bad santa and just like heaven are both running NOW.

whyyy does life suck so badly. and i feel terribly shaky about math all of a sudden. (in addition to the shakiness about every other subject.)

damnit.

and. this afternoon i fell asleep on the daybed in the junk/study room, and i woke up and i sat down to study. then i felt really un-awake so i decided to look out the window and get some sun. see this is the SAD state i'm in. people go OUT to get some sun. to the beach. to the park. i go to the WINDOW. actually i'd been sleeping next to the window the whole time but whatever. i wasn't awake enough. am i ever awake enough to study history, though?

so anyway i looked out the window, just in time to realise that there were two little imps below and one of them was preparing to throw a football into the window! or rather, he was raising the football above his head -- and it wasn't just a soccer ball, it was a great big american football. rugby ball, whatever. so he was raising it above his head and it looked like he might throw it and this is one of the kids my brother knows and apparently he's sort of crazy in the international school sex-drugs-violence kinda way even though he's all of 12 years old, so i instinctively shut the window. and two seconds later the kid goes "oh man they shut the window!" i looked out again (through the window this time) and he gave me this sheepish grin.

if i hadn't woken up at that moment and if i hadn't decided to 'get some sun', and if he had thrown the ball through the open window and if i'd been sitting at the table in the middle of the room reading about how mao was So Damn Red, the ball would have landed right on my head. i might not have a head anymore. or i might be totally concussed. or in a coma or something. i wouldn't be freaking out about the freaking A Levels.

it took all of my Inner Zen to resist giving that kid the finger.

which is why i have no Zen left for myself today! last night i was being annoyingly calm while soph was ranting about some people. hee.

kids need social consciences. that stupid robbie certainly does. (the one who tried to put me in a coma. no i am NOT taking this too personally!) his dad gives him pot and cigarettes. the kid is TWELVE. well this is according to my brother - who thankfully is Not Impressed by robbie's 'coolness'.

kelly and i were just talking about how we're both pretty reactionary. in terms of moral (i HATE that word. it's so damn ELIOT.) values, and saving trees-ness. and other things, of course. but i can't really think of everything right now. i'm really anal about saving paper, did you know? whenever i throw away piles of paper i make sure to keep the ones that have one-sided potential. and i was devastated to find out that if you just throw paper away with normal trash it doesn't get recycled. so i need to save up my throwing-away paper and make sure it gets recycled. and i was also ranting to kelly about the amount of paper the A Level/O Level/exams-in-general industry WASTES. terrible. like the SAT2, everyone gets a booklet with -all- the subjects in it, although nobody takes more than three at a time. i guess it makes more logistical sense to do it this way, but considering how much they charge for those tests, maybe they could cut the printing costs and instead hire more invigilators to speed up the paper-giving-out process.

gah it sounds so silly, but when i read about global warming and dying rainforests and stuff i get really scared. and when i read about AIDS epidemics and all the things that are killing people and trees and the planet.

maybe rhodes was right about annexing the planets.

and. i made a flip remark yesterday, something like "if activism paid better i'd be an activist" but. ah it's just flippant, considering even if i occasionally give passionate speeches about the things i feel strongly about, the fact remains that i do very little to help. argh. 8 months. i will add ACTIVISM to the list.

SO.
for a little bit of happiness in these Hard Times (and to try and revive our collective Inner Zen) i present two pieces of eye candy. they're both female, hee.

keira knightley, whom i prefer without heavy make-up but this'll do anyway. love her eyes.


























and monica bellucci. 'nuff said.

























oh another thing -- during one of my paper-throwing-away sessions ( i swear they're therapeutic. i mean, when you actually throw away paper you don't need. not just picking up a stack of paper and dumping it in the trash because if you lose your econs notes you might just die. you have to sort through the junk that's been accumulating in your cupboards and think hard about what you're likely to read in the future and what you're less likely to read and evaluate intelligently and then throw. it's an art. and it's a yoga.)

so. paper-throwing-away. i found my math promo. and i don't know if i was just too devastated by the 39% to read the comments last year, because i don't remember noticing that the kind marker had written half a page of comments about my math. and they're really sort of amusing. and sort of schizo. and i have no idea who this teacher is so i am NOT dissing any teacher in particular.

Comments - and in advance i will tell you that there should be a lot of [sic]s in there but i won't even bother putting them in:

"You're careless, and I believed a lot of time, NOT very sure of the concepts. Please work harder in the holidays by NOT only do the questions but going through the NOTE thoroughly to get a better understanding of concepts. I took time off from my busy schedule to mark this paper. Frankly, I'm disappointed with the std.

But I've to praise you for your hardwork and concern about Maths at this period of time!"

that last sentence just cracked me up. i don't know if this really is funny to anybody but me, but i had a good laugh. so now that those comments have been preserved in cyberspace, off i go to add the sheet to my growing little pile of to-be-recycled paper!