General Confessions Episode 3

Howdy Strangers! This is just a hiatus from hiatusing (why is this not a word?) and you'll soon never hear from me again for three/four more weeks. Also, due to a official hiatus period, this is simply a write dump consisting of nothing to exciting. I did write a full-blown proper (and I mean proper) confession, but I don't feel quite ready to share it with the world wide web yet. So you'll just have to enjoy the following:

EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!

I get frustrated about very little things. Little things like overuse of exclamation marks. They make a story sound like a fangirl gush, halt flow and are aesthetically unpleasing. Take for example: 

"Then I ran into the kitchen and saw my friend Mandy! She was just standing there, doing I'm not sure what, but looking very attractive! Perhaps Luke will ask her out soon!" compared to:

"Then I ran into the kitchen and saw my girlfriend Mandy. She was just standing there, doing I'm not sure what, but looking very attractive. Perhaps Luke will ask her out soon!" 

They both say the exact same thing, however the second one feels easier to read, sounds more mature, won't be read in a silly teenage girl's voice and actually conveys more meaning and emotion as it creates a depth and range of feeling, whilst sentence one simply gushes and sounds fake. Another thing about exclamation marks that annoy me is when people use multiple ones at a time, e.g !! or !!!!!!!!!!!!!!. It is simply unnecessary and distracting to the eye! It makes thing difficult to read and absorb! In fact, I even have an opportunity to use a Terry Pratchett quote here (yay!); "'Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind'"~Eric. 

CINNAMON CHALLENGE IS FOR SISSIES

So I presume you've all heard of the latest craze in weird things that internet people do: The Cinnamon Challenge. If you haven't basically it involves placing a heaped tablespoon of ground cinnamon into one's mouth. Youtubers do it, bloggers do it, silly people at parties do it. I decided to join the throng and I did it. But I didn't actually decide to join the throng, I simply wanted to try a feat (or treat in the novel) mentioned in the fantastic novel 'What Katy Did'. The feat? To ingest a stick of cinnamon with pleasure. A stick of cinnamon. Ack. I had completely forgotten about this anecdote but remembered it whilst placing the oats away and the cinnamon container caught my eye. I was fairly hesitant as, evidenced by the Cinnamon Challenge, vast amounts of cinnamon is not generally considered a delicacy. I thought about it for a while and finally decided...well, YOLO.  So I began, I grabbed a (small) stick out of the spice box, and bit into it with relish. My thought process as I ate it  is recorded here: 'Wow... this is crunchy... It's just like eating treebark... I'm not getting any flavours yet.... How the hell am I going to swallow this crunched up mess?...Oh... that's actually quite nice, very nutty, fairly flavoursome.... Why do people consider the cinnamon challenge so hard?... Hmmmm, getting a bit spicy now, but nothing I can't handle, in fact it rather adds to the experience.... Oh Yum! Those flavours are really nice... I understand why the Carrs had cinnamon as a treat now... Crunch, crunch, crunch. OH DEAR GOD! IT BURNS, IT BURNS! GET IT OUT NOW!... ew.

That is really gross, my hand is covered in what looks like my baby sisters semi-digested tree-bark... IT'S STILL BURNING DANG IT! Water....oh sweet water.... Now I just need to clean the sink of chewed up tree-bark... fun... well. I won't be doing that again."And thus ended my version of the cinnamon challenge.

Harry Potter and the Magic of Puberty

I know what you're thinking: Oh great! Yet another thing about how all the HP characters ended up being really attractive. But I guess it is kinda cool, cause if I'm attracted to males I get to drool over pictures of Matt Lewis or if I'm attracted to females I get to drool over Emma Watson. 

But no. There will be schmexy pictures cos I want an excuse to dribble over people but I will be focusing on a character renowned for being the...well... opposite of sexy. Firstly, there is of course Tom Felton but he's old news. Today I want to focus on Dudley (gasp!). 

You're probably thinking 'so what? He's still pretty ugly.' WRONG! You see, I have another image to show you....

He's in Merlin which means Fantaboush!

asdfghjkl! How and when did Ickle Dudleykins become so attractive? 

On a side, Harry Potter-related-thing, does this disturb you?

Baby Voldemort doll. Why? 

 Cos it scares me half to death! Some person makes HP themed dolls! 

Supposedly baby Luna doll

So... I'm being lazy and will come back and edit, format, correct, etc some other time than 10:30 on Friday night (woot! I have a life). I'm also going to be too lazy to give you a Word of the Fortnight (I have to learn lists of useless things for exams. I'm not adding to it) but I will give you a few fun updates on life as Confession:

a) Sickness: I am perpetually sick. Week 3 just ended and I've already had 5 days off. Ridiculous. I'm not pulling sickies or even just mildly sick; I am honest to goodness unable to attend school sick. I'm still recovering from Conjunctivitis. I had it in one eye, then that was almost better when I got it in the other eye. What is this? Anyway, to treat my perpetual illness I now have a bright red iron supplement once a day, a bright orange multivit once a day, eye-drops four times a day and oily, wheaty pro-biotic water twice a day. What sheer joy.

b) Our book: We've actually started writing! We've written 2.5 chapters and Confession is probably currently writing the next bit. We're getting through it surprisingly fast- probably as a result of study procrastination and not paying attention in geography- and I'm so glad we spent that 4 months writing back story.

c) New room: I told you this a while ago but I thought I'd tell you a bit more about it now. Basically, it's at the other end of the house to my parents and (soon to be 2) baby sibling(s), it has it's own ensuite (yay!), it is deliciously large and I feel ridiculously spoilt! I still haven't finished decorating, got one more 'Quoting Shakespeare' (gosh I'm a nerd) poster to frame and hang above my bed, but I do have a Discworld poster, a Card wall, some medieval figurines, insufficient book cases, dodgy cardboard boxes full of writing inspirations and a fairy statuette collection. I am just so darn cool.

Now that you've made it through fairly boring write-dump and some even more boring updates of my life you have my full permission to go and read a book, watch a film, dance a hornpipe, learn to whistle and then appliquéing a quilt. Enjoy life, living it to a high potential.
xx
Confession

P.S Comments + other proof that someone, anyone, is actually reading these things are appreciated- even negative feedback is good feedback :)

Housekeeping (Holidays, Hiatuses and more...) WARNING: GIFS.

Yo! Wassup? This is basically just a write dump containing stuff I actually have to tell you, in order not to lose my official status as the responsible half of P & C. (hehehe )

Le me being arrogant. 'Cause yes,
I'm actually a forty-something man

Hiatus. Don't you just love that word? I love the way it sounds like some awful army manoeuvre or special type of mass-execution. I dislike the way it actually means a pause in a series of events. That's such a dodgy meaning! Anyway, I'm not here to discuss the 

meaning of the word hiatus or the feelings it invokes (evokes? invokes? which one is it? I just looked it up and they mean the same thing. WTH?). I'm here to discuss the fact that there will, at least from Confession, be one for this bloggy blog of blogginess. You see, there's this little thing called 'exams' which are coming up. It's our first real exam period (One of the many slightly dubious joys of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program, or IB MYP for short, is that you don't get proper exams until well into highschool. You get fifty-thousand assignments instead) and so we're all freaking out. Yes it's in six weeks so it's a fair way off but no, I don't have any complete study notes except for geography. In order to rectify this situation there will be no scheduled confessions. There may occasionally be a write dump if I'm procrastinating but hopefully not. I apologise. 

Holidays of Stuff. For those of you who have no freaking idea what I'm talking about, I'll re include the highly-scientific analysis:

 Let's discuss it post events;

Sherlock: I read one of the many books but yeah... didn't actually watch any. 

Study: I wrote ALL my geography ones. No comment on the others.

Yes. I realise it is the wrong meme. Shoot me. 

Socialising: I saw friends 5 times. I think it's a record.

Room Sorting: I did it! I did it! Whoo whoop YEAH!

YouTube: I did it for one vlogger. Only about ten more to go.

Photography: Yeah...nah.

I'm obviously a person who sticks to plans and accomplishes things efficiently.

These holidays, Philosopher and I were going to hole ourselves up somewhere (i.e a library) and write GP (that is what our story is affectionately known as ~ can you guess what it means?). We didn't, although Philosopher did write a pretty good half a first chapter. I did pretty much nothing. I thought about it a lot and I know what I'm doing, I just don't know when. After Exams. It's almost become a new sort of time period to me. Everything I plan that does not include studying is AE (after exams) and can't happen until then. 

Le me sitting at desk after finishing final exam

AE celebratory dance

I wish I did more creative writing. In a probably futile, if the holidays of stuff demonstrates anything, attempt to push myself to do more I created three years worth of write prompts. They have images, quotes, sentence starters, songs, a whole big mish-mash of things. 

Basically I allow myself one week to write something, anything, about the prompt, whether it be a poem, a essay, a short story, a paragraph, a chapter of a book or whatever the hell I feel like. Unfortunately I'm not allowing myself to start until after exams. THE SUSPENSE!

I really want to upload it and share it with you but I don't think I legally am allowed to. You see, I used images from the amazing website DeviantArt. I figure so long as it's personal use that's ok, but sharing it with others would probably get me into all sorts of trouble. I'm not quite sure why, as people put their art there for others to see (but no use I guess). I'm awfully sorry because I know you all would have absolutely loved to see it. 

WOW! (I.e Word of the Week)
Palimpsest:
A manuscript or writing surface from which writing has been partially or wholly erased to make room for another text. Thanks Sherlock (where I got the word)!

If you are a school student in Australia, I hope you enjoyed your first day back at school (yay!) but if not I hoped you enjoyed your unique/boring/exciting/routine/adventurous/slothful day! Now go outside, look at the sky and breathe deeply, enjoying the polluted 'fresh' air.
xx Confession xx
P.S I'm sorry about all the gifs. Once we had a whole class debate about how to pronounce it. Thanks to google translate my side one.
P.P.S Sorry this post was kinda boring. Next one will be a write-dump that makes you laugh. I promise. xxx

A Woman's Philosophy

*Disclaimer* yes, I know I’m naughty, I know, I should post. Geddoverit and read.

Since I am of the female persuasion, when I reached a certain birthday milestone, people decided that I would, from that moment forth, be ‘womanly’. 

I was slightly tomboyish as a primary school student (I worshipped the colour blue, thought  pink was for ‘sissies’ and was convinced that flipping someone off meant absolutely diddly squat, because, as I constantly told people ‘It’s just a finger’), but I soon warmed up to the glories of being a girl. 

Being ‘womanly’ was not, of course, something I was expected to become overnight. You see, as a child, I had plenty of free time to muck around, play, draw on the walls, eat my mother’s lipsticks, the usual. But as I ventured into the DANGER ZONE (aka adolescence) I found that strange new entities- ‘homework’ and ‘study’ (?) - were sucking up my time like hungry vacuum cleaners. On top of this, the DANGER ZONE was also the zone of ‘womanliness’. So whilst dealing with the strange schoolwork monsters, I was also expected to find the time to study and learn the ways of the woman. Observe.

So, I embarked on my journey to womanliness, fighting off the evil forces of schoolwork as I went. But frankly, ladies and gents (but ladies in particular), it makes me wonder; WHY do we do this to ourselves? The desire to be beautiful is tempting, I admit, but a lot of these ‘womanly ways’ seem absurd. So while I have embraced many of them with open arms (wafting a delicious vanilla scent as I did so), I’ve turned a cold shoulder to many more.

Because honestly, ladies, we’re beautiful. And don’t any of you ever forget it :)

Confessions of a Tea-aholic

Experts say that to survive physically a person needs only three things: food, water and shelter. This is true. However, I believe that one can not simply survive on food, water and shelter alone. One needs social interaction (just take Chuck and Wilson for example) and nourishment of a kind other than the physical type. 

Wilson-obvious scientific proof that company is essential

No, I'm not going to rant about religion as I know that would create controversy (the horror of anyone ever talking about religion!). Instead I'm going to tell you what I believe people need to survive both physically and emotionally (A/N I didn't say spiritually): food, water, shelter, social interaction, a form of escapism and something to sooth the soul. For me the last two manifest themselves in the form of books and tea.

Woot! Woot! C.S. Lewis! Woot!

I've already (briefly) mentioned my love affair with books so I shan't bore you all to death with that. I will tell you instead about my passionate affair with tea: 

 You hear about people being 'foodies' and while I do love my food, I am more of a 'teaie'. Don't get me wrong, I love my coffee but tea holds the key to my heart.

Tea holds the key to your heart/ and all of tea plays a part... dum dum die dum die
Those are the lyrics aren't they?

If I'm with friends I'll get an iced tea or one of those weird (but strangely delicious) bubble teas.If I'm eating out with family I'll get a sophisticated herbal tea to accompany my desert. If I'm chilling at home I'll make myself some sophisticated herbal tea to accompany my book/homework/tv show/procrastination/game etc. If I'm shopping with my mum I'll get a ... well I'll get a coffee then but that's irrelevant. Basically I drink a lot of tea. 

Bubble Tea
Delicious but I don't want to know
what's in in.

I have a rapidly expanding tea collection and one of my favourite shopping experiences, second only to secondhand bookstore browsing, is wandering around a tea shoppe, smelling everything, trying free samples and agonising over which exorbitantly expensive tea I should purchase. I'm perfectly happy with a mug of cheap, milky, generic brand black tea but I'm perfectly blissful when I have my special tea mug (I drink tea out of a mug. Shoot me.) filled with just brewed, exotic blend herbal tea or tea made from freshly picked herbs from our veggie patch. I take it with two hands, smell it deeply, give a sigh of contented happiness and then take my first hesitant sip. Mmmmmmm...... 

For me, tea is the number one cure all. Whether I'm upset, excited, stressed, crying, laughing, relaxed, in love, hatin' on someone, no matter what, tea always soothes me and makes me feel better. It warms my insides, sends little shivers down my spine, gives me a contented feel in my stomach and results in a whole body relax and de-tensify. Without tea I think I would be a lot more tense, stressed and all-round emotional than I already am. So basically tea is good, no tea is bad and we should all go drink some. Right, sounds good! I'm gonna go grab a cuppa...

bye!

Oh...wait. I guess I can't really leave until I give you a word of the week, an update on my holiday plans AND a cutesy farewell. *Sigh.*

Firstly, word of the week is (dun dun dun): 

Hecatomb: 

noun. A great public sacrifice, originally of a hundred oxen. 

figuratively. A large loss of life for some cause

Useful isn't it? At least it's better than Oolite (which was the other word I was considering)

Secondly, I have officially moved rooms! I spent my first night there last night  :) but otherwise... I've written all my geography ones but that's it and I've watched maybe two Youtube videos. :( I'm doing really well aren't I?

Thirdly happy trails to you all, until we meet again :)

xx love Confession