And I didn't think about all the ways I hurt you and myself...

[raven]

Last night, I cracked up very slowly and started making frantic lists in pink biro. Scrawled on the back of an envelope, the main looked like this:

Things that are going to kill me

• Four A-levels
  
• Total lack of any frees at all
  
• First-aid
  
• General studies
  
• Maths-for-science
  
• Advanced Extension
  
• Three mentors and associated mentoring
  
• Being head librarian
  
• Loneliness
  
• UCAS

Pedar was reading over my shoulder, and was, surprisingly, quite helpful. Most of them, he can't help me with. But he did point out that four A-levels was never a choice for me, that UCAS is temporary, as is the mentoring, being head librarian gives me the chance to use the magic D-word and delegate, and if I skive off all my General studies lessons and don't turn up for the exam, he will look the other way when the school attempt to inform him of it.

In short, I'm dead and the girl typing is my reanimated corpse.

Yesterday, I had a half day, and there was a picnic on the grass at lunchtime. I can't remember the school ever providing for that before, but apparently they have and I just can't remember. I had a sandwich, took an apple and went to one of my mentors, Mrs Irwin, who is responsible for Economics.

I didn't, at the time, think she liked me. I still am not sure if she does. But she talked to me for about half an hour and I actually found it very interesting. Despite the fact we were talking about exchange rates and gross domestic products and joining the euro, I actually found it interesting. Strange, that.

Afterwards I went home and spent the afternoon alternately sleeping and watching Buffy DVDs. My original plan was to do some work, try and catch up on aldehydes and ketones and do some more on the biochemistry of photosynthesis, but I couldn't physically make myself. I was so tired, and I'm still so tired, and I have a feeling I'm going to be tired until next July.

The episodes I watched were I Was Made To Love You, The Body and Forever. The first was sweet and quirky, and included the following line from Tara:

"I go online sometimes, but everyone's spelling is really bad, and it's... depressing."

Remind me why I love the girl.

Then, the Body, and no proper review. Just this line from Anya, which I found extraordinary for its depth. Through no fault of her own, Anya really does have the emotional experience of a four-year-old and this is so simple and says so much:

"I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore. It's stupid. It's mortal and stupid. And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why!"

Pedar got home eventually, and it was just him and me as my mother and grandparents are in London. Pedar and I get on well with each other. I understand him and he understands me, and it's a quiet sort of understanding but it's very real nonetheless. He doesn't bother me. If I tell him that I am very, very tired, four A-levels are going to kill me, and I'd like to lie on my bed writing my personal statement and watching Buffy DVDs, he will simply nod and ask if I want coffee with that.

Compared to my mother, it's quite amazing.

So, I scribbled at my personal statement, wrote a few lines of fic(the first since I went back to school) and went to bed and woke up exhausted.

I had to go in, though. My first task of the day was tackling Mrs Enstone to look at the (beginnings of) my personal statement. She said it was a fine beginning, which took a real weight off my mind, and some ideas to be going on with, which rolled off further weights. Her final judgement - "You will interest them." And that made me feel a lot better.

I went down to the library after that; Fidan and Mrs Barry were there too, and they asked to read it as well. Fidan (and Emma, now I come to think of it) said it was clever. Mrs Barry's response amused me:

"It's very self-deprecating, isn't it? All these throwaway lines - hardly the hard sell!"

I laughed, and went off to do the whole lesson thing. Othello, Talk in Life and Literature, or whatever the module is called. I also had to go to a careers interview with Mrs Myring. Her main suggestion was I needed "insurance."

"What does that mean?" I asked, perfectly reasonably.

It means, apparently, that in case I have a "bad day" and don't get four As at A-level, I should have a university on my list that accepts less than perfection. I explained politely that that just wasn't possible, and took my leave. It was all I could do.

It was an odd day, really. I got randomly hit on the head by a file by quackaquacka in the library (Mr Evans started chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" and when Mrs Barry yelled at him for lowering the tone, he said, "I've lowered the tone of lower places than this!") and also in the library, I got told off by a first-year! I was perched on the desk chewing on a Dairy Milk, and got told, "Excuse me, you're not allowed to eat in the library!"

Well, what was I supposed to do? I glared as ominously as possible and stalked off, tails swinging. The rule about not eating there does exist but is generally bent in my case because I spend so much time in the place. Anyway, that's not the point. As I said to Fidan later, when you were a first-year, would you have dared say something like that to a sixth-former?

Fidan said, sagely: "When I was a first-year, I wouldn't have dared look a sixth former in the eye."

I probably concur. Very odd.

I'm tired now. I've got to write several things - personal statement, essay for mentors, and a few lines about Mrs Miller (I'm one of the few people left whom she actually taught) - and there will be no time for any of my own writing tonight, and this really makes me sad.

Comments

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Is it really not possible to have an insurance choice on your UCAS form? I don't want to be another annoying person nagging you, but if there's a way to take the pressure out of doing 4 A levels, it's knowing that you'll still be able to go to university if you get three Bs and one A.

I mean, you know, aim high. That's fantastic. But don't kill yourself in the process - please?!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Not really .Oxford won't accept less than three As, although York will take two As and a B. No medical school will consider anything less than three As.

As for the killing-myself thing - really not an issue, when I'm already dead. Highly ironic - my personal statement is all about my life and my personality, when I'm not actually in possession of either.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Ah - I suppose this is why I'm neither a doctor nor a lawyer - I chose the relatively-stressless Bs and As to the highly stressful straight As. :) Just a different way of life, I guess.

Take care of yourself. I will be mildly annoying and worry about you in the background.