So let mercy come

[What I’ve Done – Linkin Park]

Today, Annie and Jen did their presentation for Understanding Australian Media, and since their topic was advertising, their group activity was to get everyone to design a billboard ad for a made up brand of chocolate called Ganache, and two groups had to make it super sexual and stereotypical, while the other two had to be innovative and family friendly.

I was in the super sexual group – yerp – and I was with Mai, Brian and Lisa, all of whom I’ve known for longer than this semester, at the least. We weren’t sure of what to do, so ultimately we drew something along the lines of cream being slathered onto these two little pieces of chocolate that looked like the heaving bosoms of a young maiden.

It was quite awkward to draw, especially when I was drawing the cream being poured, and Brian was sitting next to me hissing “yeah draw it, draw it good” to weird me out.

Anyway, unnoticed to us, we’d actually managed to draw something else even more crude. Let’s just say that the picture was structured to have two spherical shapes down the bottom, and in between these spherical shapes stood a longer looking shape.

I don’t think our chocolate would sell.

Ganache – let it come all over you: Mai and I co-wrote this slogan.

Alex.

Ooh I Really Hate Yo Ass Right Now

[F*ck You! – Cee Lo]

I don’t know why I was fishing for a blog topic yesterday; I went out on Sunday and everything.

Gracing Melbourne with a visit, Cathy invited us out for Karaoke before she has to jet off to Europe. So, meeting up at 11 on a Sunday (meaning I had to leave the house extra early and sit through the damn clock singing again. I turned up my Maroon 5 and tried to tune it out), it was my first time seeing Cathy since July, and boy has she grown even prettier!

Okay this really isn’t a blog post about how beautiful Cathy is – she already knows it.

Apparently, Cathy has never been to Max Brenner. We – Pearl, Sheina, Carey and I – were so excited to be the one to take her “Max Brenner virginity”.

The girl who worked the counter, however, shared no enthusiasm. When Sheina brought up that “this is her first time here!” the girl sort of looked blankly at Cathy, as if to say, “great, what do you want to drink, order already!” Cathy was introduced to all sorts of wonderous things, like their hug-mugs and the kangaroo cup.

I had a cappuccino in the kangaroo cup, which is basically a normal cup with a small part to put a bit of chocolate in. It actually made it kind of hard to drink from the cup.

After Max Brenner, where I had my first souffle (those things are good. I’m sure I’m failing my aspirations as a writer when I say “good” but sometimes one word is enough. Those things are GOOD!), we sat on the fake grass at QV waiting for Alex, who comes in a twin-set with Jack (thus Jalex), and it will be confusing cos I’m Alex too but yeah…

There were these two kids running around – you know the toddlers who you can tell just learned how to run – and they were clearly friends since birth (all of 3 years), so they had their own little language and chasing each other, in utter bliss because it was sunny and Christmas was around the corner. Sort of realized that there are days where I should just enjoy the fact that I’m young and I can still get away with some stuff, and stop trying to grow up so much. In 7 months I’ll officially not be a teenager anymore, so I need to milk the “teen” thing for all it’s worth.

We went to Melb Central because K-Box wasn’t open yet, so we were going to Partyworld. Partyworld decided not to open for 20 more minutes, so Cathy sort of grabbed a few wrists and dragged them to Valleygirl for shopping. In actuality, it was just Sheina, Cathy and Pearl grabbing clothes, and the two Alexs (Alexi? Alexa…anyway) and Carey standing around giving thumbs up to most things. Not that we didn’t mean them, they all looked VERY good in what they tried on.

After we had to leave because the store people were giving us odd looks because Carey was taking pictures of Cathy in the clothes, we decided that we won’t go to Partyworld after all, that we would just wait to go to KBox. So we had some sushi and sat and chatted, and the topic of conversation went onto who was stronger. At this point, Alex and Sheina decided to have an arm-wrestling match. Having exhausted the “Oh my god Chandler’s making his orgasm face” jokes (remember, Pearl was the girl who knew FRIENDS inside out), it became a bit embarrassing because Alex just couldn’t beat Sheina – and Sheina was straining so hard that some tendons in her arms were actually popping out.

(In case you were wondering, the match never ended. They were so evenly matched that it was wasting time.)

Cathy then went on to suggest that Pearl and I “wrestle as well”. We all gave Cathy some very highly raised eyebrows at her apparent Freudian slip, and Carey wondered where we could get some jelly/chocolate sauce cheap.

KBox, having been renovated since I was last there (2 years ago), turned out to offer some sort of 4-hour deal, so we all went in and sang songs for 4 hours. I’d almost forgotten how funny it was to watch Jalex sing (Jack joined us later bearing KFC) and dance – at one point Alex was trying to grind against the wall (don’t ask) and the guy who came in with our drinks opened the door and sort of did a double-take.

We belted out F*ck You! among other songs, and just let me say, belting out the bridge and acting all hardcore gangster is even more fun in Karaoke than at home.

My voice is hoarse, still, but every time I think back to Carey singing Mary Had A Little Lamb I would smile, so it was all worth it.

I went home that night pretty happy, and to make things better, Catherine was online! I haven’t talked to that girl in weeks, and it was really good to just catch up and make some small banter. I really want to see her in person soon, I still owe her birthday lunch.

Alex.

What’s that ingredient?

Points of interest for today:

1) Parents came to school to talk to A.P. regarding the “fiasco” which I will from this point on refer to as “1984 in 2009”.

2) Won a taste-test challenge at lunchtime.

Regarding number 1, I think I’ll fully explain it on Monday. I’ll explain on Monday why it’s Monday. So now you’ve got a sneak-peak at it, you’d want to come back. You know you do.

Regarding number 2:

After a brisk goodbye to my parents after talking to A.P., I went back out towards the Yr 12 area to find friends. I walked past this little display at the undercroft, and I asked what was going on. Turns out there is an unofficial J.A.M. (Jesus At MacRob, a RELIGIOUS club that got BANNED from running at MacRob. Oh isn’t this 1984 in 2009…) “Masterchef” session going on, and I was just in time for the taste-testing.

So I got myself blindfolded, and stood at the table next to Fel, and waited for Po to spoon something into my mouth. (Yes I’m aware that the person who did this is named “Po”. No we did not invite “Poh” into our school.) Then we had to guess the ingredients. Getting it wrong is elimination.

From what I can remember (because I won and then I went and ate more of the mixture Po made) the mixture included the canned soup with beef, mince, potatoes, peas and carrots, and Granny Smith Apples, and some form of…yes…chocolate.

I got them right, so I won a Boost bar. In turn I won another Boost bar, from the first Boost bar I won.

When I won, everyone left the table. I was left by myself, blindfolded, with some soup on my chin from a poor spooning effort (shut up Dom), and yelling, “IS THERE ANYONE NEXT TO ME!?”

Well, that was basically it.

Alex.

Squish & Ko

Okay, so, what to say?

Today was the last day of Term 1. Thank GOD! It hasn’t been a long term exactly (not like last year’s Term 2 which decided to run a marathon of 12 weeks) but for a number of reasons – one of which is the mere fact that we’re in Yr 12 – it has been very very tiring.

Carmaine was sick last night – fever, I heard – so today she wasn’t there in the morning. I got a bit “grumpy” on the way to school and went ahead on the trams with Annie. My “grumpiness” is frequenting itself of late. I don’t know why.

I skipped Methods today. Oh before that, Shaz came back from her bout of Glandular. Anyway, I skipped Methods today under the false pretense (for future notes) that Est- was feeling like throwing up, which she was pretty close to.

In the double free – the official double free – I kind of slothed over the couch in the Common Room and had a small nap with Cath and Jennie (each of whom groped me at least once). Skipped lunch, groaned through Legal – Sho- gave us chocolate! Major shock – and went home at the start of Period 6 in the pouring rain, crashing thunder and very promiscuous lightning (think about it).

Look, it’s actually pretty late (for me) and I’ve had a long-ish sort of day. I’ll blog the rest of what happened today as well as an explanation for my blog title tomorrow.

Take care of yourselves; there’s a bug going around and it’s having babies on everyone.

Alex.

Secret Valentine/Lonely Day

“Soft kiss and wine, what a pretty friend of mine, we finally intertwine. Nervous and shy, for the moment we will come alive tonight. Secret Valentine, we’ll write a song that turns out the lights, when both boy and girl start suddenly shaking inside…we’ll hope it’s not for nothing at all.” Secret Valentine – We The Kings.

“Such a lonely day, and it’s mine. The most loneliest day of my life. Such a lonely day should be banned. It’s a day that I can’t stand…And if you go, I wanna go with you. And if you die, I wanna die with you.” Lonely Day – System Of A Down.

Random trivia about Valentine’s Day that I searched up to stave off boredom, loneliness, and the pressing need to prep for my English SAC.

15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day

About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets

During the late 1800s, postage rates around the world dropped, and the obscene St. Valentine’s Day card became popular, despite the Victorian era being otherwise very prudish. As the numbers of racy valentines grew, several countries banned the practice of exchanging Valentine’s Days cards. During this period, Chicago’s post office rejected more than 25,000 cards on the grounds that they were so indecent, they were not fit to be carried through the U.S. mail

In Victorian times it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card

Only the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, Australia and the U.K. celebrate Valentine’s Day

Some people used to believe that if a woman saw a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, it meant she would marry a sailor. If she saw a sparrow, she would marry a poor man and be very happy. If she saw a goldfinch, she would marry a millionaire

The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine’s Day

The Kama Sutra is believed to be the oldest sex manual in existence. Generally considered the standard work on love in Sanskrit literature, the book is thought to have been written around 300 A.D (Heh heh heh)

The oldest surviving love poem is written in a clay tablet from the times of the Sumerians, inventors of writing, around 3500 B.C. It was unromantically named Istanbul #2461 by the archeologists who unearthed it

Wearing a wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand dates back to ancient Egypt, where it was believed that the vein of love ran from this finger directly to the heart

To all who reads this, Happy Valentines and I hope you had a good day. To those who didn’t, go find someone who will make you smile. And if in the end you really can’t…

I Love YOU. Because today is a really crummy day to be alone and have no one tell you that they love you. A good friend had said that Valentine’s doesn’t have to be a day for lovers, it could be a day for good friends too. I in turn replied, “Friends with benefits?” It turned out she didn’t know what “benefits” specifically referred to.

Keep Cool (and LOVE LOVE LOVE)

D.F.