Prizegiving

It was Prizegiving this morning, as everybody knows. The only thing that can be said for it was that it gave me extra sleep. For the first time in what seems my entire life, I went to school feeling like I'd had enough sleep. I am so lazy. Anyway, I got into Crosby, went to the shop and bought a(nother) bag of penny sweets, and retreated to the common room.

I'd been there five minutes when Yusra came in. I had to stop and blink and make sure I wasn't imagining things, and I wasn't. It was her, in the flesh, over from Saudi for two weeks. She's just the same. Not that I was expecting her to have changed since August, but it was so strange to have her there. She told us we look all grown up - in the common room, with tails swinging round. I actually forgot my tails today, and had to grab some from Mrs Stubbs' office. Now I have two sets, and don't really know what to do with them.

Anyway. Bev arrived shortly after and her face upon seeing Yusra was a sight to behold. By the end of it, Yusra was crying messily with her mascara running, and that was a sight to behold, too. We had so many irrelevant things to tell her about, like geography and soup and Preston Montford and Danny and that rumour going round about me, and everything under the sun besides.

We had to get on buses to go to the Philharmonic, and just as we were sitting down, I saw Enid and Jane and got up with a fangirl squeal. We could only talk for a few minutes before the thing began, but it was cool anyway. I was bored from the very beginning. They start with the address from the governors, and that's boring, and the headmistress, which is even more boring. And then the prizes. I hate going up to collect prizes. I always think I'm going to fall over something, although I never have, touchwood. I managed it today without incident, and was even concentrating enough to notice that cucharita got louder applause than anyone else, because her hair was shining like a pink-streaked beacon across the hall. I [[heart]] teh Enid.

The guest speaker wasn't bad, actually. Not as good as Jane Garvey was last year, but not bad. She was the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if she wasn't, I'm sure the school wouldn't have given her a second thought. But she did seem quite aware of it, including in her opening lines the words, "I'm not sure I make a good role model for young women when the only thing I've really done is marry well." I was amused. She didn't bore me to death like the rest of them, which can only be a good thing.

Afterwards, I slipped off into Liverpool feeling a little lonely, because (of course) my parents didn't come. They were busy. I battled my way through the rain, bought a sandwich and just got on the train without really stopping to talk to anyone. It was only on the train that I looked at what I'd got. The school have given me an Upper Five form prize, which is seven pounds' worth of book tokens, and they have also given me the Margaret Mann prize for Spoken and Written English, which is worth ten pounds. Even though the prize was shared, I didn't have to share the book tokens. I do, however, have to write to Mrs Mann and thank her. I don't think I mind doing that, particularly when you consider the nature of the prize. As well as the prizes, I have a piece of paper in a document wallet, from AQA. It certifies that I took and passed ten GCSEs in the summer of 2003. It's only a very flimsy certificate, and in any case, I associate GCSEs with summer, with stifling long afternoons in the centenary hall when it was so hot the moderators were barefoot and I was slowly falling asleep on our papers. Now, in November, in winter, I'm ankle-deep in A-levels with mocks in two weeks, and GCSEs seem just something that happened to someone else, a long time ago. It's hard to explain.

And now, I've got to go back into Liverpool. It would have been earlier, but we've postponed it slightly. I was running around like a headless chicken trying to get ready, but it's turned out all right. I've even had time to paint my nails. Not silver, this time, but that lovely pearly white that I like so much. We're going to see purplerainbow's play, Salad Days, tonight. Should be fun. We'll be at Conway Park at six thirty, for the record.