Luck

And the first thing that happened was snow.
That didn't stick.
Damn being on the coast. We never get snow that sticks. I mean, you never see snow mixed with sand.
Ugh.

Anyway. Chemistry was stressful, involved many chemicals and bunsen burners and a hell of a lot of boiling hot liquids, and I burnt my finger and then discovered that there don't seem to be any cold taps in that lab.

Much irrelevance. I am somehow very glad I'm not going to any afternoon lessons... all that remains to be done is retrieve my scarf, apologise to Mrs Jopling, and conveniently forget I have to write up a bunch of notes on the Pomepeiian theatres, amphitheatre and baths.

Which reminds me of the needlessly detailed diagrams in the textbook of the Stabian public toilets. Why did they have to show the people sitting on the wooden seats?

And then... there is no more. I am bored. And no sandwiches for lunch. Yayness.

What else?

Yes. I had a fic idea last night when lying in bed while my mother was invading my room again. It was a wonderful idea involving moonlight. I liked it, but I can't remember it.
I never can remember things in the cold light of day.

cucharita says hi. She is showing me her drawings, which I think she should use as icons. She is also unhappy as I will be absent in maths and RS.

I am wearing my "slashy happy people" bracelet. Hopefully it will bring me luck.

Quiz

I got my scarf back. Slipped my hand through the door of Mrs Jones' office and grabbed it from the shelf. No-one even noticed.

And yes, the quiz. It began very similarly to last year's, except there was someone new - a Lower Four girl named Charlotte, and I couldn't help but feel hopelessly and profoundly sorry for her. The team consisted of her, me, Harriet and Jane - lilka. We managed to reach new heights of geekiness, giggling over LOTR and Hitch-Hiker's and slash and M*A*S*H, and Charlotte seemed so... lost. They started late, and I got out the Book of Useless Information and started flicking randomly through it. I'd got to the page about Captain Picard's fish being called Livingston when it began...

We had new buzzers this year, one set that sounded like train whistles and another set that sounded like doorbells. We obviously got the train whistles. And we didn't do too badly to begin with, and we were even ahead at one point, but we lost against the boys by three hundred points. Oops. After that we bowed out for a round.

It seems that everyone's specialist subject questions are asked when they're not taking part. Last year we were sitting out when we were asked about the Enterprise captains, and this year, they were asked, "What film and later TV series was set during the Korean war?" and they didn't know the answer, while meanwhile in the background Jane and I were positively howling.

There was more howling when the other team were asked, "Given that in the southern hemisphere they have winter when we have summer, when do the Australians celebrate Christmas?" and some guy said, "June 25th." His teammates wanted to kill him.

We lost in the second round too, this time by four hundred points, and I only shone at one question. The other team were busy trying to convince the quizmaster that copra is an alloy of copper and radium... I correctly informed him it is the inside of a coconut.

And that was that. Along the way, I stunned the boys' resident lunatic by my knowledge of the Borg spiel ("Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own! Prepare to be assimilated!), lilka got into a fight with him about the Fellowship of the Ring, Harriet managed to shout out the wrong thing at the wrong time more times than I can comfortably count, Mrs Colvin called me a star and Jane our resident literary authority, and poor, poor Charlotte, all alone in a sea of lunacy...

Next year, I will be team captain, not Jane. This is a frightening thought.