When the lights are turned down low

[raven]

Ohmygod. Moebius. I think I loved it. I think I did. I don't know for sure, though...

Y'see, I watched it from eight as usual. At half eight, advert break number two, my mother was on the warpath. She wanted to watch her serial of choice, Astitva: Ek Prem Kahani. I appreciate I haven't mentioned it for a while, but it's still going strong - long-lost relatives, violent deaths, soppy romances and dead brides and all. Tonight's episode was about a kidnapping. Nothing happened for the whole half an hour. But that half an hour overlapped with the second half of Moebius. And no amount of persuading, whining and bitching would shift her.

So I had to relinquish the Sky box to soppy Hindi melodrama just as I got to the bit where you-know-who gets into you-know-what and whoosh. The only other bit of the episode I got to see was the bit during the Astitva advert break, and it was oh-so-perfect in so many ways.

However, my parents are going out tomorrow and Sky Mix are repeating it. I may well survive until then.

Anyway!

There is other news that is squeeworthy. I've been published in Time! A couple of weeks ago I was ranting about George W. Bush and some article written in the magazine, and Pedar got fed up and yelled at me till I wrote some of it down. I emailed it to them just because, and they've published it. It's on the letters page, some distance along, with my name and "Merseyside, UK" underneath.

Squee.

In other news, I was asleep in Politics today - legitimately, as the lesson hadn't started - and jerked up suddenly as Mr Evans said: "I like eating off women."

I stared at him. The whole class stared at him.

"Not literally!" he yelled, but we were all falling apart quietly on the floor.

He's a wonderful teacher, but there are occasions when he shouldn't be allowed to talk. I can't even remember the context. I don't think it matters.

The school is still being painted yellow. I wish they would stop doing it. And I had to fight my way through first-years to get to the library today. I wanted some peace and quiet because I've decided I really ought to take up Latin again. Everyone I've told this to has looked at me strangely. Anyway, I borrowed the first book of Cambridge Latin and am once again immersed in the adventures of Caecillus and his motley crew.

It's amazing how quickly it comes back to you. I was reading aloud Mother-Goose style: "Caecillius est pater. Caecillius sedet in horto. Cerberus est canis. canis in via latrat. Grumio est coquus. Grumio in culina dormit. canis est in mensa."

Within a minute or two, half a dozen people were shouting the translations. Fun. In one day, I have covered nominative and accusative cases for three delenclensions of verbs (singular and plural) and present, perfect and imperfect tenses. It all comes flooding back.

Yes, before that digression I was talking about first-years. Really, when I was a first-year I was terrified of sixth formers. The ones we've got now shout and stamp through regardless. There's also the one Miranda's dubbed Snotty Blonde Third, who comes up to total strangers and tells them, chapter and paragraph, which of the school rules they're breaking. The first time she told me not to eat in the library I just stared, Twix in hand, gaping. There's another first-year (or maybe second - her uniform tells me) I see at Blundellsands most days, snuggled with her boyfriend. Who is about my age. Consequently my internal commentary calls her Lolita.

Quiz tomorrow. Highlight of my year. Should go to bed.

But before that, that thing that's going around, in which I tell you about ten things I've done that you probably haven't. Nicked from thieving_gypsy.

1. Been threatened by Corin Nemec and a replica zat gun. Really!
2. Spent Christmas Day on horseback in the foothills of the Himalayas.
3. Spent a month in intensive care.
4. Been carried onto a plane.
5. Been interviewed for PPE and Medicine degree courses within two months of each other. Come on, no-one's crazy enough to do that.
6. Melted a test-tube into blobby glass. Okay, maybe lots of people have done that. But I did mine with style.
7. Got no marks at all in an A2 module examination.
8. Got full marks in a resit of the same module.
9. Started a cult.
10....no. I am boring. There is nothing else.

Night, all.

Comments

[ladyfalcon.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping one day someone will explain the British public school system to me. Due to Harry Potter, I kind of understand the theory of first-years etc., but what makes one a sixth-former? Is it equivalent to sixth-year? what age are you when you start counting from one? (in America, 1st grade is when you're around six, but apparantly in Britain something else comes before that). What are A-levels?

Inquiring minds desperately want to know.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

*returns from British education system and decides to distract self by answering other people's comments*

Actually, confusingly, a sixth former is in year 12 or 13 (or sort of 14 at times).

In Britian, Reception covers 4-5 years old, Yr 1 5-6, and so on. In the old days, you started counting from 1 when you entered the grammar school (or secondary school (used to be secondary modern)). You then reached the sixth form at the end of your schooling before university. This is the counting used in HP, where first years are ten or eleven. However, now we have the new numbering system, and first years, ten or eleven year olds, are technically year 7. 1 = 11 = 7. Who said British teachers could do maths?

Sixth formers, then, are aged sixteen to nineteen (ie. old enough not to be in education, but not yet at university).

I hope that answers some of your questions, and that Iona won't be annoyed with me for poking my nose into a conversation you tried to start with her.

Iona, I'm going to leave you a seperate comment with the things I want to say directly to you.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Hey, congratulations! That's impressive. I particularly like "Freedom is not a word you can bandy about as verbal punctuation."

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You've seen it? Oh, my. "Verbal punctutation"... oh dear. *blush*

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I read it online, yeah. :)

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

I've been published in Time!

That is awesome! Yay you!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hee! Thank you!

[milieus.livejournal.com]

Oooh. *scurries out to find an issue of Time*

[mettanna.livejournal.com]

Moebius, hee. Hope you love it when you see the rest :)

And - Latin! I did it for a year at my old school and absolutely loved it. Those were the books we used too, i vividly remember "Caecilius est in horto", and my teacher used to yell "subito!" to wake us all up. Good times..

(And that was 10 9 very interesting things, i'm impressed!)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Subito? "Suddenly?"

Here's my favourite: "Semper ubi sub ubi." So geeky am I.

[mettanna.livejournal.com]

Hah, i had to look that one up, made me giggle though :)

My dad got me this book once, "X-treme Latin", very amusing. It basically teaches gives all the vital phrases, my favourite so far being "salaputium fortunatum" ("you lucky fuckhead"!)

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Well done on being published! That must be a major ego-boost. ;)

Sky One Mix are showing the whole thing. I'm considering the possiblity that you should call me at nine and tell me what you think. It's rather likely, though, that my extremely talkative grandmother will be talking my father's ear off at that hour, so you might not get through. Try if you like.

Also, I started a cult once, but yours is spreading much faster.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It is, rather! *blushes*

I will watch it and will attempt to call just to squee.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

I'll expect your call around nine o'clock.