I am a housewife.

Its a thought that's been going round my head for a while, but I think it's now official.

I cook, clean, wash, work... I even organise the rest of my family into action and give them a sore ear when help is not forthcoming.

Odd behaviour for a seventeen year old, you might think.

As do I.

Surely, as a (supposedly) hormonal and (definitely) taking A-levels teenager, I deserve to lie around, doing very little to help and shut myself away in my room from time to time?

Surely?

But no, it appears not.

I'm not complaining. It's just the way I have been brought up - to organise things.

Ironic really, as I'm such a horrendous decision - maker.

If I lived in the 50s, someone would probably tell me I'd make an excellent wife one day.

But if my love life in the 50s were to be anything like it is at the present time, I doubt I'd ever find out if that's true.

So I'll just have to be a career woman I suppose. Sigh.

Tomorrow is the day when exams REALLY begin.

Alright, so I've already had two. But really, they are small fry compared to the joy (!) that starts tomorrow.

It's History - source paper on Edward VI and Mary I - my favourite - and then Latin - unseen translations of Caesar and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Woop.

And what makes it all the more fun is that they are actually scheduled to be at the same time, which means I am in a clash group and I'm not allowed to speak to anyone not also in that clash group. Great.

But despite all this seemingly horrific jazz, I still feel lucky, and even a bit guilty for not having MORE exams tomorrow. Which isn't possible really, but anyway. Because everyone who does Maths, or Biology, or History, or even General studies, has exams tomorrow as well (at least, as I understand it). So that's just HORRIBLE. And lots of people are getting very stressed and it seems to be getting to people a bit.

In addition, I have arrived at the ridiculous quandary of worrying that I'm not worrying enough.

This time tomorrow, 4 of my 11 exams will be over. Come this time Monday, only 3 will remain. All of which require SERIOUS revision.

Next Tuesday is already looking like it's going to be *rather* stressful.

It's been a while since I last told you, dear readers, all about my life - but I don't think you've missed me, so I won't bother to go into all the heart-wrenching emotional detail about why.

What I will say is 2 exams down, a mere 9 to go. Should be a breeze. God smite me down if I should lie.

*thunderbolt*

Who'd have thought that the internet existed in heaven? It really is everywhere. Amazing.

Ahem.

Now that exams are actually happening, it feels as though I can see the end of them. Which means all sorts of nice things (and one or two not nice things) are on the horizon, steaming along and hopefully turning up soon. Like my birthday party extravaganza, and birthday itself.. and Hamlet (squeeee!) and summer school and family holiday. Not to mention my driving test and Results Day. (I told you not to mention that). Sorry.

So, roll on summer, is what I say. And also, may all your exams go well and your life be generally groovy.

And go and see Black Sheep productions, 'I, Lear'. It's hysterical, even if the clothing is a little too sparse for comfort/decency at times.

Thank you and goodnight.

Continuing the alphabetical alliteration theme to at least some extent, I begin my blog.

Broccoli. Yes. It's aubergine all over again, only on a slightly less epic scale. We had to go hunting for one on the way home from Daniella's riding lesson so that we could make tea tonight, which required said vegetable. Honestly. No matter how hard my mother tries, there is always something she forgets, or doesn't buy enough of, or absent mindedly uses for another purpose. I could mention mushrooms here.. but that would only be relevant to people living in my house over the last week, and they probably didn't notice that my mother was eating her way through a 500g box of mushrooms that were meant to be used for a family meal in any case.

But anyway. I digress. Onwards - to boredom.

This is the inevitable outcome of a day spent revising History. I know, I know - I seem to do nothing else. Actually, I do a lot of different things for revision - for instance, on Saturday, work was really quiet, so I translated a few chapters of Caesar's Gallic Wars, AND I did a translation of Cicero, AND I did a translation from Ovid, AND I started one from Livy. But for some reason, you guys only ever seem to hear about the riveting historical topics I study. Sorry.

And finally, departing from my theme a little here but never mind, because it deserves a mention, silly Americans.

Yesterday, Eric posted a site on my Facebook wall - he said check this out, its really ludicrous. So I did, and it was. *This* was a 'correct pronunciation guide'. Written in 1998. HOW, I ask, can people hold such prescriptivist, ANAL views about peoples language usage? It's actually insane.

I was so incensed by his lunacy that I wrote the author of the page an email telling him (in what I thought were icily polite terms) why he was so mad.

He sent something rather snotty back to me this morning, to which I replied (in a more friendly manner, I might add), to which he also replied. I haven't bothered replying to this one, because it's mostly just a plug of his *amazing* spelling system, called fanetik, or some such thing. For all that he writes with great authority, he sounds like a bit of an amateur manipulating the facts to suit his theories and his opinions are a bit too 18th century for my taste.

But it has shown me what a wonderful thing the internet is - I could never have told an author how indignant I was about his work, nor had such a swift reply, nor be telling you guys about it like this, without it!

I guess I'm feeling a little lovelorn at the moment.

Maybe its the book I just read, maybe its the films I just watched, maybe it's the weather. Or maybe it's just one of those things.

The book I just read - well, the book I just read was AMAZING. Not in a 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' way - it wasn't a dark story about the brightness of hope, or anything like that. It was a romance novel. Set in the 1950s. But it was SO good. And the main character was just like Rachel - absurdly tall, and lacking confidence with it, but actually, the one who won in the end. She got the guy.

The films I just watched - hmmm. I had a Truffaut marathon with Peppy and Tom, as 'revision' for our French lit. exam next Thursday (so soon! gah!). So we watched 'Jules et Jim', which is all about love and unhappy couples and has a really sad ending, and then we watched 'Le Dernier Metro' which is also about love and couples and has a quite happy ending. But there's a lot of loving going on, is the point I'm making.

The weather - yes. Well. The weather. I am in England, I guess. I shouldn't expect *too* much of the weather when we are not even into June yet. But really, raining ALL afternoon? Frankly, it just isn't on. I call it ridiculous. But its the sort of weather that makes you sit inside and stare out the window and wonder a little bit on all the things you are missing out on.

Maybe it *is* just one of those things. And though I may feel a little lovelorn, its only a very general feeling, because I haven't got anyone to attach it to. Except most of my friends, who I haven't seen or properly talked to for nearly a week and I miss

I'm afraid of losing them like I seem to have lost my friends from Perse Girls. Why am I so rubbish at holding on to people? Why am I so rubbish at communicating?

Why am I so whiney tonight?

So.

Henry VII.

Let me tell you, he was pretty good at finance.

But - and here's the crucial thing - he was NOT original in his methods.

Not in the slightest.

You want some serious financial and administrative reforms? Check out Edward IV, or even that much maligned monarch (alliteration is a wonderful thing), Richard III.

Henry VII was not an innovator.

So WHY WHY AND THRICE WHY do I have to be able to argue that he was? Why? Why hasn't the exam board realised that actually, Henry VII was LAME?!

Ok, so now I am beginning to exaggerate slightly. Henry VII was not entirely lame. He was pretty good at controlling the nobility, after all. But, you know, there's only so much of him you can take, and I did spend quite a lot of last year learning about him too.

But anyway.

Enough about Henry VII.

I read something today that made me very sad, and made me also realise two important truths:

1) you won't get a boyfriend if you can't wear heels
2) you can't wear heels if you haven't got someone to hold you up in them, ie a boyfriend.

This vicious circle seems to me to be unbelievably cruel, pointless, and totally relevant to real life. It is also probably the reason I can neither wear heels nor get a boyfriend.

I sometimes wonder if there is more to life than moping about being single, feeling chubby, and worrying about work/studying.

So basically, the 'Mid -Tudor Crisis' was a term dreamed up by some historian who thought that there needed to be an interesting sounding something or other in between the two glorious English monarchs, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Unfortunately for me, lots of other historians took him seriously (it can only have been a him; a woman would never have labelled Mary I as a weak or 'sterile' ruler) and started debating just whether there was a crisis, and analysing lots of things in minute detail.

Even more unfortunately, this is what 40% of my History exam rests upon this summer. A ludicrous idea, all the evidence for which points the other way, but which must still be argued in a balanced fashion.

RAAAAAAARGH.

Thankfully, I finished my revision notes on this topic today. Sadly, this means I now have to turn to making revision notes on the other history exam I am sitting this summer, the one about the WHOLE BLOODY TUDOR PERIOD. All 118 years of it. Great.

In other news.. it struck me today as I was out in the garden helping my parents fill in a flowerbed on a break from the rebellions of the reign of Edward VI just how extraordinarily normal and without incident my life seems to be at the moment in comparison to my friends.

This made me feel a bit sad for them.

Actually, scrap that, it made me feel very sad for them. And also led me to question my ability (or rather, inability) to sympathise in an effective/helpful way.

I really am crap at the whole 'sympathy' thing.

That is, I feel sympathy, I appreciate difficult situations, but I just don't have a clue how to deal with them.

Is that a British, stiff upper lip thing?

Answers on a postc - oh never mind. You know the drill.

Where do I even begin?

We had our last Friday p1 free at Cafe Diem.

We played Classical Monopoly in Latin, and ate cakes and the like.

We ate a lot in English (Mr B was trying to make us cultured and had randomly brought a tin of stuffed vine leaves.. I am going to miss that man) and we played the post-it note game (where someone has a post it note stuck to their head with something written on it, and they have to guess what it is by asking questions). We reminded him of all the silly things he has said or done in the last 2 years. He asked us what we were all going on to do next.. said I should be a spy One day, Mr B, one day.

Then I had to clear all my junk from the locker.

Even as I type I am looking at my bulging pannier, still stuffed with (mostly classical) books. I'll unpack it later. Honest.

Then myself, Jo, Jen and Nic powered back to mine on our bicyclettes (as Jen would say) before making the last push to Sophie's.

There, we barbequed, sat in hammocks (I scared 3 people by leaping out of it suddenly.. good times and played on Sam's Wii. A jolly good time was had by all.

One thing that struck me was how .. well, how unconnected I seem to be to the group. Particularly in comparison with the other non-Sawstonians, ie Shahreena and Rach.

I found myself floating between where Jenny was and .. well... not much, really. Which made me a bit sad. I am definitely the spare part.

Then I cycled home at about 5:30ish and immediately my mum made me drive to Stapleford to pick up my little sister from her school trip. Except the coach was delayed, so we were hanging around for AGES. But when it finally did turn up, it was cute to see her again. I still can't believe how big she is and how unconsciously funky she seems to be. Sigh.

And then this evening I've just been stressing and the like. My first exam is in 13 days.

I'm not ready to take them, but I'm ready for them to just be over. It's not looking good folks.

As far as I'm aware, I didn't blog yesterday.. or maybe I did, and I have amnesia (that starts with A, after all)

But I did think up a really witty title for it - about aubergines and the A14. Because they were the two principle aspects of my day.

And also shouting YIPPEE LAST HISTORY LESSON TODAY just as my history teacher was walking past ...

But anyhoo. Today is a new day and all that.

I had my last french lesson EVER

I will miss old Riggers. I will especially miss Richard. Rigoni went round the class and said what we were all going to be and do and how amazing we were and the like. When she got to Joe, she went - 'Et Joe, Joe est..' and Richard just said 'a gentle lover' with a perfectly straight face.

We laughed so much that Ms Bolster came in from next door to ask us to be quiet because there were listening exams going on.

It was HYSTERICAL.

French was also good because Riggers brought in Madeleines (just for Richard) and sugared them in time to the absurdly dramatic music Richard was playing on his Ipod. And then she brought out a masterpiece of profiteroles covered in chocolate sauce and with a chocolate creamy centre... they were so good...

But it was quite sad. I mean, its the end of an era really. I've known Mme Rigoni for AGES. I did, after all, used to do gymnastics with 2 of her 3 sons.

Then I dashed off to go help interview English teachers. I was late. Naturally. But it was all cool, we asked some good questions and actually in between candidates we had some pretty amusing chats.

At lunch, Sam mentioned something about a giant cookie Sarah had brought in for the Class Civ class and the Latin class. Naturally I was moderately outraged, as I hadn't heard anything about it. So I dashed off to see if I could find her. I found instead Mrs Contrino, but she gave me a hefty chunk of what was left and said if I wanted to see Sarah, she might be around at the end of lunch. Which she was. But it's very weird to think I'm leaving her behind.. I don't think I'd be doing Classics next year if not for her.

Then I went into town with Nic, where it was ludicrously hot and I bought some more Fatface stuff. I think I may have a problem

And then we had a BBQ this evening. Yay!

Also, Daniella comes home from her school trip tomorrow. Its weird just how quiet the house has been without her.

It's my last week at Hills Road this week.

(Well, it's my last week of lessons. Clearly, I will be coming back to take exams and collect results and so forth. Open your minds people.)

This means a number of things.

1. Exams are approaching really rather speedily now

2. Leavers Hoodie! I got mine today and, despite it perhaps being a leetle on the large side and also inclined to leave fluff all over my clothes, I love it muchly

3. We are having last lessons with all of our teachers. Naturally, many of our teachers want to celebrate/mourn our leaving, so people are bringing in cakes/biscuits/chocolate and the like.

4. All my good work trying to reduce the old stomach flab will be put to the test this week

I didn't bother with lunch today because I had so much to eat in Tutor in p3 (our last ever tutor! ), and also because Miss Smith thought it would be a great idea if we had a replacement History lesson at lunchtime. Then I had a French lesson, where we ate more delectable goodies (on a French theme this time, naturally) and then ANOTHER history lesson. I was definitely ready to shoot myself by the end. But I restrained myself a) because I didn't have a gun and b) because tomorrow is my last History lesson EVER.

Yes folks, its been a long while in the coming, but HISTORY IS NEARLY AT AN END.

Thank the Lord.