Revision Seminar

Yesterday I had a revision seminar. It was the biggest waste of my life. I drew a fish while waiting for it (in the natural sciences block, because the security guard gave me the wrong directions).



It was for Applicable Maths (Applicable... I never get that word in relation to maths. It must not mean what I think it means) and it was INCREDIBLY pointless. Sure, I could blog about it... but I'd much rather show you my notes. They'll explain things better.





I hope you can read that all :) Basically I couldn't read what the handwritten projections were, and didnt understand the words the guy said, and didn't care at all. I'm going to a Chemistry revision seminar tomorrow....

......yay.

P.S. Some of these were based on what he said. Like "Don't always believe your calculator" and "Always attempt things. You might get marks by having something carried through. Make things up." (He was talking about Venn Diagrams)

Practical Exam

I have missed blogging. It's fun.

The story begins all the way back a few weeks ago. Perhaps two? I don't remember. The drama class (of 8) was in the rehearsal room having our early revision class when the teacher asks me to come up to the front. I was understandably confused, what had brought this on? What was going on? To make things more confusing he then asked me to recieve a hug. "Uhhh........ what?" "Come on." OK now take that out of context and you get one random sick teacher. But no, he's really cool and I probably should've taken that hug...

...because he handed me a piece of paper and asked the next person to come up and get a hug and paper. I looked at the paper and on it was a date... for my drama practical exam.

And it was not very far away. It was quite soon. I hadn't even finished writing my OSP (Original Solo Production of 5-7 minutes) let alone even STARTED working on my scripted monologue (which had to be taken from a play). OK if any one out there doesn't do drama, let me tell you this: having two weeks to prepare two monologues with completely different characters is kinda dificult if you've got other things to do. Agh, agh, agh, agh? Agh! (Indeed)

Well it was time to get serious with this drama stuff. I wrote my entire OSP just about... four or five days before it was to be marked in class (yeah, get marked on it for class then have to improve it for exams.) and I did surprisingly well! Still didn't have my scripted monologue and the exam was in exactly a week. A week! Three days into the holidays (and a week BEFORE my mocks) I have a practical exam! That's just plain unfair that I would have to have an exam when TEE just starts! And guess what else really sucks?

I FINALLY got round to finding a scripted monologue on thursday... late afternoon. I basically started on friday afternoon after school. I had the weekend basically to get ready for an exam I had in the morning on Monday. Oh goodie!

But here the tone switchs from hopeless and complaining... to smug and superior.

Because I totally own. Bam baby! Here is what I did: I got my scripted, recorded it on my iriver (woo! Lorna ftw! Thank you for it for Christmas it's the best present ever) and listened to it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

*5 minute later*

...over and over and over and over and over again. This way, whenever I wasn't practicing it it was still being bored into my brain so I remembered my lines. I did the same with my OSP. I have never walked into an assessment as confident and sure of myself before! (With the OSP that is for the class marking. I walked OUT going "aagghhhh that was terrible!" but I walked IN going "OK I can do this!" - which I did perfectly -in the sense that I said everything without screwing up, not me being the world's perfect actor but still reasonable good- but then the improv and the questions were abismal and I freaked, failed, crashed and burned.) The second most confident I've ever been was this practical exam. An EXAM was when I was at one of my calmest? Yes well I owe it to spending my ENTIRE Sunday going through the scripted again and again and again until I had got it perfect.

I wasn't calm before I walked into the room though. I arrived at St John's XXVIII, got out of the car and heart rate went up. I had never been to this place before, I didn't know where I was, where to go, what was going to happen, who would be there, how well I would do... But I had over half an hour to sit down in a room of other people waiting for their exams to calm myself down. Instead of talking to anyone around me like everyone else was I just sat there... staring at the wall or floor or ceiling or posters on the walls. Yeah, I was some random loner not talking to anyone. Great huh? All I did was sit... and try to regulate my breathing, get my heart rate down and relax. In the end I was guided to outside the door of the room I would be entering in 5 minutes for marking and had nearly succeded in becoming perfectly calm. Which was a lot better than previous school asessments that go "Do I have to go now?.... uurrghh... OK...".

Entered room. Set up in the minute given, and went through my OSP, then scripted then was given an improv to do. I was a 6 year old boy playing football with my brother and I break a window and I know my Dad isn't going to like it. My 30 seconds preparation involved swearing, thinking how bad it was going to be, then one simple plot point: trying to clean it up and getting cut. Yeah, it went alright up until that.... 20 seconds in. At that point I kinda froze and couldn't think of something next so it was over really really quickly. Not good. Oh well. I think I did SLIGHTLY better in the questions. Which was good because in the practice run through of how the exam would be held at school we did questions and I just couldn't answer them very well I just... failed. But in the exam I answered them! With minimal "Uhh..." "Um"s and only one "I would uhh... words... uhh.... you know? OK that sentence was poorly constructed let me try again." Which you'd think would make me disapointed about the whole ordeal but the fact is: I said SOMETHING BESIDES those things! So that was good! I like good!

It actually wasn't that bad. Sure improv failed, could've been slightly more emotive for my scripted in the end and wasn't absolutely perfect answering the questions but it didn't go immensely terrible so I am happy :) It only took abouty 15 minutes and I was FREE! The markers were cool too, they smiled. I thought they'd be kinda soulless unemotional looking people but no.

Now I have a week to study for mocks and then I keep studying until November 12 when I have my final exam. And guess which exam that is?

Drama written exam.

Last exam is the same as the first? Awesome.

Have a nice day.

Pseudo-Celeb Status

Why do we love celebrities? Before there was Ben Affleck and Oprah there were important people who did things like royalty... back when royalty meant something. That's what we do now, we treat celebrities like royalty and follow them around thinking they're either brilliant or terrible and try to replace them. Then after following them around for so long having them shown to us as wonderful, people decide to just invade their lives and so we get photos of people at the beach or walking around and doing normal things. Shock exclusive photo of Sigourney Weaver without make up looking less than perfect! Who cares? When did celebrities stop being people and start being objects of fascination to study and stalk as if that was ever OK? Last I checked people generally have to sign forms to have their image released to the general public - unless you're famous and you're having a nervous break down. It's your own fault for doing something interesting... you should stick to an office job if you don't want your personal life to be twisted to fit the flavour of the month.

So why do we care when someone we don't know turns out to not be the perfect idolistic person we'd expect them to be (for no real reason at all)? Well I don't. So I'm going to talk about someone else.

Internet celebrities.

They're the weird interesting people who are ALWAYS normal non-perfect people who seem a lot more down to earth than other celebrities so there's no point in trying to bring them down to our level to laugh at their not-even-very-embarrassing photos. They're people who put themselves out there on some website (*cough* youtube specifically *cough*) and got more attention than anyone else. Who says they have talent? These people appear more human to us which... they ARE. They're just random's just like the people watching them. Why do you still feel so special and important if they reply to something you say or comment on your channel to answer some question you asked? They're pseudo-celebrities. The kind that you feel you can achievably interact with even though you're just a little person.

TheHill88 is an example of an internet celebrity who gained popularity by accident. Oh she was so young back then when she rapped about lazydork and lonelygirl15. (Remember when lonelygirl15 was actually a celebrity? Remember the mini-pseudo-media frenzy she caused when we found out that Bree wasn't real? That's the impact of someone sitting and talking to a camera. Never underestimate it.) She has gone from that random 3 years ago just vlogging, to someone who is in two films in production (according to imdb) and has achieved internet status and even had her own little mention on a news story. She now has over 72 THOUSAND subscribers on youtube. I think that's brilliant and truly an amasing thing. How did that happen? I'm not saying she's a bad entertainer or that she hasn't got talent, in fact I think she's awesome... based soly on the collected minutes of footage she has edited and decided to upload for the viewing pleasure of the masses (so technically I don't know do I? And all assumptions are based on someone's manipulated construction of themselves that they screen and select to show) which is basically anyone with an internet connection. Not only do I think she's great based on her vlogs (which, btw, when did talking to yourself become a popular form of entertainment for other people? Is it... like having half a conversation and only the good conversationists are sucessful vloggers?) but to have put up with the terrible onslaught of abuse and haters that EVERYONE no matter how GREAT they are will recieve on youtube. There are always people who are shallow and tools who are excessively cruel just because they can be. She has survived the abuse and not run away completely which is quite an admirable trait. Sure she had that gap of half a year but she's back.

OK see what I'm doing? I'm talking about her life, what she does, what I think of her and what I assume she's like. I don't know this person. It's like commenting on a celebrity. It's just plain weird. I would like to know this person and I don't want to treat her like some random celebrity that I would be thrilled to meet one day in a "OMG! OMG! OMG!" sense because to me they really should be that girl from Australia who got popular. But then... why would I care at all if she's not a real celebrity so I'm not idolising her and don't know her?

That's what internet celebrityness does. It makes you think of people as half everyday people and half celebrity so when you think about approaching this person or talking about them it gets weird. Now I'm wondering, I follow this person on Twitter, I'm a fan on facebook, watch and comment on their blog and youtube channel, read their wikipedia page. How far does it have to go before it becomes stalking? Not just for Caitlin but for EVERYONE. Having celebrity status kinda removes someone from the same "level" so to speak (in people's minds, not in reality, celebs aren't above us) so you think it's OK to read about their lives in the magazines and follow them around but then that's creepy isn't it? But it's... normal. But Caitlin isn't that hollywood million dollar cheque a movie star with her own walk of fame star and such so does this make it right? (I question the morality of Twitter and myspace regardless of what social status a person holds so yeah... but she's just a really good example)

My video I was loading of hers screwed up. I'm on dial-up because I exceded my download limits so I can't load it again because I'm going to bed after this. Dang, and I was hoping to be nostalgic and watch one of her old humorous videos to take me back to the good old days of youtube.

I've lost track of so much youtube stuff... coincedentaly I kinda stopped being obsessed with it when she stopped uploading then got more into it when she came back... coincedentaly. I was trying to go on more and give my channel more attention BEFORE "The Plan" was uploaded so no I'm not stalkerish on that point.

You know if she was reading this right now what would she think? How... weird would it be to read a blog post about yourself by a person you don't know? Is that what it's like to be a celebrity... always having people talk about you when they don't know you, haven't met you but still insist on having opinions of you and talking about you. That's why I've decided that I won't be mean to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in the future because they're really just people who got our attention and are known OF by all of us (but NOT known BY all of us) because the media can manipulate you so easily to thinking whatever you want. Lindsay Lohan recently laughed when she heard she was in a psychiatric ward of some hospital. It was news to her, she was busy not having a nervous breakdown in some jacket. You honestly believe everything? How sad. So yeah, Britney Spears doesn't need to read another thing online about how fat you think she is or how bad you think her new record is, it's all subjective and a matter of opinion (which, btw, is grossly misinformed unless you know the person personally).

So I'm just this random uninformed person... admiring this random semi-famous person for something they do occasionaly for fun... blogging about how weird the interaction is between the two kinds of people we are. Will I ever meet and get to know this person? Probably not.

Hello to all famous and semi-famous people out there. Have a nice day.