Keep it up!

Make him proud everyone!!

~ Hurley Who?

An open letter to Coleridge: please die now

Dear Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

Damn you and your infuriatingly complex poems. Why must there be forty-seven translations of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner? Why is the mariner's journey not a short trip to Ireland? Why does your stupid prose gloss complicate things? WHY ARE YOU A ROMANTIC POET??! Even Google agrees that Romanticism is 'one of the most complex literary movements in history'. WHY?

And, by the way, we all know you were doing illicit drugs, and not anodyne, when you wrote Kubla Khan! HA! Caught in the act! I'm GLAD that person from Porlock interrupted you while you were writing Kubla, otherwise I would have three hundred more lines of unintelligible poetry to dissect whilst trying to write a half-formidable essay of a few thousand words. Didn't you, while you were in one of your moments of 'spontaneity', stop to think of the poor, hassled students later who would potentially write essays on your poems a few centuries later who might be suffering??

You should be ASHAMED! The pain and trouble you are causing us is irreversible. My mind is forever scarred with lines of your poetry. So much so that I will myself, by the force of my uncontrollable primary imagination, erratically shout lines of your poems.

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan decree..." NOO!!

No regards and very unsincerely,

~ Hurley Who

the lover is losing

It is time again for a cliché. Like Christmas advertisements in September, the yearly ritual of graduating from high school is well underway. My life is ruled by triple-lettered acronyms. I eat, sleep and shower all in order to keep myself awake. People tell me they have been through this before, and that I too will emerge mostly intact if not mostly unscathed. Yes I am grateful. Yet however well-meaning they intend to be, these kind remarks are lost on me. For I very much doubt that the burning pang of trousers set alight, nor the searing pinch of a papercut between the webs of fingers, can be alleviated by others telling us that they too have suffered this. That is all very well, I say. But I am only concerned with the present, and I would much rather have a shot of caffeine than any sympathy. If I could physically inject knowledge into my brain, I would. I’d line up for it the way people lined up for Michael Jackson. You would too. A dose of the Haber process please. 20ml of the paradox of Hamlet. 5 grams daily of simple harmonic motion.

I went outside the other weekend. That is, to some other place non-related to study. A place other than school, other than tutoring. It was a shopping centre, to be exact. There was a wondrous buzz of activity, of nonchalance, of un-burden. I could have broken down and wept at the continuance of life without me. How miraculous and at the same time, how heart-rending it was! Alas, if it were not for the HSC, the universe would turn into an almighty stranger.

{d.read}

And It Keeps Going...

Phew, first week of school over, 9 more to go!!

Just leaving a little message (above) to say: make the most of it, have fun, go hard and go home... at the end of the school day.

~Hurley Who?

PS. Don't forget this week is Random Acts of Kindness week!

Top 200 School Rankings (Daily Telegraph)

I know I'm really slow, but just in case you wanted to know it it's here.

~Louis Tiffon

Feathers in my Cap

With time ticking o so agonisingly quickly away, I am contemplating the philosophy of the school. It clearly dictates a well-rounded kind of life is the best kind of life - where you get involved in everything and strive for your optimum. I'm wondering if this is practical?

I know certainly, that I lead a relatively balanced life. And yet, my maths teacher is about on the edge of telling me to drop something or stop doing extension. While I know I am perfectly capable of doing extension if I wish, there is a certain element of time management that comes in to play to achieve excellence. However, I feel I have run out of time. I can't manage any better what I don't have any more of. I'm even posting this in the shadows of pre-dawn, pink starting to touch the sky - and certainally sympathising with Sappho.

Who else has experienced the woes of needing to sleep/eat/ensure one doesn't die from the crazy sheduel of glutenousely stuffing their minds with knowledge that is - while extremely interesting - sometimes too much to handle.

I think one of those new school with classrooms of 90 and exams where everyone works together sounds nice right about now.


- Wolf Mother

Cussing for the Modern Teenager

Yesterday both my prodigious buddies were scolded in Maths by the teacher for exclaiming "That's bloody annoying!".

Now as swear words go, one must admit that 'bloody' isn't that blasphemous, in fact, it's used by Ron Weasley in in just about every HP film ("that's bloody brilliant!"), not to mention our national tourism ad campaign which totally bombed and got banned in Britain. Impressive.

But it got prodigious math buddies and I thinking- what are the cuss words for the modern educational environment, since 'bloody' (a term which can also refer to being covered in copious amounts of red rusty-tasting fluid) doesn't cut it anymore?

We turned to eightstlaundry's favourite blasphemiser (not actually a word, but let's pretend for a while) Captain Haddock, the potty-mouthed mariner from the TinTin comics for inspiration.

Here are some classics:

"Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!" (try saying that fast 10 times!)

"Slubberdegullions!"

"Technocrat!"

"Freshwater swabs!"

"Logarithm!" Use it in maths. Love it!

"Macrocephalic baboon!"
"Guano gatherer!"

"Ectoplasmic Byproduct!" For Biology students only

"Bashi-bazouks!"

For a longer list of Haddock curses see here.

Feel free to comment us with any kooky words/phrases that you use as cuss-word substitutes and I'll add them to the list :)

-- C.L --

Disclaimer: Our blog does not advocating swearing in the least, but if you must vocalise your frustration, try these instead of the usual assortment of not-so-pleasant rude words.