining weight. It's for SPU of course and as it will make 20% of my exam grade for AS, I'm doing a shitload of research. Of course, it doesn't help that all the studies I have found about Slim Fast have been funded by the Slim Fast Nutritional Institute. And the views of various normal people who happen to have tried it is probably not the most mark-winning counter argument. Hmmm.... I can sense that this will be one looooooooooong research project. Also, Gizba is being stupid again and has deleted my account so that the links to my photos and my story are no longer working. They do this every so often so methinks I need to find myself some more co-operative web space. Any suggestions? Oh and as to my previous posting, somebody asked me to elaborate on the person in question. Well, I know he has never read this page before, unless someone other than me gave him the address. He's one of my friends from my youth group... so now if anyone from there reads this they'll probably start trying to guess who I'm on about. That's as elaborate as this gets though. He's so lovely. So anyway, now I am off to watch Eastenders for the first time in about a month. What a fun life I lead Je mentirais si je disais non. Sara xxx (07:45 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, January 11, 2002 This is going to be one of those entries which has the potential to be really long but will take forever to type because I am chatting on msn at the same time. Oh, and I think I broke my finger. I was running along the hallway in my house and I whacked my hand against the wall, bending back the first finger on my left hand so that I heard my bones crack. My mother then cleverly told me to hold ice on it, which I did for about 20 minutes until I noticed that I had actually frozen my finger. It was, quite literally, rigid and had no blood flowing to it. After about 20 more minutes, it had begun to thaw out properly but it felt like millions of little sharp needles were being pushed slowly into my skin. Then when it eventually had returned to what can only be called normal, it began to swell as a result of being crashed backwards into the wall. So I doubt this typing is doing it much good. Oh well. I have a rant. I hate the concept of ranting but it feels good to vent sometimes (note how my wonderful teen americanisms make this sentence make no real sense as a person can't actually vent as such). So anyway... Meh! The inevitable has happened. I have been stupid. Reduced myself to infantile teenybopper levels and allowed two facts that should have been kept completely separate for ever and ever, unless in very exceptional circumstances, to merge in my head and have ended up with a potential catastrophe. So to phrase that in a less obtuse manner, I have acknowledged both that a guy I know is absolutely gorgeous (fine on its own because hey, so are quite a few of them, see previous post to name but five) and, that he is a really nice guy (also fine as not all my friends are girls, so nice guys are nothing new). Having acknowledged these facts, some part of my brain decided to be totally disobedient to everything I have ever tried to teach it and combined them together, giving me.... wait for it.... *cringes at teenybopper language which must now be employed* .... a crush! Ack! It sounds so real now I've typed it. So why is it a disaster exactly? Well, anyone who knows my history with these things will be well aware that it is not a good one. I shall avoid specific examples - no need to drag them out and dust them down for viewing but, characteristically, every crush I've had has resulted in (a) me embarassing myself terribly and publicly by telling the object of my affections only to discover that they aren't in the least bit interested, or (b) me harbouring almost 100% secret affections and being privately devastated to discover that said person is otherwise involved.... usually by seeing their involvement directly in front of me. So no. A 'crush' is not something I wish to have. Another thing that pisses me off, is that when other people *restrains self from mentioning particular person whose name springs immediately to mind* make their crushes known to a few friends, for example on one of my youth group weekends, pretty soon the entire group knows and the person gets to make a big fuss and say how it was supposed to be a secret but then, the crush object knows and is either just so flattered that they don't feel they can refuse, or actually really likes the person and the pair get together. Fabulous. Now why can that not happen to me? Although I guess I wouldn't be happy about it if the object of my affections was simply flattered into anything. Ack! Damnit! Plus, a babble about something rather different: I don't have a talent. No, I'm not saying I'm crap at everything because that wouldn't be true. I'm saying that I dn't have one particular skill, be it singing, drawing, swimming, tennis, where I could be considered really amazing. It shouldn't bother me at all. I'm pretty good at most things I try, sports excluded and I've never really had to work exceptionally hard to achieve anything I have achieved so far in my life. But I don't excel at anything.... at least not in areas where most praise is thrown. Fishing for praise? Hell yes. Everyone does it but it isn't ever as nice as praise given voluntarily. So if anyone reads this and suddenly starts saying "oh, Sara, you're really good at insert word here" then it wasn't what I was aiming at. Surely then, the answer is to get good at something. Easier said than done. To end on a slightly more positive note? What? I don't actually feel like it although, apart from the mountains of work I have to get through, I'm in for a relatively good weekend. Hmmm.... Excuse me while I kiss the sky. Sara xxx (11:10p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Sunday, January 6, 2002 Location: Still Jamaica What? Our BloodyAwful flight has been subject to a rather large delay. Estimated take off time = 1am. So rather than wait in the stiflingly smelly airport, we decided to hop (or rather trudge, given our obscene amount of un-checked in hand baggage) to a taxi and it whisked us here, to Wyndham Resort for some tasty dinner and a relaxing air-conditioned sofa, or in my case, an office with internet access. Thank-you lovely people at reception! So anyway - the holiday Jamaica = 4411 square miles of tropical island where you would be shot as soon as looked at if you expressed any public signs of homosexuality, where the politicians sound more corrupt than in the UK and where weed is officially illegal but the cops leave the rich tourists alone to get stoned if that should be their preference.
My days consisted, mostly, of reading Lord Of The Rings on my sunbed or drifting across the pool on a hotel lilo in order to order a mocktail fresh from the swim up bar, or trying my utmost not to cringe at the chat up lines used by the guys in the towel shack, which were cheesier than a very smelly bag of Cheetos, or sneaking off down the beach to Evenings? Well, a few could use some detailed explanation I guess: Dec 27th - Emily (18, Yorkshire, figure to die for), Becky (12, Yorkshire, easily passed for 16), Nick (14, London, stunner for his age), Ted (17, Canada, big dumb but sweet bear like guy), Danyelle (17, Pennsylvania, funkiest hair I've seen in ages) all sat and drank, played Egyptian Ratscrew and Bullshit and generally took the piss out of Ted's Canadian-ness, to which he unfailingly replied "I love my country maaaaaaaaaaan. We never get annoyed. We just sit and drink our beer maaaaaaaaaaaan."
Dec 29th - Emily, Becky and Nick's last evening. Emily, Nick, Danyelle and I sat and played Bullshit again but this time with shots of Jack Dnaiels. Ack! It is so unbelievably vile. Couple it with a miami vice, a toasted almond, a long island iced tea, a rum punch, a vodka and coke and a hummingbird, and I was totally under the control of our good friend alcohol. Cue me, Emily and Danyelle dancing centre stage at the disco to the Macarena and then heading off to the sea to go 31st Dec - After 2 nights of being pretty much grounded, my curfew was 2am for New Year's. Cue new experience number 3: weed. Danyelle had purchased $10 US worth of said happy herb for her own enjoyment from the jet ski guy (who had taken us, riding pillion on the jet ski, to his "office" which had actually been a small alleyway behind a shack a little further down the 7 mile beach and after he had sold us that, offered us some Charlie. Danyelle naively yet sensibly turned down this cocaine). I shared a roach with her but all I got was an icky taste in my mouth, while she went as high as high could be. So, after the inevitable balloons and coundown, we reach new experience number 4. After much encouragement from Danyelle and Julia (18, NY, had earlier been introduced to me by Danyelle as the one with the big breasts), I actually walked up and introduced myself to a random guy at the bar. To my pleasantly tipsy eyes, Sean (17, Canada) seemed incredibly sexy in a very mysterious and secretive way, so I invited him to come hear Julia sing (her voice is unbelievable) in the piano bar. Wahoo! Never did get up the nerve to tell Sean I thought he was sexy though. Jan 2nd - I sang at the piano bar. "Ironic" by Alanis Morisette. Totally solo and totally sober, into the microphone to applause from my audience of around 20 other guests of the hotel. Fun, but shit scary nonetheless. Namely, new experience number 5. And number 6 was really cool too - with my family and guided by Errol of Errol Flynn tours, and Rickey of Mayfield River Walks, I waded, clambered and swam my way with my family from the bottom to the top of Mayfield River Falls. It was amazing. And to get back to the bottom, we were led dripping in our swimsuits across a muddy field full of cows. Bizarre. Feeling refreshed by our fresh cooked steaming chicken and rice, we clambered back into Errol's bus and were driven back to the hotel. So that's really it. The last two days of the holiday, leading to now, got kinda very dull. My friends all left before I did and the group of 150 Italians who arrived made things around the pool rather less fun - almost all were guys but 95% of them were over the age of 30. The few that weren't were stereotypically sexy in that dark Italian way, especially the eyes... though you couldn't look in them without feeling like they were seeing you sans bikini and sarong. And they smoked, like chimneys (tobacco of course), that smell made me glad to leave. One more new experience - a private four seater charter plane from Negril to Montego Bay airport so that we wouldn't have to deal with the 2 hour terrible drive. A good plan considering that my sister is currently on about 6 different drugs to control her ill stomach about which I shan't go into detail. A fun experience too - I sat up front next to Curtis, the pilot and videoed it all. So I sit and scratch my twelve billion mosquito bites as I type. Before I go, I also want to comment on how absolutely bloody amazing Convention was. I can't type in detail, perhaps I will at some point. Suffice to say that my half hooker/half nun costume won me the best costume award at the ball and that my fit list (a tad different from the collectively voted one) in no particular order is as follows... Ben Friedman, Kane Moore, Ben Gerlis, Bradley Busch, Gideon Chain. That will only mean anything to the guys themselves, or those who know them. Oh well. T'was much fun. Now I really have to go. Hope to see/speak to people soon, although I guess my parents would rather nobody phoned me in case we are all asleep. Sara xxx (09:45 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Saturday, January 5, 2002 Location: Jamaica. Well firstly, thank you soooooooo much Rhian for doing my layout for me. I never expected it to be up while I was still out here in sunshine land and this computer screen makes everything (even hotmail) pink so I can't see "exactly" how it looks but what I can see I love! Next I will apologise for not posting for so long. The hotel neglected to tell me that there was internet access right here until now, despite my hacving asked them countless times. Even so, it is highly extortionate and my mum is outraged that my uber generous dad forked oout for an entire hour of precious online time. Due to my very limited time, a full account of my holiday won't get done until I am happily back in the good old place I call home (you know, that boring piece of nondescript upper middle class suburbia somewhere north west of london). I've spent some time catching up on Joe and Mike and what they have written over the holidays. I shall end this post here as I have much to do in my remaining five minutes. Full holiday story to come on Monday night. Sara xxx (04:13 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, January 4, 2002 Rhian here again. Right. I think this is mostly sorted out now. No thanks to pitas, which has been being evil. What do you all think? Why not sign the guestbook? I just reformatted it to fit the layout. Talking of which... Layout info: the main picture came from istockphoto.com. Not much more to add, really. I used Photoshop 6.0 to edit the image, Notepad for the html coding. Sara, I know it's not really what you asked for (at all), but I tried the original idea out and it just wasn't working. I even tried this one with the rose, but it didn't look half as good, so I went with the flow and came out with the current version. If you hate it... well, I won't have time to change it now, so you'll have to wait a while! ^_^ Also, the floppy with the site info that I took home from your house got wiped 'accidentally' so I haven't been able to complete the sidebar. I'll bring a disc in on Tuesday so we can sort that out ASAP... or you can email me if you have time. Hope you had a great time in Jamaica! Sara xxx (10:18 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ Friday, January 4, 2002 Hello. It's Rhian here. Not Sara. Nosirree. Sara, the usual author of Six Leaf Clover, is in Jamaica. (Damn her.) Anyway... I just made her a new layout, and this is a test post. More to come. Sara xxx (08:51 p.m.) ------------------------------------------ |