. . . with our heroine in the lower sixth (the second last year) at secondary school. She is studying History (which requires her to write a personal study, a 4500 word essay on whatever historical question relevant to the syllabus she desires); Physics (aka Psychics) (which requires her to do practical investigations); Further Maths; and Ge(e)neral Studies. She also must endure Religion and Games lessons. In June, she'll take an A Level (exam) in Maths, and a AS Level (easier exam) in Psychics; the following June, she'll take A Levels in Further Maths, Ge(e)neral Studies, History and Psychics.

She is the form prefect and is consequently partly responsible for looking after [i.e. attempting to control the psychotic tendencies of] 2X, a class of twelve and thirteen year olds, and she participates in Young Enterprise, a nationwide competition in which teenagers start their own businesses. Her company, Wood Be Goods, makes wooden jigsaws and she's the financial director. (Everyone assumed, "She's good at Maths, so she must be good with money." Which was quite true: she can spend it in no time.)

She plays the clarinet in Carlisle Youth Concert Band (at Carlisle Music Centre) and school band and is on the school magazine committee.

This is beginning to sound like a UCAS Form (university application) which is what she's currently thinking about. (Well, that and chocolate cake.) She's looking to study Computer Science, preferably at Imperial College in Nodnol (London).

She is currently working on a series of novellas collectively known as "Vampire Friends", for want of a better title. She also runs her an Internet club for young writers and is learning to drive, but luckily, won't be allowed out on the road until she's seventeen, and she might die before then, right? [Sadly, she doesn't.]

Her closest friends are Marion ("best friend" and in the Guinness Book Of World Records for number of days of school skived); Smill (female, long-suffering partner in crime); Will (opponent in many an elbowing match); Roe (male, thief of her Maths homework); and Chris (aka Bagot, male, decorator of her pencil case and object of her sadly misguided affections). Her "lovelife" is and always has been as non-existent as "Saddam Hussein's compassionate side".

Tuesday 21 April 1998

Woke up at 7.02. Woke up again at 7.11 due to evil snooze alarm. Woke up again at 7.20, hating the snooze alarm with the fire of a thousand suns. Woke up again at 7.29, making plans to murder snooze alarm in a manner so brutal that horror film makers across the globe will be inspired. Got up before it could go off again. Got ready for school, went to school, took 2X's register, went to assembly, sang, went to computer room, typed some of history essay, went to sixth form carrels, worked, went to History, went to Maths, hung around, went to History (again), went to Physics and nearly fell asleep, had lunch, went to very short Young Enterprise meeting, went to General Studies, decided to set about gathering weapons with which to kill Will and Chris, went to Physics, understood experiment for once, decided not to rest until my lab partner Smill's blood was spilled too, made Roe's work into paper aeroplane which Chris threw onto the music block roof, went to carrels, sanded jigsaws, went to memorial service for the girl in the year above mine who died last term, came home, had tea, sat down in front of computer. Thrilling!

Why was I in such a homicidal mood, you may ask? Well, I'm sure everyone declares war on their snooze alarm on a daily basis, but the other victims of my wrath must be destroyed on account of the following fact:

I hate people I know looking at my writing. They know I do, and consequently, they have been trying, as best they can, to read it.

Yes, I know I put my writing on the Internet for all to see, but I don't put everything I write on the Internet, you know. Sometimes, I write (prepare yourself for a heart attack) serious things! Writing with actual emotion in it!

Now I thought I'd be safe putting writing on the school computer system. My directory has an unguessable password and although Smill knows it (since she doesn't have her own directory) if she told anyone, they wouldn't listen. In the eight months that we've known her, the sixth form as a whole has perfected the art of tuning out whenever she starts talking.

Ha! I type one paragraph of a Very Bad Story on a school computer and my History teacher comes over and says, "What's that?" I save it as something called "goaway" and log off so he can't see it. Later I save it on a disc intending to take it home.

Big mistake. I lend the disc to Will during General Studies so he can save a file on it, and what does he do? Sees something called "goaway" and thinks, oh, what's this? I could have stopped him, but Chris wants to read it too, and since I can't fend off both of them, I die of humiliation. And what do they do? They laugh. They say it's good, that's why they're laughing, in delight, but the fact remains: they laugh.

And in Physics, when I log on to my account to save the results of our experiment, Smill says, "What's 'goaway'?" "Never you mind." A fight ensues. Since we're in the dark room alone (romantique!), I can't call for help. Well, I open the door and yell, "Smill's molesting me!" but no avail; expecting a voice from the darkroom to be Smill's, everyone's hearing is switched off. Eventually I manage to log off before she sees it.

I suppose it's a compliment that they want to read my stuff, but it's still excruciating. Someday, my words will be publication-worthy, and then, we'll see who's laughing, bwa! ha! ha!, but for now, my confidence in my abilities is not great and this doesn't help one bit!

Friday 24 April 1998

Yesterday Alice, a girl in my year and The One Who Is Good At Everything, asked me if I wanted to go to an open day at Oxford in May. I said yes, but heech! Open days already! I thought they were all next term, when we get into the upper sixth, but not so by no way. I'll have to find out about Imperial College. I went to the careers library this afternoon, looked for Imperial College and there was no prospectus. There were prospecti (prospectora?) for The University of Upper Pigsville and Pilkington Wombat College, but not ic.ac.uk (which I like to pronounce "ick, ack, uck!")

Also today I painted some jigsaws. At first it was ok, but at the end I was left with Smill and Roe. They were both in annoying and argumentative mode, and all the paints I wanted ran out. I wanted to finish my Psychics Practical as well, but neither of the teachers were around, so I couldn't. Which is ax-worthy since all my results are scanky. (Sorry about all the Zobo Creat. I've been talking to Will, who uses it more than I do.)

I had a rather weird dream last night. For the most part, I was hanging round with a bunch of dodgy people, crawling around through secret passages with walls of white sheets, playing a primitive computer game in each one. That is, there weren't any computers, but you got to play Tetris with real blocks. There was also a bit of walking through the moonlit streets of London in 1664. At the end of the dream, there was a dodgy-looking man smoking five joints at once. He offered one to me, and I took it. I had to blow really hard, but eventually I got some blue and red smoke out of it.

That's not the first time I've dreamed about smoking something. It's weird, because I've never smoked, never been tempted to smoke, and never been encouraged to smoke by anyone. I think it's a Sign.

Oh, one interesting thing! I had an e-mail from a lecturer at Reading University last night. He'd seen my writing and comments at The Young Writers' Club, told me it was mature and complex, and wanted me to answer some questions about it, as he intends to set up a website about writing. Cool!

Sunday 26 April 1998

This is getting seriously weird. A few months ago, I dreamed about smoking cigarettes (and enjoying it); a few days ago I dream about smoking weed (without objecting); and now I'm dreaming about injecting heroin (and enjoying it)! What the heck? (I read in the paper today say that Brampton, the town where I live, has the third worst heroin problem in the county, even though the population is only about 3400 according to my GCSE Geography coursework. Was it a Sign?)

I spent the morning updating my writing club and managed to upload everything from last week and the week before last. After lunch, I had another driving lesson with my Dad. I'm getting better at changing gear and reversing. All I have to ask myself is, "Which way do I think I should turn?" then turn the other way. It works every time! I'm meant to be experimenting with my brother's steerable toy car to make sense of it though.

I haven't done any homework so far this weekend, so I'd better do some now. Byezebye!

Monday 27 April 1998

The dreams were definitely Signs! I watched the news last night, knowing that my tutor would ask me about current affairs today, and the main story was Ye Drug Problems Of Ickle Britain and today there is loads of legislation regarding. So my dreams are telling me what's going to be on the news! I'm worried now: I dreamed about nuclear war a while back.

To move onto happier subjects, I got my certificate for my grade 5 Music Theory today. Finally - I took the exam in December 1996! But I got 91/100 and until then I'd thought I'd "only" got 90, so that was nice. I got a timed History essay back today, and I got 13/20. Which sounds pathetic, but that's a solid A. 20/20 is virtually impossible. I've had 16 once and Chris N got 19 on one occasion, but he did write seven pages of drivel. (The norm is three pages; I usually struggle to write two and a half.)

After school it was dead weird. Usually, there's quite a few people hanging around in the carrels, but tonight there was only me, Chris and Smill. She was getting annoyed because she was meant to be getting picked up at four, and by four forty, her dad still hadn't arrived. She was also annoyed because her Mum's away, so she has to feed all the animals they have which takes AN HOUR! Shock horror scandal! Mr. Anti-Animal Rights (Chris) then said, "If all animals are equal then why can't they look after themselves?" and she said, "But the dog's trapped in a kennel!!!" so I said, "Why don't you let him out?" and she said, "Because he'd attack the ducks!!!" so I said, "Who cares about the ducks?" and she said, "Not me, but we need the hens for eggs!!!" (?) and she got dead annoyed, as is customary. I never used to wind her up, but it's quite funny when there's someone else around.

When he went home, after finishing some of his Maths homework (thanks to me - it had to be handed in today and he was being totally thick) I decided against staying in the war zone and went to look at prospectora in the careers library. The librarian introduced me to the spare prospectora, and I found Imperial College. Yippee! It looks really cool; great courses, 100% of first years accomodated, loads of activities, loads of entertainment (it's in London) and 71% male students (heheheh!) You need BBB to get in, but that shouldn't be a problem for me.

Tomorrow I have a Young Enterprise exam. The qualification you get is equal to two GCSEs [non-Brits: GCSEs are official exams taken by fifteen and sixteen year olds], but am I worried? I think not. Apparently it's impossible to fail, and all you have to do is write about a case study (4 pages long and you can take it into the exam with you) and your own company.

I have been practising the saxophone a lot and I'm dead good! Well, not really, but I'm reasonable. (Strange: most of the time I'm completely unreasonable.) But I think practising the clarinet would be more useful, since the grade 8 pieces are impossible. The teacher showed me one, and I thought, hey this isn't too bad! But after a month of practising, I discovered it was the wrong one! D'oh!

Tuesday 28 April 1998

Last night I decided to write A Brief History of Myself, intended for publication here. Since it ended up 7500 words long, it wasn't exactly brief. It also wasn't quite finished - I got up to age sixteen, but then I started to write the first things that occurred to me, not the logical order of events, so it got a bit scabby.

Smill didn't seem bothered about last night, because she later found out the school secretary had left a note for her saying her dad would be late. However, the note was left on Katie's file which was on Smill's desk, and Katie then moved it and put another binder on top of it, so Smill didn't see the note. Also, she got her dad to feed the outdoor animals.

I was a bit nicer to her today, but I was still rather miffed in Physics when she said to the teacher, "I've got a headache. It's either due to the radioactive substances were using or Zed reciting figures at me." MIMPH! What did she want me to do - not do anything and leave her to do the whole experiment on her own? Gladly. Also, as I did the calculations, she read out the figures far too fast for me to handle, and she knew it, so my fingers fell off AND I had to clear the blood off the floor. Oh well, after all I've said about her thus far, she's entitled to some revenge.

The Physics teacher announced that next lesson we would have to decide whether we wanted to do medical Physics or electronics next year. Aaagh, decisions decisions, I hate them, I do. I'd look just like Elvis if it wasn't for them! Well, maybe. You never know.

Anyone who knows me would have thought I'd instantly choose electronics. I'm not a fan of biology, and electronics is more mathematical, which suits me. But here's the snag: Smill wants to do electronics. This wouldn't have put me off, but Roe also wants to do it. Those two and their constant pointless arguing and multimeter-battles? No ta Kenneth.

The only remotely interesting thing that happened today (except Marion and Will fighting over my company - being popular has its downfalls) was the Young Enterprise exam. It was straight-forward enough, but the questions were silly. The case study concerned the most useless Young Enterprise company in the world ever. And all the questions in the exams said things like, "Why did Clockwise never really work as a team? Suggest how teamwork could have been improved, with examples from your company." Well, the first part was easy enough, but when I tried to compare Clockwise to our company, Wood Be Goods sounded perfect. We're not, by any means, but Clockwise were pathetic, beyond comparison. So I rambled while Will made up lies such as "Wood Be Goods got some smelly wood so when we complained to the Personnel Director, she took the wood back to the shop."

Wednesday 29 April 1998

There are two Religion groups in the Lower 6th. The ones who do maths and science (that's me!), and the ones who do arts and humanities. Religion is twice a week, and meant to be about Issues.

The other group do talk about Issues. Apparently every lesson they get Gay Sex. Well, not literally, but nevertheless, it's infinite coolness compared to what we get. We get Bible passages, boring newspaper articles and Bad Christian Poetry read to us. Yoj. And afterwards we're told to "give a comment" while the other class have heated debates.

Today it looked slightly better. We got the paper read to us, but the article concerned Michelle Smith. Drugs? That looked promising, but our beloved teacher moved swiftly onwards. But he brought in some books about divorce and sexuality. "New Directions In Sexual Ethics" was the title of one. ("Good thing it's 'directions' not 'positions'," Chris remarked, to his intense bafflement.) All righty!

But even then, we were falling asleep. He didn't let us "give comments" this time, for fear of a debate breaking out. A few people stuck their hands up anyway, but it was still very moderated. Yawn.

Thursday 30 April 1998

Today, we had Maths in Room E (which stands for elocution, unfortunately, not ecstasy) but it's the form room of 2X. It was as messy as usual and there were tennis racquets lying around everywhere. After looking after 2X during mass period last week, my co-prefect Will said he had to confiscate all the racquets, so that they wouldn't use them as weapons. Well, Roe was poking around, before our teacher came in, and he said, "Should I confiscate a racquet?" "Ok," I said, "I'm going to collect them all anyway during mass." So he picked one up, and said, "Who's Natalie B?" I described her, and he said, "Ok, I'll take hers then."

Now I thought he'd just put it out of reach, so I forgot about it.

But I was on key duty today, as happens every three weeks - I have to lock all the classrooms at the start of lunch, open them all at the end of lunch, and lock them all after school. (Yoj!) Well, when I got to Room E, a few of the kids were still there, and Natalie was complaining her tennis racquet had gone missing and she'd needed it in PE. "Roe took it!" I exclaimed, and she went really mad, and said she was going to tell the headmaster. I warned Roe, and he said, "OOPS!" Now he's in trouble! Bwahaha!

A few days ago, Marion asked me if I wanted to do work experience at Border Television with her for one day, so I said ok, although I wasn't really interested. Today we were given forms to fill in to apply. And you had to have a real interest in TV and prove it, because only two people from Carlisle schools were allowed to go. Well, she wanted me to make up all this beep about how interested she was, and also for myself. But when I asked my mum if I could, she was dead against it. Mimph.

Loads odd-bodical things happened today. There were three freaky Omega Moments (coincidences) at Omega Music (my parents' place of work). Here's one: one of the workers mentioned a dream she'd had about get a heauge order from a certain school, and ten minutes later, they got a fax from that school - not a heauge order, alas, but odd nonetheless.

I did my Physics practical for the fourth time and hopefully I've got good results this time. Yoj!