OH MY GOSH, CHRISTMAS.

Do you know what day it is?

Christmas Eve. The EVE of CHRISTMAS.

Yes, my lovely readers. It is indeed Christmas tomorrow.

I went to meet Vicky in town today to exchange Christmas presents and general pleasantries. We went to Starbucks for a much needed coffee (it was a late night and I'd woken up barely an hour before). It's safe to say that I wasn't entirely awake (sober) as I ordered my "White Flat" or as I ascended the stairs, spilling most of my "White Flat" on to the saucer that I was thoughtfully provided with. I wasn't the only one making a fool of myself today though! In the short time we were there, two people seemed to forget how to climb a staircase and fell. On their faces. One was holding a cup of coffee, which they managed to keep relatively intact despite the "face plant", as I believe it's called. Everyone tittered.

We found Timmy and Eleanor lurking in another Starbucks down the road and Timmy, Chris and myself were dragged on to the big merry-go-round outside John Lewis. Got to say, I didn't hear many complaints from Chris as he mounted his horse. I think he liked it the best. Sadly, he was torn away from us after that; he had to go back home for lunch. We said a teary farewell to him and wandered in to Mothercare for comfort. Naturally, shenanigans ensued. Vicky and I hunted down maternity clothes for Harriet (who isn't pregnant to Ludlow's child, although we like to pretend she is), while Eleanor cooed over small clothes for children. Timmy stood awkwardly, looking like a paedophile. He wasn't particularly happy when we started measuring maternity bras against his "breasts". You know, those breasts that he has. Timmy's breasts.

Moving on.

Timmy and Eleanor managed to escape from us when we went in to Marks and Spencers. So instead, me and Vicky went and made friends with the "Extra Large Chickens". After all, isn't it nice to have friends to rely upon? A shoulder to cry upon? (8)

MERRY CHRISTMAS, LOVLIES.

Jasm xxxx

FIVE days.

So begins the first week of our Christmas holiday, or as one of my teachers called it “Your revision leave”.  That particular teacher is no longer a favourite of mine.

And what better way to start the festive season than to do a little Christmas shopping?  So off Jasmine and I went, to join the hoard of last minute buyers in our city centre. We were focused on our goal, we were determined to buy a present. But first we had to have lunch. And coffee. And then find a shop with a toilet.

Finally, we were ready to undertake our mission.  “What would a 17 year old want?” we thought, before visiting the Early Learning Centre. “What would they really use?” We asked ourselves, while examining a ‘gardener’s kit’ in John Lewis.  “What would make their Christmas?” we wondered, as Jasmine methodically picked every plastic food item out of a child’s ‘shopping bag’ in Boots.
 
After several hours of hard work, we were where we had started. Presentless and downtrodden, we’d manage to purchase one Christmas card. We finally learnt our lesson: Don’t think about what you’re buying, just buy it.

So into HMV we marched, picked up something, marched to the till and handed over our money. Job done.

Learn from our mistake, readers, never try and buy something that someone will actually LIKE. It’s just not worth it.

Vicky x 

All I want for Christmas... is you (oo, oo).

I've been told off for not posting enough. TWICE.


Today was our last day of school before Christmas. I like school, but I can't help welcoming the wonderful lie-ins that are to come. Obviously every teacher had brought in a tin of chocolates to share with their classes and we were all very happy to spend our lessons pretending to learn, while our teachers pretended to teach. No one's in the mood for serious schooling on the last day of term. Especially when there's only one week left until Christmas.

That's right. ONE WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS.

I haven't been overly fussed about Christmas this year. Haven't even had a mince pie yet (Vicky doesn't like mince pies, the fool <3) or accidentally opened the wrong day on my advent calendar. I didn't insist on draping tinsel over every solid surface or even protested too loudly when my dad decorated the tree using red AND cream beads. I watched my brothers grow out of Christmas years ago and really couldn't imagine or even comprehend why you'd stop getting up at 7:00AM on Christmas morning, or how you wouldn't be bursting with excitement for the whole of Christmas eve. It didn't seem to make any sense. As a 10 year old, I was convinced that I would always love and treasure Christmas.

I still appreciate the festive season, of course, but not because it's magical and enchanting. It's far more satisfying to watch the look of delight on Ludlow's face as he opened his Secret Santa gift (a child's medical set), or sit around and watch Matt cringe at the nude scenes of Love Actually. And I would rather admire the wrapping paper on a present over the actual gift on the inside, as well as walking through a Christmas market to enjoy the atmosphere of it over actually buying anything from the stalls.

To erect festive cheer, here is an adorable penguin with a Christmas hat.

LOOK AT IT. LOVE IT.

Jasm x

P.S. Yes, I did use the word "erect" (LOL) in this post.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Yesterday, my family and I attended my brother’s school’s Carol service. It’s a little tradition of ours; we may complain about how cold it is, how the teachers talk too much, how there are too many children, but in truth, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without it.

This year we were first subjected to a performance from the handbells.  The handbells are arguably the most pointless instruments in the world. Perhaps if the children could sound the bells at the right time, or even just fill the silences it would be better. But no, instead we hear a ‘ding’ from one child, wait five minutes, and hear a ‘dong’ from another. Whether or not they were meant to be playing a ‘dong’ is a completely different matter. Sometimes you want to shout out “That shouldn’t have been a dong. That quite clearly should have been a bing. You have a choice of maybe 4 notes, and YOU CHOSE THE WRONG ONE” .Nevertheless, the rest of the music seemed superb in comparison to the handbells. Perhaps that was their plan all along.

After every couple of performances from the pupils, the organ started up signalling that it was the audience’s turn to provide the musical entertainment. And so we reluctantly stood up, grabbed our programmes, and mouthed the words to various carols while a minority of overenthusiastic parents did the singing for us. The sheer high pitch of the songs provided entertainment enough for me, especially as my mum next to me was trying her hardest to hit those notes.

I was battling my way through a particularly long rendition of “While shepherds watched their flocks by night” at one point, my voice was failing me, my interest was elsewhere, when we suddenly reached the line “Appeared a shining throng”.  I know it’s not funny.... I was even thinking “I’m sure some idiot will laugh at that”, and then I don’t know what came over me. I couldn’t stop laughing. I was in a room of primary school children and I was the only one to laugh at a word that sounds like ‘thong’.

Towards the end of the night, the boys choir sang ‘Let it snow’.  They were all dressed in little suits with ties, looking very smart. And there was my brother wearing a T shirt and a trilby. As nice as it was, my mum was right in saying “He looks like a farmer”. For the rest of the performance I couldn’t stop thinking of the combine harvester song. Why couldn’t they be singing that?
I'll suggest it for next year.

Vicky x 

Wait! There's snakes on this plane?!

Hello.

I've been meaning to post for days, but things kept coming up! I'm very sorry, lovely readers <3

Yesterday we all went round to Matt's for another one of our famous film nights. Vicky and I decided to go over at 5:00 even though Matt didn't want us there BECAUSE HE HATES US. Also because the rest of them were playing Minecraft and he assumed that we wouldn't enjoy playing with them. How wrong he was! After Vicky and Chris went down to watch Strictly Come Dancing, I took over Chris' laptop and joined forces with Ludlow to, er, mine stuff? I'm not sure what the aim of the game is, but it's ridiculously fun anyway. I got lost inside Ludlow's network of tunnels. I got lost outside Ludlow's network of tunnels. I got killed by zombie/skeleton/green monster things. I made my own little cave to hide from zombie/skeleton/green monster things. I lost my little cave and had to hide out with Danny and Timmy (whose house cave thing was very nicely furnished by Danny). I attacked sheep for wool that I couldn't use. All in all, a waste of time. BUT FUN. Everyone should go and play Minecraft right now. Off you go. Do it.

When we were finally dragged away from Matt's room, we had to decide what film to watch. Timmy, Danny and I voted for Reservoir Dogs. Everyone else disagreed. Unfortunately we were out voted and the fools chose Snakes on a Plane. Admittedly Snakes on a Plane can be quite a funny film in parts. But it's never pleasant to watch "genital parts" get bitten off by pheromone induced snakes or heels braking off in eyes during panicked escapes. Apart from that the film was lovely!

Chris brought a roll of cookie dough to make lemon and chocolate cookies. Timmy especially enjoyed them. We ate pizza (I shan't discuss Chris' "all in one bite" dare. I think we'd all rather forget that). Vicky threw a lot of things, causing destruction almost every time. Matt threw himself about his living room trying to retrieve his phone. Ludlow, Danny and I got told off for snooping around Matt's bedroom, looking for George the Swan 2. I won at poker. Life was good.

The night ended with me and Vicky shuffling down Matt's icy road, clinging on to each other in fear of falling.

It was nice.

Jasm(ine) xxxxxxxxx < Because I love you the most.

Real babies just won't be able to live up to the standards I have now.

On Monday I was meant to return to my normal timetable, after a week of those unwelcome snow interruptions. As it was, that didn’t happen. Instead, I was lucky enough to be selected to attend the opening of a ‘clinical skills centre’, on the basis that this would be helpful because I want to be a doctor. As does half of the year, apparently. Nonetheless, my name was picked out of the metaphorical hat, and I was on my way.

So after Chemistry, my doctor-to-be friends and I slipped our way across the icy streets to the Children’s hospital.
Well, Starbucks for a gingerbread latte (<3) and then the hospital.
WELL, Spar for minstrels and Pringles, Starbucks and then the hospital.

After ingesting an unhealthy amount of sugar and caffeine, we finally tried to enter the building. We left Starbucks, crossed the road, walked around the hospital, asked for directions, walked back to Starbucks, and entered via the door opposite.

Luckily, we managed to navigate the remainder of the journey by ourselves (which was just along a corridor and up a lift...) and we were greeted by staff with biscuits. It turned out that this new ‘clinical skills centre’ was a teaching place for, well, clinical skills. That is, learning how to treat patients without using real people, instead using amazing plastic mannequins.

To start with, we were shown into a room with a plastic baby on a bed/table thing. Now, I don’t usually like children. As Jasmine would say, I’m not a child person. But I am a PLASTIC CHILD PERSON. This baby was cuter than those real ones, with their SICK, and their NOISE, and their various other problems. With this baby, you could make it be quiet! You could even kill it if you wanted, without any kind of negative legal consequences. And so there I was, feeling the pulse in my new favourite infant, when this photographer decides it’s a great photo opportunity. And this photographer had a BEARD, and was therefore a creepy photographer.

So I was forced to crouch beside this table/bed, pretending to listen to this very friendly nurse while still feeling this plastic child’s pulse, which let me tell you, was growing boring, for a good 5 minutes.

After finally being allowed to move, we were moved into a different room, where we were allowed to drill a plastic bone and try and move polos about in a plastic body with little grabber things. I aced the polo moving game. Finally, we were shown another, even cuter, baby (WHICH TURNED BLUE).  If I ever have a child, I want to be able to turn it blue, JUST like that one.

We even managed to return back to school without missing biology. I don’t know about you, but that’s what I call a good day.

VIC x 

(Hashtag) NaNoWriMo

We had a few organisational issues. Neither of us were sure whose turn it was to post tonight. So, I shall do a short one for you and Vicky will do a proper one tomorrow! Okay? OKAY.

So, for the past month my life has been taken over by words. I dreamt about words. I worried about words. I counted words. I wrote SO MANY words. And all of this was in the name of NaNoWriMo. For those of you who aren't aware of NaNoWriMo, fear not! It is, quite simply, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you write 50,000 words (a novel) in a month (November) and you get the satisfaction of knowing that you've completed something significant in your life. Obviously, this isn't an easy thing to do. 1667 words a day may not sound like much, but that's over 3 sides of size 10 font on A4. This is especially difficult for those of us with lives outside word writage, but I was adamant that I would make it.

After enlisting Matt in to my scheme of Novel writing fun, we began to pick away at that 50k target. I hadn't planned. I hadn't thought of a plot. I kept forgetting my characters names (funny story: the bad guy started off by being called King Furvus. Ended up being Lord Farzana). I wasn't sure of anything. I'll admit, I spent quite a few days pondering over my story that lay in rags and wondering if it was even worth it. But after the first week I got in to the NaNoWriMo rhythm. I realised that I wasn't supposed to be writing a piece of art. In fact, it didn't matter if I rambled through my narration nonsensically. The whole idea was to accomplish a goal and gain self satisfaction, not write a publishable novel. And quite suddenly I was able to write 1000 words an hour because I wasn't too busy fretting over whether I'd got the characterisation right or if I'd described the setting in enough detail. It was, quite literally, quantity not quality.

I spent most of my free time typing away. When a computer wasn't available I wrote it down in a notebook that I carried everywhere. I was almost constantly behind schedule, right up until those last couple of days. It wasn't easy. On more than one occasion I switched the internet off so that it wouldn't distract me. I neglected my homework. My school folders were in a state of disarray. My room was a mess. And finally, the 30th ticked by and I wrote my fifty-thousandth word.

It might've taken over my life for 30 days straight and I might not have been particularly good company during those days, but I'm glad I did it.

At least I beat Matt, right?

Jasm x

P.S. If you were wondering, my 50,000th word was "impact".

We're party people

Dear readers,

It's us. Last night we converged on Danny's house for his bisexual party.

No, wait. We meant BIRTHDAY party. Our mistake.

We spent the day preparing for the excitement of the event of the year. We trekked through the snow to buy supplies. We bought supplies. We trekked back with our supplies. We unpacked our supplies. We made use of our supplies. We made our supplies, readers, into a CAKE. 

And a pass the parcel. 17th birthdays have never been so crazy.

The pass the parcel was a resounding success. Timmy got the pick necklace, the lime was well received, and Jasmine won the Teletubbies paint we'd purchased earlier. Overall everyone was happy.

The cake was, of course, delicious. After all, we did make it ourselves. We even decorated it with popping candy chocolate elves.

We watched Dawn of the Dead (especially for Matt). It was average. We'd tell you what happened but neither of us managed to follow the plot. Needless to say, there were zombie like things. They got shot. There was a black guy. He shot things. The norm then.

We played a game. The game had cars in, the game also had a name. We forget the name. We were amazing at the game. We drove, we jumped, we threw ourselves off buildings, we DRIFTED, readers. All in all, we won. Or we like to think so. Because after all, we beat Matt.

We also managed to sneak a banner into Danny's bedroom. "Vicky you er, need the toilet, don't you?" said Jasmine. I went along with this, but of course needed to take two people with me. What can I say? I'm a girl.
So up the stairs we went, but were we heading for the bathroom? NO. We clambered another flight of stairs into Danny's bedroom, where we blue tacked the banner onto his wall. A banner which had once said "Happy 16th birthday", but with a bit of newspaper, some scissors and some sellotape, now read "Happy 17th birthday". Danny, however, guessed that bathroom activities hadn't been going on and immediately found it. I think he was pleased.

We might have got away with it if we hadn't pulled the same trick at Timmy's party... Only sticking a picture of Robert Pattinson over his bed instead of a nice banner. He was, lets say, less than pleased, and proceeded to burn it in the kitchen.

But the star of the evening was definitely Danny's dog, Baz. Baz is adorable. And fluffy. And smiley. And lovely. I want a Baz. I've never particularly been a dog person. BUT I'M A BAZ PERSON. Vicky said that he was "fine", which is a compliment indeed.

We returned home to play The London Game, which I mentioned in a previous post. Remember how amazing it is? REMEMBER HOW FUN IT IS?! Yeah, it never gets old. We both won a game, which was nice. Then we retired to bed, to discuss the evenings events and Paul McCartney's fetching skirt. A night well spent, I think.

Jasm and Vic x 

Snow Days

A lot has happened since me and Vicky last complained about the snow issue. I'll do this in chronological order for efficiency.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, as Vicky mentioned, we had a "Snow Day". Basically, we had around a foot (30.48cm) of snow overnight, which isn't acceptable! Naturally, it wasn't as simple as, "Woo, day off school." Mr Bowes felt the need to postpone school for an hour first, just to test our dedication to learning I assume. This was followed by a million Facebook stati, all of which said exactly the same thing and what everybody on facebook already knew: That school was indeed closed until 10AM. Then school was cancelled altogether a few minutes later (two million stati) and we were all issued on to Skype by Chris, who wanted to plan what we were doing with our Snow Day. Because obviously you can't just stay inside on a day like that. No, it's practically mandatory that you trek through the shin high snow to a hill, which you proceed to slide down uncontrollably. Although Danny (very sensibly) stayed at the top, watching the commotion at a safe distance and drinking from his thermos. His many pairs of gloves also came in handy.

So, on my way to said hill I had a few travel problems. The first being the fact that I wasn't going to walk for over an hour to get to Vicky's in the snow. The second being that the buses weren't cooperating with me and EVERYBODY ELSE IN SHEFFIELD. And the final being that I was stranded in Broomhill for half an hour until Vicky's mum came and saved me. Overall, the day was fun. We did the whole sledging thing. Walked for hours to buy Seabrook crisps for Chris, which we ended up not getting. Went to Timmy's, where I discovered a new love for Little Big Planet. Watched Chris eat a ridiculous number of scones and Vicky spill coffee down her (as always).

Eventually we left Timmy's to go down to another protest outside Nick Clegg's hole of hypocrisy and LIES. I wish I could say that this protest was as inspirational as the last one, but we were a bit late. The only sign of any protest being there were a stack of discarded Socialist newspapers, of which we took two, and a few footprints on the walls (from angry students, we assume, and not the playful infants at the nursery next door).

Matt, Vicky, Harriet and myself went back to Vicky's after this and warmed up in hers for a while. By now the snow had deepened considerably and it had become dark, so Matt and Harriet strolled back to their 10 minute away houses (not fair) and I was told to stay at Vicky's or risk the wrath of my dad's worry. That was fine though. We played The London Game (an amazing board game that EVERYONE SHOULD PLAY) and stayed up until past midnight discussing our position in life.

Wednesday

Obviously, school was off again. I decided not to linger at Vicky's in fear of being stranded there once again. We had fun on skype for a couple of hours; everyone's faces (by everyone I mean Ludlow) seem more amusing when they're in 2D. Me and Vicky ate cereal (rice krispies for me) and eventually got dressed. Then we walked down the road and said our goodbyes (</3) because Vicky was going to Chris' and I was (finally) going home!

I spent the rest of the day watching series one of True Blood again, snuggled under a blanket. It was brilliant.

Thursday (Today)

Despite the fact that the snow was almost knee deep on our school field, Mr Bowes decided that today would be an appropriate day to return to school. He was wrong, of course. We arrived at 10AM, an hour later than normal, only to be told to run along to the canteen. Fortunately, us sixth formers had sole usage of the mezzanine area, so we didn't have to mix with less superior children. We waited around for a while, Mr Wright making sure that everything was ticketyboo, until Mr Bowes showed his face. He told us that there weren't enough teachers. He told us that there were hardly any students. He told us that classes would mix and school would run as normal. There was a cruel laugh that echoed around the canteen as he sent the Y8s to maths. Then a sigh of resignation as he sent the sixth formers to IT, where we all knew that learning would not take place. Let's face it, learning doesn't take place in IT on a normal day.

After that I strolled off to English Language where I was one of five dedicated Englishers. THAT'S RIGHT. There were FIVE of us. Then we went to the canteen, ready to warm ourselves with a lovely home (school) cooked meal. Alas, like the rest of the day, that was a complete waste of time. As it happens, they had no food. I mean, they had week old "savoury cheese" sandwiches, variety of suspicious looking soups and a hell of a lot of beans on toast. They were actually trying to starve the only people who cared enough to trek through the snow to learn! Eventually we bought some bread rolls and little pots of cheese and constructed our very own sandwiches.

Thankfully, we were allowed to leave after 4th. But, overall, it was a very pointless day! I think we'll all look forward to the same shenanigans tomorrow. LOL jk.

Jasm x