I'm bringing sexy back...and by 'sexy', I mean 'awkward'...

Return of the evil ellipsis girl and her awesome blog!
You can blame/thank Lance for that. Dangerous tiger cubs/flowers (depending on your level of disgust/joy at the revival of my blog) can be addressed to him and sent to (insert witty fake address here).

I may not be entirely back on form. Sleep eluded me last night. Snob.

We started writing reviews in class yesterday. I learnt very quickly that if there is something you like, you should on NO accounts let people you like - especially particularly clever and witty people such as Susan - review said thing. A song by my favourite band was ripped to shreds. But that's ok. Everyone's entitled to their (obviously wrong) opinion.

In other news, I kind of might have a story because there's this kinetic sculpture I pass on the way to church each week and it might not be there anymore. The thing is, there's a reasonable chance that it is still there and I've just missed it for the past two weeks. Things like this do happen.

I'm going to start a review blog. And start reading proper reviews. The only reviews I read currently are badly written ones on sites like softpedia and cnet that tell me if the free program I'm about to download is going to crash my computer with viruses.

I discovered during the holidays that I am quite good at making lemonade. I'm also quite pleased by the fact that having to use the stove no longer puts me off trying a recipe. That actually did used to happen. If I couldn't microwave it, it wasn't worth cooking, or so I thought.

The internet won't load the page I'm trying to view. Snob. In the time it took me to write that sentence, I forgot what the page actually was. Wow. Time for bed I think.

I need some good critics to read. Preferably, but not necessarily, literary critics. I started looking by searching reviews of one of my favourite books, Catch-22, and found this lovely person : http://inkslingerblog.wordpress.com , but I am keen to find some more people to read, so feel free to comment with your favourite reviews. Or don't. Snobs.

Love, Jess

Grammatically challenged starfish...

Yeah, I have nothing to write about. So I'm on to my final fallback; grammatically challenged starfish.

I make no promises about this post.

So here's some reasons why grammar and English in general might be hard if you're a starfish.

• It's hard to learn to read and write when you're all arms. 
• It's even harder when your arms are covered in feet. (Seriously, look it up. I did.)
• And worse still when your eyes are on the end of your arms!
• After vomiting your stomach onto your food in order to eat it, it's hard to focus.
• The English language makes no sense to you. You're not even a fish!
• Your relatives include urchins and cucumbers, neither of which are particularly proficient at using the English language.
• Because of your portrayal in mainstream media, people think you're dumb and don't even bother trying to teach you (thanks, Patrick Star!).
• Common idioms don't apply to you. Blood may be thicker than water, but what if your blood is water?

So, hopefully you learned something about starfish tonight. Be nice to our many armed friends, give them a grammar lesson!

Love, 

Jess

P.S. I apologise for the preceeding post. I have no idea what just happened.

This is going nowhere fast...

I've been having crazy nightmares and today has been pretty full on so I'm not totally with it.

I really need some topics to write about because I'm running out of ideas.

In the mean time, here is a picture of me looking like Justin Beiber.

And here's ten funky facts about me:

1. I love sloths. I have a sloth t-shirt. I love them because I think they're cute and because they're the ultimate tree huggers!

2. I have more books than clothes in my closet. I have over 150 books. My oldest book was given to me by a very dear friend and is over 100 years old. I've probably read about half my books, maybe less. Among the books I own are the complete works of Shakespeare and seventeen poetry books. And this is onyl the hard copy books I own. I have over a hundred more digital books.

3. I love both maths and English. I took Calculus and Physics last year as well as History and English and loved them all. I also took chemistry. My passion lies in social science but I'm a writer at heart and I will always find maths fun!

4. The best books I read last year were Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Slaghterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Ask me about them. I dare you. Or better yet, read them yourself! Maybe I'll write a post about them tomorrow. Or an essay. Or put up my essay on Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five from last year, or the practise one I did on Catch-22 and Fight Club.

5. My favourite band is The Fray. I also like Ed Sheeran, needtobreathe, Mumford and Sons, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Snow Patrol, Fun, Live, Kimya Dawson, Beth Hart, Coldplay and Hot Chelle Ray. I prefer a natural sound (like that of Ed Sheeran) over this autotune nonsense.

6. With music, I go for lyrics more than anything. If I find something I like in the lyrics of a song, then I'll like that song. Doesn't matter about genre, or artist, I'm a lyrics girl. I guess I like music for the poetry it contains.

7. My favourite flowers are Daphne. I love the way they smell.

8. I prefer to wear necklaces over bracelets or rings. In fact I don't choose to wear rings at all. I don't particularly like the feel of them. I probably spend the most money on earrings though.

9. I have two piercings in each ear. Both in the lobe. One set of piercings was done myself, at different times whilst living in the hostel, with, if I recall, a safety pin (that one was really crooked) and a thumbtack/pushpin. The left side closed up after an infection due to me trying to use a stretcher, and I repierced those earlier this year (still a DIY job, but with proper piercing earrings lent to me by my bestie for life, Amanda), which allowed me to straighten out the crooked piercing. I also kind of sucessfully pierced my bellybutton, but Dad made me take it out. Also, I can't spell piercing. 

10. I once rescued a baby hedgehog from year nines and brought it into the hostel. The matron told me to put it outside because "they carry diseases," at which point I responded "humans carry more!" I consider this to be possibly my best comeback ever.

Well, this turned out to be mildly informative.

Bye for now,

Love, 

Jess

xoxox

Why I had the best physics class in the whole world...

This post was inspired by my friend Jono, and is brought to you by Newton's Third Law, Light (it's a particle AND a wave) and the Doppler Effect.

Despite the fact that the class motto was quite possibly "JESS, stop over-complicating things", physics was actually one of my favourite classes.

Our other physics class catch phrases included "Soz about it", meaning "I'm not sorry at all", and "ballpark figure", which was the teacher's trademark saying.

Physics was the only class in which I got "exceed expectations" for homework on my report card, despite the fact that I don't think I did any physics homework all year. We went through the homework in class so I just worked it out on the fly.

Unfortunately, this did show up in my exam results. Stay in school and do your homework, kids. Trust me on this.

We did lots of exciting things in physics. Like that time when the teacher took us on a field trip to...wait for it...the school hall. We did get to play with giant springs though, so that was fun. We almost forgave the teacher. Almost.

Or the time when we tried to convince the relief teacher (substitute, to my American friends) that I should be allowed to play my guitar because we were learning harmonics. She didn't buy it.

Or when the teacher got so sick of us harassing him about cleaning the board properly that he actually cleaned it properly.

Or the time when I tried to invoke both the arrow/fletcher's paradox (also known as Zeno's third paradox) and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to prove that I didn't need to learn kinematic equations. Both of which proved unsuccessful.

One trick that did prove successful was the Death Star Manoeuvre. Along with the other constellations and planets on the ceiling of the lab, our teacher put up a toy Death Star. We came into class, sat down, looked down at our books and, predictably, failed to notice it. At which point he told us "I'm disappointed in you girls. You're so unobservant. I put a Death Star on the ceiling and you didn't even notice."

A few months later, we were finally left alone in the lab, and decided to move the Death Star. After arguing for a few minutes on where to place it, we eventually agreed to place it in plain sight, rather than hiding it in a corner. After removing it, getting scared and trying to hide it behind my back when someone entered the room and dropping it, we finally managed to reattach it to the ceiling.

This was a Friday. Our next lesson was a Monday. We waited for half the lesson, almost expecting the teacher to have noticed and to say something. Finally, our (ok, mostly my) giggling gave us away, and one of the girls spoke up. "Mister, we're really disappointed in you. We moved your Death Star and you didn't even notice."

As I said before, my physics class rocked. It was full of awesome people, taught in an engaging and fun way, and just generally a happy and safe class to be in. Thanks guys!

I have no idea how to end this post.

Perhaps with a question. What are some funny things you remember from school? Share in the comments section and be in to win. Terms and conditions apply. See in store for details.

Bye for now,
Love,
Jess

What happens when I just start writing without an idea...

I have no idea where this post is going.
A lightbulb in my room went out and I'm blaming that for my lack of inspiration because you can't have a "Lighbulb moment" without a ligthtbulb. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

I babysat until two this morning, so you should all be really nice and go easy on me.

I'm so uninspired. CURSE YOU WRITER'S BLOCK.

I've just discovered that the 'p' key on my keyboard is being temperamental. The sad part is I can't even come up with a halfway decent joke about this.

What's the difference between roast chicken and pea soup?
Anyone can roast chicken...

My good friend Kiersten suggested I do a post on how perfect she is. But then I realised that would just make everyone else (me included) jealous of her perfection...
Hey, Asher, remember when I was going to write my speech on all the things I knew about you? Good times, good times.

I should have tried to write this at two o'clock this morning instead.

What WAS I doing at two AM?

That's right, I was trying to write a sonnet and kind of vaguely watching Wimbledon. I was actually quite proud of myself because I tend to write in eight syllable lines as opposed to ten syllable lines, so getting four ten syllable lines was quite an achievement. They're probably not iambic pentameter (stresses still confuse me a little, so I can't tell) but they're ten syllable rhyming lines, which is a pretty good effort at that time of night.

I asked my lovely boyfriend Daniel (who insisted on staying up to keep me company, bless him) what rhymed with return, to which he replied "Perm? Term? Derm? Firm?".

It took me about fifteen minutes to realise that none of those rhymed with return.

According to my text messages, I also realised the pun in FLOO powder. FLOO powder, chimney FLUE. Well played, J K Rowling. Well played.

And on that mindblowing note, I shall bid you all adieu.

Love, Jess
xoxox

HEY GUYS! LIFE IS GREAT, ISN'T IT?

Sorry for the overzealous caps lock usage in the title. I suppose instead of apologising I could go back and change it, but I'm not going to. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better today and that is good.

Today's post will be short, because I'm working on a really awesome post that will appear sometime in the next few days, plus my ability to write coherently seems to have vanished on me. Also, I am babysitting tonight and therefore haven't got that much time.

Let's talk about music! Music is a very important part of my life.

I may not be very good at it, but it's something I enjoy and something I can constantly improve on, and I've made massive progress since I started.

I'm also pretty much self taught, which is something I'm very proud of.

I've had my guitar for seven or so years and she is my baby.

Her name is Turtle Dawson, because turtles are awesome and I really like Kimya Dawson's music. She did the soundtrack for the movie Juno, if anyone's seen it.

I love that movie. I quote it all the time, but none of my friends get it, which is sad.

Actually, it's quite interesting to me how I can almost immediately identify a phrase as a quote because my my mind works linguistically, whereas my friend James, for example, would better recognise an image because his mind works visually.

It was handy in exams, because usually the question would remind me of the answer. But I digress.

Anyway, I was going to show you a video of me playing guitar but the acoustics in my room are too good and it sound really echo-ey and delayed and terrible. Either that or my computer has rubbish sound quality.

UPDATE: It's the recording software I was using. Hopefully I'll have a video up in the next few days.
FURTHER UPDATE: It's the angle of the guitar relative to the mic.
FINAL UPDATE: My computer hates me. That is all.

Bye for now,
Love,
Jess
xoxox

Guests comes to class, hilarity ensues...

I love the phrase "hilarity ensues". I think I picked it up back when I was reading blogs like Tucker Max, which, although hilarious and entertaining, is not for the easily offended. Or for people who get offended at all really.

But seriously, "hilarity ensues" is pretty much my life story. I open my mouth, hilarity ensues. I have a "bright" idea, hilarity ensues. Which is great really, because it means I always have something to laugh about.

Today we had a guest speaker come to our journalism class to talk about diversity. A lovely Muslim lady who was really helpful and interesting and genuine and I really can't say enough positive things about her.

Anyway, at some point I asked about Muslim views on gay marriage, to which she replied that sodomy was forbidden.

I had a rough idea of what sodomy was, but, unthinkingly, asked for clarification. Had you been there, you would have witnessed my whole class mentally facepalming.

To her credit, she answered honestly and calmly and moved on.

Our second guest speaker, the lovely Taryn, was also fantastically brilliant, and was very informative, inspirational and helpful.

The experiences she shared made a real impact on me as to how important it is to establish a relationship with your sources and to treat them with respect and most of all, to cherish the honour of telling their story.

She told us that this year, while we're still learning, we should do as many stories as we can about things that interest us. Which got me thinking about what I am interested in that I could do stories on.

The first answer that came to mind was "nothing". And then I looked back over my past few stories, which were about things like birds and cafes, and I realised that I'm actually interested in everything.

Previously, I hadn't been interested in pursuing journalism as a long term career. But after hearing Taryn talk about the privilege of telling people's stories and being reminded that, really, journalism is about people (apart from the odd bird) and people are what I'm interested in, I'm seriously considering it.

Don't tell anyone, but maybe I DO like journalism after all...

So, in short, today I became interested the Muslim faith, learned what sodomy is, and discovered a new passion for journalism.

My class also learnt that I should not be allowed to ask questions. EVER. Which may be a bit of a problem if I want to be a journalist.

Bye for now,
Love,
Jess, future journalist.