Day 188: June 27

from the newsdesk...
The Tonys and the brilliance of Neil Patrick Harris 

If you're feeling like shit or you need a laugh or you feel like watching something, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3IpegKvdt0

Ladies and gentlepeople, the opening number to the Tony Awards in New York. It is happy, it is clappy and it is hosted (and sung) by Neil Patrick Harris. For those of you who don't know him (!) he is Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother. It really makes me want to get up and dance and flip and sing and be on Broadway. Unfortunately, I do non of those things, but a girl can dream, right?

9.58pm fact of the day (regarding NPH):
Neil Patrick Harris has this awesome talent of being able to speak/sing really fast. It is displayed in the opening of the Tonys and also in the clip in which he pretty much recaps the whole series plot line of How I Met Your Mother in 60 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCSjcII64FE

Quite impressive.

Day 187: June 17

From the newsdesk...

John Green 

John Green is not a perfect person.* 

But he comes pretty damn close.

His writing. 

It's like a writer married a fairy and then when they had sex the fairy didn't have eggs, but fairy dust and then she got pregnant and John Green was born. 

Pretty much. 

He creates this fictional world that is so good and so real that everything that happens in this fictional world seems like its happening in reality and then attachment occurs. Over the space of 313 pages, Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace and Van Houten and Isaac and everyone became apart of my life. When (SPOLIERS) Augustus died, it was like a bit of my heart had been ripped out. It was like Hazel Grave and Augustus were my best friends and they made the best couple and then he was gone and took a piece of my heart and sanity with him. (SPOILERS ARE OVER FOR NOW, BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THERE'S MORE SPOILING FURTHER ON. I recommend reading the book before continuing). 

John Green's vocabulary is like a long piece of rope. That is, it's extensive. He doesn't use really simple, basic 5 year old language, yet he doesn't use long over the top words that don't need to be there. When needed, simple words are good, but mostly he uses middle-of-the-road words - words that I will understand (most of the time), but they aren't too basic. 

In Fault** he takes you on this long journey: a rollerocoaster ride really, that has ups and downs and twists and loop-de-loops. It never stops moving and there is a new surprise at every turn. When the book ends, it's like a slap in the face. Everything you do feels so inadequate, and it's as if nothing matters anymore. Because five minutes before you were in the ICU with Augustus and hoping with Hazel Grace and then suddenly hope dies and the book ends. The first time I read it, I just lay there, thinking what to do with my life. Not "oh, I'm gonna stop world poverty" thoughts, but the real deep "shit, cancer and disease and what can I do about it?" thoughts. Real life thoughts. 

This is what I sent my friend to get over a John Green novel, aka Fault (I've edited it slightly): 

1. Cry 

2. Cry 

3. Cry 

4. Get angry at cancer 

5. Wish it was gone 

6. Ship Hazel Grace and Gus 5eva 

7. Remember about Gus. 

8. Cry more 

9. Rinse and repeat. 

So you will never get over the novel and the unfairness of the world and the paranoia that your favourite author is also a douchebag alcoholic that hates kids and that maybe someday someone that you know will get cancer and they'll have to live though the pain and the suffering and the agony that it brings and watch it destroy everything and everyone around them. 

->That's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.  

->Okay? Okay. 

-> I fell in love the way you fall asleep. Slowly and then all at once. 

-> The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves 

-> They don't kill you unless you light one. And I've never lit one. It's a metaphor, see. You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing

-> The world is not a wish-granting factory 

-> My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations 

-> What a slut time is: she screws everybody 

-> Some infinities are bigger than other infinities 

-> I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace

-> It'd be a privilege to have my heart broken by you Hazel Grace. 

*one day I will do a list on these. 

*The Fault in Our Stars. The best book written by John Green. Maybe also ever. 

Day 186: June 9/10

From the newsdesk...

Sweet sixteenth 

9 more minutes until the 10th of June, 2013. 

I got a Kindle. Seriously I have the best friends in the entire world. Also, I got.a Rolling Stones clock, Skins, season 3, Typo stationary: notepads, mug and drink bottle, a miniature chick container and small chocolate balls and a bouquet of chuppa-chups. Also a Kindle cover.

It's true. The moment before you turn one age, you finally feel the age from before. 364.5 days late, but you're finally there. 

When you turn an age, adults are like "well, now you have to act like that". Well no. Just because another year has gone by since I was covered in blood and had tubes running out of me, doesn't mean I have to act that age. It doesn't require me to act maturely and read the newspaper every morning and be serious all the time. Some situations may require maturity, but some are just there to be enjoyed and to have fun!! 

11.58pm. 

I'll still probably write 15 years old on any forms and when people ask: "oh, I'm 15". 

It's more mentally knowing that you're a year older than being it physically (is that a thing?) 

It is 12.00am, on the 10th of June, 2013. 

I am officially 16. 

Day 185: June 9

From the newsdesk... 

Partay

I am turning 16 tomorrow. 

What? 

(There will probably be a blogpost on this at 12am tonight/tomorrow morning). 

But tonight is my party. 

16 years of life and fun and tears and laughing and crap days and the best days and music and friends and family and basketball and photos and aeroplanes and food and baking and school and days that you never wanted to end and crutches and daisy and indie and fluffy (rip) and mopsy and fights and exams and tests and trophies and Facebook convos and viber and iMessage and shit teachers and giggles and clothes and movies and sleepovers and moving location at lunch and bomber jackets and good teachers and the canteen and parties and L's and finally being legal to give blood. 

So let's raise a glass to that. (Non-alcoholic because I'm not legal yet). 

To evrrything mentioned above and everything yet to come. *Raises virtual glass*. 

To us experiencing every emotion fifty times over and taking selfies all the time. To us and our friendship and to all the many fights, laughs and brilliant times we'll have in the future. 

To us and our crazy ways and the way we all say the same thing. 

To us for finishing exams. (Only 2 years to go). 

To us being us.

*Clinks glasses together* 

Day 184: June 5

From the newsdesk...

Exams 

And so the countdown begins...

8 hours and 53 minutes. 

All the studying and writing and reading (Mockingbird) and testing myself and learning - it all comes down to the next two days. 

And then it's over. 

You work your ass off for two terms learning four subjects, each of them with their own set of sub-topics, just to get it done and over with in 2 days. 

8 hours 50 minutes...

And then the cycle repeats again. 

Year eleven, here I come! 

But then you have year 12 where there's no mid years and you work for four terms for six exams that literally plan out the next year of your life for you. 

It's weird. 

Half of my brain is saying that I'm prepared and I've learnt what I need and no need to worry and the other half is saying that I don't know enough and I should've looked over this more and that I can't do it. 

Dementor and Hermione's never-ending-beaded bag. 

It's only two days, but it's two days filled with writing down - literally - everything you know, or anything that could be relevant to that subject - on a piece of paper and just hoping for the best. 

8 hours 40 minutes.

I feel like I know my material inside out and upside down (except for physics), but is that enough? 

Day 183: June 2

From the newsdesk...

Crunching the numbers of my life

•8 days till my birthday 

•I am turning 16 

•3.5 days till exams 

•There are 83 McDonald's on the island of Manhattan which is 783km squared or 302.64 square miles. 

•On a scale of 1-never again, I am at never again, regarding "do I ever want to see another text book?"

•In 31 days, we will be at the middle of the year (3rd July) 

•It has been 2 'official days of winter' and so far we've had a thunder storm that rocked the house.

•The time is 8.49am, Sunday morning 

•The goliath birdeater is a spider that lives in the Amazon and can grow up to 30cm wide. Great. 

•My dog weighs about 11kg 

•I woke up at 7.22am this morning 

•They used to sell half gallon drinks (1.89L) at Macca's. Maybe they still do. 

•1/4 lb is 113g 

•When I turn 16, I can donate blood which will potentially save 3 people's lives.