Wednesday 30 April 2008

Random Mixture Story

That's what it's saved as, and that's what it is. A random mixture of a couple of story ideas, both from dreams. It's a kind of super hero fantasy type story. Very random in a way, but quite interesting to write. I wonder if I'll actually finish it. I think I'm getting close to done with Pterodactyl, I just have to reveal the full dastardly plot and stop the villain and tie up a couple of loose ends. Overall, I'm quite pleased with it I guess, although some very, very random things have happened. Still. There we go.

More Mocks... :(

Well, I had my Chemistry mock first thing this morning. Really hard, though I think I've done okish. I don't know really. Some of it was really confusing. And then Maths. Also very hard, and I know I've lost at least one mark, because I really didn't have a clue, but I think I managed to get most of it sorted in the end. Hope I did. Although it is only a mock. As long as Mr Bennett doesn't make fun of me in front of the whole class, because that's just nasty. I hate it when he does that, to anyone really, because it's not fair and it's really disheartening. Everyone gets stuff wrong sometimes, that doesn't give him a right to make your life a misery if you do get something wrong. And he wonders why people don't answer.

Tuesday 29 April 2008

Exams...

Honestly, mock exams today, and they were so boring. I finished the maths one about twenty minutes early, and the physics one about fifteen minutes early. Plus I had a go at doing an IT paper, and it's just a joke. It took me ten minutes, including the time I took out to stop and do some work on my folder, so more like six or seven, and I got thirty-seven out of forty, and the exam is supposed to take an hour. An hour! I'm going to be bored out of my mind. Argh! Why can't they give people a more realistic time scale to complete things. Or better yet, let you leave the exam once you're done. Humph say I.

Interview

I got offered a place at Runshaw yesterday. And then Naomi gave me a lift into school, because her interview was at exactly the same time as mine, just with a different person. I now feel a lot more sure that going to Cardinal Newman is right though, because they were so efficient and just doing everything at once that it was a little freaky, like a sausage machine, and plus they didn't really care about asking me why I wanted to go there, they were more interested in telling me how amazing Runshaw is.
Naomi's mum is great. Neither of us had brought maths books, but it was starting to look like we were going to be there for nearly all of maths, so we 'got lost' (I was at any rate, they weren't) and we found a little cafe and had hot chocolate, then returned in time for RE. LOL. My parents would never do that.

Monday 28 April 2008

Revolutionary

Encounter last night was absolutely awesome. James didn't really enjoy it, but I did, it was great. It's a shame Naomi couldn't come, but that's life. I'm really tired now, because I've now had three late nights in a row, plus I woke up at ten past six this morning. I really want to get more involved with the church and stuff, and I'm going to reach out to people, like the speaker was saying. I'm going to hold what hands I can and see what comes of it. And I'm going to get involved in Hope 08 somehow.

Sunday 27 April 2008

Encounter!

Encounter last night was absolutely fantastic. I think Naomi enjoyed it too. I'm probably going again tonight, but right now I'm absolutely shattered. I think I might just say forget the word war and go sleep for a bit.

Saturday 26 April 2008

Writing a story as a blog is... Well, interesting

I'm being bombarded by plot bunnies at the moment. That blog story I did for English is just begging to be taken a bit further, and so I'm consenting. For now. I'd also like to extend the Drifters, which is another short story I did, because that also has potential to become a longer piece, and I have a couple of ideas on how to do it.

BrokenSoldier

Ok, I've finished my short story for English, and I'm quite proud of it to be honest. I think it has potential for something longer, but I also think it works how it is. I like the way it's come out, because I'm doing it as though it's a blog and so it's reverse chronological which is fun and different, makes it more interesting to write as well as, hopefully, being more interesting to read.

Babysitting

Well, it went pretty good. To me, babysitting seems to be just about one of the easiest ways to earn money that there is. Went round, Molly and Joe were really well behaved, played a few games with them, then when they went to bed I did my English homework. Well, most of it, but I now want to type it up and do some work on it, because there are a couple of things I want to change.

Friday 25 April 2008

Babysitting

Going next door to babysit in about ten minutes. I probably ought to get ready.

Stolen Faith

Sammy's decided she wants me to write more of her story, the one that goes in between books three and four, and already she's making changes to how the grand scheme of things is going to pan out. Still, that's what she's like, so never mind. It shouldn't be too hard to change it so that the rest makes sense with this book in. She's a great character to write about, and Josh, her six-year-old son, is really, really cute. I can't believe he later turns into a demon, he just doesn't seem the type. Maybe he won't. After all, it won't be the first time a character does something insane.

English

Nearly posted it by pressing enter at the wrong moment. Well, I did, but I'm changing it now, so that there's actually something in the post...
Anyway, I asked my English teacher today which story I should use, because I had eight different possible story ideas, and I know that she didn't particularly like the last one I did, because too many people died. Don't think she'd like Pterodactyl then, because pretty much everyone dies... Still, that's beside the point. Anyway, she thought that blogging sounded quite interesting, so I'm writing a story told through a blog, and I'm not entirely sure what to write, but I'll work it out, don't worry. Can't be too hard.
I like English, especially writing stories, and I'm really chuffed that I did so well on my Paper 1 section A, when I did absolutely rubbish last time. Three ten out of tens and one eight out of ten on the section A, and I don't think I've ever got more than a nine on any section A in either paper before. That probably makes no sense whatsoever to you, but oh well, it does to me, and to anyone else who's doing GCSE English.

Happy

Yeh, well yesterday, although I didn't post it, one of the PE teachers who took me to do table tennis along with a bunch of other people asked me whether I was staying on into Sixth Form. When I said no, she seemed genuinely disappointed, and said that it was a shame because I was always smiling and stuff like that, and it just made me feel so happy. PE has never been my strong subject, but I still try my best most of the time, and I guess I'm just glad that it shows, that attitude is what people notice, that it doesn't go unnoticed and unremarked, even if you're not particularly good and you try at it you'll be noticed.

Thursday 24 April 2008

Strike Day

Well I was still at school, but it wasn't so bad. In fact, we had quite a good time all things considered. The bus driver got a little lost this morning, so he wound up having to turn the bus around with virtually no room at all. We didn't think he'd manage it, but he did and it was rather impressive. There was only Year 11 and Sixth Form in, but that meant school was really quiet and nice. Oops I forgot to hand in my Chemistry. Never mind. I don't think Mr Benett was even in. History was survivable, Textiles we were making a mood board, my English teacher wasn't in so I just read when I should've had English--it seemed and appropriate use of the time--and I did table tennis in PE which is always fun, mainly because I'm absolutely useless at playing it...

Wednesday 23 April 2008

Minor Rant...

[rant]
I was going to post this yesterday, but I wound up not doing. I'll say it now though.
I'm a little annoyed at the way Hazel's been treating me, like I'm an answer book. She just takes my answers in Biology, so that she can copy them, and she doesn't even ask. I don't mind explaining them, and when I do just hand over the answers, it's more because I just can't be bothered explaining it because it all seems so simple and I'm tired. We were talking about it in History, and Liv was a little annoyed at me as well as Hazel, because I let her do it. She said I should say no, but the trouble is I don't want to endanger any good friendships just before leaving. I know I'll regret it if I fall out with Hazel, with anyone I'm currently friends with, but still. We've kind of been sharing answers a little in Biology tests too. They're not important or anything, and it started as a kind of one off because Hazel had been busy the night before, and then it got so it happened more frequently, but I've been doing my best not to rely on them to give me the answers. So yesterday I decided right, we've had the whole of the Easter holiday type thing to revise, there's no excuse, so I refused to look up at all. I got nineteen out of twenty-one, which I was quite proud with considering I only lost the marks because it should've been [I]adult[/I] bone marrow, not just bone marrow which I put, and meiosis not as I spelt it mieosis. Well, the i before e rule seemed to apply, but I guess it just doesn't. Neither Hazel nor Natalie did very well, but then Hazel decided to put her mark up a bit, and that did annoy me. I think Natalie only did it because Hazel did. She was like 'It's just one or two marks, just so he says it's ok and not bad', but I would never do that. It's one thing to share answers and another all together to change the mark you got. Yes, it's sometimes meant that I've been laughed at when I've not done so well, because I'm [I]supposed[/I] to do well, model student and all that, but everyone has an off day, but I do always own up to the fact that I've done badly, and I'm careful that I don't rely too much on them. Anyway, that's what annoyed me. So I'll stop now before this turns into a major rant rather than a minor one like the title says. Just one more thing. I didn't decide not to 'share answers' for purely selfish reasons, I have a feeling that our teacher knew there was something going on, but perhaps didn't want to say anything, so I wasn't going to destroy a fairly decent pupil-teacher relationship in what's probably going to be our last specification test. I mean, he's been pretty decent about answering all my random questions, he could've refused and said that they weren't important, but he always listened.
[/rant]

Tent!

Zobia remembered to bring the tent today. At last! It's what? Four weeks, maybe more, since we went on the expedition. Still, all's well that ends well. And it nearly didn't, because I managed to leave the tent in French. So I had a bit of a palava after school, running around and trying to find it, investigating various different classrooms that I'd been in. It was history revision tonight, but I couldn't be bothered to go in the end. Mrs Pitman is so boring. Still. Went to communion at lunch though, and I was the only one who came. Mr D was really nice and still did it though, which was great. He's really nice, and we prayed for my mum. She's not feeling amazing, and I don't think she's sleeping well, but she's mostly cheerful which is good.

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Textiles Homework

I'm currently researching hats. I have to look at two different milliners and find lots and lots of hat pictures to make a mood board. It's good. I shall post properly in a bit, when I'm not mid-way through doing lots of things. I like multi-tasking, stops me getting bored.

Monday 21 April 2008

English

Well, I've just spent some time putting together six plans for a story. Hopefully my teacher will like at least one of them. I'm going to ask her which would be best to develop. Four are based on Japanese myths, so that might rule them out. The other two; one's about a terrorist attack on an aircraft, the other about a dragon appearing in Preston. I hate stories where nothing much happens, they need plenty of action to hold my interest really. I don't do romance or growing up teenage stories as such. I prefer to do that more as a backdrop to something pretty extraordinary or exciting. Makes both parts more interesting. Of course, in short stories it's much harder to mingle multiple genres, so I tend to go for action or fantasy. Unfortunately, my English teacher isn't all that fond of action stories...

Back to school

Went back to school after the hols today. Could've been worse I guess. Textiles was a little boring cos I hadn't anything much to do for the majority of the lesson, but oh well. RE wasn't too bad, Naomi and I showed the presentation we made before the holidays, it took some doing on my part to keep a fairly straight face throughout (partially failed). Well, I kind of forgot about the bloodied hand (representing the way Islamic law says you should chop off a thief's hand), and the guy whose head kind of fell off... Plus the oats on the page about Quakers. At least it didn't still say Quaker Oats, and lots of other oats, because I was in a slightly random, slightly hyper mood during that particular lesson...

Sunday 20 April 2008

Insane Characters, as in, very insane

Well. Yesterday, my characters basically went insane. Hainshaw didn't die in the right boat like I thought he would, he actually shot everyone on board and then sank the boat, and turns out to be Russian. As if that wasn't bad enough, John managed to subdue him, and it turns out that he had a good reason for shooting everyone (a drug had been released into the air that would make them lose all their inhibitions and which meant they would eventually suffer a very excruciating death in about five hours from the point at which they first inhaled it. This drug would cause them to attack comrades when they were released into the rest of Pterodactyl after landing) and that John spent some time in Russia and knows Hainshaw from that time. There has also been an unexpected war, in which the Russian Mafia claimed a large portion of Russia, including Siberia, for themselves, defeating the normal Russians. The UN is scared to intervene, which is why Hainshaw was trying to take over Pterodactyl, so that it could be used to help get rid of the Mafia threat.

I've done it!

I have now done my last assignment for my correspondence course on the New Testament. It was quite hard, harder than I expected in some ways, but it also took less time to do than I expected once I actually sat down and did it. I really should have forced myself to stick to two days a week for an hour, and then I would've actually finished it on time (as in, about three months ago...), but still. Things have been rather hectic, and I kind of took a month out to do NaNoWriMo, which was just about the insanest thing I have ever done, but hugely fun. National Novel Writing Month if you were interested, where you try and write 50000 words in a month. I managed just over 70000, and I've hit 50000 every month this year so far, which I'm quite chuffed about.

Saturday 19 April 2008

Rough Justice

I got the new Jack Higgins book yesterday, Rough Justice. It's absolutely ace, I love the new characters he's introduced, and Sean Dillon's kind of fallen in love, which is great, and Harry Miller is really interesting. Plus they find out who the Broker is, and I guessed it part way through, and it was revealed at the end and I was right! I just thought 'oh, I wonder if it's...'. Don't worry, I won't tell you who it is and spoil it.
I probably shouldn't have read it all last night though. I was reading it till ten, then kind of got a bit told off, not properly just a sort of 'night night, hint hint' type thing so I stopped. But I really couldn't sleep, so I read a bit more at half past ten, then heard people walking around so stopped quick so I wouldn't get done, and then at quarter past eleven I was still completely wide awake, so I read it right the way through to the end, because I just had to know if I was right about who the Broker was. So I stopped reading again at ten to one this morning, and then it took me ages to fall asleep, because it's maybe not the best of books to read when you're trying to sleep, but still...

New Clarinet, yay!!

I got a new clarinet today. It's sat on my bed, in it's pretty little backback case which is great because now I won't have to carry around the stupid carpet bag that mum made for me to carry my clarinet and music in. It's wooden, and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's heavier than my other one, but then, my other one was plastic and this one's wood. It's a buffet E13, and it sounds nicer than my old one, quite a bit fuller and the keys are more comfortable to use.

Friday 18 April 2008

Waiting for paint to dry

Six hours for that brown paint to dry between coats. And it needs two coats. And I can't paint the bottom yet because it's really nasty sticky stuff that's nigh on impossible to get off your hands. So I'm annoyed, because normally model paint dries really quick. Still, it does look good. I'll have to try and post a picture on here sometime.

Ok, now I'm confused.

The thing at the side, the posts don't add up to a hundred. Maybe it counts edited posts the same number of times as they're edited? I don't know.

Ooh, I have a hundred posts

I just came on, and it said that this blog has a hundred posts. Isn't that cool! I've managed to keep it going, despite the fact that my projects have a tendency to fizzle out and die. It'll be a hundred and one now though, like the dalmations. Just thought I'd share that little bit of randomness with the world.

Random ramble

Hi. I'm a little bored. I think I'll go finish my Lancaster Bomber model. It'll be the twelfth model airplane I've built, and joint biggest so far.
Bye.

Hello

Hello. It's cloudy. My hair's wet. I've done some history revision today already. And I've worked on my correspondence course, and think I should finish it on Sunday. Yay! I want to do the Holy Spirit one next, then maybe Old Testament Prophecy. Don't know. I should've finished this ages ago though. I just got a little sidetracked by life and such. Plus I definitely work better to deadlines that I have to keep, because I just keep putting stuff off otherwise. But I say it has to be finished by next Sunday at the very latest. Or else no writing until it's done. There, that should fix that little problem.

Thursday 17 April 2008

Holiday

Yeh, I figure I perhaps ought to write a little about my holiday. It was fun.
There was a neat bookshop in Carnforth, however you're supposed to spell that, I don't know, and they had Biggles books, so I got Biggles in Borneo. James went swimming near enough every single day. I didn't go swimming once. I don't like it, don't like wearing a swimming costume, don't like the smell in my hair, don't like swallowing the water and then feeling ill.
We went to Kendel, and I finally got a new pair of trainers that actually fit, because I didn't have any that properly fitted, one pair was too small, one pair considerably too big. Mum did a lot of staying in the lodge. Sunday James and Dad came back home, so Dad could take the trailer to church and James could go to his mate's party, and Mum and I played about nine games of Scrabble, most of which I won. Went to Lancaster too, just me and Dad. I usually get on quite well with him. James doesn't always. We came back early, on Tuesday, for some reason. Not really sure why. We ate in Truck Haven twice, the food was really good. Oh, we went to Grange-Over-Sands to feed ducks, and I got a fox beanie baby and Dad nearly had a mental breakdown, but it's really cute. He's called Sly, and he's sat on my desk next to me, smiling at me. The ducks at Grange are really cool, there're all different sites.
There were some funny birds that lived round the lodge. They're called Oystercatchers (think that was it), and they have these huge long yellow beaks, but otherwise they look a bit like seagulls or magpies.

Nearly caught up to my target.

I'm currently on 28066 words for this month, which is less than three hundred words behind! Yay! I might just catch up today.

Never, ever trust random Russian dudes in stories

Right, it's now a proven fact. My story + Russian = Problem.
In my nano, I allowed a random Russian dude to turn up and speak for a bit. He told me about a Russian plot to blow up Berlin, and talked me through it. He then nuked London.
In Pterodactyl, a random Russian turned up and was killed along with one of the minor characters, mainly because Ibotson wanted to kill someone (and I'm not saying which Ibotson, hahaha, that's my secret still).
Then a missile turned out to be flying at Pterodactyl (the aircraft part). It had been launched from Russia. Why? Russia is still a part of the UN, and Pterodactyl is a UN craft.
And now Hainshaw, the openly nasty captain, turns out to be Russian. And he massacred the entire crew of the right boat before sinking it and escaping. I think there must be two plots for world domination going on.

Hello

Firefox has just fixed itself. I don't know what from, it's all a bit technical for me. It's updated to a new version, which is apparently safer, but it looked like it may still have a bug in it with javascript. Don't even know what javascript is. I'm just checking that my dictionary thing is still functioning, and it does seem to be. That's good. Bye.

Dream from before

Must extrapolate (if that's the right word, probably isn't, I don't actually know what it means) on that dream I said about before, otherwise I'll completely and utterly forget, but I can't really remember the details. I'll write girl, wasp, Sam, hopefully that's enough to jog my memory better at some future time when I don't have such a bad headache.

The Lodge

The lodge was really big. It had four bedrooms, all of them for two people, so my brother and I both had our own rooms, which was good because he snores like crazy and it stops me sleeping. It was a caravan really though, a giant mobile home, way bigger than ours. It was great fun, really nice inside, really homely.

Lost in the Lake District

When we went to the lodge, there was this other place with lodges, and we went in there because it was on Avril's map, but it wasn't the right place with lodges. There seem to be loads of them. It took us ages to find it, so it was a little frought, especially because according to my dad we'd all brought way too much stuff. I think James had, he took three suitcases, and he forgot his jeans, but I really didn't take that much. Anyway, to make dad a bit happier I've had a bit of a clear out of my room now. We watched this thing on CBBC, about these kids with rooms full of junk, and it was over a hundred kilogrammes of stuff. Having said that, they included books in with the junk, and I've got masses and masses of books, which my dad says he doesn't mind, and books are heavy. I have three big bookcases, and a small one under my desk, and they're all full and I need another one soon...

Dream

Oh yeh. Just remembered. I had a dream last night. Well, I probably had several. They reckon that you have about seven dreams every night. I used to think several meant seven.
Anyway, I was Violet from the Incredibles, and there was this battle, and I was having to use my force fields and stuff. It was really awesome. And then I lost my hand somehow, and then I was Max from Maximum Ride instead, and there was the flock around me, and it was just a really fun dream. Well, I was still kind of Violet, because I could still do force fields and stuff, but I was kind of Max too because I had wings. It was good fun. I kind of want to write a superhero story now.

Yo.

I'm alive. I have a headache. And that's all I have to say.

Wednesday 9 April 2008

Going away!

Going away to the Lake District tomorrow for a week. Can't wait. Unfortunately, it means I won't have a computer, so no blog for a week. I might write something out by hand for each day and stick them up here when I come back though.

French unh...

Writing out and correcting all my French speaking questions. It takes ages. I'm having a break. I need it.

Dream

I dreamt we were at pizza hut, or something like that, and it came to paying up and for some reason my bill was really high and there was no way I'd spent that much. Someone else had put their drinks on my bill, and I got really mad and screamed at everyone, but Jack had already left and it was Jack and I was absolutely furious with him. There we go. What a random dream.

Tuesday 8 April 2008

Two dreams

I had two dreams that I can remember last night. Doing lots of short posts right now because I need to go to bed soon.

First one was that my computer crashed in a wierd manner and it really scared me. Must remember to back everything up soon.

Second was a mixture of Pterodactyl and Sky Dancer. If I just write that, it should be enough to jog my memory at a later date when I can write more.

Biiiig Book

I got an encyclopedia on the car boot. Had to carry it part way home, from the park and ride, and it weighs a ton. Looks good though.

Museum of Lancashire

Went to Museum of Lancashire today. I did work experience there last year. It was fun, they've got some new displays and stuff. Had pie and peas and gravy for lunch, which is great.

Sunday 6 April 2008

Good morning

Hello. Shall be going to church soon. Hil's coming round for lunch. I'm tired. Going to Devoted tonight, hopefully with Naomi but who knows.

Saturday 5 April 2008

Linking stories

All of my 'science fiction' stories are linked. They're not really science fiction, they're just set in the future, some of them quite some way into the future. The time line goes as follows:

A Crash Course In Parachuting
A Crash Course In X
A Crash Course In Dying (Texas splits off from USA)

Pterodactyl

(All computers crash)

(First GM people created)

Sky Dancer
Dancing Flame (GM people released into general population)
Flame Cloud

One For Sorrow
Two For Joy
Three For A Girl
Four For A Boy
Five For Silver
Six For Gold
Seven For A Secret
Never To Be Told.

Trouble is, only Sky Dancer and One For Sorrow are actually finished. Pterodactyl is the one I'm working on right now, and it's not going so bad. The Crash Course trilogy is on hold right now. I want to write them, but I'm busy with my other projects. Then of course there's my angel series. But let's not go into that right now, because book 6 really isn't going well. I can start it, and then it peters out and dies. Never mind.

Hello. Biked into Preston

Hello. I biked into Preston. Actually, I walked about half of the journey there because of the big hill and lots of traffic. Well, I haven't ridden my bike for about a year, have never ridden on a main road, have never ridden on my own, and it's five or six years since I did cycling proficiency to learn about cycling on the road, and they never taught me how to deal with crazy roundabouts or insane junctions.
Coming home was good though. It takes about half an hour to walk it, and I made it in under ten minutes, and didn't do that much peddling. Went from the top of the hill, over the bridge and through the traffic lights and halfway on to the Yew Tree without peddling. Twas good. Tired now though, which is probably a combination of getting up at ten past six for no apparent reason and also all the cycling...

Pizza and 27 Dresses

Went out with friends on Friday after school with friends from school. There were six of us who went, and it was great fun.
The film was really sweet, and it nearly made me cry it was that cute. I didn't think I really liked romances/chick flicks, but it was good. Liv and Naomi reckoned it lacked something, a little je ne sais crois (think that's how it's spelt...), but we all enjoyed it.
Pizza Hut afterwards took ages, but we were all chatting and laughing, so it wasn't too bad I guess. Weird thing was, Zobia turned up just as we were finishing to pick up a takeaway with her Uncle. We were a little confused to say the least. I kind of said Hi, then went back to the others, then while she was waiting and we were all just chatting, Naomi went over to talk to her, and when she came back she told me that Zobia had specifically told me to have a good holiday, not any of the others. I wondered if it was because I'm the only one who's actually going away somewhere for fun (Lydia's been lumped off to relatives to study though), but that still doesn't really make sense. Never mind.

Happy

Pterodactyl is going really well at the moment. Never mind the characters telling me random stuff about themselves, that's bound to happen when you don't map them out completely before you start. I have now added in everything I currently need to add in, so I'm back to writing at the end of the story instead of sticking sections in. There is still some work to do on the finer points of the structure, there's a few things I want to move around and rejig a little, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way the story so far goes. So now I get to write the really fun bit--Pterodactyl getting kind of... um... damaged :D. It loses one of the boats. I currently have no idea why that boat had to be sunk, but I do think I know who did it, and it wasn't the Japanese terrorist, because she's now dead. Shame, because I liked her, but she had to die or the plot wouldn't work out right. I guess I can always add in more story before she dies.
Oops, I've just realised that I need to write another death in. Sakura (Japanese terrorist) gives this Chinese cook some poison discretely, and I need to write about her dying. Never mind, that should be quite a fun scene too, but at the moment, I'm working on the story chronologically again.

Insane Characters

I'm telling you, the folks in Pterodactyl are insane. Take John for example. When I first started writing him, I thought he was a bit of an introvert who was really into jazz, and was best mates with the guy he shared a shift with. Two minutes after his creation, as I started writing him, it turned out that he was actually being beaten up by the other guy on his shift, but he didn't fight back because he could take the beatings that the other guy could dish out. Then the other guy pulled a knife on him and cut his back a bit, and John reacted really violently. Turns out he'd been seriously injured and has a gash the width of a hand running diagonally across his back and his left shoulder's a real mess. Plus this is something done within the last three months and hasn't yet properly healed. Took a while for me to work out how it had happened. Then it turns out he saved Yarev (who I thought was going to be my main main character at the start, but now he's just an equal member of the dozen or so VIC's in my story) from being crucified, and they're actually on the same team but both thought that everyone else was dead. John also happens to have a missile launcher in his room, is close friends with the supply pilots, which I never expected, and is actually fancied by one of them, though I haven't worked out whether he returns the sentiment yet. And John has recently revealed that he has jumped out the front windscreen of a moving aircraft before. He's led a very adventurous life. Then the others are all doing random things that I never expected too, and it'll take far too long to rant about them all, so I'll stop now. Suffice to say, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this story, bar a very, very basic plot outline, which I will stick to. It basically goes: People are starting to die on the UN's new collaboration, Pterodactyl, a ship-carrying aircraft. It falls to a small group of friends to thwart the dastardly plans of the head captain. Of course, the bit about the head captain won't be released, because I'm trying to make everyone think that it's the head captain's brother. It's fun.

Friday 4 April 2008

Frustrated, Again.

Wrote this at school, and promised myself to stick it up. Also need to do an update, because more has happened, but I can't be bothered right now because it's late and I'm tired.

I’m so annoyed that Zobia hasn’t bothered to bring my tent back. She’s got half of it, and she’s had it for two weeks, since the D of E expedition. It’s really annoying, because I’m going into Blackburn tonight, and if I had the tent I’d text my dad and get him to come and pick it up, and he could take my schoolbag at the same time, but she hasn’t brought it, and it’s Spring Break now, so I won’t have my tent over Spring Break, and I’d been wanting to do a bit of sleeping in the garden, which I now can’t do for obvious reasons. Argh! She said ‘oh, I’ll call my dad and get him to bring it,’ so I said is that actually going to happen, I need a guarantee that’s actually going to happen, because I’m not having my dad make a wasted journey from Preston when she can’t be bothered to get her act together. She’s saying it’s because she’s at her other house, but she hasn’t been at her other house for two weeks, it’s just a recent thing, so if she’d bothered to bring it in when I first asked her, when she said she’d bring it in, cos I said should I wait a minute after the D of E expedition and get it out her bag and she said no, she’d bring it on Tuesday (we had the long weekend for Easter, so our first day back after the expedition was Tuesday), but it’s just not happened, and it’s really, really annoying. She couldn’t give me any guarantee that her dad was actually going to bring it.

Plus she owes Naomi £15, and me £2, and she’s not making any effort to pay up. I mean, I’m really careful about stuff like that. If I borrow something, I bring it back when I say I will, regardless. I’ve even had my brother bring in pieces of work for teachers if I’m off school ill. But she hasn’t done any work in maths for ages, never turns up for form, and is just generally being an idiot. Need that banging head against the wall smiley now.

Thursday 3 April 2008

PSHE Day

Hi.
It was way better than I expected. The guy who came in to do a talk called Stand Up Tall seemed kind of boring when he was introducing it, but he was actually really, really good. He was a great speaker, and he'd been an actor in the past, so he was doing different accents and talking about some of what he'd done as well as teaching us about working on different levels, and saying that exams aren't the be all and end all of life. In fact, when someone first meets you, 60% of what they go off is body language, 30% is the tone of your voice, and only 10% is charisma. He was also saying that there are no 'bad' emotions, but that you should try and be aware of your emotional state.
He explained it all using the Elizabethan analogy:
We're made up from four things:
Earth, which is your physical body, body language, that sort of thing;
Water, which is your emotions;
Air, which is what you know, which makes up about 90% of what you learn at school;
Fire, which is your vision, what you aspire to be.
It was really interesting.
The next thing we did was coursework clinic, but I'd finished all my coursework, so I had ten minutes on a computer, but when there were people without it seemed tight to take one up for no reason, so I came off and did loads of writing by hand. 'Twas good.
Then I had the PE Games thing, and that was loads of fun. We played two variants of mat rounders, one where you kicked the ball, and then one using a tennis ball and racket.
The last session was really boring though. I'm really glad nobody told me when it actually started (it was this special thing for only a few people), because 1 hour was more than enough. I feel sorry for those who had to sit through the whole thing. The speaker was really boring, and you could tell it wasn't really his passion, like it had been with the other guy. Plus we'd heard everything before, and didn't need to hear it again. I mean, why take the high achievers out, when it's the high achievers who are actually going to revise and do know how to do it because we've been told about a million times. Still, overall it was good fun.

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Short Stories

I don't usually like writing short stories, because there's no room for a really good plot and loads of twists, but I think I might write a collection of them for youngish children. I'm going to try and do my Service for Silver Duke of Edinburgh at the Harris Library, doing a story time on Saturday mornings, about 11 or something, and just read out stories to little kids for a while. Could be quite fun, and it'll give me a chance to practise my story-telling skills. I'd love to be a story-teller. Plus, I could read out some of my own stuff and get a reaction to that, which'd be good.
Saw my English teacher on Tuesday, to hand in my descriptive piece. She said she'd read my short story (we were doing a practise on Paper 1), and that it was 'interesting'. Said she could tell I'd been reading Alaistar MacLean's books, but that it was good. Just 'interesting'.

Pterodactyl

Yeh, this story I'm working on at the moment with loads of little plot threads. It's, well, it's interesting. Characters keep telling me all sorts of random stuff that I never expected but which is kind of important. John has a rocket launcher in his room. Marinel isn't as bad personality wise as I thought he was. Sakura is a Japanese terrorist. Zait gets killed. Tommy and Ben are basically best mates. Jake is a reformed computer hacker. Matthew Nicholback has a metal hand and was really badly burned, though not on his face. Sam used to be a thief. Tiger was in Special Forces and part of Yarev's team, as was John. All stuff that would've been nice to know at the start, because it has now become the first story I've ever been seriously working on that isn't being written chronologically. I keep going back and adding stuff. Like I have a murder done by Sakura to add before Sakura gets murdered, and like I want a lot more from various plot threads. Still, it's all good fun.

Whoops.

I hardly posted at all last month, which is really bad of me. Shall make an effort not to let that happen this month. I was planning on three posts per week this year, and I think it might still average out to that, but... Oh well. Nothing I can do about it now. It just looks a little weird having some months with loads and some with scarcely any. Never mind. It'll eventually just all go under one year and then you won't be able to tell. It'd be kind of cool if I could average out at sort of three-hundred-sixty-five posts, one per day, because I do sometimes post more than once in a day (like today).

Coursework done, yay!!!

Yay!!! Finished all of my coursework yesterday. Including French. I may need to do a tiny, tiny bit more on my textiles, not sure, but I think I'm completely, completely done. Hope I am anyway. And tomorrow we get an hour and twenty minutes of PSHE day to do coursework. So guess what I'll be doing? Writing of course. Should be quite fun. And I have no excuse not to go, because there's nothing that I really need to stay at home and do. Still, I'm sure I can survive it, can't be much more boring than double history with Mrs Pitman, and even that has it's bonuses. I mean, when the course content is so interesting, it's difficult to be really, really boring. I mean, there's always the text book to read...