You’re the catalyst that makes things faster...

Biology practical exam today. I don't mind practicals- they're not so bad. The only problem is that whilst waffling crap might work in English or Drama apparently making it up as you go along in Biology isn't the best idea (especially for practical assessments...). My usual technique of pretending I listened at the start and then picking up every available chemical, shoving it in a test tube and heating it up for a bit clearly wasn't going to work here.

Despite my best (I say best, if I'm honest they were more mediocre) efforts I still managed to muck it up. In true CCHS fashion I give you my personal metacognative plenary. Or...

...Reasons why I fail epically at biology practicals:

1) Bunsen burners. Having to light them with a match is bad enough, but add to that the fact that I have control over a methane tap and you can expect to see a small explosion. Plus burning of hair/clothes/fingers.

2) Putting me (or anyone as equally clumsy) in the proximity of hazardous and potentially lethal chemicals is like locking a 5 year old child in a room with Gary Glitter. No. Just no.

3) My lackadaisical (yes, I DID just use that word) attitude generally bodes well for Drama but when it comes measuring EXACTLY 1.25ml of -INSERT ENZYME NAME HERE- clearly causes problems. The end result tends to be a curiously odd smelling brown sludge at the bottom of a blackened test tube and a graph that looks like a stencil outline of sonic the hedgehog.

4) I am the only non medicine applicant in my class. This basically means that when I peer around the classroom during such practicals I am met with a host of calm and professional looking faces who are ALL doing something entirely different from me. They have also managed to bring a pencil, ruler, pen, rubber, calculator, thermometer and pH probe. Well MAYBE I'm exaggerating slightly, but I still always manage to forget something and end up having to use the edge of my calculator as a ruler....

5) Tables confuse me. Especially ones that require you to know the units of anything other than time. (I'm preeeeetty sure it's measured in seconds....)

6) My brain tends to think in weird ways. E.g when I'm MEANT to be thinking: 'the overall change in pH clearly shows that the effect of temperature is...' all that will be running through my mind is: 'nanananananananananananananana BATMAN! BATMAN!'

7) I have a concentration span of approximately 6 seconds. After this time I will start doodling on my test paper/ playing with the pipettes/ trying to stop the stopwatch on exact seconds whilst my Biology teacher looks on in horror at what can only be described as the devolution of the species. As a result of this, I tend to skim read the questions/instructions and only discover AFTERWARDS what we were meant to be doing...

8) For me, the best possible outcome of an experiment is one that leaves you with a load of test tubes in a variety of attractive colours, not one that shows a positive correlation between the effects of temperature and the rate of enzyme activity. However, 'they were all different colours' (for some absurd reason) apparently doesn't count as a valid conclusion.

9) Science goggles+ me= FAIL.

10) Generally speaking, when you heat stuff up in a beaker of boiling water, it tends to get HOT. In addition, if you attempt to extract said 'stuff' from said beaker with your bare hands it is extremely likely that you will burn your fingers. Therefore it makes sense to use the tongs provided. My failure both to notice these tongs and to consider the possibility that hot stuff is HOT is an example of not only my ineptitude but also of how unobservant I am. Wins all round.

In conclusion, by examining the data given in blog post A, we can clearly see that Kathryn is a bit of an idiot when it comes to Biology, and that she should on no account be given an opportunity to repeat the investigation lest she burns down the school.

Promise you won't tell anyone but....

Secrets are pain and hurt. They are desires and wants and needs and heartbreak and tears and excitement. They are a flutter of words. A rushed whisper. A slow and drawn out confession. They are trust, sometimes naive and sometimes desperate.

Secrets are smiles and giggles and private jokes, glittering eyes and barely contained excitement.

Secrets are poison and secrets are contagious. They spread from person to person in a breath or a touch quicker than a Californian forest fire. They mutate like a virus- changing into ‘gossip’, and then openly discussed.
Secrets are a hot commodity. Everyone wants to have each others, to snatch them from reluctant lips and become the proud owners, to flaunt them in front of other friends.They belong to others- someone else’s words, someone else’s life, someone else’s desires. And yet you have to keep them as if they were your own- cultivate and nurture them and whisper platitudes and thanks to their giver. They are a hallowed promise, a show of a relationship, an unwritten sign.

They are yours. Your words. But this time not whispered to another, instead whispered over and over in your head, never to escape, batting from wall to wall inside your mind, hurting you and torturing you.
Secrets are a part of a person. They grow, and they feed on your internal tears and anguish, becoming stronger and stronger, until they eat their way out, tearing you up in the process. You have to be strong and brave and mysterious to keep all the secrets you are given, and even stronger to keep your own.

Secrets are childish. Playground games and making or breaking friendships.
Secrets are dangerous. Adult lives and making or breaking relationships.

Secrets are pushed to the back of the mind in the day, hidden by conscious thought. But they pour out in the night, when the subconscious sneaks in through the darkness, when you are left alone in the black. Sleep doesn’t stop them- they slip into your dreams and force you to confront them where there is nowhere to hide. Secrets take away your freedom and trap you in their meaning.

Secrets are arguments and lies and problems, awkward silences and lengthy pauses, confrontations and reparations.

Secrets become burdens. Light as a feather- a breath of air, a gentle whisper, yet weighing more than the earth. You pass them on if only to lighten the load.

In the end they fade and fizzle away, dissapate into nothingness after their fifteen minutes of fame. Like a Big Brother contestant or the next Saw sequel. Forgotten, unimportant to everyone except you. Because they were yours for that short time. They still are. And they still affect you. You wish you could walk away, forget them, but you can't.

Secrets are problems.

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting....

Sleepy, tired, dreamy. Not there. Just drifting.

Then *crack* and *bang*... I'm awake, and alive , and laughing.

Life is so full of 'Drama'.

Drama lessons are so full of life.
It's a rush of 'letstrythisandwhataboutthatandintime 1-2-3-4 turnitsorrythatwasmeohcharis...charis...CHARIS..STOP POKING ME!AND EM TOO!'
Nothing is WRONG. You can't mess up. There's no rejection, no failure, no 'Do you REALLY think that's suitable?'. Only new ideas, better ideas, thoughts coming all at once and words tripping over themselves as they rush to get out of your mouth. A blank stage. A world of characters. A whole new, different life to lead. A facade. An act. A part of you that wants to shout and leap and run about and it CAN. The freedom. The laughing. So much laughing. These are your friends all around you, and suddenly you're having a ninja fight with bamboo canes in slow motion and you think 'I'm MEANT to be doing this! It's ALLOWED!' And there are squeals and grunts and Mushu impressions and suddenly you have a scene. Out of nowhere.

And it all fits. It's working. It's 'clicking'. The worrying and uncertainty have disappeared and instead there's eagerness, excitement, rollercoasters and ferris wheels.

If only 'Drama' in real life could be as much fun....

You don't see it. It amazes me that you are both self obsessed and yet entirely lack self awareness at the same time. You stumble on through and don't notice that it's changing you. It happened every time- you fell and fell and fell, until you couldn't see anything but THEM. They trapped you and entraced you and bewitched you, and you didn't care because you were so loving and loyal and innocent, a wide eyed puppy with hope and love and need in your heart. You gave them everything. But they, they played games with you, and toyed with you, and turned their attentions away, and eventually they broke your heart. Each of them, in turn, they broke your heart. Again and again. Sometimes tiny tears, other times whacking great holes that were jagged around the edges and left you unable to communicate for so long. But you had to mend....

and you mended it wrong.

Little by little your heart changed. They left and they broke you and you fixed yourself with what they left behind- bandaged up with scraps of deceit and lies and game playing and picking and choosing and two timing. And now you are like them. You pick and choose, you lead and play. You are mysterious and deliberately elusive. Two wrongs don't make a right, but you can't see that. You only see your problems, and your life, and your needs. You see nothing else any more. Not even the effect on those around you... Do you know how I am? When they hurt you, they hurt me too. Every time, to see your loyal and loving and devoted heart get twisted. And now it hurts even more to see how they've changed you.

I miss you. The old you. The you who cared.

come back. please.

...

The mood hit me with what I imagined as a cloying thump. You could almost smell the lethargy in the still air, the sense of hopelessness and depression laying thick on the tongue, the mood heavier than that at a funeral. At least there one can get closure. But this desperation, this monotony seemed endless. The only change in the dead house came when, once a week, a bustling cleaner flitted between the rooms to stir the cold air and open the windows. They were closed the minute she left.

He moved about the house in practised steps that echoed in the hushed silence of the dead rooms. These were punctuated every so often by a deep and mournful sigh. It was the same each and every night; the shuffling walk, the laboured breathing, the reading of the newspaper on the stool in the kitchen. Like nothing will ever change, or grow, or develop. Like it would be like that forever- an odd man in an odd house, with his odd ways.

It took me precisely 3 minutes and 48 seconds of being in that house to remember why I couldn't stand to be there.

This is why I am rubbish at parties...

Graph to show: My inability to cope with social situations involving a variety of acquaintances.

Click to enlarge

V.

You know those times when you get really angry and frustrated and you're not even sure why half the time and you try and chill and clear your head but you CANT...?

Last night I was lying on my bed and getting all frustrated, overthinking things, until my head started going round in circles. So I went out with my dog into the fields by my house at midnight.

I stepped out into the clearest and brightest night I'd seen in a long time. I think we all forget about the moon cos we're so obsessed with the sun- when will it be sunny again, where's the warmth gone, I can't wait for summer.....- but the sun is sneakily deceptive. When I see the sun is out, I throw on skirts, tights, and pumps... and then get about halfway down the road before remembering that just because the sun is out, it doesn't make it WARM, and that I will now have to spend the rest of the day freezing my arse off...(it's happened to ALL of us). But the moon is frank and open- it knows it comes out in the cold night and its silvery glow reflects this.

And so I walked out into the freezing cold and just breathed in breath after breath of cold and refreshing air that was so cool I could feel it move into my lungs and swirl around my face and it didn't annoy me, because it made everything so CLEAR. And I could think and see properly. And the sky above me was a limitless dark that stretched from horizon to horizon without an interruption save from the odd tree that popped up inbetween the endless fields. You know those domed snowglobe things you get? It was like I was standing in one of them, seeing everything above me for miles. But instead of snow inside there were stars, and instead of a monument as the focal point there was the moon. Not just any moon but the brightest and hugest moon you can imagine that shone out into the night and gave everything a sharply defined shadow that was somehow emphasised by the soft silvery glow of the ground around it.

I love moments like that. Where you just look at everything and instead of being pessimistic and thinking 'oh my gosh i am so insignificant and what is the point of my life' instead I was thinking 'Oh my gosh, I get to be a part of THIS! And there's a plan for me!'.

It was awesome. The perfect remedy to my self obsessed thoughts and insignificent anger- they melted away with my breath into the air, a twist of white cloud that dispersed into nothingness in a matter of seconds. So unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

I need to take moments like that more often, to concentrate on the world around me instead of just myself, to let God speak to me and just accept my path.

You know what? To you this probably sounds inexplicably ordinary, and by now you're thinking i'm a tad off my rocker... but this is what inspired me to write, and that's the way life goes sometimes.

sorry.

x