April 30th: My first post as a 17 year old!

My birthday was a week ago, but I've been so 'busy' (i.e. I couldn't be bothered) to write here since. And I still haven't finished telling you about when Cora was here... I fail at blogging, seriously. But now it's Friday morning and IT's been cancelled (along with media this morning. Got a free next too, so I'm ending up with one lesson today. Last. I could have had a lie in. How rude.)

Actually I should probably go and read my last post to remember what I have and haven't written, since the last time I posted here was the day we broke up for the Easter holiday. Hang on a minute then.

(I would advise going back to read over a couple of previous posts, just so you know what I'm talking about. Unless you fancy a bit of confusion.)

Right. Okay. I got to the first day, i.e. the 26th March... did I write about HYF? Hang on.

Nope. So after we'd finished opening presents and being random, we went to Accessorize (which they also have in Denmark; thank God for multi-national corporations) and THEN we went to Starbucks (which they don't have in Denmark. Well, I've been to the one Starbucks they do have - in Copenhagen airport, which, let's face it, is a bit crap. God, imagine life without Starbucks. I hate coffee and even I'm addicted! The Frappuccinos are LOOOOVE.)

Anyway. So after we'd left Starbucks we went back to college to see Hannah, like I said in my last post (or the one before that.) It was, as I'd anticipated, hilarious... I was just basking in the amazingness of seeing Hannah and Cora in the same room. (Even if Hannah did tell Cora she had to embarrass me.) I thought it would never happen, but you don't get if you don't ask! And oh, my god, Hannah guessed who I like! I can't say much about this now and I'll tell you why later, but she guessed who I fancy the bloody first time she tried. And then a couple of days later, my friend guessed too. Is it that obvious?!

Anyway. After that we went back into Henley for our Henley Youth Festival rehearsal, which was obviously the first time we'd rehearsed on account of us being, you know, in different countries... (except for the obvious reasons, that was why I chose For Good for us to sing - there isn't much moving around so we didn't need to work out a routine or anything)... but it went well. Better than the real thing, in my point of view. Even my high notes weren't too bad (a miracle of epic proportions). But seriously, it was great. Even the little organiser person was like "That sounded good!" when she hadn't complimented anyone else. But then, it would have been good; it was Cora. I just tag along, hanging on the coat tails of her talent.

So, with a good rehearsal under our belt, we then went to meet my parents, Freddie and my auntie Ruth and cousin Hannah (yep - another Hannah) in Pizza Express. We ate quickly and then Cora and I went back to the theatre where they were holding HYF. We were on in the second half, in the middle, so we had a while to wait, but we sat in the front of the audience during the first half, watching the performances and worrying about microphone issues (on my part anyway.) And there was this extremely cocky kid who said - pretty much - that he was better than everyone else. He was good, I'll give him that, but... URGH. I just wanted to slap him. And he shook his head to do vibrato. Epic fail.

So, when it was finally the second half, we went backstage to get changed and shiz and just sat there warming up and talking. I'm sure Cora will have something to say about how nervous I got, but we won't go into that now! (Yes, it was embarrassing. Hannah got her wish.)

And then it was our turn. We befriended a nice girl called Lottie while we were waiting to go on who said she loved the song we were singing (which means I automatically liked her. Anyone who likes Wicked has to be awesome.) And we did a little mic test (we had radio mics, you know, the ones which clip on) and went out onstage. Cora was, obviously, better than me - she has such stage presence, and such a beautiful voice. She's just amazing. I doubt she even needed her mic, to be honest, she has the power in her voice that I can only dream about - and typically it was my mic that broke. Hopefully I can increase the volume in Audacity before putting it on YouTube; otherwise you'll hardly be able to hear me. Which I'm not complaining about but it is a shame.

So after the show we went home with the family and my dad put the video of it on the TV so we could watch it - it wasn't too bad, as far as I can remember, but still. Then nothing much else happened so we went to bed.

The next day Zoe came over about 11:15 and we went to Marion's birthday shizzle, which was good. We sang some stuff, but only five of Octava turned up so it wasn't as good as it could have been. Oh well. It was still fun. And then we left about three and got the train into London, where - and this is what you've all been waiting for, right? - WE SAW WICKED.

The train was fun. I went a bit hyper and lay on the seat, with Cora reminding me that everyone could see my pants (there was nobody else even in the carriage. Sort of. I don't know what she was on about.) and there was this adorable little boy sitting in the seat behind Zoe who kept popping his head up to say hi. Bless.

Anyway so we got to Paddington and then to Victoria and went for a Maccy D's, and then we went (really early) to Wicked and just hung around until they opened the doors. It was a full house, unsurprisingly - I'd never been in a cast change audience before but there's such an energy to it, it's such an electric atmosphere. Probably because most - if not all - of the audience are fans of the show, and they know what's coming and want to savour every last minute of it. And the cast didn't fail to live up to our expectations - they were literally giving it everything they had and really just making the most of it. Defying Gravity especially was breathtaking - everyone in the audience was leaning forward on their seats; I was gripping Cora's and Zoe's hands really tightly... it was magical. I mean... I can't even describe it. All I can say is: why the hell weren't you there?

Apologies if you were.

Before the show started, Cora bought a Wicked t-shirt and Elphaba's awesome hat necklace, and she was quite persuasive in me letting her buy one for me too. But they're expensive, and I wouldn't... so we came to the arrangement of we buy half each. It's so awesome and I love it, and I love her to bits for doing that for me (I love her to bits anyway, but you know.) I was wearing it yesterday, but I'm actually not right now... it wouldn't go with my outfit, since it's white and red. But seriously. It's just awesome. But Cora gives me too much stuff! I have to stop that girl.

So yeah. After Wicked we went to the stage door, which was madness - there were so many people! They actually moved the stage door from the stage door to the front of the theatre, so the actors came out one by one --

And now it's lunchtime and time for Starbucks Friday, so I'll finish this later.

Molly x

March 29th: I've only been in IT 35 minutes.

Time is going sooooooooooooooo slowly. And yes, that was an imitation of prosodic features, because I was emphasising the sooooooooo just like that. Or maybe it was representational speech, but this whole thing is representational speech because it's a blog, so it's representing me speaking.

Anyway, so I know you know why I'm writing here so soon after my last post. Usually I don't have much to say in the space of four days; relevant information doesn't build up that quickly (English Language moment - Grice's Maxims: Quantity, quality, relevance and manner. Who said what I write is relevant or interesting? All I know is that this is my blog so I'll buggering well write what I like and if you don't like it don't read it. (JUST KIDDING! Don't leave me. I love you.))

(Lol as you know I'm in IT and I think Isy's fallen asleep. Oh no, she is awake, Viking just said her name and she opened her eyes.)

Anyway, between today and the last post, a lot of stuff has happened and...

...And now I'm in English on the first of April and yes, it has taken me this long to continue with this post. Firstly I've had a mad OH MY GOD ALL MY COURSEWORK IS DUE IN ON THURSDAY rush and having been spazzing out about that, then I've had a problem with the Media Rome trip I'm supposed to be going on in a couple of weeks (we hadn't heard any details or anything so we were spazzing out, but apparently it's been 'postponed' anyway), and THEN there was a fire in the BT headquarters so all the Internet's been screwed up (but not the college's, thank God, because I had to tell Cora why I unwillingly ditched her last night and don't have credit - though I'm getting some today) so now that I'm in English and there are only five of us (the five whose coursework hasn't been marked yet) and Hannah's looking through the aforementioned coursework and has told the rest of us to occupy ourselves, I thought I may as well make another start on what is undoubtedly going to be a bloody long post.

That was an unnecessarily long introduction.

So, you want to know about my weekend with Cora. Though like I said in my last post, Cora's the only person who reads this so she already knows. Maybe she'd like to hear my take on it - I'm pretty sure she already knows since she's heard quite an embarrassing voice recording I made for her after she left and it's quite clear that I'm not very happy in it. Although actually Charlotte's been reading this blog of late - embarrassing but actually I sort of like knowing that other people don't find me so excruciatingly boring that they can't be bothered to read what I spend quite a while writing. (I didn't start writing this blog for anyone's eyes but my own; it was only meant to be a record of these days which are, apparently, the best of my life. Still, I don't object to people reading it, so please, if you are reading this, feel loved.)

So anyway. Cora got to Henley on Friday the 26th March around ten to two PM, as expected. We then went to Helen and Douglas house, which is the charity shop where we get our 50p hot chocolates from, and met Hollie, who was being very unsociable and reading a book (love you really) and Cora gave me all of the amazing stuff she had for me (a Rent DVD of the final show - ohmygod how seriously amazing is that? I'm eagerly awaiting the start of the Easter holidays i.e. tomorrow so I can watch it; a Danish/English dictionary with a DVD which is FAAABTABULOUS, I mean seriously, how epically awesome. I am actually determined to be able to speak Danish one day, and I will not give up because I think it's a great language even if no-one else, including its native speakers, do. On that note, Cora also gave me Twilight in Danish - which she bit... I do love that girl - which I actually have with me today, ready to dip into and see if I identify any words. Which I will - I do know how to say "I" and "you" at least. She also gave me some inflatable Doctor Who characters which absolutely made my day; now I have my very own Sontaran, Ood and - get this - Dalek.)

I will finish this later, so toodleoo for now darlings.

Much love,

Molly x

(Jess-Steve and I are having long and involved discussions about Twilight, Harry Potter and Doctor Who right now; we're just that cool.)

March 26th: A very exciting day, innit.

Well I know it's been a while since I last wrote here, but college has been giving me a shitload of work and I haven't had the time, not even in IT (though that is where I am right now. I should be doing work but I'm just far too excited).

You see, today is the day Cora is coming to England and to Henley and to see me! We've been waiting since... well, at least since January but I think longer than that, and I haven't seen her since November 1st and I miss her! I can't wait, it's going to be an amazing weekend. Today we're in Henley Youth Festival, singing - what else? - For Good from Wicked (even though Cora's 23 and lives nowhere near Henley; I persuaded them to let her do it with me. Thank you, English, for teaching me such persuasive writing techniques) and tomorrow we're going to Marion's birthday party and then seeing Wicked. Cora does choose epic times to come to England - there's nothing going on here until she decides to come. XD

She's also going to meet a load of people I know and talk about all the time, such as Marion, my auntie/cousin Hannah, and - get this - my English teacher Hannah, whom I asked if we could come and say hi. I didn't think she'd say yes because she goes home at lunchtime on account of no more lessons, but she said she usually comes back around 4 anyway so she'd be there if we wanted to come say hello. Which is amazing, because I talk about Hannah far too much to Cora and Cora far too much to Hannah, so I can't wait to see what happens when they both meet. It could be quite amusing. In any case I think it will just be awesomeness for them to each meet the one I'm always going on about.

So, Starbucks Friday. Cora won't be there in time for that, because I think her train will get here around two, but she's still coming to Henley and on a Friday which is good enough for me. Well, I'd be happy no matter what day she got here, but I'm just rambling and talking crap. I'm too excited to think straight. I never thought I'd get this same kind of excitement again - this is like the way I was the first time I saw her last February. I couldn't think straight, I couldn't really talk straight, and Cora said that when she hugged me I was shaking - embarrassing. But that's the effect she has on me, I suppose. XD

That sounded stamp collector-fied. Yes, I am a touchy feely person; I can be, as the Facebook group states, sexually inappropriate with my friends, but I'm actually not gay. As I state yet again. I just love my friends. It's annoying though because none of my friends are touchy feely people too, so they dislike it if I randomly grab their arms or poke them or something. Typical English people, so happy to be disconnected.

I think I was/will be Danish in another life. I also think Cora was/will be English in another life. I have had links to Denmark throughout my entire lifetime, and Cora has to England, before we even knew each other. It's like we were always meant to meet, cheesy as that may sound. I honestly believe it's true, though - all the subliminal little happenings that have occured had been leading us to the moment that I would post that comment on that What Is This Feeling instrumental and receive Cora's reply. She has had to put up with so much crap from me that I'm surprised she's not running away screaming, and I am truly grateful for that. She is really a true friend and I'm very lucky to know her - just a shame she lives so bloody far away. I hope that in some point in our lives we'll end up living in the same country. Having said that, it will probably happen very ironically and not in England or Denmark as we expect, but in some random country like France which neither of us are connected to in any way, shape or form. (And actually, in my case, feel some aversion to. Damn you, French lessons.)

Well it's now 11:07 and around three hours until Coraness, so I suppose I'd better get on with some work considering we only have 43 more minutes of the lesson. I can't be arsed though... wish I was in Starbucks right now. ;)

Molly x

I'll post again probably next week and tell you how my awesome weekend went (though since the only person who reads this is Cora, you'll probably already know).

March 1st: IT'S MARCH!

It's March, it's March, it's Marchy-Marchy-March! You have no idea how amazing this is yet, but fear not; I shall explain.

Firstly let me apologize for the complete emo-ness of my last post. I promise you I'm not always that depressed, though I do have a tendency to focus on my inadequacies instead of making the most of the few strengths I do have. Anyway, I'll try to make these posts more "happifying" in future; people obviously have their own problems, without wanting to read about mine too.

For the record, Freddie's thingy at Wembley didn't even happen. He's still basking in the glory of being on TV though.

Let me also apologize for the incredible length of time that has lapsed since the aforementioned emo post was written. College decided to lump all my coursework on me at once, especially IT, and since that is when I usually write here (indeed, when I'm writing here right now) I haven't had the time or the inclination really to pick up my metaphorical pen again to post. One gets out of the habit of doing these things, don't you think?

So. It's March and the Sun is shining, which is such a novelty, as it hasn't been sunny and 'warm' since last September. The Sun has emerged from its long absence in the clutching embrace of those evil clouds to announce to us the arrival of the month that signifies the beginning of spring, Cora's visit, and us seeing Wicked on the night of its 2010 cast change.

Yes, you heard correctly, dear reader! (I have always wanted to say that, though I've always thought it's a bit cheesy to refer to one's audience as 'dear' anything. Still, that's one lifelong ambition fulfilled.) Cora is staying with me, here in England, from Friday the 26th March to Sunday the 28th. Two whole days. A whole weekend! I intend to savour every one of the rare moments that I share with her. And we are going to be busy. It always seems like Cora chooses amazing times to come to England - last time it was Halloween, so she got to experience that, and this time we have Henley Youth Festival on Friday night, Marion's birthday party on Saturday and Wicked on Saturday evening. We're going to be busy. Sunday before Cora leaves can just be for... well, anything. Talking. Pushing the door of her room slightly in the morning to see if she's awake and then waiting until she lies down again and then going in. (I know that was random, but hey, that's us). Basically, I can not wait... I miss her! Imagine if your best friend lived literally a thousand miles away and you could never have them there every day to hang out with or talk to or laugh with or watch movies with or hug. Imagine if you had to make the most of every single moment because you don't know how long it will be before you see her in person again... that's us. Yes, it sucks, but there's nothing we can do about it so we have to live with it. (That's why it annoys me when my friends say we're like stamp collectors; imagine how many times you've hugged your best friend throughout your life, and now imagine how much Cora and I have to catch up on. We've only met in person three times).

So anyway, I just realized how freaking much I have to tell you guys. I guess a lot happens in a couple of months.

(Random point: did I tell you Hannah-English-teacher is following me on Twitter? That made me very happy. xD)

So anyway. A couple of weeks ago there was an English Language conference in London that I went to with Charlotte, and seeing as I was the only person I know who didn't find it completely mind-numbingly boring and actually enjoyed a whole day of listening to people speak about English Language, I have consequently made up my mind that I want to do English Lang at uni and, after talking to Hannah, I want to go to Cardiff uni to do it. I know I'm a bit too young to be looking at universities, but apparently they recommend that you at least look at various different places in your first year of college. Just to be prepared and all that. I doubt I'll get in to Cardiff, since I need an A and two Bs, but I really want to go there and as Hannah said, I apparently have the 'drive and determination' to do it. To be honest I just want to go to uni in Wales. They have some really awesome accents. ;)

So anyway, after the English Lang conference had finished, Charlotte and I paid a visit to Oxford Street. My very first visit to Oxford Street, to Charlotte's disbelief. But we went to all the shops and I bought a dress (which came in very handy the next day, when Becky forgot to bring a costume for the filming of my media movie), and we even had time to pay the world's quickest four-minute visit to McDonald's before we got on our train home. Cora was, of course, haunting that McDonald's in Paddington station, as we went in there on Wicked day when I accidentally on purpose forgot to tell Becky and Zoe the time of the train home so we missed it.

Don't you think it's ridiculous that one has to pay 30p to use the toilets in Paddington station? I mean why should a human's basic needs be used as a money making scheme? It just doesn't seem right somehow. I know food is also a basic need that we pay for, but... do you see what I mean?

We got some more reports from college on Friday, and tomorrow night is Parents' Evening. My report was okay, but I'm a tiny bit apprehensive about the fact that I skived IT on Friday and that Viking might mention it to my parents. Oh well, I told Isy in media to tell Viking that I was ill, (Isy's in my media and IT class) so she probably did. I'm dropping IT at the end of this year anyway; it's too much coursework on top of everything else, so I'm thinking of taking up human biology instead.

But yeah, reports. Hannah clearly still loves me. XD I compared this report with my last one and she was equally as nice to me as before. Well, I do suck up to her quite a lot. I just hope I can be amazing at English and get an A, and then she'd really love me. xD

Ooh, I was waiting to go into IT earlier, and I could hear what Megan was listening to on her iPod because her music was really loud, and I was like "OMG IS THAT RENT?"

Naturally a discussion about musicals ensued and I told her about how I'm seeing Wicked for the fourth time at the end of March. I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it! <3

Anyway, you know at the end of my last post I said I kept feeling really dizzy, among other things? Those things still haven't gone away and Charlotte is convinced that it's a psychological problem, rather than a physical one. She made me tell her everything that's wrong and she Googled it, and apparently all the evidence points to the fact that I have a repressed memory buried somewhere in my unconscious mind. Which is slightly unnerving. I don't know what repressed memory could be making me feel like this; but then, I wouldn't, would I? That's why it's repressed. Still, as far as I can remember I had a fairly uneventful childhood. But we'll see what comes of it. Charlotte is determined to cure me - whether or not she's that bothered about me or just wants to be able to say she cured her friend of a psychological problem after only six months of psychology study. I don't think it is psychological at all, but it might work. We'll have to see.

Hannah-from-media and I finally finished our film! Becky and Zoe were excellent in it, especially as I brought the filming forward by a day and sprung it on them that morning. We did come across quite a few problems but I'm very pleased with the way it turned out in the end. I did the editing and directing, among other things, and Hannah was filming, among other things. I think we made a fabulous team. There are a few continuity issues in there but our teacher didn't notice so I guess we've got away with it for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaPQGZT3tyE&feature=email

Anyway, I should be going to bed, so I'll be back to write more... at some point. I will refrain from saying 'soon' as everytime I do it just disappear for months on end.

Toodles, blog.

Molly x

January 21st: Epic fails and other such... fails.

I was pondering earlier on a rather increasingly pressing question; why is my brother so awesome and me such an epic fail of a person?

Let me explain. There is a band entitled the Light Years which comprises of 3 ex-Langtree students (and one random other guy). The ex-Langtree students now teach musical instruments at Langtree - Tony drums, George guitar and Chris piano - and Freddie, my brother, plays the drums (and the piano, though he learns that out of school). A while ago, the Light Years' friend, Josh something, was approached by the phone company T-Mobile, who asked him what he'd do with 1000 free texts. Josh replied that he'd create a superband, so he got the Light Years together, along with all their music students, and they filmed a nationwide TV advert for T-Mobile. So now Freddie is on TV, admittedly for only about two seconds (which can be a lot longer than you think) and the song in the advert is being released as a single in the charts. Now, Freddie has been informed that the Light Years, along with their superband, might be playing at Wembley Stadium along with the likes of Jedward (I know, I know) and Pixie Lott - not that I'm bothered about meeting either of them, but the kid is thirteen years old, and look at everything he's accomplished. He's also like a supernerd, grade four piano, and has a load of girls after him even though he's about the most annoying person ever to exist (and it's not just me, even my parents say he is). And he got all the looks from my parents.

Me? I've got 11 GCSEs, two crappy unpublished 200+ page stories and grade four singing. Whoop-dee-doo.

(Although I was only two marks off distinction, and it was my first music exam. Still).

To get back to Freddie, where was I when he went to London to film the advert? I was doing a Christmas concert at a tiny school fair with Octava, out of which I got nothing but being tired for work that evening. I wanted to go with Freddie, but I chose to go with Octava instead because I'm so damn loyal to everybody and I hate letting people down. Loyalty never gets you anywhere, I've found, because I forgot that most of the population of the world is willing to use you to get what they want and then ditch you at the last minute. I've spent my entire life being loyal and not letting people down, and where has it got me? Sixteen years old with nothing particularly special accomplished yet, very little confidence and having never had a proper boyfriend, whereas those who just move through life without looking back at the damage they're leaving in their wake are either super successful, super confident or super popular, or all three. It's so unfair. Those who are bitches shouldn't be rewarded for it; when does life ever come through for people like me?

Maybe it's a matter of morals. I do not want to be like the 'popular girls' from my year at Langtree. (Not so much anymore; there isn't such a social hierarchy at Henley, thank God.) I do not want to be a slut with no idea of right or wrong, I don't want to exist purely to bitch and take the piss, and I do not want to be like every other stupid person in the world, just following the crowd. More than that - I refuse to conform to the stereotype of 'teenager'... I will not let my age shape my personality. I will not change who I am just to fit in. I am me, and I only wish I had the confidence to believe in the person I know is hiding in me somewhere. I can do it when it's just me, but whenever something challenges me I shrink down and I hide and it frustrates me! I don't want people to see this ridiculous shadow of me, because I know that if I could only show them my true self they wouldn't think me so "quiet". I am not quiet!

I just want to come out of this shell I was forced into so long ago. I want to be somebody, do something instead of just plodding along through life. Still I get the feeling that if I want to do anything like performing, which I never even realized was an option for me until I discovered Wicked when I was in year ten, it's too late. To do something like that you need to be in stage school from a young age, and I'm not getting any younger. I feel like time is pressing down on me to make a decision and I'm not ready for this responsibility yet. I feel like I'm still in year eight, like I'm really still twelve and life is moving on, leaving me struggling to catch up. Even though I've been singing my entire life, I only did a talent show for the first time back in 2008. I left it so late, because I was scared of... what? What people would think? I don't know what I was - am - scared of, but I still have that fear. It's a fear of falling, of crashing - and if I say this it's going to sound like a line from a cheesy song - but I'm starting to learn that people who don't crash never live. The thing is, I'm feeling like I've already crashed too many times and I don't even remember living.

Anyway. I'm sorry about that... I don't quite know where all of that came from. Anyway I've got other stuff to tell you, so... moving on.

History exam. I believe that was the first thing on my list of what I haven't talked about yet. It went okay - I think I passed, since the pass mark is an E, but one never does know. I suppose I'll have to wait until March to find out. (Or February 26th, when our reports are being sent home. Yay... is it weird that I look forward to reports/exam results sometimes?)

Last week I went back to English straight after the history exam without eating anything first... bad idea. I get so much of an adrenaline rush in exams which involve a lot of writing that I am exhausted by the time I come out, and I usually have to eat chocolate or something afterwards but this time I just went straight back into English and I was so low on energy I was actually shaking. XD whoops. Methinks I won't do that again. Anyway so we're looking at style models in English, for our coursework, and we had to write an autobiographical piece, and Hannah made us write an embarrassing moment. (Actually I did a memorable moment, because I told Hannah my embarrassing moment in the lesson. After she told me two of hers, of course, which I won't write here as I think she might kill me if she ever finds out. xD) You can have mine, though: I went on a school trip to France in year eight, and after spending a lazy afternoon on the beach, we started packing up to go back to our youth hostel. I asked my tutor if it was okay for me to go as I was, i.e. wearing jeans and a bikini top, and she replied, looking worryingly amused, that I was popping out. My stupid slightly-too-small bikini had slipped, leaving one of my boobs on show to my entire year plus quite a few of my teachers. Now if that's not embarrassing I don't know what is. I know, why don't you leave a comment and tell me yours? ;)

Speaking of Hannah, she's been ill since Monday and today she was finally back. It is seriously quite funny how much we miss her when she's not there; that is how awesome she is. When we have to have a different teacher it's like NOOOOOO! (Whereas in any other lesson it's like "Thank God. Christmas has come early.") I don't know how I'll survive if I have a different English teacher next year. Anyway so I was loitering after the lesson today, as I do every lesson, and Becky had come into my classroom to find me/to be amused by Hannah. Hannah was reading Tom's embarrassing moment and went "Smooth", and Becky said "So that's why you say smooth!"

It's true. Hannah's words rub off on me. Actually, everybody's words rub off on me.

I said to Hannah "Yes! You make me say words!"

And Hannah replied "Yes... I'm an English teacher... that's what I do."

I was thinking, hilarious. Very witty. Not. But I said, very articulately, "Yeah, but you made me say innit. Even though I only say it to take the piss out of people who do say it."

"I say it ironically," was Hannah's response, and I replied, "Yeah. Me too."

I am just so good at expressing myself when I'm speaking. I think you may have gathered by now that I'm much better when I'm writing. It's a shame, that, since speech is such a necessary part of life.

Random point: my mother, who is very disappointed about my lack of mathematical ability, always says "Maths is everything!"

(She's not a maths nerd. She's just trying to emphasize how important maths is in today's world... which is considerably less important than in her day, since now one has a mobile phone with a calculator on it on one's person at most times.)

I always reply, "No, English is everything. That is what we speak every minute of the day, after all."

Funnily enough, she doesn't find that as argument-halting (for want of a better word) as I do. It's only because she can't spell.

(Just kidding, Mummy. Love you really.)

But she really can't spell.

Today I got a text from an unknown number which said "You look really nice today =) x x"

I was very intrigued. I lost all my numbers when my SIM corrupted and I changed my phone (oh yeah - I inherited my dad's old iPaq, which is awesome, but doesn't store any of my old numbers) so I wasn't sure who it was. I eventually found out it was Charly by comparing numbers with the ones on my other phone... but why would Charly text me something as random as that? I mean it's lovely to hear, but still. I could tell it was a female anyway; the writing style is just so feminine. I thought it might have been Lexi actually.

Speaking of Lexi, yesterday she told me that one of the (very hot) boys in our year had said to her "Molly is so fit." I found that hilarious, because let's face it: 'fit' is so not a word to be applied to me. I think Lexi might have been making that up, to be quite honest. She's one of those people who only talk to you/are nice to you when they want something and I'm not sure if I trust her or not. Still, nice to hear even if it was made up.
___________________________________________________________
It's now the 22nd of January and I'm in media, finishing off this post because I didn't get time to last night. There isn't all that much more I have to tell you, but just a few things:

I swear, there is something weird going on with me. XD Yesterday in English my heart suddenly started beating literally about five times faster than normal and I felt really dizzy. I really thought something was going to happen... I just asked Hannah if I could go to the loo and once I was out of the class I felt better, but I have never had to leave a class before because I've been so sure that something would happen. I am the let's-not-make-a-fuss-I'll-see-if-I-can-make-it-to-the-end-of-the-lesson type... not always a great way to be. I just don't like being the centre of attention if it's for embarrassing reasons. Or if I'm with people I don't like. Of course I don't like being ignored either. ;)

Anyway I have to go now, so I'll see you guys soon.

Molly x

January 13th: Exciting developments...

Well hello!

I have quite a bit to tell you again, and since college is closed again due to snow (even for the exam students - there are a lot of angry posts on Facebook about it. I wonder if it will be open for my history exam tomorrow...) I have no excuse for not writing here, so let's get on with it.

Right. So I may have mentioned that I had an English exam on Monday morning and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get to college to do it, so I was working out all sorts of ways I could get there - all of that wasn't necessary in the end because the college bus came as usual. Admittedly there were only five of us on it (usually there are fifty three) because college was only open to exam students and most people got a lift anyway. But I got there in plenty of time and the exam was actually okay. There isn't much one can revise for English Language except the terminology and the exam technique, both of which I revised on Sunday night and on the bus on Monday morning, and it was fine in the end. Hopefully I got a B or above (I really want an A) or I'm so retaking it, which would be annoying since it would have to be in June when I have my other exams. (That's why I don't want history to be cancelled tomorrow - there's a hell of a lot of revision to do for that and it would be impossible to pass with other exams to do as well.)

After the exam I was in Henley with Charly, waiting for it to be the right time to catch my train home, and when we went into a chip shop to get her some chips, she bumped into two of her friends, one of whom is really hot. Like seriously. He has quite amazing brown eyes, which you just know you could fall into, given the chance. We only spoke briefly, while Charly was getting her chips, and then he had to catch his bus and I had to catch my train, which was quite a shame. Although he did wink at me when I asked Charly where the station was from there (which I probably could have found myself but I wasn't sure) and he replied. Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to give you some updates on that soon. (Like later in this post. I'm doing things in order. xD)
So I got to the station twenty minutes early for my train, but at least I did have time to buy a ticket this time. Usually I get a child one, because I know I look young enough to get away with pretending to be fifteen even though I'll be seventeen in three months and ten days - however, after the incident with the ticket collector before Christmas, I decided to always buy adult tickets when I'm in Henley, and it was lucky that I did because the evil ticket collector came round to check. I don't know if he recognized me - he did give me a slight heart attack by scowling at me and making me think something was wrong with my ticket, but it turned out that it was only because I was holding it upside down. When he found out that a group of people further down the train hadn't bought tickets, though, he went mad. I felt quite sorry for them. They said the ticket machine hadn't taken their money and then the TC asked (in his hard-to-understand Indian accent) why they hadn't gone to the ticket office. They replied they didn't know there was a ticket office, which was fair enough - I didn't know there was one either. But the TC was really giving them a hard time about it, which I thought was really unfair of him since they did want to buy tickets off him then. They did, in the end, and they continued their journey in peace. I actually really admire their courage in the face of the evil ticket collector, especially as he tried to charge them twenty pounds for travelling without a ticket. I know that if that was me I'd have been kicked off the train again because I'm just so crap in situations like those. I wish I wasn't so non-confrontational.

Anyway so yeah. After I got off my second train at Reading (you have to change at Twyford to get to/from Henley) I went to the bus, as I usually do, only to find out that it wasn't going any further than Pangbourne. This meant that it was a complete waste of time and £1.60 -

- Random point: it just took me twelve minutes to get that pound sign because the button on my computer doesn't work, so I had to tweet about it to get someone to send me one. I hate my computer sometimes. -

- because I could have stayed on the train until Pangbourne. Admittedly I hadn't paid to go to Pangbourne but they'd never have noticed. Anyway, so I had to walk all the way from Pangbourne to home, which took an hour even though it's a five minute drive, up a massive hill which is hard enough to walk up even when it's not covered in snow. You know how it is when you walk in snow; your feet can't get purchase on the ground and they keep slipping out from under you so it's completely exhausting to walk even short distances. And then, to top it off, I slipped over when I was almost home and yesterday, walking to the bus stop to go to college, I slipped over again and landed in exactly the same place - the bones in my bum. Ouch.

My leg muscles are really painful as well today and were yesterday too. Bloody hill.

Anyway. Yesterday, in my second free, I was in Starbucks with Charly, and Alicia, Ruby and Simon were in there too so we went and said hi. Alicia told me that the Starbucks staff had recognized her so much that they'd given her a booklet of vouchers for 50p off a drink everyday, but she'd gone back again later and they'd given her another one by mistake. How awesome is that? I want one! Imagine the money you could save on 50p off a Starbucks beverage everytime you buy one. Anyway, so Alicia gave a voucher to me, which is only valid for today - and then college was closed AGAIN because of the snow. I am not amused. And to top it all off, I have a really powerful craving for a frappuccino right now.

Sooo. Anyway. It is now time to expand on my earlier (and rather confusing) paragraph about the hot boy. I was wondering who he was all of Monday night and most of Tuesday, and I was trying to figure out a way to subtly ask Charly who he is without being really obvious. Of course, when it actually came to asking her, I was standing by Hannah's desk at the end of English waiting to ask her about the coursework, and Charly was waiting for me, so I very subtly said to her "Who was that guy we were with yesterday? The one you were waiting for the bus with?"

(We'll call him T.)

Charly replied, "Who? T?"

And I (very subtly, naturally) said "He's hot."

Charly's response to that was quite funny. She's apparently really good friends with him because he went to her secondary school, and she spent the entire free telling me all about him. With a little persuasion from me, of course. Apparently he's in our year, he's seventeen, he's studying English Language and Ancient History (and two others which I've forgotten), he plays saxaphone and a bit of guitar and just generally loves music (so he loves English, history and music. Ooh, that sounds familiar). He likes brunettes, which is handy, and he's only ever had one proper girlfriend before and they 'didn't do anything', according to Charly. (She described him as 'desperate' because he keeps saying girls are hot, which actually I find quite sweet. She said that he has a heart of gold and he's very friendly... could he sound any more perfect? Besides, if he's 'desperate', that means he won't sleep his way around college or talk about other girls all the time or mess me around by saying he likes me but he doesn't want to go out with me. (Yes, I speak from experience here, and I can't be doing with boys like that. I want a boy who, as Charly said, has a heart of gold... you don't find many of those anymore.) Oh, and the best thing is: he's single!

Charly also told me quite a few other things about him which I've forgotten, but all of them just made me want to get to know him better. He sounds perfect to me; the only flaw in the plan is that he probably won't like me in return. Boys usually don't.

Anyway so Charly and I have all the same frees, blocks one and five, and it turns out that T has block five free too, so Charly's going to get him to hang out with us on Friday and try and matchmake us, I suppose. I have very little faith that it will actually work, but oh, I hope it does. Meeting him happened at a very good time, as well, because I'd just decided that it was time to get over Mono. I mean he and Pavlova are obviously not going to break up anytime soon and I'm sick of it still hurting me whenever I see them together. I'm aware that it's not that easy, but it's just a crush. It probably would have worn off soon anyway. Anyway, so after Friday's free I will hopefully have some more stuff to tell you guys about this. I wasn't actually sure whether to tell anyone about it, because everytime I do it seems to jinx things, but then Charly knows and without her there would be no chance of it happening at all. However it's hard to keep things like this to myself, so I thought I'd write it here, and then I wouldn't actually be telling anyone but I can still have the opportunity of talking about it with someone if they read it here. Which would be nice.

So tomorrow is the day of my dreaded history exam, which (although it's dreaded) I sincerely hope I'll be able to do because I just want it over with. I don't want to have to postpone it until June; I can't be bothered to revise for it all over again then. Besides, if we delay it until June then I won't have the option of retaking, which I think I'll definitely need. This snow is just a complete pain in the arse for everyone now. It's getting ridiculous.

Ooh! I 've just realized it's one month until Cora's birthday! I really should get her present soon.

Molly x

January 9th: So this is what it's like to live on rations.

Once again, I will start a post by saying how sorry I am that I haven't written anything here for AGES... and this time I really have no excuse, since college has been closed for the last three days due to snow, and I should have been revising for my impending exams but instead got addicted to 90210 and spent all of yesterday watching back-to-back episodes on YouTube. Yes, I know it's really, really typical LA-rich-girl-story type crap, but it's addictive. Trust my wisdom.

Sooo. The snow is still just as thick as it was three days ago, and with the exam board refusing to postpone the exams this week, it means that I have to get to a town half an hour's drive away from me with no car (since my dad's 4x4 will be going with him to work and my mum's car wouldn't last a minute in this snow), no college bus, and no normal bus. I will have to walk, in the snow, down to Pangbourne station, which by the way is a 45 minute walk in normal weather, and then catch two trains to college all by 9:00AM on Monday morning. And it's supposed to snow again tonight. Just to top everything off, the exam board has said that if candidates do not sit the exams at the scheduled time and date, they will have to pay to "resit" (or actually sit it in the first place) in June. And it's eighteen quid. And I am NOT amused.

AND I'm fully aware that it's grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with "and", but even grammar freaks can make exceptions when they're pissed off. God knows, the rest of the human race does. Besides, sometimes, if one knows the rules of grammar, one is entitled to break them.

Sorry for that grumpy little start there. Where was I?

Oh yes, I believe I'd just finished telling you about my Christmas presents. Well, since nothing really exciting happened over the rest of the Christmas holidays (except seeing Avatar on new year's eve - watch it. It's great.) and me finally getting Cora's present on the one day I went to college this week (Tuesday, before the snowfall - I've been waiting for it for almost a month, and it chooses the one day I'm not standing at the window, waiting for the postman to come. Not that I did that anyway). She got me lots of sweets (awesome), chocolate (mouthwatering), a fabtabulous letter which made me laugh so much whilst reading it, and an amazing Medina CD, who, if you don't know, is a Danish singer whose music I just adore because... well, because it's awesome and Danish. And catchy, too.

Speaking of Cora, our plans for March (when we're going to see the Wicked cast change night - eeeeep!) are finally feeling real. I booked our Wicked tickets last week and Cora booked her flights too, so now it's really happening and I'm so excited already. I can't wait to see her again! Especially as I made her get the earlier flight so she's coming to Henley and I'm going to meet her in my free and show her Henley and my college. Which will be awesome. And I have a sneaky feeling I might make her meet Hannah as well... I mean that would just be so funny. But we'll see. ;)

Last week I bumped into my friend Sarah, whom I haven't seen since August - she went to Langtree too, but we went to different colleges - twice in the same week, which was an awesome coincidence. Once was when I was in Reading with Becky, and the second time was when she saw the same showing of Avatar as me on new year's eve.

Now it's 23:05 and I should probably be going to bed, considering that I haven't actually revised for English yet and my exam is in two days. I need to be awake tomorrow for a last minute cramming session, methinks. (Although I did a lot of history today - I went to Hollie's and we revised for almost four and a half hours). Nonetheless, I always do things at the most inappropriate times, hence why I'm still here writing now. Besides, I just went really hyper after tea so I'm still calming down.

I think it was due to finally eating meat again. You see, because of the snow, there's been a mad panic - people rushing out to grab what food they can from shops, saving food and stuff - and we've been living on vegetable soup and the like, which is great, but it's just... not satisfying. I know some people can live without meat and have all the energy in the world, but I just can't and since I haven't eaten a good steak or anything since before Christmas, I was starting to feel really weak and tired all the time. Obviously I had turkey and stuff at Christmas but it's just not enough. I don't know how vegetarians do it (yes, Cora, I mean you.) but today we finally had a really nice big juicy steak and it's amazing how quickly it's made a difference to my energy levels. xD

Anyway, it's time I was going to bed, so I'll see you again soon enough. And I mean it this time.

Rawr!

Molly x

January 6th: Oh my God, the world's gone white.

Once again, methinks an apology for the lack of recent posts is necessary. Everyone's always crazily busy over Christmas and New Year and now that college has started again (for one day, anyway) it's just got worse. So, since I haven't posted here for ages, I've got a lot to tell you - which I'd usually do in order of when it happened, but there's one thing I have to mention first, since it's the inspiration for the title of this post.

Yep, you guessed it. SNOW! More of the bloody stuff. As if we weren't already bored of it - after the first five minutes of the last snowfall back on December 18th. And then the next one on December 21st. And then the remaining snow and rain which froze into ice and made driving/walking/everything pretty hard for the last three weeks. (Not that I drive, but it's scary enough sitting in the back of a car whilst somebody else does). But this is the biggest snowfall we've had for years - two and a half hours ago we had almost 11cm and it hasn't stopped snowing since. It's mucho annoying considering I have exams next week and I don't want them postponed and even if they're not, we've lost all the few preparation lessons we had left.

Ooh, I have to go. More soon!

Molly x

December 30th: Happy new year!

Wow. Sorry for my complete absence over the last week or so, but it's been a bit crazy round here, as I imagine it has been everywhere. So much to say though, and only a few minutes to say it in - methinks I might have to continue this post tomorrow.

Firstly, let's start with Christmas day, so we're all up to date. I GOT A NEW MIC! It's tiny - it must only be about ten centimetres all in all, but it's so good. It's fabtabulous to be able to record without my voice being accompanied by a load of static and of course it means that I now have to re-record everything I put up on YouTube with a bad quality mic, but oh well. Plenty of time for that (though I know it will just be one of those things I never get round to doing). It folds down into its own little case thing, which, when you fold out the microphone, becomes a clip which attaches onto the top of your computer (if you have an LCD monitor or laptop) - this means that I won't drop it on the floor, which I do a lot. Hence why microphones break on me so much. But it's not my fault; they roll off the table!

I haven't broken the mic Cora gave me yet though, so it's all good.

(Random point: I just clicked on a video on YouTube in the related videos to my newest video, and the first sentence in the description box was "MOLLY WATCH THIS."

Obviously the girl in the video isn't talking to me, but it's a coincidence nonetheless. And I used the word 'video' far too much in the above paragraph. Wish I had a thesaurus in my head. Oh wait, I do, it's called my brain. Well, doesn't that just suck? I can't even come up with a synonym for 'video'. Any suggestions? Speaking of which, I saw a pocket thesaurus when I was in town with Becky yesterday. I want one. And I'm getting increasingly off topic here so shattap, Molly.)

Anyway, so other Christmas presents: lots of chocolate (fattening but wonderful), the third book in the Wicked trilogy, "A Lion Among Men" (fabtabulous), a sparkly blue purse + sparkly blue nail varnish (awesome), a book entitled "How To Be A Wicked Witch" from Freddie (absolutely freaking AWESOME), a multicoloured caterpillar necklace from Octopus that I've wanted for ages (amazing), perfume which I bought in a charity shop ages ago but run out of and my mum tracked down for me (wonderful) and some other stuff which I can't recall just now.

I have to go now, but I'll be back tomorrow, so return then for more details of my boring life. :)

Molly x

December 24th: Christmas Eve! Oh yeah.

So what if I'm using the significance of the current date as a replacement for the interesting title I can't be arsed to make up? There is no other day in the year which is as widely recognized and important as the 25th of December and its surrounding dates, so I may as well make the most of it while it's here.

So. Christmas Eve. It still doesn't feel particularly Christmassy, especially as my mum's in OMG-IT'S-CHRISTMAS-MUST-TIDY-HOUSE mode and is running around like a headless chicken, as she is every Christmas. Every year we say we'll be more organised, but this is us, and it never happens. Welcome to the madhouse!

Actually I quite like it that way. It's how my family has lived for the past sixteen and a half years and, I imagine, how we will continue to live.

Ignore the total crap I'm writing. I don't have anything new to tell you, because nothing interesting happened at work last night, and I'm listening to Bad Romance so I'm a bit distractified. Listening to music whilst writing is always an interesting combination, so I've discovered.

I don't want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need... well maybe not that specific, but I do want an actual good quality microphone so I can finally record for YouTube without sounding like I've got a busy motorway plus a clock in the background. Not a good look. Or sound.

Basically everything else on my list is from the Wicked the musical merchandise shop (though most of it's from the American one so I doubt my parents would have bothered with that). But as long as I get the mic, I'll be happy. (That makes me sound really ungrateful; obviously I won't be too upset if I don't get it, but I'd really love it.) Still, we'll have to wait and see. How exciting!

I'm impossibly bored, as we have people coming over at 7:30 but it's still only 5:00 and it's too early to start getting ready, so I'm looking up my teachers on Facebook... as you do. Don't worry, I'm not going to add them or anything really nerdy like that - it's just funny to see their display pictures. So far I've found Hannah, Zoe (my media teacher), and about four teachers from my old school. I think John, my history teacher, is too much of a generic name (John Bennett) to be able to find him and Victoria, my IT teacher, is just not a Facebooky person, methinks, despite being a computery person.

Okay now it's time to get ready. Half six. That time went quickly; as you can probably infer from the understood knowledge that the above paragraph would not have taken me an hour and a half to write, I got distracted by other things. Probably Facebook, knowing me.

So. Merry Christmas, mon amies, and I hope you have/had (for all you people celebrating today) a great day.

Rawr!

Molly x

December 23rd: Two days until Christmas!

I'm really getting lazy with this blog. It's only three or four weeks since I started it and I'm already leaving five day gaps between posts... my excuse is that I'm not at college so I don't have my free lessons in which to write here. (But we all know that it's really just because I can't be bothered.) Oh well, I'm here now and I have so much crap to tell you that I can't remember any of it. Which is always useful, innit.

Well on Saturday my dad decided that I should get a phone contract after all (I think he might have been abducted by aliens and replaced by something... different) and we went shopping to have a look for some good deals/phones. I actually like the iPhone, though it's way too expensive and sort of pointless considering you can get phones just as good for a lot cheaper. And since my dad only wants to pay a certain amount of months for the contract and is making me pay the rest, cheap is a pretty big factor in which one I choose. Any suggestions?

After we'd finished shopping on Saturday, we called in at our friends' house (Katy and Pippy - my mum's best friend's daughters) and we watched St Trinian's, which was fabtabulouso because I hadn't seen it and I wanted to see the second one because Mr Gorgeous Tennant is in it (well, what can you do? I may not be obsessed with Doctor Who anymore but it's practically in my blood. David Tennant. Yum.) anyway yeah, so we watched St Trinian's and now I want to see the second one even more.

(I should really think about getting food instead of writing here since I'm getting quite hungry, since I haven't eaten all day (I was too busy tidying my room "because Father Christmas doesn't come if your room's not tidy" - you'd think my parents would realize Father Christmas doesn't exist by the age of almost fifty), and I have to go to work in two hours, but I've got too much to say. Even if none of it is particularly interesting.)

So on Sunday I went to work (where we surreptitiously sneaked out of the kitchen when nobody was looking and had a snowball fight), but even more excitingly than that, we finally put our Christmas tree up! Not one, in fact, but two - we have the fake one we always used to use in the hallway to Christmasfy that area a bit, along with some fairy lights round the mirror, and the main tree is in the lounge. It's massive though and the bottom branches are sloping towards the ground so we can't see any presents which happen to be there... the cats love to sleep under it, as well, because it's next to the radiator and the heat emanating from it gets caught by the branches of the tree, so it's nice and warm down there. (Actually, I noticed on the label of the tree when my parents brought it home that it said "DO NOT PUT NEAR RADIATOR" and, though my parents insisted it was fine, being as scared of fire as I am, I sneaked downstairs with a pair of scissors and when nobody was in the room I snipped off all the branches that were nearest the radiator. What? I may be paranoid but it's better than burning your house down. Innit. It was only a small radiator, anyway.)

So yeah. Now my house is nice and Christmassy and the Christmas spirit is building nicely - as well it should, being two days away.

On Monday, as I said previously, I went to the pantomime with my mum, dad, Freddie, auntie Ruth and cousin Hannah. (Only one Hannah will be mentioned in this blog, I think, so don't panic.) It was Peter Pan, which was a refreshing change from the normal boy-meets-girl-gets-married story they usually have.

Then after the pantomime, we went to Ruth's house, taking half an hour to get there, which is usually a ten minute trip (there was a traffic jam because a mini couldn't get up the icy hill) and she had booked a meal at Pizza Express, and having been on the waiting list in order to get a space there, she was determined that we were going, despite the fact that it was snowing incredibly hard and the snow was already thick on the ground from Friday's snowfall. So we walked.

As you do. We walked for twenty minutes in the snow and arrived at Pizza Express completely soaked due to snowball fights on the way (my dad scooped up an armful of snow and dumped it on my head - lovely of him, I know - so I naturally had to return the favour.)

Last week I got bored and I randomly searched for recording studios in the UK and ended up emailing one, Aardvark, with a link to my original song "Candles" on YouTube. They said it could take them up to two months to reply and I wasn't expecting any reply at all, but I checked my emails on Monday, four days after I emailed them, and a woman called Jan had replied:

"Hi Molly

Thank you for your email giving a link to your YouTube site. Unfortunately we only consider signing an artist when they have supplied us with a fully recorded and mastered album. Having listened to your track on YouTube it appears that you haven’t reached that level yet.

However, you do have a good voice and if at some time in the future you do have a fully recorded and mastered album then please come back to us."

I don't know how exactly they expect me to get a fully recorded and mastered album without a recording company - I was under the impression that that was their job. Still, it's exciting! And since I am working on Candles with some musicians my step-grandma knows up in Scotland, it could happen. If I think really, really, really positively. Which we all know I'm not that great at doing. But I'll try my best.

I did some nice Christmassy recordings for both of my channels today - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on RubberDucki12 and a nice spoof of Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid on WickedSpoofs. Have I told you about WickedSpoofs? It's a channel I share with Cora, because I've been writing spoofs for quite a while now and figured there's no reason I shouldn't make a new channel for them. Because Cora and I are so vocally diverse (i.e. she can sing high and I can't) she can sing the spoofs of high songs which I can't do. Which is fabtabulous - because one of my best spoofs is my Phantom of the Opera one but I don't see myself being able to sing that any time soon. Anyway yeah, WickedSpoofs is just an outlet for some of my huge amount of randomness. It's great.

Ooh. The lights went out for a second. It has been raining here today - FINALLY the snow is melting! We can leave the house again! But typically, we might not get our white Christmas. So close! - and there was a little thunderstorm as well; I say "little" and I mean one flash of lightening and a few rumbles of thunder. Honestly, English weather! It never can make up its mind. Especially because it snowed again on Tuesday night and then it was thicker than ever.

Random point: have you ever noticed how the E and the A in heart actually look like a heart?

Ooh. I'm listening to Oliver Tompsett's CD right now. Ooooh, his voice absolutely makes me melt. It's like mmmmm, encase me in warm melted chocolate and let me stay here in the comfort of your eyes... never let me escape, I want to stay here forever in your arms... *drool*. Okay so maybe I am infatuated. So what? Go look him up. Trust me, nobody except my weird friend Zoe can escape the same fate. He's like an immortal child. (For those of you who know Twilight).

Anyway so you're pretty much up to date with life right now. Nothing really happened yesterday or today, and now it's time for me to go to work, so I bid you farewell and I shall be back tomorrow.

Innit bruv.

Toodles!

Molly x

Only Troy's head is left on my advent calendar... muahahaha!

December 21st: Pantomime, pantomime!

You may have inferred from the title of this post that today my family and I are having our annual visit to the pantomime, which my grandad used to take us to. We thought we'd carry on the tradition, even if we are getting slightly too old for the pantomime now...

This is just a quick post to say I'm not dead and that I'll give you a full and extensive description of the weekend's activities tomorrow and, of course, to wish you a merry Christmas.

Have fun guys!

Molly x

December 18th: I could be mistaken, but I think it's snowed.

Yes, I was being sarcastic. It has most definitely snowed and college is closed. I woke up at 6 this morning and looked outside just to check, and the first thing that crossed my mind is "We are so not going to college today."

It's because Henley's students come from pretty much everywhere, with journeys ranging from five minutes to two hours to get to college. (I only live half an hour away by car, but it's a very hilly area and it's dangerous in the snow, which is why Henley closes immediately in extreme weather conditions like these. It's also because the college is on two sites, so the more creative subjects like media and art and also the boring ones like maths and computing are up the massive hill, whereas the others, like English, history, IT, French, psychology, drama, music, and everything else really are all at the bottom. I'm not joking, this hill is HUGE. It takes ten minutes to walk up in good weather, so if it's raining/slippery we have to be really careful. I swear, since I started college, I've fallen over at least five times in the space of two months (funnily enough, I stopped wearing those boots after that). But yeah. So when I turned on the radio this morning to see about school closures (very quietly, because my family were all asleep, the lazy bums), I smiled to myself when I heard the presenter say "We've only had one school closure so far; Henley College."

Then again, it was quarter past six in the morning. We all leave by half seven at the latest though (quarter past in my case) so we have to be notified quite early incase of closures.

My brother's school was closed as well in the end, so it was all good. But then I don't know if there's a school in the whole of the UK open today.

Obviously there is some truth to this global warming lark; this is the third heavy snowfall we've had this year, if we count the fact that there were two in February in the same week. That's quite a dramatic change, considering we've gone for years with no snow in the past. It's supposed to snow again on Tuesday as well - a white Christmas?

I remember when it snowed back in February and people I know in Norway thought it was incredibly unfair that our schools were closed at -2C and theirs were still open at -15, but it's because the UK is so unprepared for snow that when it comes, everything pretty much shuts down. It's crazy.

There's this girl I know who really pisses me off. She's so depressed all the time, and always complaining, and obviously that's fair enough sometimes because everybody does it, especially me, (and Becky) but all the time! It makes me feel like saying to her "Get a grip, we all have problems, not just you!" Ugh! I know I sound like a total hypocrite because I complain a lot as well but I don't think even I'm quite that bad.

I'm looking through all 332 pictures of me on Facebook and laughing at myself. God some of them are incredibly embarrassing. Especially the ones from when I was with Cora in summer and we were at Legoland with Heidi... the face I make when I'm laughing my head off isn't very attractive and Cora put them on Facebook anyway, the boring poo. Aww, but looking at the pics of that week just make me miss her and all the amazingness of staying with her and I can see in my eyes how happy I was then. I can't wait until March/July when I can finally see her again... you try having your closest friend living a thousand miles away. It's not easy, I can tell you, and I don't mean to sound like a stamp collector but Cora and I are pretty much the personification of cheese within our friendship. Seriously. Metaphorical cheese, that is; real cheese is disgusting.

Ra ra, ah ah ah, roma, ro ma ma, GaGa ooh la la, want your bad romance... Lady GaGa used to annoy me but she has seriously grown on me. Her songs are too catchy to hate, I've discovered, so it's easier to just give in.

Now I'm off to the cinema, so I will see you guys later. Have fun!

Molly x

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Back, I am! To quote Yoda.

Nativity is such a great film! I know it sounds pretty childish in its description but it's awesome. It's such a good feel good film and so Christmassy. I really recommend it!

Well, it was a fairly eventful day. With tiny little events that really mean nothing to you, but who cares? I'm going to tell you anyway. That's is what this blog is for, is it not?

I met up with Becky and Charlotte to watch the movie, but yesterday my mum and Freddie decided that they wanted to come too (yeah I know; super cool, going to the cinema with your mum, your brother, and your friends) so the plan was that my mum would drive into Reading earlier and I'd get the bus with Freddie later. However, because of the snow, and because I live so far in the middle of nowhere, nobody bothered to grit the roads up here so I thought the bus wasn't running because I sat at the window for twenty five minutes waiting to see the one before go past so I'd know it was working. It was, according to the website, but it was really late, so I thought it wasn't as I didn't see it. So I persuaded my dad to take Freddie and I to the station instead, and my mum got really angry with me because I 'cocked it up again' and didn't get the bus (even though I was positive they weren't working and to be honest, I could see why. It's so slippery on the roads here at the moment... thank God I'm not having driving lessons right now or I just might chicken out).

So then I met up with Becky and Charlotte and they gave me my Christmas presents (a Hello Kitty photo frame and shiz from Charlotte, very cute; and a little Accessorize Russian doll necklace, which I'm wearing now, and a small packet of Lindors from Becky. Yummmm.) and then we found my mum and Freds, coincidentally, in McDonalds, which was great because I got them to buy me food. Though I had just bought their tickets for the movie, although the money with which I bought them was technically my dad's... but shattap. You know what I mean.

As we were going into the cinema, Charlotte spotted a poster for St Trinian's 2 and shouted "Look! David Tennant!"

Becky and I immediately looked up and yelled "Where?!" whilst turning round in circles. Oh, we got some funny looks, but it's David Tennant, for God's sake! If there's even the slightest hint that he's around somewhere, one must take extra care to spot him. Innit.

We bumped into Alicia and her friends Ruby, Lora and Catherine on the way out of the cinema. They were going to see St Trinian's 2, so naturally a discussion about the hotness of David Tennant ensued... I mean - yum. Seriously. Who cares if he's thirty seven/eight?

I banged my leg against something sharp on the way to the carpark and now I've got a massive bruise there. Ouch. Although it's not as bad as my mum, who somehow managed to fall up an escalator and really hurt her knee, and had to drive all the way home from Reading impossibly slowly because not only could she not move her leg, but it was also incredibly icy and very dark, especially on the roads near our house. Not good. She was literally driving at a snail's pace, and we still skidded... it was really quite scary actually. Still, we appear to have survived, so it's all good.

One week until Christmas! We're getting our Christmas tree this weekend apparently (although this is the third week in a row my parents have said that so I'm not getting my hopes up too high. We have been known to put our tree up on Christmas eve before - though that was my mum, not me. I'd have it up much earlier, but not as early as Zoe - first of December every year is a little crazy, methinks.

Ugh I got home and found my computer locked; it needed a password to get into it and my dad was like "I think you'll be locked out of that for life now" and I was like NOOOOOOOOO! I can't be! That would mean losing everything, and that would be so undescribably horrible. Imagine having your entire life on your laptop and suddenly being locked out and losing everything, and that means college work as well as personal things - it's totally destroying for the soul! Luckily, when my dad came to look at it, he found a way of unlocking it and I'm now safely installed back in front of my darling laptop, tapping away as usual.

(Random bugbear: Don'ttt yooouu hatee peopleee whoo writee likee thisss?

It's SO annoying. Seriously, people, if you're going to bother writing the whole word and not using contractions, why add god knows how many extra letters to the end of the word? It's not time saving and it doesn't add anything; it just makes you look stupid. Obviously it's acceptable once in a while to emphasize a word, or as an accent stylisation, for example "Hiiiiii!", but otherwise it's unnecessary. Ugh!

Sorry about that. It just gets on my nerves - funny how the annoying people at college are the ones who write like that in their Facebook posts.)

It seems I've finally come down off my high from the concert and I feel quite normal again, so not particularly hyper anymore. I'm not sure when that happened - possibly our scary drive home earlier? I'm cold now though... maybe I'll go fill up the hot water bottle Hollie gave me.

Love you, bye!

Molly x

December 17th: Well, have I got news for you!

I've got soooo much to tell you! Where should I start?

(Probably by reading the post before this one, so I could continue some of the 'storylines' of my life, as it were. But I've already done that.)

(And I apologize incase I sound full of myself at any time in this post - I don't mean to, I just want to write it all down as it was so that I can remember it properly in the future. But those who know me well will know I'm so not the full-of-myself type.)

So. After I finished writing here yesterday, I went out of media and found it was raining - the snow was almost gone and my auntie and cousin (incidentally also called Hannah) were able to come, which was great. I was already at the rehearsal when they arrived, so I didn't see them until they actually arrived at the concert (we had to practice from 5.30 until 7.00, and the concert started at 7.30 - four hours of constant singing, including the concert itself, after having done hardly any for two and a half weeks; needless to say my voice isn't in peak condition today - is it ever? - but it's worth it.)

(I think we're going to need a key of Hannahs in this post, since I'll be mentioning three. Firstly we'll have Cousin Hannah, then we'll have Octava Hannah, and then of course there's Hannah-my-English-teacher. It's all so confusing, knowing so many Hannahs. I can think of at least six off the top of my head.)

Anyway I got to Langtree (my old school, where the concert was being held) at about 5.20, and we set up all the Christmas decorations and made the room look all amazing and Christmassy. Marion had made so many decorations, it was crazy! We put up mini Christmas trees, nativity scenes, fairy lights, tinsel, baubles-hanging-on-tinsel which we hung across the room, little flameless candles... it looked awesome. We only needed those for the second act though because that was when we were doing all the Christmas songs. We had a costume change for that, in which we wore scarves and gloves to achieve the carol singer look. I wore a Santa hat... how cool am I?

We had a very rushed rehearsal, since it does take more than an hour and a half to do all nineteen of our songs (we had twenty, but we cut Jingle Bells. I don't know why - I'd have preferred to cut Oh Happy Day to be quite honest, but oh well) but we had to stop at seven to let us have a break and pee/eat (not at the same time, obviously) and all that jazz.

Just before the concert started, Amy got us all into one of the little side rooms, and made us all hold hands, saying "Let's pray". (None of us are actually religious.)

Then we must have all had the same thought - because we all simultaneously said "Joyful joyful Lord, we adore thee. God of glory, Lord of love. Hearts unfold like flowers before thee... hail thee as the Sun above. Melt the clouds of sin, sin and sadness, drive the dark of doubt away. Drive it away! Giver of immortal gladness, fill us, fill us with the light of day."

Which, if you don't know, are the main lyrics of Joyful Joyful, which is our 'signature' song - you'll hear more about that later. Marion came in when we were just finishing it off and started laughing, which set us all off, and when we'd calmed down she stood between Octava Hannah and I, put her arms round us and said "I love you all. Be yourselves, have a good time; now let's rock!"

And we did. There weren't too many mistakes either - I messed up California Dreaming because I missed the cue but I think we recovered okay. I was mostly happy with my solos, except halfway through the second song, right before my most complicated solo, my throat somehow locked, and I couldn't go high or low. It was like having a ceiling in my throat - and if you've ever heard 'crazy verse four' in My Love is Your Love by Whitney Houston, you'll know a ceiling in your throat whilst singing it is not a good thing to have. I don't think it was too horrible sounding, but it's so frustrating when you know you can do something better than you did it.

I managed to unlock my throat somehow and survived the rest of the first act - Joyful Joyful was so much fun! It was the last song of the first act and we've sung it so many times at various places with the bigger vocal group (before we left Langtree, we were in the choir there, and it was massive. There must have been about fifty of us, of all ages and vocal ability) that it's become our sort of signature song and it's incredible fun. We actually did that again as an encore at the end of the concert.

Our first act songs were:

Lean On Me
My Love is Your Love
All That Jazz
Fallin'
California Dreaming
I'll Be There
Halo
Oh Happy Day
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Joyful Joyful

We all adore all these songs. Except Happy Day, which we all hate, because we can't do it justice on account of not having gospel-enough voices.

The second act was just as awesome. We sung all our Christmas songs:

Silent Night
In The Bleak Midwinter (it seems not many people know our version)
Winter Wonderland
Away in a Manger
O Holy Night (Marion sung a solo on this one and she was amazing)
All I Want For Christmas
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Oh Come All Ye Faithful

The song I haven't listed was Ave Maria, which Annie sung with Marion doing a harmony, so the rest of us didn't sing that. Halfway through, though, I thought I was about to get a coughing fit and I was just praying that I wouldn't - so embarrassing, seriously. I didn't, though. Luckily. Although I did have to drink a hell of a lot of water and I kept bending down to get my bottle between songs - I must have looked a bit stupid, but oh well. It kept my voice alive enough to do the concert, so it was worth looking daft. Besides, I am a daft gherkin after all!

My mum said later that when we sang Halo it made her cry, because it was played on the radio when she was visiting my grandad in hospital before he died back in May and it made her think of him. When we were singing I knew she would be thinking that and I was just looking at her and trying to let her know that I knew what she was thinking... if that made any sense at all. Eye contact is a wonderful thing. Like when I knew how much my entire family dislike Happy Day and I raised an eyebrow at my dad whilst we were singing it and made him laugh. Which, in hindsight, probably wasn't a great idea as it almost made me laugh right along with him.

God, I've never felt so at home performing in front of people! I've done stuff like this a few times now - obviously never with Octava - but I've never felt so nerve-free and as if I belonged there. The nerves that I had yesterday all disappeared halfway through the first song and I was just remembering every piece of 'advice' my mum has ever given me - head up, keep smiling, dance from side to side a bit - which obviously we'd already planned to do - and it seemed to work. I just had the most incredible fun. I've been in such a good mood ever since and I just keep wishing I was back up there, doing it again.

My mum is one of those parents who will tell you exactly what's wrong with something and that can be very depressing sometimes, but at least I know that when she gives me a compliment (which she's been doing a surprising amount lately - I wonder if I've done something to please her) she really means it. Last night she said she was really proud of me and (shh, don't tell the others) that I was the best singer in the group... which of course every parent will be saying right now, but shh. It's still lovely to hear.

This is where I'm going to sound full of myself, so ignore me for a few minutes.

Annie, who I swear doesn't like me, came up to me at the end of the show and said "Molly, I'm in love with your voice... give it to me!"

That made me so happy. I replied "You can have it, if you give me yours"... she has a fabtabulous and high voice (I so wish I could sing high) and she replied "You don't want mine! You want to keep yours and give me yours..." and she also said "Your solo in Joyful Joyful just sends shivers down my spine."

I was like awww! But to be honest I think it's the solo itself rather than me - Genni Simpson, who is a year younger than me so still at Langtree, sang it when we were in the big choir and she was amazing. I think that if you're an alto, that line will make you sound good. Seriously.

Annie also apparently said to my mum that she didn't realize how good I was until last night - despite having heard me sing a lot (she's exaggerating, I'm not that good. I was just not giving it everything I had in the rehearsals and last night I really did my best. Dan, the sound guy, also managed to position the alto microphone right in front of me, which is a good thing because although I can sing quite loudly, other people can sing louder and it's hard to sing loudly when you're singing low.

Marion's husband Massimo apparently said to my dad that I was one of the good ones and 'a performer'. I have never thought of myself as a performer in my entire life. I just didn't think I had it in me, but I'm beginning to think I've been bitten by the bug of performing... and I'm loving it!

Then, when I sang my solo in Joyful Joyful, the second time, Becky whispered "Lovely" to me when I stepped back. I think I just managed to avoid pulling a face at her, but only because people were watching. Marion also told me later that she saw Becky give me a "Holy crap, you're amazing" look when I sang it as well. What is wrong with these people's hearing? Honestly! I'm really not amazing at all.

But that reminds me: in the interval I was telling my mum and my auntie how amazing Marion is (because she really, really is) and I told Marion what I was telling them and she was like "No, you're amazing! You've got a lovely voice and you've got so much more confident lately! You're amazing!" and I denied it and said she was and we ended up having a "You're-amazing-no-you're-amazing" fight. It was quite amusing, especially when we had another one later on. ;)

Then of course there were all the comments to everyone about "It was fantastic, excellent, brilliant" etc. That's always nice to hear. And then at the end Marion gave us all cards (which she had made herself - it said Marion Nicolosi cards on the back. Very exciting) which had a lollipop in them. Love it. She'd written something in everyone's card and for everyone I looked at she'd written something along the lines of "It's great having you in the group, your energy and positive outlook makes it really nice to work with you" or something, but in mine she wrote "It's been great to see your confidence grow and then see your true ability starting to shine through. Well done!"

She's so sweet. I gave her a Christmas card too and Becky, Zoe and I gave her some chocolates (though they haven't given me their share of the money for them yet so technically it was only me who gave them) which a label which said "Thanks for being so amazing" in it. We do love Marion. I actually sent her a very cheesy email earlier which thanked her for all the work she did for the concert and said how great it was and how amazing she is and all that jazz. I kept telling her how amazing she is last night but she didn't believe me and she sent a mass text to Becky, Zoe and I to say thanks for the chocolates, in which she wrote "Molly: sorry if I seemed weird, I was just embarrassed" so I had to tell her I didn't mean to embarrass her.

Actually, going back to what I said earlier about wanting to sing high: my dad was saying in the car on the way home that it was nice to have a lower voice, that one expects girls to sing high and not husky, and that it's rarer and therefore 'more special'. (I don't believe that for a second. I'd still love to be able to reach high notes and sing all those beautiful high songs like Pie Jesu). On the other hand, though, I actually agree with him to a degree; I know that being an alto is rarer than being a mezzo and I do like being different (and it gives me a real sense of satisfaction to know that even though I'm not so great at the high notes, I can go pretty low. Therefore it is very depressing to know that Cora, who claims to be a mezzo, can go far higher than and just as low as me - being friends with that girl is extremely depressing sometimes, especially if your self confidence isn't the highest it could be. She's just too good at everything. But she has this effect on people where you just can't help loving her anyway. Don't you hate it when perfect people are too nice to hate?)

Moving on to stuff a little less me-related: since the beginning of term, my tutor group has been looking for a name for ourselves and ages ago, since Hannah's last name is Edwards, I suggested 'Team Edwards'. Yes, I know very well it's from Twilight; that's why I said it. Now, this was a couple of months ago, and I thought Hannah had forgotten - until she said in tutor yesterday "By unspoken consensus, we are now called Team Edwards."

It actually made me ridiculously happy that she chose my suggestion, but then the alternative was Bionic Bunnies, which, as Hannah pointed out, sounds like some kind of sex toy.

I talked to her again today after the lesson (which I'll write about in just a sec) and said "I find it so funny that you actually called our tutor group Team Edwards. I didn't make it as a serious suggestion."

I can't remember exactly what she replied, but I know it was positive. Which is always nice to hear.

Ooh! Remember that mock exam? I didn't fail the second one either. In fact I got a B again, and I beat the boy who used to be Langtree's biggest nerd. (Okay, I am boasting here, but I love doing well in English. It's just so much my thing!) Like last time, I wrote "That was bad" on the back of the paper and this time Hannah replied "No it's not! Quite the opposite!"

I am so determined to get an A in English.

Today, since it was the last English lesson before the Christmas holidays, we did a Christmas quiz, and one of the questions was "In Doctor Who, what planet is the Doctor from?"

Hannah was like "I don't think any of you will know this. If you do, you're freaks."

Needless to say, being the Whovian I am, I knew it, and so did Steve (who is actually called Jess, but there's already a Jess in our class and Hannah wants to distinguish between them. She's perfectly happy to have three Hannahs in our class though, including herself. I wonder if it's because she likes the name...). When we did the answers and it came to light that Steve and I knew the answers, Hannah pointed at us one by one and said, very slowly, "You're a nerd."

I am. But she loves it. And at least I'm a nerd at her subject. :)

There was also a question in the quiz: "What song is the line "You're gonna be the one that saves me" from?"

I only knew this because of a grammar group on Facebook which I joined, in which someone pointed out the incorrect use of 'that' in the line above. I said to my group "The grammar in that song is crap" (which it is. Just look at it!) and I looked up to see Hannah giving me a raised eyebrow look. Honestly, I can't help it if I'm a grammar freak.

We ended up drawing with another group to win the quiz. We both got thirty-five out of fifty, but my group lost on the tie-breaker question. However, I can't say I was that disappointed; the prize was to leave ten minutes early from the next English lesson and since I love English way too much, I dislike missing even a bit of it. Besides, our lessons finish ten minutes earlier after Christmas anyway.

So I was talking to Hannah after the lesson and she was showing me pictures of a very snowy Welsh beach, which is where she comes from (not the beach, obviously, she has a house) and she was all excited because she's going back home to see her family tomorrow. Ages ago, I bought Becky a Gavin and Stacey book for Christmas, but she already has it and yesterday Hannah mentioned in tutor that she liked Gavin and Stacey, so I was like "I am so giving it to her." So I told her how I came to be stuck with it and asked her if she'd like it, and she was like "Are you sure? This is fantastic! Where did you get it?"

"The pound shop. But don't tell anyone."

For some reason Hannah found that incredibly funny. Then she said that she was taking it back to Wales with her and that I am now her favourite student: "You just rocketed to the top of my list. If you keep this up you're going to get an A whether you deserve it or not!"

Then she said "If it wasn't illegal, I would give you a great big hug. So consider yourself verbally hugged. Have a great big verbal Christmas hug."

Later on, I was talking to Becky and her friend and telling Becky about the fact that Hannah now has the Gavin and Stacey book that was intended for her, and Becky saw Hannah walking past and goes "It's the best book ever!"

And Hannah reiterated the fact that I was to consider myself verbally hugged, and then somehow a conversation ensued about the fact that The Lion King is based on Hamlet because Hannah's Literature class are watching it tomorrow - "but if anyone refuses to sing Hakuna Matata they will be forced to leave the class" - and when Hannah went into her classroom Becky turned to me and said "Your English teacher is the best!"

I was like "I know."

This is why I can not leave her class next year. She has to teach me, or I may be forced to eat somebody. (Yes, it could be you. Fear for your liiiiife.)

On the bus, on the way home, Zoe said to me "You really like talking to your English teachers, don't you?"

(This is because last year, because my English teacher was half Danish/half Scottish and I adore Danish things, I would talk to her about it. Actually I do believe it is a year today since I missed the bus because I was talking to her and ended up getting home when my mum was out and had to wait in the freezing cold and dark until she got home at six, and then go babysitting. Not a great evening, that. But it was worth it to talk to her; I enjoyed it. In the end, when I told her I was going to Denmark to see Cora in the summer, she gave me her little Danish/English dictionary for my birthday, which I thought was very sweet of her. It's very helpful too, even if I didn't actually use it when I was there because it was easier just to ask my 'live translator' (whom I really miss! I hope I see you soon, Cora, or I'll die!))

But yes, I do like talking to my English teachers. For some reason I always get given very interesting people to teach me English, with whom I get along very well, which has got to be a good thing.

I'm something of a 'Golden Dorothy' at the moment because I'm wearing VERY sparkly gold shoes. I wanted something Christmassy to wear, even if these are slightly too small. I haven't worn them for years but they're gorgeous and I couldn't resist. You've got to have a bit of sparkle at Christmas!

Oh and Hollie got me an amazing hot water bottle for Christmas! I'm so going to use that like all the time; it's bloody freezing here. It's been snowing quite a bit lately and apparently we're expecting a lot more snow before Christmas (i.e. tonight). I hope it doesn't ruin our plans for tomorrow though; since college finishes at twelve, Charlotte, Becky and I are going into Reading to see Nativity. Nice Christmassy movie to get us into the spirit of the holidays.

I think that's it for now - I've probably forgotten something but I have to go now so I'll stick it in tomorrow's post if I have. (Blog post, that is, not letter post.) Sorry for my terrible writing today but when I have a lot to say, I sort of forget about making it interesting to read and instead I just bung it down on the page and hope it makes sense.

It never usually does.

Molly x

I even bought an adult ticket for the train on the way home yesterday, and no evil ticket collector even came round to check. How rude. So I bought a child one on the bus, just to spite him.

December 16th: Concert day!

Oh shit.

That is what I'm thinking right now. It's what I'm always thinking when I have things such as this to do; things that scare the absolute pants off me. Don't get me wrong, I adore singing and I'm growing to love performing, but I still get the craziest nerves/excitement before I do anything. I also didn't get much sleep last night which really doesn't help and I was too hyped up to eat breakfast this morning... so. Also my cough seems to have got worse overnight: RUDE! I just want it over with now, because we've done soooo much work towards this, and it's been crazy with preparations for it for the last month.

But enough of me complaining. When I get the recordings back I'll stick them on YouTube for you guys to have a listen to and you can tell me if we messed up (though I think we'll already know).

(Random point: my IT teacher just randomly goes "Ooh! It just reminded me of my birthday" to nobody in particular. I love it when teachers say stuff out of the blue like that. Once, when I was in year seven, my science teacher - who is like middle aged and very proper - said "Oh, she's such a bitch!" and the entire room went completely silent. It's like now when a teacher says fuck and everyone starts laughing in a shocked oh-my-God-did-he-just-say-that kind of way. My history teacher does it all the time; yesterday he was trying to put the DVD on with the lights off and he couldn't see what he was doing - it resulted in a lot of "Oh, fucking hell!" - Love it.)

Sorry I didn't write here last night, by the way, but I was running around like a headless chicken trying to get everything organised for the concert. I usually have to leave to go to vocal group half an hour after I get home, but today I'm getting the train/bus home so I'll be home an hour and a half earlier. I adore not having anything on a Wednesday afternoon. I don't think I'll have time to write here tonight either (hence why I'm doing it now) because we probably won't finish until nine at the earliest. I'll let you know tomorrow how it went.

Oh my God, I heard the most horrible thing yesterday! I must not have heard her say it, but my friend Charly told me that Hannah said that we might not have her for English next year because she might not be teaching second years. This absolutely can not happen! I need her teaching. I can't have anybody else for English now that I've got used to her! I love English to bits, but when she was away (she had swine flu for two weeks) it just wasn't as good. She is the most amazing teacher and yes I know I sound like I'm totally sucking up but it's all true! I just love her. (Not in a stampy way. D'oh.)

(I should probably explain "stamp collecting"; when my friend Georgina was little, she asked her parents what a lesbian was and her parents, reluctant to tell her, said it was somebody who collected stamps. When she told us this, we found it hilarious and have called lesbians stamp collectors ever since. It can be so funny when one finds something talking about actual stamp collectors (as in the kind who collect those sticky pieces of paper one puts on letters) and reads it as lesbians such as "this is a serious matter, and we're treating it as if it were stamp collecting!")

Anyway. Back to Hannah. Charly and I intend to beg her at the end of tutorial today to teach us next year; we simply can't have anyone but her. Besides we're in her tutor group so we can't be in another teacher's class... oh God, I absolutely refuse to change tutor groups. She's amazing! And she's a really good teacher and it's just so depressing to think that we might not have her next year.

Anyway I'd better be off now since IT's over, so I'll see you tomorrow. Wish me luck! *Hint Cora* :)

Molly x

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I don't see the point in starting another post since it's still the same day, but I'm in media and since Zoe's put music on and seems not to mind that nobody's doing any work, I figured I'd give you 'orrible lot an update in what's been going down in my "crazy" life since I stopped writing here two and a half hours ago.

Firstly: IT'S SNOWING!

Usually this would be fabtabulous news, but my auntie and my cousin are only going to come to the concert if the weather's good because they live an hour away and I so want them to be there. I do understand that it's dangerous on the roads when it's icy, especially in the dark, so that's why they can't come, but it's still disappointing. Bloody weather and it's definitely snowing. And settling. I ask you! The one time it actually snows in December - and I do believe this is the first time within my memorable lifetime when it has - is the one time I don't want it to. And it usually never settles either! Honestly. I don't want it to snow tomorrow either because I freaking love Thursdays. And we're having a Christmas party in English tomorrow.

Oh, speaking of English, I talked to Hannah after tutor and she said it was unlikely that our class would be split up because we're block 2 (which won't make any sense to you - it's just the blocks of time in which our lessons are etc) and it depends on whether she teaches second years next year, but she'll try to. Or, she whispered to me conspirationally, she would try to get me in her friend Anna's class "because she's lovely". I've met Anna before actually; she taught the creative writing enrichment classes I dropped out of ages ago because they clashed with Starbucks Friday. Did I already tell you that? I forget these things. But yeah, I think Anna and I would get along well because she's a grammar freak who loves David Tennant. Now where have I heard of someone like that before?

I'm sure I would like her, but Hannah's still the most amazing teacher I've ever had and I refuse to be given someone else for English. It's just simply rude.

Ooh! All I Want For Christmas just came on the radio and it's one of the songs we're doing tonight, so I was singing along. Hannah (-from-media) was as well, it's not just me. I still don't understand why Marion gave the lowest singer in the group the highest solo in the song... but hey, I like a challenge.

Anyway, I'll be off now (for the second time). I don't think there will be any more posts today so I'll catch you later!

Molly x