In Which I Ramble About Exams & Books;

That may be the most expositional title I've ever used.

Hi! So, I'm blogging from a place of no deadlines, no responsibilities, and no clutter on my desk, also known as the CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS :D!!!!

Of course, to get here I had to traverse the nightmare landscape that is exams. Let's recap, shall we?

Well, Classics was cancelled on Thursday due to Death Winds, or Hurricane Bawbag if you're from this neck of the woods. Friday was double English, Language in the morning and Literature in the afternoon. Language was one of those 30 multiple-choice EDPAC sheets you have to fill in with an HB pencil. It started at 9.30, most people were done by 10, and they wouldn't let us leave until the exam ended at 11, so I got to sit for an hour contemplating the fact that this was theee worst piece of crap I've ever handed in. At one point I got so bored I started counting the fleur-de-lis on the columns.

Outside, where it continued to be frost-bitingly freezing, I checked my phone and amongst other things, there was a message from Meejin saying 'Good luck good luck we all wish you good luuuuuuuuuck' as Phoebe Buffay sings. Then I headed to the QMU to meet my friend who was just in the same exam but in a different Hogwarts hall, and we spent the next hour and a half wandering around Byers/Great Western Road trying to stay warm and appease her appearing and disappearing appetite. In the end we just sat upstairs in the QMU, which is charmingly rustic, with a heaped plate of gloopy macaroni cheese on one half and a mountain of chips on the other. Oh, and a can of Cream Soda for extra class. And so we counted down the minutes till it was time to fail miserably by alternately singing, whimpering and laughing. And I totally got caught in the Circle of Freak Out, whereby I started freaking out because I wasn't freaking out except I wasn't really freaking out about not freaking out, and that made me freak out, except not really. You can see where this is going, right?

The Kelvin Gallery was decked out like it was awaiting a wedding party and not two hundred English students in varying states of consciousness, and I managed to pick the only desk in my row (number 5) positioned just so behind a pillar so that I couldn't see the giant clock on the screen. My friend, sitting behind, started reading out the questions and I kind of died a little inside. There was the usual 'The exits are here, here and here' from the invigilators, the exam started and I spent the first ten minutes reading the questions over and over, knowing that I was going to have to answer 2 of them but having absolutely no idea which ones. Two hours later we emerged in a state of shock and I thought, No, actually, that was the worst piece of crap I've ever handed in.

So, yeah, I'm not getting into Honors. But that's okay. I don't need an English degree. I can always make a living at um... *thinks* ...ummm *thinks some more* ... Who am I kidding, I gotta marry rich.

Anyway, exams are over, and I now have four weeks of freedom ahead of me! I completely forgot what that feels like. You know when you have so many options that it's overwhelming and you can't pick? I reckon I'll mostly read and write and see my friends for more than a couple of hours on a Friday! And cook proper meals with real vegetables @_@. Mmm. I also promised myself that I'd get a headstart on the reading for semester two because there's a lot more of it, so don't let me forget that, okay? But right now I'm just having fun watching Friends DVDs and doing absolutely arse all and NOT FEELING GUILTY ABOUT IT :).

While I was off with the cold/studying, I somehow managed to read three novels in the space of three days. If only I could read for uni that fast @_@.

1. 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher has the most awesome premise I've heard in a while. So simple, and yet so compelling! Clay Jensen (ignore the name for now, focus on the story) comes home from school one afternoon to find a shoebox full of cassette tapes (LOVE!) on his doorstep. Enter Hannah Baker, who over the course of 7 tapes, 13 sides, explains the reasons, and the people, who drove her to commit suicide two weeks earlier. Creepy, right? I loved this book enormously, but I'll spare you a review and cart myself over to Amazon instead.

2. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green was like the antidote to the previous book. I have a nice little story about it. A few weeks ago when I was yet again in that bookshop beginning with W and ending in an apostrophe S where I always am, Meejin and I ventured into the Young Adult section. Okay, it's less of a section and more of a corner, but whatever, it used to be merged with the kids' section to make one extended 9-15 area, and anyone over 15 was just kind of left out in the bookless cold :(. So, we go in to have a nostalgic looksie, and in amongst all the paranormal romance stuff, I spot a familiar name and begin squealing and jumping up and down. I love John Green because He Is Awesome, end of. An Abundance of Katherines was facing me, so I picked it up, flicked through the pages... and out fell some scrap lined paper. Intrigued, I opened the missives only to find they were notes for other John Green fans! Or, more specifically, Nerdfighters. You can go look that up for yourselves. Naturally, I took pictures, and then put the book back. Every time I went in to Waterstone's after that I went to see if the book was still there and if anyone had left any new notes. There's just something so romantic and exciting about it, don't you think? Complete strangers bonding over books like that, it's lovely. Then on the day I-was-v.-v.-sick-and-looked-like-I'd-been-crying-but-hadn't-been, I was once more in Waterstone's waiting for la friend, and to pass the time I went downstairs and got the book. And then proceeded to read and cough into it for the next hour and a half. After that I felt obligated to buy it, notes and all. I didn't want to because that meant I was ruining the note-leaving thing, but I also didn't want anyone else getting infected with my mega germs, so, you know. It was a selfless act, really. Anyway, I devoured that book in one sitting. It was laugh-out-loud funny, completely quirky and yet still completely grounded in reality, touching without being maudlin, and also rather politically brave! Spontaneous anagramming, footnotes, Dumpee/Dumper mathematical theorems, 19 Katherines and 1 washed-up child prodigy - what's not to love? I also now can't stop saying fug and fugging. Read the book, you'll understand.

3. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. Weren't expecting that, were ya? Well, neither was I. I bought it on a whim a couple of months ago and banished it to my drawer, but when the storm came the other day and I didn't feel like cramming, I took my mother's lead and read instead. You know the way you only intend to read the first few pages of a book and end up reading the entire goddamn thing, forgoing food and drink and sleep? Yeah. I've never seen the film, and I thought of reading the book as research, as a prelude, but it was amazing, and oh-so-creepy! The storm helped, too.

Man, if only I could make a living from reading books and then talking about them. That would be great. Or talking a lot about nothing, I could do that too.

So, I've gleefully scrunched up all my notes and chucked them in the recycle bin (eco, baby) and can once more see the surface of my desk after two months of, well, not being able to see it. And, holy freak show, how I have missed it! I could write a ballad expressing the love I have for my desk, and perhaps I will at some point, but not tonight. Just know that I love it and its little pull-out extension <3. I also signed myself up for a creative writing workshop my uni is doing through next semester, so that'll be fun :). If scary. I also think I'm falling in love with the Beach Boys. And tomato-cucumber-and-cheese sandwiches on wholemeal bread. And my heater.

Anyway, since I have nothing else of consequence to report (which is probably a good thing) and four weeks worth of podcasts to catch up on, I'll be off now! Laterzzzzzzzzz