But we who serve Art sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only for a short while, we create pleasure which almost seems real.

Mood good.

Wearing black school trousers, a white shirt, a mongy white vest top and my dressing gown.

Eating/Drinking nowt.

Hearing Black Lab - Ecstasy

Dreamt about (I had a really sad – but disjointed – dream last night.) I met Fleetwood Mac again, and for some reason they were in the school sports hall, for no apparent reason. And there were quite a few people there, but yet only I was the one who was really interested in them. And John McVie gave me a fair of these really gorgeous 70s Levi flares and, like on the day before Leavers Day, we were supposed to sign these jeans. And I was writing an awful lot on the back of the jeans. But no one seemed to mind, and while I was doing it, I was really sad about about it for some reason. I had this feeling that this would be the last time I’d ever see them. And Stevie was really distant this time. I didn’t even see Mick or Christine and Lindsey was around. Then something else happened and I was a tester at Leon Paul, testing these new Golubitsky shoes (which don’t exist). And that was that.

Currently reading the brilliant Kate Cann series. With Rich. I want my own Rich. Mmm.

Present MSN name Cats taste like chicken? Mine just tastes like fur. Was I supposed to peel them?

Last text from Bo’.

Word of the Day Hydrogen.

I have a lot to say this time, because, actually, stuff has been happening to me. Not all good, but that is life for you.

I left school, twice. Once was on Leaver’s Day, and the other was on the Friday the week after. I had a couple of my GCSE exams. I went to a party. Bleugh. I went to a Uganda-funding quiz night at the Legion. Joy. I went fencing – nothing new there. I went to another fencing competition. I did some waitressing today. Then I collapsed more of less from exhaustion a couple of days ago, and didn’t wake up until a few minutes after midday on Sunday when my dad told me that Bo’ was coming over to collect the shoes that I didn’t give her at church, like I said I would – presumably because I was still unconscious and nobody had woken me up.

And yesterday was the dreaded fencing competition. I’m not entirely sure even now why I agreed to go. And I think it is more probable that the idea of seeing Alex again may have tipped my mind, but I should have known better – why would he be there? He only does LPJS for one reason, which means there is no point in going all the way to an Open which gains you basically nothing, currently. Well, sorta. But I am not explaining most of the FIE rules regarding all that, right now. E-mail me if you want to know. Harhar.

Anyhoo, I prepared my bag the night before, as per always. I went to bed about midnight because neither Danielle nor my ma would help me out with my fencing kit or lunch while I was out and having to attend the quiz night.

Then I had to wake up again about ten minutes later – 4.30 or so. Though I got up at 5. Got picked up at 5.30 and there was Floyd, Andy and Floyd’s girlfriend, Tracy in the car. Awkward, awkward, awkward. Cos I don’t know any of these people all that well.

And what made it worse was that the car was really uncomfortable, we were up at an ungodly hour, it would be a two and a half hour drive to York, I couldn’t talk to these people, Andy kept coughing and then took his shirt off ( Why? :s ) and then, to top it off, Floyd insisted on having the radio on. And it wasn’t even a good station. It was Radio 4, and they really must be struggling with programmes, because the one that we had to listen to – majorly, majorly sucked.

It was about the ‘two great English passions – drinking tea and gardening.’ No kidding. And they talked all about tea for a while, and talked about every bloody type of tea, and then interviewed everyone who has ever drunk tea (it felt like to me) and then the interview went to this castle thing and talked for age about a horse she passed and then went on to talk about grass for a while as well as other pointless vegetation such as hedgerows. And it went on, and on, and on, and on. And I thought the terror would never stop, but it did, finally, when Floyd changed the station and went onto Radio 1, where Fallout Boy was played, followed by every track Kanye West has ever made. Including his new one with Jamie Foxx (which is crap) and throughout the day, it was played about 8 or 9 times. Frankly, I don’t care if he had a one night stand which was really good. I really don’t give a damn.

There was this person who DJ Spoony talked to, who said that she hadn’t slept all night because she was so excited about going to Alton Towers the next day. Which is a bit sad.

About ten minutes unto this car journey, I was willing it all to stop, as well as basically gnawing my own arm off to dull the pain that Radio 4 was inflicting on me.

We got there, and then got lost, and then got there again, because the first time we got there, we had gone to a school with exactly the same name as the school that we were supposed to go to which was hosting the Open, except that the first school wasn’t the right one so we had to travel about ten miles until we reached the right one, which, to be honest, looked exactly the same as the first. Though there were less trees in the grounds.

We got there at 8am and there was nothing to do, so we went to find a café so we could grab a cup of coffee (not tea, HA!), except, in York, there are no cafés. There are no restaurants. The pubs don’t open until 2pm, the takeaways don’t open until 6pm, and where you would expect so see a café, you see a salon or hairdressers. You couldn’t get away from them; they were EVERYWHERE.

In Derby, you can’t go two minutes without seeing somewhere to eat or drink (or both), but York is different. I think these people have got severe insecurity issues about their looks.

So we went back to the school, all dejected, and Andy kept calling his mum ( Why? :s ) every time we changed our mind about something, or moved, or breathed.

Foilists were to check in at 9am, epeeists at 10.30am. The truth was, foilists checked in at 9am, and I sat around doing nothing for an awfully long time and being very bored and uncomfortable because nothing happened for the epeeists until past 1pm.

Then, when things did start to happen, only one piste out of the seven that were in the hall (it was a tiny competition, I was expecting it to be truly massive).

I did okay in my first poule; I won a fight 5-0 against this guy who looked like a cross between Theo and James (the one from aaaaages ago). Mmm-mm, nice. Finger-lickin’ good! ;)

Second poule – I was so zonked by then, that I did really badly. There was this one guy who was literally 6’4” (I asked him) and he won 5-1, easy-peasy. I was going for foot hits, he didn’t have to do much to get me. All of them were mask hits.

So anyway, I still managed to get into the DEs. I was against a guy who fenced at my Foiled Again back when it was with Derby Adult Learning at Bemrose School. He was also from my first poule; first fight of the compy.

I lost 15-5. But, in my defence, I was really tired, he was very good and has been fencing for an awfully long time and I have been fencing not even three years yet, and I’m also a bit crap, especially when I’m tired, so leave me alone.

Floyd was moaning most of the day that he was fencing really badly, and that he wanted to change weapons to epee. And he kept saying that he could have won against the people in his poule (but he didn’t even win one bout) and it annoyed me a bit, cos it was being a bit of a sore loser.

Talking of sore losers, there was this girl from my first poule; a H. Shaklesbury type, and she was really pretentious and basically really up herself. She lost her DE and she went to her parents in tears. She was about my age, and it was just pathetic.

We left. I dozed off in the car. We got home, and I got out, thanked Floyd and then went and sat on the porch, as I had no key to let myself in with.

I dissected some grass and waited for my folks to come home, which they did nearly an hour later.

Nothing interesting happened until the next day. I went to this quiz night/auction thingy at the Legion. We raised over £400 for the Uganda fund, and that was great.

Tim and Curly crack me up. Air, water, HYDROGEN! Heehee.

And Lewis was quiet but lovely. Emily was alright, and it was hilarious when evil Alyson was talking to Tim. Glaring daggers galore.

Went home, slept. Slept right through Ellie’s text message. Slept right through my wake-up call for church.

Therefore I didn’t give Bo’ her shoes and she came round to pick them up.

Sunday basically was boring. Though I did go round to my grandfolks’ house for Sunday lunch. Which was fine until Shelby came along. Cos I was really tired and she was just clinging to me pretty much all the time. She kept writing me ‘letters’ saying how much she liked playing with me. I tired to teach her a bit more French, but she wasn’t getting it this time round.

And while I was doing that, apparently Veronica and Alistair were talking to Nanny and Grampy. Their suggestion was that V&A fire their current French tutor for Shelby and then hire me. They didn’t say anything to me though. Nanny and Grampy told me later one, once they’d left.

Shelby’s a little, fat, spoiled brat, but she’s okay with me. So if they’re going to pay me, and lessons don’t interfere with school or my ‘busy’ social life, I don’t have a problem with it. Also, I’m not going to fork out for books out of my own pocket.

So that’s all good.

Today I did some waitressing at a house just round the corner from me, in this really posh, exceedingly clean and tidy and cool house. Sue, Lewis, me and Bo’ took the first shift (Katie and Claire would take the second, followed by Alyson and Jamie for the third and finally Josh, Dave and Emily for the final shift) and it was actually quite fun. We had some evil people to cater for again, but we dealt with it. The first guy who turned up, it turned out that no one knew who he was. Maybe he just drove past and somehow found out that it was an open house party; who knows? But it was really funny all the same.

Righty then. As for my GCSEs, I’ve now done my French Speaking exam (a while ago) and more recently I did my French Listening and my English Literature paper. They both went alright, surprisingly. I was really worried about these two in particular, but it was really fine. I just hope that me being so positive now doesn’t mean that I actually did kinda crap and would just about scrape a D if I was lucky…

My English paper was interesting though: I got my Havisham questions. :) I woke up with an evil sore throat (which I do most days now, cos I sleep with my mouth open, unfortunately. The old saying: ‘cutting your nose off to spite your face’ isn’t relevant for me. My nose looks horrible and doesn’t actually work, either. So if I were to cut it off, I doubt anyone would care.)

Either way, I drank loads of water to try and ease my throat up a bit, and of course, I needed the toilet quite badly in the middle of the exam. In my crazy and slightly sleepy mind, I was actually considering if I could just let it all go (*cringe*) without anybody noticing. I came out of the exam feeling a bit disgusted with myself for that sole reason.

Oh, and I sold some stuff on eBay. I just totted it all up and I raised £171.52. But £80 of that hasn’t turn up. I hope it does soon. Or poor old Jose would have just lost that money and he won’t receive my foil. Please let it turn up.

And finally, Leavers Day… that fateful day.

In the morning, I got ready. I had to wake up at about 5am so my mum could do my hair. I got ready, got the dress ready: everything was good. I was really tired though, cos I stayed up late to sort out my trolley.

In the morning it started raining, and my and my dad covered up my trolley (and has to redo some of it, because it just wouldn’t work while it was raining…).

I got up to Pastures Hill and waited in the rain with Greg for Lucy and Jodie. Lucy came along a few minutes later, but Jodie took ages. Then our Yr10s wheeled us in.

A group of the crowd actually booed us when we came in. But everyone else was cheering. And the people around the kids that were booing, just hit them until they stopped. ‘Twas tres amusant.

When I got out of my trolley, I kinda kneed Miss Doran which I’m not that sorry about… and the rest of the day (until the evening) was not that interesting.

For the evening, I have just taken a few sections out of the Silent Blog to explain stuff as briefly as I can. I don’t even know why I’m posting this bit. Here y’go:

‘I want to die. I really want to curl up and die and then last night won’t exist and people won’t care anymore. I am so unbelievably stupid. Why why why?

And I feel like that, not because I have a hangover, cos I feel perfectly fine and I woke up quite alright – but because of memories of what I did and that evokes so much shame that I actually never want to face any of my friends ever again.

I mean, sure, a lot of people get blind drunk (which I don’t think I actually was -drunk, yes; blind drunk, no – cos at least I actually remember everything from last night, which makes things so much worse). And they do stupid things and vomit everything and they come to school next day, laugh about it with their mates and do the same thing the next night.

It started at Greg’s house. Amy, Lucy, Jodie, Greg & Freddy were there and we were all chatting. When I say ‘we’, I meant ‘they’ – I was finding it really hard to join in because it hit me that I don’t see these people socially much.

I had a couple of Carlings and a tiny bit of some vodka lemony stuff and tried my best to join in. Nay, Georgie Snape and Crocker came by and thank God – that made things easier. We all totally loosened up. Then Joe-t’Hoe and Richard came by and they were totally out of it. A Greg (don’t know his surname) and Richard had come by before and we were supposed to go over to Greg’s house for his party.

We all walked over, Joe and Richard kept falling over and stuff and it was really hilarious. Amy and I walked together for some of it and she told me a couple of times she loved me and told me she wasn’t drunk, but just hyper. I knew what she meant cos I was too – but I think that phase is just called ‘tipsy’.

We got in, many people were just about dead. I got a bit worried about Steph W who was there cos she was out of her head and she was still drinking. She spent an awful long time lying in the flowers or whatever and a couple of times I thought she was actually dead.

I drank quite a bit, danced a lot. I mean, I should have stopped just there. This is me, I don’t dance. So obviously by then I was a bit gone. I talked to a few people including Nay and Georgie who were basically sober and didn’t seem to be having the time of their lives.

Then, the next half an hour was horrible, so I won’t talk about it.

Then I started feeling ill and was. Jodie and Lucy started to look after me, sat me down, made me eat some chips and supplied me with lots of water. Then, at 11:45, we all went back to Greg Hill O’Connor’s house where I drank more water and tried to not succumb to sickness, but failed. Twice in the house. Officially now, I have never been more embarrassed in all my life.

At one point Greg’s dad had to hold me up, or at least I think it was him. I don’t know; I didn’t actually see him.

Lucy came out to give me water and after she went, Nay came up to me and by then I was crying my eyes out because I was so humiliated cos I am just so stupid.

She told me it was okay, just like everyone did, everyone just kept telling me it was okay… how was it? I am never going to get another invite out again, I’ll tell you that.

Jodie came out one last time, Greg’s dad was smoking a cigarette and I was leaning on a trolley, he said it was fine and not to worry and then my dad called, Jodie answered and then he came to pick us up. Jodie and my dad talked, and then we dropped her at her house, which I don’t remember and then we came home, and I just remember getting undressed, putting my pj bottoms on and then jumping into bed, feeling foul and stupid.

And then I woke up, remembering my escapades, texted people to apologise and I need to do a few more after midday, and then I sat down to write this.

And just to think, the worst day ever – leaver’s day was so awful that it actually made me want to go out and get drunk, and now I’ve been there, I now know that I’d rather live through leaver’s day a thousand times than do what I did last night again.

Everyone, I am so sorry.’

And so that was awful. I spent most of the next day apologising to people. Particularly Nay and Lucy. I need to get Greg’s dad some chocolates. Gosh… it wasn’t a good night.

And on a better note - I can’t wait until tomorrow… I’m going to see X-Men 3… finally! After so long of waiting avidly for it! Wootyville!

And I’ll be orff now. G’bye.