So, my English teacher marked my essay. In red pen. It was covered in red pen, and it was so depressing to me that I actually thought to myself - "I don't know if I want to read this." And I didn't. The next lesson, someone brought up the red pen, and most of the class agreed that if it had been written in green or a different colour, we might not have felt so bad about it. So, I decided to look up threatening red pen on the internet.

The majority of comments on schools being advised not to mark in red pen said something along the lines of "Well they'll get depressed from having made so many errors anyway, so how is the red pen going to make them feel worse?" I'll tell you.

Red pen highlights: "YOU GOT THIS WRONG!!!!" very strongly. And my English teacher isn't really correcting errors, she's trying to extend your ideas and get you to think about what you've said and why it doesn't work. And if every time you see something that doesn't quite work and it says "WRONG!!!!" to you, you're going to lose heart. Also, if there are a large number of green marks on your page, it sends a slightly different message than the same number of green marks, and like I said, I was very tempted not to read at all the one with all the red markings.

What are your views on teachers marking you in red? Let me know!

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

Hey, I just HAD to share this conversation a friend and I had about whether or not I am adopted.

A: If you knew you were adopted, would you take a test to see if your sisters were really your sisters?
M: Well, they ARE my sisters. The family resemblence is quite strong.
A: Your parents could have chosen you to be genetically similar to the rest of your family, so you wouldn't find out.
M: But I'm a middle child, I remember Caroline being born!
A:  That only means that you know Caroline belongs to your parents. And anyway, you didn't see the birth, so your mum could have miscarried at a very late stage and managed to rush through the adoption.
M: Caroline looks remarkably like my cousin.
A:  That's how they rushed the adoption through.
M: My aunt wouldn't give up a child!
A: That's where the uncle you've never heard of comes in... 
M: In our baby photos, we all look extremely similar!
A: They could have adopted you at a very young age, and so they have baby photos.
M: But our baby photos also look quite like our parents' baby photos!
A: Well they could have chosen you children by looking to see how the children would look based on their own baby photos etc. It's neurotic, but not impossible.
M: Well I don't believe you because I think you're crazy and heading for surrealism.
A: Good idea. I wouldn't believe me either. But we haven't even got into the idea of you being half siblings....

That girl is completely insane. She has valid arguments, but they are supremely unlikely and given the character of my parents, I don't believe I, or my sisters, am adopted.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

I like stealing stuff like this off my only friends ;)

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1.) Janice
2.) Mia
3.) Lily

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU'VE HAD:
1.) Mia-buterflie
2.) nissyblossom
3.) Buterflie129

THREE THINGS YOU'VE DONE IN THE LAST 33 MINUTES:
1.) Ate my dinner
2.) Fiddled with my new earrings ( I GOT MY EARS PIERCED!!!)
3.) Read a magazine

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1.) My eyes
2.) My compassion
3.) The fact that I don't give up.

( Read more... )

Today, I would like to devote some time on my journal to my favourite kid's show of all time... the Singing Kettle!!

Now, no-one EVER knows who the Singing Kettle are/were, so here's a brief summary: these three crazy presenters called Cilla, Artie and Gary would go through the show, finding clues to children's songs inside these wonderul kettles! And in order to open the kettle, you had to say a rhyme: "Spout, Handle, Lid of Metal, what's inside the Singiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing Kettle?" (WITH actions of course!) and then the kettle would open and you'd find a clue inside about what song they were going to sing! Such clues included finding a line of dolls - they were singing the Barbeque song! Another memorable occasion for me was when they were in the jungle, and Cilla was going to do skipping rhymes so they found a green skipping rope in the kettle. However, Artie was sly, and said it was something long, and green, and would make Cilla jump! They were so funny!

Cilla and Artie would sing and Gary would play the music. He was an incredibly talented musician who played just about anything, from the accordion to the trombone! Cilla and Artie were husband and wife, and they used to be folk singers. Singing Kettle has changed quite a bit now from when I was little. When my cousin was little, Cilla and Artie's daughter Jane joined the group, but she then left to be in a weird Scottish band. Nowadays, I looked them up recently and found that they have acquired a dog! (WTF?!? They can't have a dog!!) and a random guy called Kevin. NOT the singing kettle I know and love. Bah.

Some Kettle songs were folk songs, but some were original Singing Kettle. For example: "I'm a pirate, what do you think? One you never will forget, because my beard is pink!" they had pirates of varying beard colours, like I'm a pirate, I'll make you crawl and cringe, one you never will forget, because my beard's orange!" Genius. And of course, the tea song when they went around the world: "I went around the world, to see what I could see, I landed up in China, here's what happened to me, I went climbing on the Great Wall, but I slipped and skinned my knee. Now I can't walk, I think I'm in shock..." Artie dressed as a Chinaman comes along: "Would you like a cup of tea?" Legend.

You may trawl youtube for these fantastic people, but I have videos and the videos are better. Sadly, I can't watch them as I have no VCR, but my grandparents do, so when we go to Scotland, we watch the Kettle and smile! Actually, I encourage you to go to youtube and have a look, then you might understand what I'm rambling about...

Man you people are going to think I'm insane. Maybe I am.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

Today it be talk like a pirate day! Hyarr! Yohoho! etc.
It is not talk like a parrot day, although I have more parrot jokes than pirate jokes.
Why is there no aspirin in the jungle? The parrots ate e'm all! (paracetamol).
What do you get when you cross a parrot with a lion? Polly wants a zebra! Polly wants a zebra!

Once I had a parrot
Whose life it seemed was fated
It fell into the butter
Now it's Polly-saturated!

Why are pirates nasty? They just arrrrrrr!

You can get a free episode of tales of monkey island today as part of talk like a pirate day. Here: http://www.telltalegames.com/playlikeapirate

And that's all I have to say today. Except that I went to see War Horse and it rocked. Yeah.

Peace and Love,
Mia xxx

My theatre teacher is really annoying. I have to go to her HL lessons even though I'm SL, because it's just me and this other girl doing standard and she thinks we need everything the higher people do as well as our standard lessons. I lose 3 study periods a fortnight out of this, which is really irritating, because unlike some people, I use study periods FOR STUDY so my life is less hectic when I return home and I can find the time to do the little things that we lose with work.
This year, I again hate biology. Ugh. The teacher talks really really quietly and doesn't say things more than once and has an almost impermeable accent. Plus he thinks he's a comedian. "We're doing a team-building exercise!" he says, handing out textbooks. If we all have the same textbook, we are part of the same team apparently. Gah.

Today, there was a medical conference being advertised. Teacher "Is anyone in here interested in medicine? Emma? I thought you were interested in psychology?"
Emma: Sorry, I heard "Is anyone allergic to penicillin?"
Made me lol. Made everyone else lol too.

In history today, I started humming. The guy next to me started humming louder, and got his friend to join in, and my humming disappeared. Sad. :( I don't like him any more. Humph.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

Hello lovely journalbugs! (Journalbugs? I am in a silly mood it would appear.)

I have some weird songs on my iPod, with some very strange lyrics. I quite like the songs, but you have to wonder.
( Weird Lyrics )

Care to tell me about some weird lyrics that you have in your libraries?

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

I went on a wonderful bike ride with my dad and we stopped at a pub called the Cricketers. I had Pepsi (although I did ask "Can I have Coke? and the bartender said yes... but gave me Pepsi anyway. Though they do get points for asking me if I wanted ice, where normally they just give it to me and I forget to request it without.) Sitting outside, a swarm of 7 or 8 wasps came to call, preferring my Pepsi to my dad's beer and even drowning in it. My dad squashed some under his glass and fished a wasp out of my Pepsi and crushed it with his keys. I then had two interesting questions in my head:

• Do wasps prefer Pepsi or Coke? How can we make them take the Pepsi challenge?
• Can wasps get drunk?

Anyone have the answers?

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

So, yesterday I got back from CYFA (Christian Youth Fellowship Association) camp. I'm fairly exhausted. But I had a very brilliant time! I also had to make the journey there by train, as my parents were unable to drive me. This was fairly nerve-wracking - two changes on the way there (Swindon and Gloucester) and one on the way back (Bristol Parkway). Plus, it was reserved seating most of the way, so I couldn't be with my friend from London as she was in a different seat. HOWEVER, we didn't use our reserved seats and the ticket inspectors didn't seem to mind. On the way there we met people going to Bredon like us to go on camp, and we had a very happy time together. On the way back there were LOADS of us, so it was all good. Two girls from our group, however, got kicked off the train for having the wrong tickets (for a later train), so they weren't exactly happy, but they got home, so it was all good.

( Now, to camp! )
Camp is always awesome.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

In my dream, I was going to see a play, when all of a sudden I realised I didn't have my glasses on. I was thinking "Where on earth could they possibly be, what have I done with them?" And then I had a strange thought "Oh, it's ok, I took them off before I went to bed, so everything's perfectly alright." And I just continued with my dream. I thought that was weird.

My bedroom... is purple. My favourite colour.
My bedroom... is messy. Although not as messy as it was before I gathered up all my laundry and put it in the bathroom (where the laundry goes). The mess in my room consists of books scattered across the floor, an assortment of soft toys who should REALLY be on the shelf where they live but my little sister pulled them down to play with them, a couple of muffin wrappers and crisp packets that haven't YET found their way to the bin, and some of my hair accessories which should be in their box on my chest of drawers.
My bedroom... has weird pictures on the walls! Most of them are Silent Kimbly puns because I find them adorable. My favourite is Stereotyping. Other pictures on the walls are horseys and crosses and stuff.
My bedroom... has my bed in it. Which is the most comfy bed I have had in my life, due to my picking out the nicest mattress I could find when the old one wore through. And it has three pillows, which is how many I require,  one of which is a speaker pillow and connects to my iPod so I can listen to music and audiobooks through it! And it has Eeyore, my FAVOURITE donkey, on the bedspread. And Freckles, my stuffed leopard companion, lives on my bed too.
My bedroom... has 9 shelves and still not enough room for my books. Each shelf has a specific purpose:  7 of them are bookshelves, of which one also houses deoderant and perfume. One of them is where my stuffed animals should live, but at the moment do not. The other one is half for files that I need for school that don't live on my desk, and half for my very sparse makeup collection, with my alarm clock bringing up the very edge of the shelf.
My bedroom... has 6 plug sockets. One for my phone charger, one for my iPod charger, one for my alarm clock, one for my CD player, one for my lamp, one for my laptop.
To get to my bedroom... you have to pass through my sister's. Call it a design flaw. Out bedrooms used to be one room, but the people who lived here before us built a wall down the middle. On top of the carpet. Giving us each half a radiator. We don't think they were the brightest sparks. It used to get quite awkward cause it was my older sisters room I had to get through, and she had a boyfriend, and I was sometimes scared to get to my room. Now it's my little sister's though, and she doesn't have a boyfriend, so all is good.
My bedroom... has 4 doors. One to get in, one for my wardrobe, a cupboard and a "little room under the eaves" which is used mostly for storage and has my old doll's house in it.
My bedroom... houses my collection of jewellery and wristbands. I have a beat bullying wristband. I know someone who got their beat bullying wristband mugged off them. The irony did not escape me. I also have a wristband which says "Adopted" on it, which might seem odd, but it's a Christian wristband and has a Bible verse: "I am adopted through Jesus Christ. Eph. 1:5" So that's all right then.
My bedroom... has a music stand where I practice my flute.
My bedroom... has a desk where I work very hard.
My bedroom... is where I live.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

Soooooo I was thinking today, and I realised something which is probably terribly trivial, but even so... I must have used up so many people's tissues over the years. When I'm not having a nervous breakdown (something which has happened alarmingly often, most recently because I was ill and I was scared about repeating yr 12), I'm bleeding out of my nose (again, happens alarmingly often, especially since when I was about 12 I was hit in the nose with a hockey puck... ouch...), or have a stuffed up nose or a cold. People are very good about giving me tissues in those situations, and because I am very often unprepared for such eventualities I have taken many people's tissues over the years. So yeah, strange thing to blog about, but that's how I roll.

Also, I read a funny thing about glasses. When you have glasses, almost inevitably someone will ask you if they can try them on, and then old adage "You're soooo blind!" comes about. Well a comedian said something like "I don't ask to try out other people's stuff. Hey, can I try on your wig? Let me sit in your wheelchair! My God, you are sooooo crippled!" Made me laugh. I love my glasses. I think glasses can be a sexy fashion accessory. And I'm not just saying that cause I can't wear contacts (my eyes are too dry). I genuinely like wearing glasses.

And there were a couple of other really good jokes in this book as well:
"Throwing acid is wrong, in some people's eyes"
"Imagine a world with no hypothetical situations..."
"Videogames don't affect people as kids. If PacMan had affected us e we'd all be running around in a darkened room munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
"I felt like a man trapped in a woman's body. Then I was born."

My favourite joke is predominantly in French, with an English punchline. It's a knock-knock joke.

Rappe, Rappe
Qui est la?
Los
Los Qui?
Oui, c'est vrai.
Say it out loud ;)

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

Yeah, so I'm bored - a letter meme and an itunes meme.
Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions.

( I was bored. )

OK, well this wasn't me (I NEVER think of witty comebacks) but one of my favourite radio shows is I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue, and the chairman Humphrey Lyttelton had a good one. Someone came up to him and asked "So I hear you're an orthinologist!" (as opposed to ornithologist obviously) and he had a too late comback the next day: "Not so much an orthinologist as a word-botcher!"
Well I thought it was funny.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

Today, I just feel like writing. About my life in general. Hope that's ok with all maybe 2 of you who are reading :P

So... the exams. We'll start with history. Didn't go too badly I feel, the source paper was on Stalin and I've done quite a few essays on him, so I managed to answer all the questions. Out of a choice of 6 essay questions in the next paper I could have answered 2 of them, but I chose the one on the Bolshevik revolution because I know that better. On the second essay paper there was only 1 of the 6 I even had a hope of answering, on Lenin, the October revolution and the Civil War. Hmph. Really not sure how that one went.
English. Commentary. Piece of cake. Was a text from Voyage to Venus which had lots of stuff I could pick out and make up stuff about. Excellent.
Maths. Was an hour and a half long paper, and I finished in less than an hour. Either the paper was easy, or I made silly mistakes, or I rushed it. Not entirely sure which, but I managed to answer all the questions with the aid of my graphical display calculator.

And those were the only three subjects I was examined in over the mocks! Well, second maths paper tomorrow aside, I'm done! Now I need to write a TOK essay on does mathematics give us truth, and a history essay on the first world war. Aaaand that's it as far as schoolwork is concerned at the moment.

Now I would like to have a rant. About public displays of affection. It's a fairly close friend of mine and her boyfriend. Whenever they're together, they just sit practically on top of each other, sometimes she even sits in his lap. They make googly faces at each other, and kiss each other, and just generally ignore everyone around them. I feel uncomfortable around them. I don't think they realise quite how much they alienate other people, I mean SOMEtimes I want to chat to one of my best friends, right? But when he's around, that doesn't get to happen because they're too busy making doe eyes at each other and being the most annoying they can be. Hmph.

And I think I would like to talk to you all about my hair. It's naturally curly. Like that annoying girl from the Peanuts comics? "I have naturally curly hair". But some people think it's an insult to have curly hair. Sometimes the suggestions to straighten it are nice, sometimes they're just awful, and sometimes people will not let up. But I LIKE having curly hair. I also like having long hair, because when I was little I wasn't allowed it (apparently I made too much fuss about having it brushed). Anyway, whenever I go on like camp or somewhere the girls always ask if they can straighten my hair, so I've had it done. It looks good straight, but I still like it curly. My facebook picture of me with it straight has the most comments on a picture I've ever gotten. It's sad.
Wow that was a really silly thing to write about. Oh well. C'est ma vie.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

OK, so after my overly depressing post earlier I thought I would share with you a list of some of my most favourite books (be warned, there are quite a few) and tell you the reasons why I like them. I'm not going to add stuff like Harry Potter and Twilight because I feel that would be pointless. So to start with:

1. Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones. I love this book because although upon first reading it is a bit WTF?!? it is amazingly crafted and the storyline eventually makes some sort of warped sense. Plus I kinda identify with Polly, the main character.
2. The Arthur series by Kevin Crossley-Holland. When I was about 11 I went through a serious Arthurian stage, and had vicious arguments over the fact that Arthur did NOT pull Excalibur out of the stone (that was a different sword, he was given Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake :P) I like this telling of the Arthur legend because it crosses over with medieval England almost flawlessly, plus it just makes a lot of sense and you feel like you are actually there.
3. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Even though it is so sad, it does deal with a brilliant dilemma and is written greatly. Oh I do love Jodi Picoult.
4. The Demonata Series by Darren Shan. My favourite is the second one, Demon Thief. The ideas are just awesome and the twists and turns of plot are excellent. Who knew I'd like a book about demons?
5. Avalon High by Meg Cabot - inkeeping with the Arthur theme, but also with a highschool setting that just makes it compelling. A modern day reincarnation of Arthur? Awesome!
6. The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North by Phillip Pullman. A very good account of Victorian England, and the mysteries within the books keep you guessing. And Frederick Garland was the first fictional character I fell in love with (Others include Edward Cullen from Twilight -naturally-  and Zack from Jinx by Meg Cabot.)
7. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster - because it is so darn funny but also has some good life lessons in there as well. Recommended reading for every schoolchild ever.
8. Eddie Dickens trilogy by Philip Ardagh. Just plain hilarious.
9. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket - only the earlier ones because the later ones got too confusing. But they were fairly funny and the author had a way with words.
10. Child X by Lee Weatherly - great book about the role of the media in destroying someone's life just because of something that happened to them. Riveting.
11. The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. Adventure and hilarity from a great author whom I have met.
12. Damaged by Cathy Glass. A non-fiction book by a foster carer about a little girl who was greatly abused by her parents. Soo moving and so sad. Touched my life.

I love books. :) although I did find it quite hard to quantify why.
Peace and love,
Mia xxx

It really truly does. Someone who I admittedly don't know all that well, but nevertheless who I am friendly with has leukaemia. How can you be there for someone during such a traumatic time? If you're reading this, please do consider Laura in your thoughts as she goes through the chemo. Thank you.
It's so unfair, she's such a bright and bubbly person. Why is it always the nice people who are struck down by illness?

In other sucky news, I have to repeat year 12 on account of having missed so much school due to illness. All my friends will go into year 13 without me, and they'll all be off to university without me. There's a slight positive side in that I might get better results this way, and I could possibly be taking theatre instead of Computer science this time next year, but still pretty sucky.

Oh and  I have mock exams in two weeks, but I've missed so much content I doubt I'll do very well. At least they're only making me take three: English, Maths and History. Goodness knows I DON'T know enough history content. Ffffffudge.

Sorry for the depressing post, but life sucks sometimes. I'll deal with it.

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

I got all nostalgic today for Herts and Essex, my old all-girl's school. There are actually quite a few things I miss about that old place. I mean I love Hockerill and all, but there are certain memories from Herts and Essex that just make me wanna go back there!!

• Arguing with Lexie about nothing at all at break and trying to rope teachers into our insane arguments (One or two were actually game!) I also miss her way of saying "Question?" when she wanted to ask something and me saying positively "Answer!" back at her.
• Mr. W-P's political rants that got him waaaay off topic when we were supposed to be learning SPU. Also his rants about religion (he got in trouble for arguing with me and Romy and telling us we were wrong for believing in God!) and his interactive whiteboardness!
• Mr B's Lemon games at the end of term, where he squirted us all with lemon juice.
• My username and email address! I was 03scottja to use the computers and jansco.03 for my email address! (Me and Charlie joined forces to become Jansco Chatar flights :P) I caught myself trying to log in with both of those on my new network, where I am scottj. I miss that.
• The school librarian always recommending me books.
• Sitting in the school library reading at break and lunchtimes and pretending not to eat crisps etc.
• Walking up and down the H-block steps attempting not to trip over anyone's skirt!
• Spending entire lessons just chatting to Tasha and having someone else come over and say "Why are you speaking French?" when we didn't realise we were doing it!
• Lexie putting rocks in everyone's pockets during exam weeks. Just because we weren't paying attention.
• Always joking with our maths teacher about buying him an abacus - and then actually doing it!
• Revising with Rosie in the library and crossing our legs up on the chairs. Ooh, I was a bit dense actually

Rosie: What's another form of Hitler's propaganda? You said magazines, what's one similar to that?
Me: Uhh
Rosie: Come on we're surrounded by them!!
Me: Um... chairs?? tables??
Rosie: No you idiot, books!!

My nostalgia probably isn't interesting, but that's life.
Peace and love,
Mia xxx

Charity shops are awesome. They just are. You can get such good stuff and it is soooo cheap, and also then you don't feel bad about customising it :P I do that a lot. Like I found a really nice black top with stuff like "peace" and "dreams" written on it but it didn't fit, so some cutting and sewing later I had a white top with black patches saying "peace" and "dreams" and "love" and stuff. I do love my clothes and my customisation skills.
In charity shops you can get designer clothes too. I got my first designer skirt from a charity shop. Planet, no less. And they sell second hand books which are awesome, and audiobooks which are awesome, and old board games which are cool. Anyway. I like charity shops. Let's move on.

So apparently I'm a person who either a) looks like she knows things or b) is very approachable because I always get asked by random people in the street for directions. Some of the time they're asking nonsensical things and one person got quite annoyed with me because they were looking for a certain shop WHICH ISN'T IN OUR TOWN IT'S IN A RETAIL PARK OUTSIDE. They'd come too far. Anyway, I know my way around, but I always get a little scared of people asking me for directions.
Talking about the person who got annoyed with me reminds me of that stubborn customer in a bookshop I had to deal with on work experience. I'd been working there a day so I didn't know the answers to his questions. He however felt that I should know all the questions because I was obviously an employee, I had a nametag. But on the name tag it was written that I was only doing work experience, and I tried to explain this to the guy but he still thought I should know everything. And I told him he couldn't pay upstairs, only downstairs, so he nearly threw the books he wanted to buy at him. I had to find him someone more able to deal with him than me.

I was randomly remembering stuff from childhood or like the beginning of secondary school today as well. Stuff like:
"I'm a little teacher, short and stout, I'm Mrs. R and I like to shout." or similar. We had lots of fun with the teapot song.
"I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here's my handle, here's my... handle? Well dammit it seems that I'm a sugar bowl."
and like the adventure games we made up for each other, you know like the choose your own adventure books? I like memories and nostalgia. This probably makes no sense, but hey life makes no sense.
And to finish off today's random splurge that is me posting in my livejournal, I would like to show you all a poem what I wrote:

There comes a day
You look in the mirror
And don’t recognize the person staring back

There comes a day
You wander through the world
And you feel as though you’re on the wrong track.

Life is not set in stone
It takes just one day to see
How everything changes, for better, for worse
You don’t take in how fluid the world can be
Crashing spinning flying round you
You don’t notice, until it’s far too late
That the world slipped from beneath your feet
You’re now in the hands of fate.

There comes a time
You examine yourself
But you do not like the person who you’ve found

There comes a time
You look over your life
And discover how much of it has unwound.

It seems you're in control
But your life is not your own
You're surrounded by many people
And yet you're all alone
In a world in which nothing is the same.

I'm quite proud of it, lemme know what you think :)

Peace and love,
Mia xxx

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? I'm an amalgamation of my grandmother's names!

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Couple of weeks back when I was really ill and in lots of pain.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? It's all right, although everyone says it's far too small.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Chicken, maybe.

( More question thingys )