PHHHT!!!!
This amuses me just a little too much:

WikiHow's How to take a Bath - http://wiki.ehow.com/Take-a-Bath

"4. Take off your clothing. Get into the bath (slowly if it's hot). Submerge yourself only up to your neck so as not to drown. If you want to dunk your head, go right ahead, but remember that humans breathe air to survive."
"Keep in mind that you are naked when bathing. This may affect your choice of bath location."

LOL!

Hello all.
I wasn't actually planning to post my H.S.C. results. I have now had my results for a while and am starting to feel comfortable with them. I don't feel they are that bad to embarass me, and I don't feel they are that good to out others down, and I am comfortable with people knowing, so...LUCKY YOU!!! =P


Snaps to Kyle T. and Emily H. for coming top in Industrial Technology and Community and Family Studies (respectively) in the state and thus for being on the cover of the Newcastle Herald and for being on the NBN news.Way to go guys!!! You make Merewether High very proud and show the true meaning of being a Merewethrian. ^_^

And also, congratulations to all who completed their H.S.C. It was huge and you did it. Also, thanks to all who posted their marks. Our dear MHS has seemed to have done very well indeed!=D

And also, today we received our UAI reults.

So congratulations to all those people who worked hard and have now been rewarded with a UAI they are happy with.
To those who are not happy with their UAI: it's okay - there's more to life, much, much more.
To Ellie G. - congratulations on being on the cover of the Weekend Herald (and in it).
Congratulations to all those Merewethrians who got 90 or more in 10 (or more) of their units - all 15 of you whose names I saw listed for your outstanding results in the paper! I am so proud of all of you!
Well done to all those who got their name on the "top achievers" list - I am wading through it, highlighting those people who I know. I am currently up to 'D'.
I hope to see al my Merewethrian pals on Monday at school - be there and be square! How hip! =P (c'mon guys - if we can't be called squares now, when can we be?). I look forward to it.

And now, a special addition, just for because I really think it's great that so many people are sharing how they went.... *drum roll*....











So, yes, I am quite satisfied. =D I can probably get into the double degree if I change my mind again =P

I may have been too busy to tell you that I was leaving for a week's holiday in Tamania, but here I am to tell you that I am back now.

Everything was so busy while I was away and I am thankful for that - it made me realise just how important it is to be still adn to know God, whoever that may be to you.

So I am packing my room up at the moment, as soon I am off to Casino for Christmas. Then when I come back I am swapping rooms with my mother, as I will then have the bigger room, and she is moving out all together in about 16 weeks.

So, busy busy busy, really.

Okay, so here I am sorting through my old books, and I am finding some odd and amusing things. I shall share them with you:

There is an odd, wobbly kind or writing which I find randomly cropping up in pages of different books in year 9. They say things such as "can't anybody hear me?", "I don't know what I'm doing!" and "busted". I think I may have go in trouble just before I wrote that last one =P (Gemma? In trouble? From a TEACHER??? Well, yes folks, it did happen - and until year 10 it wasn't as uncommon as you may think. I wasn't school mad until year 10).
I have in my year 9 Math book the name Tobias written in flowery writing. Who in the world is Tobias?! =S
I found a math papaer from year nine in which I got 8/20
It scares me that I only remember learning this in year 11, yet the teachers said it was from year 8 and 9 and I just found the proof that indeed it was taught to us back then.... =S
It's scary that my year 9 writing is neater than it is now.
I remember drawing up and filling in that table of shapes in math in year 9!
The edges of the excersice sheets from math are yellowing. Does that make you feel old?
Forget the flowery writing - this one is in code and has a whole garden drawn around it!
Oh dear - I must have been bored - I'm writing in vertical and horizontal strokes only....
oops - just found a math test from year 10 with 14/40. It's understandable why I taped the corner down so no one could see it =P (Just for the record, the one just before it I had got 39/40, so I am redeemed).
Yet another of my brighter moments in year 10 math...

Ahh well, here is a thunder storm, so I'd best be off the computer. I have completed sorting through one draw out of 5.

Why does it hurt so much to throw out old math question sheets...?

Well - schoolies is well and truly over now. I can hardly believe that a week and a half has already passed, but then again, it feels like forever ago.I had a fantastic time on schoolies - Dreamworld, Bellingham Maze, grocery shopping, the Corpse Bride, shopping sprees, dinner out at a resteraunt, Eumundi Markets, the beach, tennis, crazy yet endearing bus drivers, old friends, a creepy elevator, an insane game of pool, building a chocolate house. Really, I am convinced that I have the best friends in all the world.
The Formal was just over a week ago now. It was so much fun. I hadn't enjoyed year 10 so much, so I wasn't expecting a lot - that may have been why I found it so fun this time! Pity that they assume you like quiche is you are a vegetarian though...=S Oh well, if eating quiche is my worst complaint about the formal then that is wonderful! I adore the interior of the Civic theatre - it's so beautiful. And may I just say for the record two things:

• The locomotion is fun^1000000000 to dance to, esp. when the floor is prectically empty.
• Long livew the Pat Dance.

But now I must go and sort through my school books from the last 6 years....*gulp*

And it's times like these I realise I am so emotionally stunted.
I have been forced to expand my mind,
forced to act responsibly,
forced to be respectful,
but I have only learnt how to live in theory.
I have learnt curiculums and syllabuses,
I have learnt how to tie back my hair and button my blouse,
I have learnt how to behave and how to speak,
But I have not been taught enough,
I have not been taught it all.
I have no idea of how to live life practically,
I have no idea of how to understand my feelings,
and I have no idea of how to channel my emotions.
I am emotionally incapable.
I am here, but now I find that there is no rehearsal for life,
anything and everything I do now in my ignorance will affect me forever
and I'm afraid I have messed up my lines already,
so early...
I am now finding flaws in that place I so loved,
that school which I defended and longed to remain in.
I am set free with all I have learnt
but it is not enough,
it is not what is important -
not to me, anyway.
The best thing in leaving was discarding the syllabus,
that syllabus which defined what our values had to be.
And now I am out...
yet I am not free.
These prescribed values have been ingrained not only in me,
but also in everyone around me with whom I wanted to share my own ideas.
When I declare what I value most I am depicted and naive and irrational,
but I am confused...
I wasn't aware there was a syllabus for life.
I don't really want to be here anymore.
I am over it.
Not to worry though, I won't go anywhere.
I am still hopeful that I will find a way to live by my own rules,
still hopeful that I will find somewhere where I can be me,
just me
all me
completely me.
Why have I not been taught how to be me
or how to find me or decide me?
I guess they assume that it takes care of itself,
...but it doesn't.
I feel like I'm a cup with a great big, enormous crack down one side -
You can't see it from all angles,
and I seem fine enough,
but I am incapable of holding what is inside me.
I can't hold it back, I can't supress.
Good, you would think - it's bad to supress,
but whenever I let it out it all goes so wrong
and I feel so wrong
as if my ideas are wrong
and even more so, as if I, myself, as a person, am wrong
and I just end up with even more to deal with
...to supress.
The honest truth?
I don't know what I'm doing,
I don't know what I think,
I don't know anything, really.
And the bad thing is: I am expected to know by now.
Look, I'm going to take a couple of pills
go to bed,
fall asleep,
and then hopefully I'll wake up in the morning feeling better,
hopefully I'll have fogotten how much this hurts,
hopefully I'll be ready to keep trying,
hopefully I'll be ready to keep hoping.
And maybe, just maybe, I will have grown a little from this and I will know just a bit more.

So....I might not fail EEI after all....

Two years learning it in school and I manage a C in my essay and have no idea where I went wrong or even what I was actually meant to have done.

1 hour talking with Rachel and I can hold onto the concept with my mind and I can see a light at the end of the EEI HSC tunnel.


Eeek!!!!

We each decide who we are. We all have the basics - emotions, thoughts, senses. We all experience things. But I don't believe it is purely the differences of experiences which shape us into different people, but the way we perceive them.We have choices as to how to act a react. Choices as to what to think and how to feel.
Like everyone else, I have made these choices, both consciously and unconsciously.I have chosen to be optimistic, to be religious, to be studious, to follow the rules, to be cotten candy and sugar sweet to the best of my ability.
This is who I am now. To change I would be accused of NOT being myself.
And that is okay with me. I like being thought of as I am - I have worked hard to gain my goody-girl reputation.
But while this is how I have chosen to act...it is not all of me.
I cannot be ALL of me. To be all of what I am at once I would become such a huge paradox that every part of me would cancel every other part of me out and I would become nothing. To be all of what I am by being different at different times as it would confuse and distance people. They would shake their heads and say I'd changed, that they didn't know me any more and that I should be hanging with a different crowd.
I have not been myself today. Not the self you know.
I have been able to do this because I have been alone in my study, where no one can see me. No one can hear my music and say that it's too dark for me. No one can see my clothes and say it's to revealing for me. No one can see the picture on my wall and tell me that girl is no role model for me. No one can read what I have written and tell me it did not come from me. No one can see how I've acted and say it does not suit me.
I like my music, I like my clothes, I like those people who can be everything I hold the potential to be but can never bring myself to be.
When I'm by myself there is no need to define me and I can be any part of me I want to be.
And you don't have to look down your nose at me and say you don't know who I am today. All you can do is read this post and think "she probably wasn't as different today as she thinks she was", and that's okay for you to think that. It's best that you think that.

But I know it's not true.

There's more to me than that...

_________________________________
Some different me walks a different path,
plays a different game,
wears a different mask.

Some different meknows a different day,
sees a different life,
and goes a different way...

Of course, in the middle of my HSC I will stay up until midnight to start researching and learning about something 100% unrelated to school and the H.S.C.

But Religion exam was fairly good indeed! I started answering the first question and realised I suck at putting my thoughts into concise words, so I left it and came back to it once I was on a roll. I had so much to write, and actually had to ask for extra paper!!! That has never happened to me before! But sheesh, I had so much to write about everything. I wish I had been able to write more for that essay, I had to just pick out some of the things I knew which would satisfy the question, but I could have written twice what I wrote with all this stuff I have retained in my head. It's sort of annoying because I just want to add a p.s. at the end to the examiners saying "I wrote this, but there's lots more where that came from!"

3/7ths of my H.S.C. exams are done! Yay!

Here I am...

At that stage where I can taste the H.S.C. I can smell it with every breath, and even when I close my eyes it is still there.
But I'm not afraid and I am not stressed.
There is so much more I could do, so much I could know better if I just pushed a little harder. But I can't push. Not more than I have. I've worked consistantly and studied harder than I have for any other exam of my life. I know the work and am feeling good.
I am not kidding myself - I am not expecting 100%. I surprise myself by settling for less, but I am. Why stress and become sick again to achieve a UAI that I don't need?
Don't get me wrong. I work hard, and I would love very much to be manage a UAI of 100, but...it's just not worth it. It is not the most important thing in my life. Perhaps it should be? Perhaps I should be stressed out of my brain?Perhaps I should be sacrificing sleep and happiness for this brief moment of my life? But I see no point.
I'll be fine, I'll manage a UAI sufficient to get me into one of those courses. And I can honeslty say I don't mind what course I get into.
My life is not written yet, and I'll be guided by a higher power than myself - God, the Universe, call it what you will. I will be lead where I am needed. I'll leave that to God, and I shall work hard to help keep as many options open as I can.
But I have to remember what actually means something to me. I need to make sure that, just because we have been taught that the H.S.C. is this huge thing that means so much, I don't lose sight of the things that I hold important.
Not what a syllabus tells me is important, but what my heart tells me is important.

The H.S.C. is almost here, and I am not saying I am giving up, or not bothering to try or care about it. I'm just saying I'm not worried.
I'll do my best.
I'll still be here no matter what UAI I achieve, and so long as I am here I am capable; so long as I am here I am worthy. I could get a horrible UAI, but those things which matter to me most would not be affected.

The value of myself and of my life is not a measure of my answers in an exam.
And neither is yours.