Since, As, Until

It is the 4th of September. It is 28 days until my birthday. It is two days until my first exam. It is too soon, too late, too now -

I know the tags in this post seem contradictory. How can I feel general exam apathy and general exam panic? I assure you, it's possible. However I'll soon be put out of my misery, as all five of my exams are on the first three days of the week and a half exam period, so I've got de petits vacances of five days. So at least that is something to look forward to, and then another couple of weeks and the holidays will be here...

Tomorrow is Father's Day. I don't know how I can even begin to co-ordinate and enhance one of these ordinary Sundays (which are, at best, resigned and low-key) to do justice to the man who carries a family on his back, and runs a household, and answers the door to visitors who stay longer than they should, and cooks meals, and folds clothes, and cares for his wife, our mother, with utter dedication and acquired knowledge that could practically qualify him to be a nurse. I am privileged to be this man's daughter. But how could any breakfast-in-bed or card or present express the profound weight and impact of that privilege? Father's Day is a joke. Neither the absence nor the presence of a father, and the effect of this, can ever be explained in a single day. It should not be a 'holiday' to be exploited by hardware stores and bookstores and so on. It must be an everyday event... or else it is empty, and meaningless.

So, tell me. What do you appreciate about your father?

Champing At The Bit

Roll on Friday, when I will be deadline and exam-free.

I figure that, of late, I have not been performing my duty and updating you, followers & readers, on the happenings of year 13. So basically, here we are, week something-rather of term two. It is one of what I deem to be the Three Great Bottlenecks which occur during the school year. The entire first term is basically quite breezy -- sure, they put a little bit of pressure on ya, just to keep you focused -- and the occasional internal assessment manages to provoke a little bit of customary school-related stress here and there -- but overall it's a walk in the park. Then you go on holiday for a couple of weeks, and forget to do any of that planned "preparatory work" that you decided would put you in a comfy position in time for exams. All is well and good when you return, except a slight nagging sense of impending doom. This nagging sensation grows and, by week six or... is it seven... exams are suddenly upon you. And by upon you, I mean straddling you, slamming your forehead into a computer screen (filled with various websites which are all quite unrelated to any of your subjects) and screaming "DEADLINES!"

Because, if you're a bleeding fool like me, this is also the time when all the art subjects decide to have major assignments due. As I am taking both painting AND design, I have 20 credits' worth of work due on Wednesday & Thursday... that's a third of the (minimum) amount of credits I have to get this year. Plus these stupid mock exams. And the thing is, I can't even cast them off as insignificant, because they may end up counting towards something.

So after I've handed in all my assignment work and done my three exams, (media, English, French) consisting of a total of five essays, we will enter Lull Number Two, a deceptive window between Bottleneck One and Bottleneck Two. For us media students, it will be filled with an ongoing, consistently vague panic over trying to finish our documentaries. In art, we will no doubt begin our end-of-year portfolios at a dangerously leisurely pace, misjudging the length of time until the final, massive deadline at the end of term three. For some reason, even though this is my third year of doing art, I know it will be the same... It always, always is.

I thought that I would dread the end of high-school but I don't feel that way anymore. I am ready to leave. That doesn't mean I won't feel nostalgic and cry heaps throughout that last week of term four! But it does mean that I'm "over it" in a sense, and I guess I am looking forward to some changes. Some.

My life plan has gone through a trial period of a few months' thinking and thus I have reached a conclusion (I think) which entails going Auckland University next year and doing a conjoint degree in arts and fine arts. I will do the first semester and then travel for the second. I think I have already mentioned this in several places throughout this blog, but you know. Changes come.

Back Online

So I took a week off the Internet, for experimental purposes. I had hoped it would make me more productive -- in fact I spent ages re-organising iTunes: ascribing album art to songs and artists that didn't have any, deleting repeat songs and sorting out playlists. I organised all my saved files, found some writing scraps and reminded myself that not all of my old poetry was bad. (To qualify as "old", a piece of writing needs only to have been written two weeks ago.) I didn't, however, make much headway into my work.

Exactly two weeks from today, I have exams. These are just "practice" exams, or mid-years, but unfortunately I also have four massive art assignments (worth 20 credits in total) due at the same time. Today I am feeling not-so-bad about that, as I did three backgrounds for paintings today. But don't let that fool you... there's a lot more to do.

Not to mention our documentary, which we are now filming. Apparently we have to finish filming before exams (two weeks!) which is very likely not going to happen... After school we will be going into the city centre to interview passers-by on social networking and how our lives are becoming increasingly "virtual". Hopefully we get a lot of useful stuff, and the weather/technology doesn't crap out on us.

Alright, so if I was able to exercise the will to avoid the Internet for seven days, surely I can will myself to write those practice essays, go on a painting frenzy, make some awesome design work, and I don't know, be generally amazing. Surely.