adventures in year twelve

7 million days to go just kidding it’s only 49 friday 26th september

Photoset captions: Top left: Chiron and Jakin pose in front of the new study table Community holler at cha Top right: kebab a la naturals. i think i’ve posted this photo before, but kebab is just so photo worthy, you’re gonna see it again. Mid: throwback to the time I broke my bumper and Nathan fixed it with a belt tie. Good times Bottom left: art room view Bottom right: the peanut desk in all its glory

Friday. Since I got lazy and didn’t record what went down so here’s a dot point synopsis:

In a mad rush to get to school at 9am, I neglected to double check the lesson time. It was from 11am-2pm. A few jimmies were rustled that morning.

Walked into school to find the corridor light completely off, eerily creepy looking. Believing nobody was there at the new study area, I strolled down the corridor in the dim (kinda silent hill-esque) lighting and nearly completely peed my pants when Christian popped out from under the peanut shaped table. Needless to say, the intensity of jimmy rustling was increased tenfold.

After doing a grand total of 2 sentences after an hour, a relocation of troops was in order to the art room, where magical sorcery magics of fluorescent tube lights existed. After travelling via Tom airways (piggyback) (he offered to piggyback Christian as well) (christian politely declined as he lagged behind, mildly deterred from the uncouth transport metjods), Christian and I arrived at the art room where we pretty much proceeded to complete -3 work (well just me) at a different location.

Chemistry lesson consisted of soap and bleach and chlorine and other stuff before finally, the end was nigh. Yes, after a good 2 hours of work, the chemistry course content had been finished off with a final highlight of a sentence detailing hypochloric acid treating water. Bam, done.

The 15 minute break consisted of a rush to David’s house to get his source analysis, which ended up taking 25 minutes. When we reached school again, David patted his jumper nervously before dropping this beauty of a line, “wait did I take it”

…Turns out not lol :’)

Rest of the day was a blur, filled with breaking bad references and food.

50 days to go - insert snappy caption thursday 25th september

today I learned a few things:

You can’t trust year 12s with any amount of responsibility because WITHOUT A TEACHER LITERALLY -3 THINGS GET DONE (re: bottom left image). YEAH THEY COMPLAIN ’oh but miss, we’re like adults like we’re 18 and we think we’re so smart and cool because we can do whatever we want and turn up late to class holding a coffee…watch us drink alcohol whOA SO BAD ASS hehe’, but seriously you might as well treat them as babies because although they’ve nearly completed 12 years of structured schooling where skills of bladder discipline and emotional resilience has been developed, apparently they STILL haven’t learned self-regulation or any sense of work ethic. I’M 300% SURE THAT NO WORK WAS COMPLETED TODAY IN OUR 3 HOUR MATHS APPS SESSION. honestly, i just watched jordan play cookie clicker.

Psychology Trial Exams - It’s actually not too bad if you don’t study as much as you thought because about 86% of a trial exam is yoloable. Except for when you’re thrown a random question about fixing an exercise routine for a child training to be an olympic swimmer. What am I supposed to tell you to do? Swim faster?? ???????????

Obesity - It’s a real struggle between a bacon sandwich or an ice cream sandwich or 3

me: since i forgot to take a photo of the day here is a synopsis in chat form

today: ALRIGHT WHO'S READY ITS A BEAUTIFUL DAY, THE SUN'S SHINING

sace: FINAL BIO ASSESSMENT TODAY AT 8:50!

me: *sleeping*

me: *sleeping*

me at 8am: *sleeping*

me at 8.15am: *sleeping*

me at 8.25am: *sleeping*

me at 8.28am: *suddenly bolts upright in bed* OH RIGHT I CAN'T SLEEP IN TODAY SHIET

// the preceeding before the test outside \\

*discussing our varying levels of screwed*

me: we are so not ready

aaron: i'm probably gonna have to pull the glandular fever card

brandon: awwwwww f*ck

tom *not even in bio*: no you'll be fine. tell me what meiosis is again

brandon: when concentrations of the exchange of wate-

me: brandon, that's osmosis

brandon: ohhhh. is it?

me: ...yeah

me: there's not even an e in osmosis how did you get them confused

// at 9am in class \\

mr davis: *walks in*

mr davis:

mr davis: well i hope there's going to be a better turn out than this today

(there's only 4 people in class)

// during the test \\

mr davis: right you can start

everyone: *flips open the test paper*

me:

me:

me: i can't answer the first question

me: someone send help

me: or a dictionary

*also in the test*

aaron: ((faint singing)) my anaconda don't.... my anaconda don't want none unless you got buns hun... *starts mumbling rap*

felicia: *sends are you insane look*

*two hours later*

me: yes nearly done

me:

me: oh wow i missed a whole page

me: sace 1, crystal 0.

christabel: HEY BRRP *send 454 messages in sucession*

my phone: *law and order message tone* x53325 times

John Green An Abundance of Katherines

and I cannot at all (not even if I used all the words in the english vocabulary… hell not even if you threw in french, italian and russian) describe how ready I am to be done. (INNER VOICE INTENSIFIES) I WOULD LIKE TO BE DONE RIGHT NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU. Anyway, here is the much awaited obligatory warning post which should come with enrolling in year 12. aka. the penultimate rant detailing what you should expect. YEAR 12. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. WHILST TAKING THIS MEDICATION COMPLETING THIS YEAR, THE FOLLOWING SIDE-EFFECTS MAY OCCUR: 1) Permanent Tiredness: no one mentioned that if you do year 12, you’re practically signing yourself up for a whole entire year of being relentlessly tired. so incredibly tired. And it’s not even just the generic ‘oh haha i didn’t sleep enough’ or the lame excuse you throw when people ask how it’s going or whatever, no, the tired i’m refering to is not even being able to maintain your body weight tired. Like physically debilitating, my vision is blurry and I can’t stand up tired. The tired where you can’t even eat. I know what you’re thinking, dear reader. Oh, there goes crazy Crystal. Off on her own tangent, talking things up a million times more than what they really are. I admit that I have a tendency to draw things out for dramatic purposes. (I made a pact with myself at the beginning of the year to do two things: be more honest and less childish) But I am not exaggerating the description above. Honestly, that’s what it is. It doesn’t stop there, ladies and gentlemen. No, tiredness is not a result of just physiological measures. In fact, the physical tiredness barely scratches the surface. Let me let you into one of life’s biggest curveballs: (if it were given a snappy title, it’d read, “disguised as a romance, but really just a tragedy - psychological aka. emotional tiredness”) Yes, the torture of mental and emotional tiredness. It sneaks up on your all quiet and stealthy like a theif, before gracefully slashing you in the back like a seasoned assassin. It’s a romance in the sense that it’s lovely to know people and care about people. It really is. To form a relationship (not in the sickening lovey sense, just any old friendship/relationship) with another human being is probably one of the things I marvel about the most. If you stop to consider it, two people are willing to dedicate a portion of their emotion, their care to another person. It’s cool. But every now and again, people become hard to know and care about. The tragedy presents itself in many forms in our mental and emotional state. You might not have bargained for getting attached to people only to find out that, really, they were never attached to you. Or when you invest a lot of effort in making someone feel they’re worth it, but to no avail. Or even when you look out for someone, but in return, nothing. But it’s not solely tragedy inflicted by others, everyday you can find tragedy conjured within yourself. Sometimes, you can feel that you’ve let someone down or have purposely completely ignored someone when they needed help most. Or just plain when you’re annoying and utterly boring. When you can just feel that people don’t want to be around you, I guess that’s a tragedy in itself. (Whilst we’re on that thought; here’s something else you should be wary of: you will feel like an outsider. It’s real and it sucks and even if you do have friends, it’s never really the same. But I digress, more on that later.) All of this is tragic, yeah. Tragic because it’s kinda pathetic, but also because it depletes so much of your psyche that you just don’t know. You don’t really know how to fix it and that mostly because, there’s nothing you can really do to fix it. You can’t please everyone and yourself whilst keeping mental sanity. Its one of those pick two of three situations. Also, it’s year 12. Everyone’s entitled to minding their own business and even being a little self-centered. Even if you have a friend, you can’t exactly drag someone out and spill your unfortunate situation because most likely: a) they’re in a similar position b) they don’t have time to listen to your 3 hour indepth analysis of your personal mental and emotional tragedy complete with visual aids and sign language support and  c) they can’t do anything about it for you. How much I loathe this type of tiredness.  It’s something you’re forced to endure, like a person flailing their limbs desperately as they drown. Try all you want to struggle, in the end the outcome is the same. And when it’s not that, maybe its the tired when you can actually feel the energy seeping out of your body, like the universe has some external vacuum quite literally sucking the life out of you.

It’s a beauty, that tiredness thing. 2) Fake Persona: I confess I am fake. Fake as mechandise made in China. Fake as one of those cookie cutter barbie doll women aged 29 going on 30 with the obligatory liposuction, boob, but, face, nose, ear, botox jobs walking down the polished streets of LA.

Fake, fake, fake. Of course, it’s not noticeable right away, but really if you talk to me for more than 5 minutes you can pick that I am just fake. Like being outgoing? Being funny? “haha you’re funny”?

Unfortunately, that’s not me at all. I’m the serious, boring, un-fun girl who sits there worriedly as the more daring pull an act of defiance against authority. I’m the one saying, "I really don’t think this is a good idea… or I have a bad feeling about this..". I the one who would gladly stay home over having plans with people. I like comfort. I llike having nothing to account for. I have no witty anecdotes or things to share which can spark a discussion. That’s just me. I’m not playing the ‘poor me’ card, I’m giving you, strangers reading this monster of a post, the whole truth. Something I was admittedly scared to admit to myself at one point.

If your year 12 is anything like what it was for me, you’ll find yourself slipping into a fashioned mask when you talk to people without even realising it. It’s not you at all, it just allows you to take a pleasant, but shallow interest in a discussion where you appear enthusiastic enough to chat but not overly so that the conversation becomes too slow and deep. Deep enough where you need actually reveal something about yourself. I give rapid answer/questions to avoid there being a slow pace, which allows the other person to propose talking about something deep. Really, when I do this, I’m  just scared whilst also covering the fact that I can’t hold a conversation to save my life.

Maybe you’ll have another mask, one where you keep to yourself and never talk, but inside, you’re tearing yourself up and because you’re smart. You have the answers and brilliantly sarcastic comments. But you can’t share them. Maybe. I don’t know, you’ll have to find out what type of mask you paint for yourself or whether you’ll even suffer from fake persona syndrome.

3) Feeling alone: Tiredness was bad, but I think some of the awfulness of this side-effect stems from the same emotional reasons pointed out above. Bloody heck, I think this happens to everyone at some point, regardless of your popularity and number of friends or even the closeness of your friends. Seperation from friends due to different timetables, commitments, interests even changes in personality etc goes into overtime in year 12. It’s considered normal to not see a close from for maybe a whole day or two. Not even that, sometimes you find yourself just completely devoid of everything. Everyone’s doing their own thing, fighting their own demons and battles. You start hearing about things that once were directly told to you down the grapevine. You find out about plans to do things after they happen. You no longer have common interests or goals with any of your friends, the list goes on. Any of these reasons can leave you feeling like an outsider and just plain by yourself. I’d say the brunt of it comes when you’re just so indescribably lost, and it sounds so incredibly snobbish and judgemental to say, but no-one would really care.

4) Changes in reacting to things/yourself: You might just cry You might just panic You might just brush it off and not care whatever it is, you’ll feel like a different person when you’re done. You may have cared a lot and felt emotionally available for things, but now you just don’t really care and are immune to crying for others.

You may have been bold to speak up for yourself and at the end find yourself placated and scared. It happens, it’s real and its here to stay. It’s moulded you thus and thus you shall be.

Anyway, that’s that.

School update: Most of the curriculum is done, save for a major maths assignment, psych investigation and a bio test. Everyone is gearing up for exams, whilst planning muckup day and final assembly things. The usual.

On the bright side, they fixed the locker room so now we can actually walk through the building instead of taking a detour worthy in length of the great wall of china itself. They also finally finished all the downstairs study centres and offices.

Next week marks trial exam week, kicking off with the Flinders stat or something test.

Two weeks, Too weaks. May (day) 29 - June 20 Days 76-98

Yet another two weeks passed whoa update. List of cool things:

 June 12 (Day 90) marked the first exam of the year: Maths Apps. Yes, demon child subject (well not really for anyone else). Bottom left of the picture hierachy shows a weird ass picture of written-on gladlock bags. Those were the emergency rations complete with dark chocolate and half a Tim Tam prepared for the next day’s psychological enslaught. They were tasty.

The morning of the exam, I arrived to find half of the class and Mr Brenkley waiting patiently outside the epic doors, clutching various writing implements and well scrawled cheat sheets. three people were furiously scribbling stuff onto their papers on the canteen benches and I’m pretty sure I saw penney sticking cut outs onto his. Whoa man.

The actual exam environment was kinda nice, the epic had been set up where the assembly seats were down everyone had a table to themself where they got a sheet with two name stickers.

The rest of it wasn't particularily exciting, it was just a lot of pen scribbling and quiet "i'm so screwed's behind me (cahil) Eh, but one done and dusted, four to go!

Pizza: one thursday afternoon at lunch, tom, bonnie and I (as a repeat of the churro day in an earlier post) decided to get a pizza. We settled on pepperoni and sent each other stupid snaps of badly drawn pizza creations whilst waiting impatiently for the lone employee at Dominoes to hurry it up. Afterwards, we decided that a maccas run was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, despite there being 5 minutes before the next lesson. Cue 101 Dalmations ebook equivalent (in cassette) playing whilst frantically speeding back to school to deliver a fast melting soft serve for a homie. Upon returning, we heard rumours of the two ccapps classes splitting into 3, which I remember being outraged at, leading to a 2-man boycott of the lesson by Bonnie and I, only to be halted by an unimpressed Miss Amoy.  Here's a cool update: This did not actually happen, apparently my memory is so shot that every single soft serve run at maccas is just mooshed into one experience.

um yah but idk.... like we have this criteria thing you gotta meet. 1. be hot 2. don't be whiny 3. don't wear salmon shorts 4. don't be too mushy 5. buy her flowers and chocolate 6. take showers 7. be tastefully a bad boy