CMOT Dibbler; or why I hate myself today.

I didn't get a Harrison scholarship. Shall we start by getting that piece of information out there? I didn't get a Harrison scholarship.

It's not worth much, and is just pointless, pretentious academic frippery, and I wanted one.

I didn't get one because I wasn't good enough. I said so at the time with my GCSE results, which despite what might have been said I knew weren't good enough. Not for this, exactly; just not good enough, full stop.

I hate it when I'm right.

Incidentally, I won the Margaret Mann prize for English Language. My mother thinks this is very, very lacking in importance.

Incidentally to that, Mrs Mann was the one who rejected me from Stanfield all those years ago.

Fuck it.

Again, CMOT Dibbler

All right, enough. I'll get over it.

Aside from earlier narrated events, the day wasn't so bad. It rained very very heavily on my way in, and I think just about every lesson I went to involved having to go outside, so I got more and more wet as time went on. At registration, Mr Wilson presented me with The Colour of Magic as his contribution to my Discworld-canon efficiency drive. It was really rather sweet of him. Following that, I survived English with Myring, and had an interesting encounter in French General-

An aside. I hate General Studies. Every single A-level student in the country will agree with me on this. It's stupid and pointless and just, no, no, and I spent the whole of it reading Night Watch which is really very good, though not characteristically Discworld-y.

-because we got held up (that is, Becca, Bev and me) on the way there and I held up everyone further just because, and when we finally got up there, Becca and Bev got two seats and I got stuck in front of them next to Charlene. Meh. They watched very closely for my reaction when I sat next to "Charl", as she now apparently wants to be called. I didn't give anything away, but had to rise to the bait when Bev asked, "Iona, do you want to kill Becca now or-"
"Later," we chorused. Thankfully Charlene wasn't on the ball quick enough to catch on.

I am also not so fond of the other General Studies module, but we won't go into that. Lunch was a strange affair. I couldn't go to the library today because - well, long story. I may have mentioned last week that the library is having repairs done for the first time in three or four decades, conveniently just before they interview the candidates for the new headmaster/headmistress in it. Yes, Mrs Mills finally is leaving. At the end of this year. So, the governors have been there all day. I snuck a peek in the morning, and it's all dolled up with flowers and mineral water on trays, but it was supposed to be off-limits all day to us mere mortals. We had to watch out for the candidates all day and later, we saw their cars parked in the quad. All very, very posh (BMWs, Mercedes, that kind of thing).

Where was I? Lunch, yes... Becca had to do some Physics experiment in the lab, so Bev and I decamped also. I was trying to revise Biology for the test, and Bev was going Geography at a great rate of knots. Surprisingly, we got work done. I could have done with some more revision, but when do I ever revise? The test wasn't too bad, thankfully. I couldn't really face Chemistry last thing, but it was all right. I actually understand electron arrangements now, and can fill in the little diagrams with [Ar]3s and all that stuff. I especially liked doing the ions. Ye gods, I'm sad.

By the time I made my way out of school, I had my umbrella ready for the walk down to the station. But something happened while I was trapped in school inside my head. The rain had just... gone. It was windy and clear and perfect, and the sky was clean, washed blue.