RAAAAAAAGE!

Let me tell you what the situations were:

Lip syncing was today. For those who are wondering, lip syncing is an annual MacRob thing where the four Houses each prepare a couple of dances to some music, and all the dancers lip sync to it. It’s a fun event held on the LAST DAY of Term 3, and everyone loves it because it’s just a good way to wind down and enjoy some dancing.

It was all going great today, and we were pretty much cheering for every dance, not even caring which House it was.

Then, just as Nereids (white) went onstage for their final dance number, which was Yr 12’s “Priscilla Queen of the Desert”, fucking “Umbridge” (Ok, look, still a student, don’t want to be given the firing squad. MacRobbians will know who I mean) gets on stage and, with her stupid ugly voice from her stupid ugly face and said, “Okay girls, the 2nd bell has rung, and you must now all go to your class.”

We couldn’t believe it! Surely she was joking! Surely, with 2 more dances to go (Nereid and Naiads, both of which are Yr 12 dances) she’d let us stay that extra 10 minutes to watch it! Jenko was even up there in her drag, ready to show her fab-ness!

But as we sat there in shocked disbelief, Umbridge said again, “you have been given a time allocation, and it’s run overtime. So go to your classes. The dances will be judged by the ones we’ve seen already.”

At this point, Hoy, who is House Captain of Nereids, went up to Umbridge and said, “Please, everyone’s been working so hard for this can you please just let them dance?”

“I’m sorry, but you have been given a time allocation. You have to go to class now.”

Of course everyone boo’d. And rightfully so.

“How DARE you treat me like that? How DARE you treat your teachers like that! That is completely inappropriate.”

How dare YOU treat us like this? How dare YOU take away something pleasurable from us?

With a rumbling earthquake of discontent, the students stood up and left the hall. On its way passing a crestfallen Naiads, sitting at the back. Steph was crying because the Lady Gaga dance she worked so hard to choreograph, the dance which everyone practised so hard for, won’t even be seen by anyone.

Of course, we went to class and didn’t do any work. We raged about it the entire period.

You know what’s fucking ironic? Because they wouldn’t start until everyone left the hall, the time it took for everyone to leave the hall and go to class would’ve pretty much seen the 2 dances be completed. You know what’s fucking ironic? No one would’ve done anything worthwhile in class, their hearts wouldn’t have been in it.

Lip Syncing has ALWAYS run overtime. NEVER before have we had to go back to class. NEVER before had teachers been insulted that the students were 5 minutes late because they were attending a school event.

I was thinking, gee, ok, the next time Assembly runs over time, which pretty much it does every week, the moment the bell goes everyone should up and leave. Sorry, you were given a fucking time allocation for the assembly which no one pays attention to, so if you run overtime then we’d just have to go.

And yes, I put this on public. I didn’t specify any teacher’s names so they’d be recognized outside of school. So if you want to fucking pull me up at school and tell me that I’ve soiled the “good name” of the school, then know that word-of-mouth is unstoppable. Even if I didn’t write this people would’ve talked about it.

I have lost respect for you, MacRob. I have. I am almost ashamed to say that I will graduate from MacRob because it is no longer something I wear with pride. Don’t get me wrong, I still respect and am proud of the people in it, but the system herself…it disgusts me.

I may have left out some things, and so you may think that I am simply being emotional. But you don’t understand, you had to be there.

Alex.

P.S. Sorry raged so hard I forgot: I met Sneak’s friend “Jaja” today. It was random.

You know what, I AM awesome…

I suppose this is becoming common-place: my blogging about Mr Short bagging me in various ways.

What’s on today?

We were in the final 5 minutes of our Wednesday arvo class, and bored, I grabbed Jen’s foldout ruler and played with it. When I say foldout I meant one of the ones that fold out in the middle like an L shape.

Anyway, I was basically flicking it so it folded out and straightened, except of course sometimes I flick too hard and the ruler bounced close again. It would hit my knuckles pretty hard. I was okay with it, but Jen grabbed it off me. That was fine too, until Mr Short noted, “very elegant, Ruyi.”

So I dropped the ruler, and as a habit picked up a pen and started spinning it between my fingers.

“Now look at her! Champion pen spinner. Takes years of practise there!”

So I’ve decided to basically stop doing anything in class. Maybe then he won’t say anything about me.

Alex.

Neigh-fuckin’-har

Today in Legal, I sneezed.

If I’m frank, I would say I’m not exactly a quiet sneezer. Leaning more towards a very loud sneezer. If Carmaine comments, she’d write that I shatter solid objects with my sneeze. In fact every time I sneeze, she employs a clever little analogy linking my sneezing to, for example, an atomic bomb explosion.

So I sneezed in Legal.

Mr Sho- paused in the middle of his spiel about police powers, looked at me (at this point the class was giggling [shakes fist]) and said, “Wow, that’s a lot of horsepower for such a trim figure.”

Needless to say, the whole class burst into fits of laughter.

Two weeks ago at Chinese school, I sneezed, and Dom (different Dom to the one whom I mention usually) started laughing. I promptly stood up to bash him.

It has not been a good day for me.

Alex.

What happened today?

In Periods 3 and 4, Miss Ma- was away so we were meant to do some work but I ended up sneaking out and going to Dani’s place with Dani and D.P. and we played Guitar Hero and Tekken. And D.P. totally cheated by button mashing. And I chose some stupid guy who didn’t do anything but defend. What. The. Fuck. Anyway, got back to school about 5 minutes before lunch started.

Hung out with Carmaine most of lunch and went to Peer Support. Did the Legal SAC which was a 6o minute block of furiously writing what I think the Parliament is doing in Law Making (hoo-ah).

Oh, and I accidentally added Mr G my ex-Legal teacher on my Facebook. Now THAT, as El- put it, was the funniest thing a MacRob chick can do and I did it.

Hoo-ah.

D.F.

Like a marathon

I’m a pretty huge fan of talking and writing in metaphors and analogies and whatnot. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it. A lot of the times when friends come to me for help, I’ve tried to put their situation into an analogy so they can sort of see how to get out of it. I guess in a way I’m like a nicer and…slightly less intimidating version of S- Sensei.

What had happened was, and I hope it’s okay for me to share this story, Sensei would give us analogies of what was happening with our schoolwork. So once when I wrote an essay too long, and wrote a criteria out of range, he told me that by doing that I’ve basically received 2 black eyes. A double knockout. Because not only did I get marks taken off for going over the limit, I’ve also not filled in the criteria because they don’t mark what is out of range. Anyway, there was the one memorable one. A student was struggling a little in class, and went to Sensei to ask whether she should continue Japanese for Yr 12. His response (my closest recollection to her paraphrasing of what he said) was this:

“Imagine that we are all playing a game of basketball, but you are really fat. So even if you run around a lot, and you shout ‘pass me the ball!’ and you do this and you do that, you’re still fat, and you’re going to be very tired after the first quarter. Everyone else is skinny and healthy, so they can keep running but you’re fat so you’re going to die by halftime. This is you in Japanese. You are the fat basketball player.”

So, basically, I think he wasn’t so hot on her continuing Japanese. I thought he could’ve said, “Look I know you’re trying your best but the workload in Yr 12 is even harder so many this isn’t the best choice for you.” or something along those nice lines that teachers are made to say. Kudos to him though, for voicing it in a humorous way.

I think there was a time when a friend of mine was having relationship problems – or rather, problems with getting over it – and I said something like, “Ultimately, this is a bridge that you have to build alone, to get over. I mean, we your friends have given you the materials and the support and all that, but you’re gonna have to build the thing. It’s tempting to just stay on the side you are now, but I think to move on, you’d have to build that bridge.” I think she’s really on her way to doing it.

Okay, but the metaphor/analogy (I’d say metaphor) that made me smile today was this:

(I had to edit out bits that would make it personal)

“Think of your relationship as a marathon. You start off a little jerkily then you settle into a rhythm once you get into it. Sooner or later though you’ll hit a curve or an obstacle and you have to deal with it, If you don’t your [sic] stuck there not going anywhere. But once you get past it you’ve gained that much more and it means something, even if it’s small. Then you keep going. “

And the more I thought about that the more right she was (whoever the hell you are, you crazy thing). At the start of a friendship, you’re so energized, you feel you can sprint the whole way. Then you slow down, maybe tire out. It’s once you settle into that rhythm, and time gets its claws into you, that you can really test out your endurance. So many runners fall out, they give up. But if you last the distance, that feeling that you get when you cross the finish line, it’s like you’re “on top of the world” as I was told recently. And yeah, on the way you’ll meet potholes, snakes, hobos, whatever, but they’re mere distractions. They’re not world-ending.

I’m interested in making a VCE metaphor that includes piranhas and Tasmania Jones (OH NO I DIDN’T!)

Keep Cool (and runnin’)

D.F.

P.S. Yeah I actually just thought about signing off with “Keep Cool” and then something to do with the blog I just wrote. Let’s see how long I can last doing that.