July 6th: Onwards and upwards.

I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn - well I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you.

From the intriguing mind of Stephen Schwartz, composer of the music for the musical Wicked. As I was starting to type in this post, this song started playing, and it occured to me that the lyrics are very expressive of the way I'm feeling right now. You see, tomorrow is the last day of my first year at college, and I'm just wondering where the hell the time has gone. What happened to those days that were spent staring at the clock, wishing that school would end? I guess I know that - I wasted them all, staring at the clock. (That's not to say, of course, that I never stare at the clock during my college lessons; in fact I'm pretty sure I could pick the one in my history classroom out from a line of identical clocks). But I find it ironic that the place of education I enjoy most - i.e. college - is the one at which I spend the least amount of time. Especially since I loathed both primary school and secondary school with a passion.

College just does this... thing to you where it seems to free you from almost all those chains you get yourself tangled in throughout your educational life. You become somebody better, somebody more capable, more alive, more you. I look around me sometimes and I marvel at all the people surrounding me, and although so many of them look similar - similar hair, clothes, etc - there are a few who are different. Varying degrees of different, of course - not all of them dress like goths, chavs, or whatever (though many of them do). But even though they are, without doubt, objects of social fascination (and amusement), I admire their courage. I mean, the other day I passed a girl wearing goth boots, a huge lacy black skirt and a little black lacy hat. Her nickname may be 'Weird Becky', but she has some serious courage to wear that stuff into college. But as I was saying, 'different', doesn't have to be like that. I've never been a stereotypical 'teenager' and neither have any of my friends, and I've never considered that brave but I suppose in a way it is. We are, in a way, opposing the flow - swimming in the opposite direction to the rest of the fish around us. And I don't know if you've ever tried swimming against the current, but you need to be strong. But I see these people all around me every day, and I can't believe how we are all one species but so different. How come we all have the same physical makeup but no two faces are the same? How come all brains work the same way, but think differently? What's up with that? It's a bit like perplexed tofu, really. Woopus to the maximus.

Just thought I'd throw in a couple of my most used phrases there (though I never really use perplexed tofu. I blame Cora.)

Anyway. Today has been a really good day. I got a history essay back (on which I might have cheated a bit but shh, I wasn't the only one) and I got a C, and then - right, this is going to be long winded so I might as well just write it.

So a while ago we wrote these media pieces on taboo language for English, and today we got them back and Hannah said "I'm giving out these three first, because they were the best in the class" - they were a 29 and two 27s out of 30. So she gave them out, and obviously none of them came my way, so I was just sitting there feeling really disappointed because yet again I missed an opportunity to get an A. Then she gave me mine and I turned the page to look at the grade and saw: 30/30.

I thought I must have been imagining things for a moment. But no, it was true, it was real - my first ever A in A Level English and at A2 at that. And not just any old A; full freaking marks! I was so happy and excited that it took me the rest of the lesson - an hour - to stop shaking. But OH MY GOD. AND I was the only person in my class to get that full marks. I was talking to Hannah after the lesson:
"Is that grade really mine?"
"Do you want proof?"
So she got her little sheet out and showed me that I hadn't been hallucinating. She was like "I'm surprised you're so surprised" - of course I was surprised! I've never got an A in written English before in my life (I say written because I got one mark off an A* in GCSE speaking and listening), let alone at A Level. She also said she hadn't said anything in front of the class incase I didn't want her to use mine as an exemplar response for next year's students, which I thought was really sweet. I am a bit of a chicken with sharing my work with people. But then I thought, no, this is clearly a good piece of work and I'm going to show it off. Which, yes, sounds up myself, but I'm not often proud of things I've written so it's about time I was. And oh, how I've wished I could be one of those exemplar responses we get given everytime we have to write something.

Since it was our last English lesson before summer, we did a quiz, and Hannah had got all these sweets for everyone. She got little packets of lovehearts for the runners up (i.e. everyone) and for the winners she had these posh looking bags full of an assortment of different sweets. Naturally, because we're amazing, my team came joint first with another group, so we got a bag each and then later Hannah gave us another bag each since she had leftover ones. Also, we beat Tom, the resident nerd who I sit next to; his team came last, to the amusement of my class. Bless.

Then I had a free with Lauren and Zoe, and we went to Bloc and had a massive hot chocolate - I got a free one as I'd used all the spaces on my loyalty card. Nice. So, all in all, a really good day. Now I'm going to bed and I shall awaken on the lovely easy last day of term before my nine week summer off.

Woopus to the freaking maximus.

Which reminds me, I have to tell you all about the English trip last week. I'll do it tomorrow.

(Famous last words.)

Molly x