Guess what? I am really looking forward to Christmas! For the first time in hm... 4 years or so! It's the first of December today. The first day my mother officially allows the singing of Christmas songs in the house.

I just realised (finally) that Christmas isn't about religion at all. Christ wasn't born on Christmas day, and Christmas isn't about him anyway. It's about Santa Clause! No, really, it's about being a family and having a tree with pretty lights and it's about eating good food and opening the presents in your Christmas stocking, and it's about pulling crackers and getting drunk with the rest of your family. Christmas is good. It's expensive and stupid and the meaning behind it is bullshit, I'd much rather celebrate the Winter Solstice, but, it's good. I'm still doing my Solstice celebration too though.

It's a tradition I started last year. I lit a bunch of candles in my room (Fire risk, I know) and stayed up all night listening to music and wearing nice clothes that nobody would see cause this one holiday it was just about me. It was my holiday that I celebrated by myself alone in my room. And that's what I want to do again this year.

I wrote a poem today. not a proper poem cause it was on the magnetic poetry calender upstairs, you're supposed to write a poem for each month, but anyway, it meant that I had a limited amount of words. But this is what I came up with:

Beneath time but above water's change for thick ice

No lightning every cold morning after love in the dawn

Only promises of music to remember her summer

Will make this girl's dream know life

With my hard, cold and dark winter sky

Like poetry the sun celebrated a beautiful night

Like a flower he must leave and let our moon rise

Language has some plan thought out by hibernated animals.

If only I'd had a few more useful words to work with... I could have made that perfect. But oh well, no cheating, that is the poem with the words that there were. It's not as good as some of the other ones that I did (And yes, I did loyally do them every month) but... this is the last one. And I thought I'd put it in here. Because it's nice.

I have a feeling that Christmas is going to be perfect this year.

I'm gonna spend New Year abroad with my dad probably, so I'll miss the party that my parents are having, but oh well. I'll live. It'll rock. He asked me whether I want to go somewhere hot or somewhere cold and I can't decide.

I got photos taken for my passport today. They look.... well... see... I look really pale in them. And my hair looks darker cause of the rain. And I'm wearing too much eyeliner. And my top is black. And all in all... I look a bit.. well... Gothy. I'm glad I took the dog collar off. My father is never going to let me live this down. He's going to mock me every time we go abroad and he looks at my passport photo. Grrr.

Anyhow, Christmas aside. My weekend was interesting. Ryan (Non-orange) spent the night at my house again. He had the bed this time. Anyhow, yeah. I beat him at monopoly. Badly. I had to let him cheat so he could catch up with me. And even then I slaughtered him. By the end of the game I had hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane (I know you Americans have a different version, but those are the most expensive streets) In fact, I had hotels on around that whole corner. He kept being really happy when he got sent to jail and didn't have to venture round the board again. I even made bargains with him man, I let him have the greens (The second most expensive set) which he put hotels on and he still failed miserably.

It was... great. But I guess kind of sad that that's all that happened. Seeing as I fancy him and he was at my house all night sharing a room and well.. nothing happened. But ah well. I wasn't going to initiate anything, and I'm not even sure if he likes me back or not (He probably doesn't) but... hm..

He also ended up having dinner at my house. That is, upstairs, with my family. Lasange. And, he brought orange Ryan up at the dinner table! I was so worried... but it's okay, he didn't tell my parents anything. My sisters worship him so much. Even my parents loved him. What the hell is wrong with the guy? He irritates me sometimes. But oh well. Least I know if I end up going out with him or anything, my parents won't throw a fit.

Jo said I should have slept with him. I said I didn't really want to lose my virginity in a one night stand. She said, "Why the hell not? I did!" Jo's cool. She stayed with a guy three years just because he was her ticket out of her town and into London. A little harsh on him perhaps, but I'm sure he wanted her for other reasons than her stunning personality.

I then had an argument with like 5 of them who were telling me that Judas Priest were better than Metallica! WHAT THE HELL!!? I was saying, "Judas Priest are noise! Iron Maiden are a cross between noise and music, Led Zeppelin are music, but Metallica? Metallica are sheer genius on a level with Mozart!" Only one of them agreed but he wouldn't get involved in the argment. Dammit.

Then who should I bump into but sexy Sibz and lushous (I know that is spelled awfully) Lizzie.

They walked me back to school and I pointed out some people to them.

Then I had a test. Which... went okay. I don't know. What I said was okay... or even very good, but the planning was absolutely AWFUL.

The question was about how Street Car Named Desire explores the theme of gender. I talked about what the characters represent, and then about the rape and that's commonly seen as a way of a man to conquer a woman, and then about how at the time it wouldn't have been acceptable for a woman to drink hard liquor as Blanche does in it, and the double standard about how it was at the time (and still is today to an extent) acceptable for a man to sleep with a lot of women, but not the other way around, but then I did a complete 180 and started talking about the characters again. I talked about Eunice and how she breaks the stereotype of women, and then about Blanche's dead husband, but then I really fucked up, I started talking about Blanche again, about how she has a masculine side that she tries to cover up just as Mitch has a sensitive side that he tries to cover up.

Basically, the planning was dire and I now know why our English teacher in year 11 used to make us spend like half an hour on the plan the day before as opposed to 2 minutes after the exam to pretend you had worked based on a plan, as I did today.

Gah. I'm so unorganised.>