English Language

Do you know the feeling when you have so much to say and so you don't know where to start? That's me right now. I've just started year 12 this week and it's been crazy. But I'm going to post-pone that until I gather my thoughts.

For now I would like to share with you this poem thing that my Spanish teacher gave us. He was talking about how English is the hardest language to learn, mainly because of how things are spelt really different to how they sound sometimes and other stuff. And I like this a lot. So here you go:

Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners

I take it you already know

of tough and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble but not you,

on hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,

to learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard a dreadful word

that looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead: it's sad like bed, not bead

For goodness' sake don't call it 'deed'!

Watch out for meat and great and threat

(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)

A moth is not a moth in mother

Nor both in bother, broth in brother,

And here is not a match for there,

Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

And then there's dose and rose and lose --

Just look them up -- and goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward,

And font and front and word and sword.

And do and go and thwart and cart --

Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!

I'd mastered it when I was five!

--TSW

Obsessions

 I recently read a blog post on the subject of withdrawal and it really interested me. So I thought I would voice my opinions on the topic.
She said people often ask her how may times she has read Harry Potter (because that is her most prominent obsession) and that caused her to think about what everyone must think she does all the time. The internet does not do justice to living, breathing, eating, talking human beings. Although it has multiple forms of sharing with practically everyone in the world, it does not work the same as getting to know someone as a friend. There are certain things that you just don't post to all 6 billion people. So what you do tend to put out there can seem somewhat narrow-minded. She said that, contrary to popular belief, she does not just talk about Harry Potter, even though that has been the topic of many of her videos and blog posts.
My point is that, as you may know, from spending any time with me at all, or as you may have guessed from my earlier blog post, I am obsessed with Doctor Who. But that doesn't mean that is the extent of what I like, or what my favourite TV shows are. I just don't feel like a list of all my likes and dislikes ever would be the most interesting thing to read.
As a side note, here are some of my favourite things. Just so you can get a little bit of a better idea of who I am. Food: chocolate. Meal: spaghetti bolognase. Colour: Pink. Movie (at the momet): all the X-Men movies. Song (at the moment): Skyscraper - Demi Lovato. Second favourite TV show: Friends. Flower: Lily. Animal: Jellyfish.
But what I'm trying to say is that, people are more than the work they do, the words they say and the things they are obsessed with.

Driving

I got my permit a bit later than everyone else did, over here in America. I'm pretty sure you can get it at about 15 and 1/2 and I got my closer to 16 and 1/2. Which means that a lot of my friends already have their full license. Although, you are meant to wait a year before driving anyone around. Most people don't. And in any case, some of my friends have their year as well.

Anyway, the point is; even though I started late for over here, I will still have my full license and possibly my year before anyone else in Australia. Which makes me very happy. But also, that probably means that if I end up going back there to stay, I will be the go-to driver of all of my friends. Maybe. I'm not exactly sure when people are able to start getting their full licenses.

Another cool thing about driving over is that you only have to do 50 hours to get your license. While over there you have to do 120 just to go from your L's to your P's. I understand why Australia does it, but I still think it's pretty awesome that I don't have to do that much.

I like driving. I mean, it's not a very entertaining acitivity. But it's cool that when I've got my license and everything, I'll have that choice in transportation. Also, I've found that freeway driving, although a tad scary because of the rip-roaring pace that I'm allowed to go, is really easy and quite exhilarating. Kind of like Mario Kart, but real life. Haha. I love that game.

Next thing to learn about driving: how to drive a manual.

Who I Am

You know what's odd? Now that I've moved to America, I feel more Australian than I have ever felt before. I want to get an Australian flag to put out in the front yard, I have a boxing kangaroo flag that I might one day hang up in my room, I want to get an Australian bikini, one my list of things to buy is green and yellow nail polish, I am hyper aware of all Australian holidays, etc, etc.

But really, I guess it's not all that weird. Being in a different country, surrounded by people who are mostly all the same nationality, Australian becomes a defiing feature. When you are asked to describe yourself you say, "My name is Emily, I'm 17 years old, I am tall, I have brown hair, I wear glasses and I'm an Australian."

Not only that, but you are expected to know every single thing about Australia. Which is fair, really. So you are forced to look things up. And you find things out that you never thought you would have known before. Like the fact that blue bottles are not in fact jellyfish but some weird organism thing that when seperate are called zooids. You find that you can recite the ingredients of Vegemite off by heart (yeast extract, malt extract, salt, colour, vegetable flavours and vitamins).

You are also asked to "say something" all the time. I have never known what to say until a fellow Aussie told to me to say, "G'day! 'owsitgoinawight?" And go from there.

So, cheers! Have a beaut day.

Australia

So I went to back to Australia on holidays over my end of year holidays. And I had an absolutely fabulous time. Chock-a-block with fun things, it was. I can't remember exactly what I did day-to-day, but here is a list of the most memorable occasions (in no particular order):

• Watched the final Harry Potter three times. And a couple of the other movies.
• Ice Skating
• Had dinner with purely awesome people at Pizzamaster
• Watched netball games
• A couple of sleep overs
• Snuck into my friend's law class, wearing the uniform and everything
• Visited Macquarie Uni
• Visited very many relatives in Melbourne and Ballarat
• Spent many a time at good ol' cafe Frendz
• Bought Doctor stuff, including a sonic screwdriver (Tennant edition), a pen with a TARDIS in it and a book
• Ate a lot of meat pies, Cadbury chocolate and Allens lollies. And drank some Milo
• Went and said hello to a few of my old primary school teachers
• Navigated the North Shore train line
• Got driven around by my friend who is on her L's
• Talked with the village ladies
• And gave a lot of much-anticipated hugs.

I miss you all already! <3

Poem

Share with your best friend. For they are so precious.


Time is not something you can give away.
Time is not something you can gift wrap and send across the ocean in a plane.
It's a cliche that time is precious, but really it's very true.
At least, that is, for the time I spend with you.

This may sound like a love story.
And it is, but not in the classical sense.
It's a story of best friends who lives miles away.
Who don't have a choice but to say things like, "I miss you every day."

Time is counted in seconds, minutes, hours.
So then why does time speed up whenever I'm with you?
Time is too slow, too fast, too long, too short.
Trying to build a teleport machine should not be our last resort.

Time slips through our fingers and toes.
It's mischievous and beautiful and complicated.
It is the paint on the wall, the cloud in the sky and the grass full of dew.
But all I want to do at this time, is say, "I love you."

You Bring Out the Best in Me

This is the short story I wrote for my final assignment in English. It is modeled on Miriam by Truman Capote and the idea of unwanted visitors. The ending is a bit odd... Haha. But the aim is to show that the unwanted visitor is not always an attacker, they are sometimes a victim as well.

Kira had lived by herself for several years, but she was only just starting to get used to it. Kira was 23, studying psychology at Sydney University. She was by no means an introvert, but she opted to rent a small, single person apartment just off-campus because sometimes the loud nature of people instilled a silence in her that was not natural in her eyes. Kira’s only striking feature was her height. At an almost mountainous 6’5”, she towered over every person she had ever met, including the rest of her family.

Kira believed that all the people in your life should bring out the best in you and that there is something just under the surface of our consciousness that we should strive to unlock. She didn’t know what she was looking for when trying to complete this task, just as she didn’t know how she was going to bring out the unconscious, but she immersed herself in psychology to try and find her key to life.

Then she met Alen I. Well, met in a very loose interpretation of the word. It was raining that day and Kira had forgotten her umbrella. She didn’t mind so much, the rain washed away all the irrelevant thoughts that she otherwise would have had, but her books were getting wet. As if materialising from the rain, a figure stepped up beside her and held a bright green umbrella over her head. Which would have normally been impossible but this boy was taller than Kira.     

Many thoughts ran through Kira’s head in rapid succession at this strange point in her otherwise normal life. They were something along the lines of; oh, so I’m not the tallest person in the world, that’s odd. Why have I not noticed this mildly attractive boy before? Bright green is a weird colour; it makes me feel fearless, gross and extremely happy all at the same time. How did he see me in all this ominous mist? Why is mist always ominous? This boy did not even ask if wanted I wanted an umbrella, he just knew.

After a couple of minutes of the kind of silence that Kira so desired, the boy spoke, “I do not believe we have met before, my name is Alen I. I noticed you were in need of an umbrella.” Kira didn’t quite know how to respond to this situation. Although the umbrella was unusually large, she felt claustrophobic, but in a good way. She had a strange urge to get as close to this stranger as she could. “It is perfectly fine if you do not feel like talking, I understand,” his smooth voice interrupted Kira’s thoughts. “I’m Kira,” she replied. She felt that words were not adequate for this particular situation, so she didn’t say anything else. And neither did he.

Somehow, they ended up at Kira’s front door. She had not directed Alen in any way, he just knew. Kira felt that this should have worried her, but it didn’t, so she banished the thought to the recesses of her mind. Once she was inside, she knew Alen was different than all people she had ever met. She did not know whether it was his height, his ability to know things about her, or just him; but Kira was determined to find out.

Over the next couple of days, Alen was nowhere to be seen. Kira knew he must be somewhere around campus, for that is where the great umbrella meet had occurred. He was the right age to be a Uni student as well. Although, Kira knew that the atmosphere around her had shifted. Something wasn’t quite right. Sometimes she’d see something out of the corner of her eye, but it was just a flash, a streak, a blur of colours.

Then suddenly, Kira saw Alen everywhere. Suddenly, he was in all of her classes. Suddenly, he caught the same bus as her. Suddenly, he ate at the same restaurants as her. At first Kira thought this was some cruel joke the universe was playing on her. “Okay,” she thought, “I get it, I wanted to find him, I wanted to see if he could help me find my key. That doesn’t mean you have to shove him in my face.” But that’s just what the universe did.

Alen seemed to enjoy Kira’s discomfort. Every time she saw him her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and her lip twitched. Soon, she would narrow her eyes and look at the sky as if it contained all the answers. And at this Alen would smile and give a hearty wave. No more than this, and no less, at least five times a day.

After two weeks of torture, Kira began to get used to Alen waving at her from across rooms; this is when he changed his act. Kira would get home from class and find him standing on her front door step. She would be about to sit down when he would appear and tuck her chair in for her. This Kira could not handle. But Alen was forever persistent.

One horribly sunny day, Kira found Alen at her door again and decided to try a different tactic.  She invited him in. Alen seemed only a smidgeon surprised at this offer, which dampened the prospect a bit, but it was too late to back down. Kira was determined to once and for all solve the mystery of Alen. Why he was following her everywhere, but not actually doing anything particularly creepy. Why he was so interesting yet so dull all at once. Why she could not concentrate on her goal of finding out what lay within her because all she could think about was Alen, Alen, Alen.

With him, Alen had a box. Kira did not want to be curious, she felt that she should be repulsed, but she wasn’t. Once inside, he set it down and began poking around Kira’s house. While looking in her fridge, he called out, “Under no circumstances will you open that box!” That seemed intensely unfair, he got to search through all her personal belongings and she wasn’t even allowed to look what he had in one small box. Who did Alen think he was? Some sort of important person that could tell her what to do? No way! So Kira opened that box right then. And there was some sort of mobile phone-looking device inside. Just as Kira was going to pick it up, Alen came back in to the room, holding one of Kira’s favourite necklaces. Both stopped in their tracks and stared and what the other person had in their hands. “Well, I guess we’re even then,” Kira said. Alen just nodded and began fiddling with the clasp on her necklace. “You bring out the best in me,” Alen whispered after a while.
“What did you just say?” Kira exclaimed.
“You bring out the best in me and I need your help bringing it out all the way. You see I’m buried behind my conscious thoughts…”
“Is this some kind of joke? Has this all been some elaborate plan to humiliate me on television or something else ridiculous?”
“No! Of course not! I would never do that, because you are the only one that can help. You are the only one who understands.”

There was a loaded silence in the room. Kira had a very strange feeling that Alen had been reading her mind this whole time and that he was reading her mind right now to sense how she was feeling about this outrageous outburst of her very own thesis. That she had never ever shared with anyone before.

“Look I don’t know why you’ve been stalking me or how you know all that stuff or in fact what this device is, but I don’t like it one bit. So you get out of my house right now Alen I.,” said Kira with as much sincerity as she could muster, for you see, that curious feeling was crawling along her spine once again. Alen looked as if he was about to leave but instead he asked, “Are you sure you want me to go?” And there was nothing Kira could answer but, “No.”

Kira sat in silence, the silence she loved, as Alen worked around her. He would occasionally look into her eyes to test her reaction, but then his attention would turn back to the many wires he was connecting around her skull from the device in the box. He was wearing her necklace and she couldn’t help but think that it suited him in an odd way.

Hours later, Kira was beginning to grow tired of trying, but she would not give up. She was not only finally going to be able to gain her key to life itself, but she was helping someone in great need. Don’t you see? Alen was not in need of power, he was not the attacker; he was the victim. And Kira could be the superhero that he needed.

Later that day, Kira sat in silence. She thought about the many revelations this day had contained. Alen I. was in fact an alien from another galaxy trapped in a human body. He was trapped just under his conscious mind, like she knew everyone must be, and he needed a mind like hers to break free. Once she had released him, with the help of his machine and her necklace, he was able to shoot away amongst the stars, to where he belongs. And leave her behind. “You bring out the best in me,” he had said. But Kira now realized it was the other way around. She had found out who she was. She was not the victim of a crazy psychopath; she was someone that could help people with the power of her mind and her ability to look beyond the probable. Kira could not read minds, but she could walk a mile in another person’s shoes, which is a skill that will go a long way in this harsh, misunderstanding world.

P.S. Got in to Pottermore today! =D

Doctor Who Obsession

You know you're obsessed with Doctor Who when:
- You practice not blinking just in case.
- You try desperately to relate all topics of conversation to Doctor Who.
- You get over-the-top excited whenever you hear the theme music.
- You tend to say "exterminate!" when playing random video games.
- You think bow ties are extremely cool. Along with fezs and stetsons.
- You see a screwdriver and think, "This could be a little more sonic."
- Your first reaction to all telephone boxes are "TARDIS!"
- You scowl at anyone who says that Christopher Ecceleson is the first doctor.
- You find yourself tapping in groups of four.
- Seeing anyone wearing bluetooth ear pieces freaks you out.
- You love British jelly babies not just for their taste.
- You see a gas mask and ask someone, "Are you my Mummy?"
- You know what TARDIS stands for.
- You hear David and think Tennant.
- You hear Doctor and think Who.
- You heard River and think Song. etc...
- You think that Captain Jack Harkness is slightly cooler than Capain Jack Sparrow.
- You get really scared when you have two shadows.
- You can pronounce Raxacoricofallapatorius and spell it too.
- You get annoyed when people say they love Doctor Who and haven't even seen any of the early episodes.
- You kind of want to try fish fingers and custard.
- You desperately want to meet someone named Allonso.
- You see graffiti and kind of wish it said "Bad Wolf".
- The word "delete" always sounds robotic in your head.
- You don't want a dog anymore, you want a K-9.
- Pocket watches both fascinate and intimidate you.
- You try to stay in shape solely because you never know when you may have to do an awful lot of running.
- You sometimes wish you could be abducted by evil aliens.
- You click your fingers randomly to make sure someone hasn't visited Satellite 5 in the year 200,000.
- You almost die of excitement/bewilderment when you great really close to guessing the huge plot line in the next show.
- You wish you could learn how to write/speak Gallifreyan.
- You are the prowd owner of a sonic screwdriver. And you carry it everywhere with you.
- You are going to Gallifrey One!!!
- You get all of the references in this note.

Yes, practically all of these things are true for me. I've been watching Doctor Who since 2003 when the classic Doctor Who series was being replayed in Australia. So I have seen all the episodes, although I don't remember most of them. Do you watch Doctor Who? If not, you should!

Hate and Love

I moved to America about a year ago and it was funny to see this old list that I wrote. Most of the things are still very much true.

I hate the fact that I don't know anything about anyone. And no one knows anything about me.
I love the fact that I can be whoever I want to be.

I hate the fact that "metre" is spelt "meter".
I love the fact that every day I learn how to pronounce something differently.

I hate the fact that I will not be able to have another meat pie in a long time.
I love the fact that I get to try new foods that I never even knew existed.

I hate the fact that netball is not even a sport over here.
I love the fact that I have actually been to a high school football game.

I hate the fact that there is no uniform.
I love the fact that everyone gets so into school spirit.

I hate the fact that I don't get to go to a dance with my Aussie friends.
I love the fact that there are so many dances and being able to get really dressed up alot.

I hate the fact that there is a sign that I walk past every day that says "yeild".
I love the fact that there are signs that say yield in the first place.

I hate the fact that I don't get to see my best friends every day.
I love the fact that I get to meet so many lovely people.

I hate the fact that I don't get to do the subjects I wanted to do.
I love the fact that I get to learn a new language and didn't even think about that before.

I hate the fact that I have to do US History,
I love the fact that I get to compare America's history to Australia's.

I hate the fact that the work here seems to be so much harder.
I love the fact that I finish half a year before everyone else.

I hate the fact that I have become accustomed to walking on the "wrong" side of the road.
I love the fact that I still think squirells (the possum of America) are still extremely cute.

I hate the fact that I have none of my stuff.
I love the fact that I get all new stuff.

I hate the fact that a conversation with someone goes over the space of a week, when it would usually take a couple of minutes.
I love the fact that I have an excuse to stay on facebook for hours on end.

I hate the fact that we have to write a lot of essays in English.
I love the fact that we all have to be reading something all the time.

I hate the fact that I would have a date to the dance if I was in Australia.
I love the fact that I don't have the pressure of having a date.

I hate the fact that I have to change my speech so people will understand what I'm saying.
I love the fact that I can silently laugh about what words people use on a daily basis.

I hate the fact that the floors of all the classrooms are lino.
I love the fact that I feel like I'm constantly in an American High School movie.

I hate the fact that I have a wallet-full of change because I'm scared to use it.
I love the fact that most stuff is cheaper here.