89

This is definitely going to be an eventful week, which means it will probably fly past like last week, and before I know it I'll be posting another Sunday night entry about how chaotic life is.

Last week the official scholarship meetings started, so Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons will involve both media and English study sessions, respectively. In addition to that, Alex and I will be planning our short film entry into the Waikato University film competition.

During the weekend I got on a roll with my 3.3 art portfolio, so that will take up my lunchtimes, and hopefully will branch out into something fantastic and useable.

Thursday is Jono AND Leo's birthday, they're both turning 18 (and they still argue about who's the eldest), and then Friday night is Leo's party. The theme is "song names" so I have to come up with a good costume idea.

If I had a blue velvet dress I'd wear that, but... I don't.

Here At Last

The holidays. The first official day. I am in my bedroom with the window open, the winter sun and breeze coming in, listening to the Bright Star soundtrack which seems to fit perfectly.

The ball was fantastic, the afterball was fantastic, everything went well. Finally we finished our documentary on Friday afternoon. I feel partly relaxed. Never entirely. This music is soothing and saddening. I think I want to go to the library and get out twenty books and read them all in a week, like I used to do when I was 13, 14. Today I might watch The Cove.

The film festival starts on the eighth. I'm so keen to go to as many as I can afford...

Um Wow

It just hit me properly that it's the last day of term two tomorrow. We've just about finished our film, just got to record and put in the voiceover and we're done. We have done so amazingly well considering the huuuge tragedy that happened last week. Good job Alex O'Connor and Jennecca Evalu! And I am fully confident that we will get the results we deserve.

Then thankfully I'm also finishing off two pesky written internals in French and English. English is the creative writing one but it's so bloody hemmed-in I can't stand it. Typical of NCEA to turn something creative into something so formulaic. And the French is also a bit of a farce. I'll be glad to get them over with.

I decided tonight to wear my antique fur stole to the ball as well, following the Narnia theme. It's very beautiful and precious, since it was passed down to me by my auntie Trish who recently passed away. I'm also wearing the locket she gave me, that belonged to my grandmother, and holds a picture of my dad's dad when he was 17 years old.

So we're nearly there. Even when I do get to the holidays however, I have a whole pile of art to do to prepare for working on folio boards and resubmitting. I think I blather on about my assessments a lot, and repeat myself endlessly, but I think when I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed I draw and write a lot of to-do lists and planners and summarise tasks to keep track of them and pin them down in the swirling mess that is my mind.

Also, watched I'd Do Anything tonight, Tara was FINALLY eliminated. Silly tart couldn't hold a note, what was she doing there? I like Niahm most, but since when is a name spelled like that pronounced like "Neev"?

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.

Day Ten

IT WAS SO SO HOT TODAY, GROSS.

I found out today I can't be in 'film appreciation club' anymore... as it turns out I'm going to be busy on Tuesdays and Thursdays with university, Wednesdays and Fridays with work, and Mondays aren't an option because the teachers in charge can't do Mondays. Guts.

So Mondays are going to be my only free days... and working on Fridays means I won't be able to continue my much-loved tradition of going to Helen's place after school and eating and de-briefing and then going into town together to youth group. This makes me saaaad, as it's something we've done consistently since, what, Year 10? At least. I'm very sorry, Helen. =(

Today in painting, Anna and I made the most amazing artwork ever, using black, red and white ink and ink-rollers on a massive piece of A2-sized paper. We rolled it, splattered it, streaked it, covered it with stencilled circles and rings, black lines... it was so, so therapeutic and hilarious. As usual, Anna got the paint ALL over her, in the way that only she can. Including several spots on her face. She's so fun to work with, and just as passionate as I am about pushing the limits and going crazy, which makes for inspiring art sessions.

In media we're watching 'Triumph of the Will' which is this crazy 1935 propaganda film about Hitler's regime. It's disturbing how jubilant the music is, and how happy and attractive all the people in the film are, and how they all seem to LOVE working for Germany's supposed betterment. Can you believe this quote:

"Around you stand the flags and standards of this National Socialism. Only when they are threadbare will the people be able to understand, by hindsight, the greatness of our time, because of what you, my leader, mean to Germany!"

- Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess

Yes, in hindsight, now that you mention it, Hitler really WAS a great guy, aw geez, we got it all wrong. It's unimaginable that the filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, could have been unaware of the extreme antisemitism endorsed and propelled by Adolf Hitler, yet supposedly she was, (even when she was interviewed in the 1970s?! This is what Mr. Rewiti told us...) However in the film, there apparently is not even one reference to Jews, and only one or two references to a "pure race." It's so interesting to consider - the way they manipulated their speeches to instill this idea of making Germany the most powerful nation in the world. And all those people looked on and believed him.

Ignorance is not bliss.