PSATs (I Got A Splinter From An Onion Yesterday...Isn't That Pathetic)

Okay, I'd written a full post and was about to, um, post it, but then something happened and, considering that not many of you are going to read this all the way through, I had to put it at the top.  During lunch today, I and a couple other people made ice cream with the chem teacher.  He poured a lot of milk, cream, sugar and half of one of those little bottles of vanilla into a big bowl, gave me a huge, thick pair of gloves and a wooden spoon, and told me to sit down.  The madman (this is the same person I got my guinea fowl from) proceeded to open up a huge flask of liquid nitrogen - food grade, he assured us - and pour it in while I stirred.  Even with the gloves, it was freezing and I couldn't see what was going on in the bowl for all the cold, white vapours billowing out.  I felt as though I was brewing some ghastly potion.  Anyway, after about three minutes of this we had some rather lumpy-looking, but very proper-tasting ice cream, which we proceeded to consume and distribute joyfully to the population of the hallway!  Geekiest fun that I've had in a while.  Okay, here's the original post:

Well, how did 10•10•10 treat you?  I ended the day with a fever and some frantic homework, but this week has been rather a lot nicer, if draining.  The drama just keeps on mounting, and the thing about making so many friends this quickly is that, until you've built up some history, all you can really talk about is other people.  In view of that, people here seem to have an unspoken agreement that they'll take turns providing gossip by being crazier than I suspect any of them actually are.  And when that happens, I, as the apparently stoic and obviously infallible Thus-Far, And Therefore Permanently, Single Chick, get to deal with it all when it turns sour.

That aside, things are nice.  I forgot to eat much of anything yesterday - turkish coffee and a crumpet for breakfast, a half bowl of cereal at noon and then a panicked piece of toast and an apple just before structured study began.  It was bad.  But the lovely staff here are leaving the kitchen unlocked for me at nights, so I don't have to wait for them to let me in in the mornings.  I'm getting up way too early.  I set my first alarm for half past six and then go back to bed until seven, sometimes quarter past.  I don't have any classes until half nine, ten on some days!  Why do I do this?!  Sometimes I do some homework in the morning, but, really, I ought to be asleep.  I'm completely terrified of sleeping through a class, and I have a thing about getting up before my roommate. 

Subject Change!  We read a really fantastic Nora Ephron essay the other day for English called The Boston Photographs, about the reasons for publishing pictures of a woman and child falling to their deaths in a fire.  The pictures are incredible - all three were taken within a couple seconds, but they go from totally heroic rescue to tragic disaster, and are sort of shocking in the way they do it. 

After classes on Tuesday  I went for a walk with a couple friends.  We took some pictures
- she has a Nikon, I think - and it was really beautiful. 

There are a lot of open, grassy fields and red-yellow trees around the school, and as long as we're signed out we can go anywhere within a thirty mile radius... as if we'd ever get that far.  But I'm so tired!  I honestly want nothing more than a really hot, deep bath right now.  The minute I get home (sometime on Saturday!) I'm going to climb into one and never, ever come out.  And then I'll sleep and sleep and sleep... and eat.  My mum sent me peanut butter, which is making me very happy, as well as a couple lovely Green&Black's bars.  I needed them.  I feel so flat lately... I'm not sure if it's the work or just the novelty of going to a boarding school wearing off, but I suddenly want very much to be back in Turkey or on some very high mountain with a hot wind pushing me around and nothing ahead of me.

The PSATs were yesterday, and involved about three hours of dull sentence correction - some of the options they give you are so unbelievably nonsensical that it hurts - and a big mix of maths.  There were a few tricky problems which I had to leave blank, but the majority was middle-school level

geometry, etc.  Because of the testing, we didn't have classes all morning (well, the seniors did...not sure who should be gloating about that one), but they threw us right back into the grindstone after lunch.  Chemistry was more like nap time. 

 

So, my parents are coming up for conferences... eeek.  I've got some decent Bs and a couple nice As, but I think I'm still hovering around a 75 in maths, and I'm not sure how that will go down.  But I'm excited to see my friends at home... home.  I'm just going to have to stop using that word now.  It's got too many meanings.  School, my parents' house, London, Turkey... Anyway, we're spending tomorrow night across the border at a German place, and I'm rather looking forward to dinner.

Well, I'm actually in study hall, so I should get going.  I don't want to have homework over this break (no more classes until Wednesday!) and that means I must do battle with the textbooks now... Logic doesn't like to work in my favour, does it?