It's been a while, hasn't it?

So, despite what my update schedule may imply, I'm still here, meandering angrily through life.

I can't even remember what my last blog was about, before the Arthur C. Clarke one. Huh. A completely random post in early March about my Computing project. Well, I've finished that, after some more difficulty. And my Physics project. And my exams. And my whole school career, in fact.

As of early June, I've been done with Sixth Year and done with my secondary education. Next up, tertiary, but I'll get to that a little later. I spent the time after that mostly hanging around at home, occasionally going in for the odd event. Went in to help with the odd event as well as play Laserquest and some practice for my last ever house marching. Didn't go the prom, again. Still can't see the point.

I wrote a decent Sixth Year Show, something I've been looking forward to since Primary 7, when I first saw the fun the S6s had making fun of the teachers on-stage. I had some good jokes and everyone I showed it to seemed to like it. They did karaoke instead, since apparently a few of the precious shows have offended teachers.

It was, quite frankly, one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. It wasn't just the fact that it was karaoke, which is gut-wrenchingly horrible at the best of times. There was the feeling that I could have done so much better, if I'd been given the opportunity. There was the knowledge that the experience and the feelings would be some of my last memories of Wellington School, a place I've known for over a decade.

I did what any sane man would have done in the situation - I listened to my iPod. A couple of people noticed but nobody whose opinion I actually cared about thought it was anything other than funny. I don't know if any teachers noticed but none of them called me on it if they did. Unfortunately, I still had to traipse up to the front of the hall with everyone else and sing, or at least pretend to from behind everyone else. I have a funny feeling that I will never again be able to enjoy "Bohemian Rhapsody".

But then it was over and it was time to go home. The next day was Speech Day, where I got to sit and listen to the usual droning on from the school governors about fiscal years and fee increases, the usual preaching from the headmaster about commitment, teamwork and how it all came together to make Wellington fantastic at playing rugby and the usual overly-long prayer, thanking God for every little thing that had happened during the year. The guest speaker wasn't too bad this year, compared to some.

I think it's now one of my goals in life - to get good enough at whatever I do (writing, video game design, comedy, whatever I wander into) to be invited back to speak at one of those things.

Anyway, before the main thing (and for a few days previously, in fact), all the leaver's books had been getting passed around. I'm always useless with things like that - it's hard enough for me just trying to conjure up something emotional or deep, let alone doing so under pressure and on paper. So in the first one I was handed, I wrote:

"Bye.
- Alasdair"

This apparently wasn't good enough for the girl who'd asked me so I thought about it some more and wound up writing a couple of paragraphs. I wrote some more generic stuff in some other people's books - mostly just people who were doing the rounds and getting everybody, I think, along with some more joking entries for people I'm confident I'll see again.

I even got one myself. Well, kind of. I happened to have a notepad with me which I took out of my bag, scribbled "Alasdair's Impromptu Leaver's Book (and waste of a perfectly good notebook)" on the front of and got a few people to scrawl in.

But back to my main point - my last day. I grabbed some photos of the common room and savoured the smell one last time before I left. Maybe I'll share the photos at some point. Then it was down to the town hall, some last minute writing and chatting in the chairs on the stage (I'd managed to grab a seat relatively hidden from view, allowing me to play around on my iPhone or read Private Eye if I got too bored) and the speeches I mentioned, then I walked up to get my books (Dune and The Time Machine for the Advanced Higher Maths and Advanced Higher Computing prizes respectively... I'm starting to get an inkling about why people call me a geek).

Back to my seat to sit some more while more people received more prizes (as I did more wondering just how many awards for sporting achievement one school needs). There were some tears and lots of hugging once it was all over. Just to be clear, I was only involved in the hugging, and somewhat reluctantly so at that.

And then I went home. To play Smash Bros Brawl, which had just come out.

I think I'm going to leave the narrative here for now. I may follow up with more tomorrow... or, more accurately, later today. Ah, the joy of not having to do all my posting before midnight. Anyway, there'll be more at some point, if I can be bothered.

Birthday

Well, my day started out fairly badly and went downhill from there, at least for a while. The weather has been miserable all day (rain, wind and hailstones in varying combinations and intensities throughout), I had trouble concentrating in any of my classes for no discernible reason, some of my closest friends had to be reminded about my birthday by an acquaintance and, once word did spread around, all most people were interested in was when I was getting my first driving lesson and what car I would use.

Basically, I was just feeling a bit down and the fact that it should have been a good day made it that much worse.

Things got a bit better when I got home. I put on some nice, warm clothes. I turned on my computer and went through my strangely comforting routine of checking webcomics, blogs and forums. I chucked my school uniform out to the wash. I went downstairs to get something to eat and returned with a mug of Ribena and a mixing bowl of excess chocolate icing. Then, having settled in my chair, I ran Adium and read Garfield while it logged me in.

Aside from the chocolate icing, it was entirely normal. Then, the moment I logged on, I got a message saying “happy birthday!”. It was a genuine surprise and it seemed to me, in my admittedly depressed state, that it was the only birthday greetings I had received where it wasn't someone just going through the motions.

So I spent the next two hours talking to the friend who had sent it, leaving reluctantly to go and have my tea and open my presents.

I got the usual assortment of cards and cash from the usual assortment of relatives. Mum insisted that I keep a careful note of who gave me what for the purposes of writing thank you letters – an annoying reminder of that outdated practice that I truly hate having to perform. After tea – fish and chips, again nothing unusual and I wouldn't want it any other way – it was time to work my way through my pile of presents.

I got a few gadgets that I asked for, minus a couple that were still in the post, along with some DVDs, books and games that I had also asked for. There were some surprises – a little book on the iPhone and a slight variation on a top I already had, with buttons rather than a zip. I didn't really have anything against it but I prefer the zip version to the buttons and didn't see the point in having what was essentially two of the same thing. When I said something to that effect, the whole discussion devolved into an argument for some reason.

I also got some L plates to put in the car, another reminder of something I wasn't really looking forward to, and a book on space exploration from my grandparents, who also gave me £20 in case I didn't particularly want a large, hardback book on space exploration. Which, to be brutally honest, I didn't

And that was that. I returned to my room, laid my assorted gifts out on the bed, where they still sit now, and went about the continuing my normal, happy activities. There was a minor interruption when Skippy phoned, one of the very few calls I've ever had on my iPhone, to ask about some arrangements for a party I'm not even sure I'll be going to but, other than that, my day just continued slowly until we arrive at this point here.

This point being the point where I've probably spent over an hour composing this relatively short little blog post that I half hope no one will ever read. I'm finding it hard to figure out what kind of mood I'm in – it doesn't seem to fall into either happy or sad, usually the two most basic possibilities. I think I'll settle for pensive. It's reasonably accurate and it's a word that I don't use nearly often enough.

So. I think I'm going to go and unwrap a couple of things. The wrapping paper obviously came off a few hours ago but I'm actually going to properly open them now. I'll play the new Advance Wars first, I think. Then maybe read a book on Doctor Who, or browse the Mass Effect instruction manual.

Yes. That ought to cheer me up

Last Day in December

So what have I achieved this year?

I passed my Higher exams and did very well, English notwithstanding. I won the Cup for Higher Computing and I've been helping out at the school's Computer club, educating the younglings in the way of the Force basic computer programming and animation. I entered Sixth Year at school and everything there seems to be going fine. I applied to and was accepted by several universities for the course of my choice.

Outside schoolwork, I managed to keep going with this whole once-a-day post thing, minus a few uploading problems and holidays. The important thing is that it averages out properly. I at least made a start on some of my writing projects and have plans for plenty more.


What have I failed to achieve?

I've not done nearly as much writing as I'd hoped to have done. I also had plans for working on a few game designs and prototypes but not much has happened there so far. Progress on my little sketch show comedy project has been... non-existent. The VersusCOM podcast, along with my plan for VersusCOM in general, is still on hiatus.


That's a fairly short and blunt summary but it marks out a few goals to work on come the new year. I'll try to write them down into some actual resolutions tomorrow. Maybe if I call it a list of resolutions instead of a to do list, I'll actually do some of it. Or resolve some of it. Whatever.

I got dragged out of bed fairly early this morning to go to the hospital for a dressing change. It was a real shock to my system for some reason, possibly because I'd just had a couple of days where I could actually lie in because the district nurse was coming in later than normal. I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to need these daily dressing changes – everyone who examines it keeps saying how quickly it's healing up and how small it's getting but no one will give me even an approximate time until I can stop.

Anyway, the point is that the lack of sleep is starting to catch up to me now so I'll try to keep this short.

Not much success so far, unless you're only comparing it to the last two days' posts.

I expect that there'll be a lot of people staying up late and letting off fireworks and so on once midnight rolls around. That'll probably be annoying for a few minutes and then subside so that I can get some rest. I've never been one to do anything special at the end of the year. It's always been just another night, arbitrary calendar designations notwithstanding.

Wow, that's twice I've got to use notwithstanding in one post.

Thrice.

And I got to use thrice as well. Awesome.

That's enough I think. More tomorrow next year.

From July to December

I believe that yesterday, after some problems getting the stupid post to publish on time, I had just finished June. Over the last 16 years, I've noticed that June is usually followed by July so we may as well follow that pattern here.


July was of course in the summer holidays. I alternated between lazing around, buying stuff on eBay and occasionally producing something of merit. I went driving for the first time at that off-road place that'll show you the basics before you can go on the road. Sam and I went a couple of times but I didn't enjoy it much and I thought it was a waste. Now I have a copy of the Highway Code sitting on my floor and I'm going to need to start reading it at the beginning of February.

July was also when I first received the NESi along with a load of other eBay stuff as Sam and I entered our seasonal pattern of buying loads of crap to tinker with in the summer. We still need to sell those NESi, along with... well, the loads of crap we bought to tinker with and never used.


August... More of the same, really. Summer would have been drawing to a close but the only truly significant event to differentiate it from July and the couple of holiday days in June was that I got my exam results. Despite my confidence at the time and my A in the prelim, I somehow managed only a C in English. I hadn't been expecting to do brilliantly but given my track record I thought I would manage a B at least.

Fortunately, it turned out that I wasn't alone. Many of my classmates and, indeed, many students around the whole of Scotland had got English results that were much lower than they or there teachers had predicted. The teachers said that they were doing their best and that the course was useless and the SQA said that the course was fine and the teachers were useless.

I'm paraphrasing slightly but over the next few weeks and months, the slagging match subsided and a couple of official investigations were launched. I eventually got up to a B on appeal which seems to have served me fine, looking at my university offers, but I know a lot of people who got really screwed over by that exam and none of the investigations and changes for the future were going to fix that.


We returned to school in the last few days of August but most of the interesting stuff took place in September. Those first few days, all we had was a beaten up old SNES that we used for huge Street Fighter II tournaments. The class hadn't divided itself up into rooms as it has now. I know this was only a few months ago but it all seems so strange.

September was also when we first had to start thinking seriously about university applications. I'd always had some ideas about doing Computer Science but I really didn't know where or even if I definitely wanted to do it at all. Nevertheless, I made some progress towards making choices and writing my personal statement.

That month was also when I first made some posts on Corbett's Fiction. Unsurprisingly, I've done almost nothing since then. I suppose the concepts have become a bit clearer in my head if that's any help.


All these recent months now begin to blur together so I get the feeling that I'm going to have to refer to a lot of posts from October to get my facts and memories straight. Don't expect me to link to them; that's far too much like hard work.

So many things happened then that seem so long ago... I apparently got my new chair then but I'm so used to it now that it seems like it's always been here. It was Erin's birthday and so we used Citizen Cane again. You know, I think I forgot to mention that big ol' cane anywhere else? Looking back it seems we built him in March. It felt so much more recent than that...


Moving on, it was in late November that I had my surgery. That's still bugging me now but, again, the surgery seems so distant. I'm not sure why. We had our annual fireworks party in November as well. I remember talking to Sam a lot because I didn't like anybody else there. We watched The Muppet Show while everyone else was downstairs eating a meal together, proving once again how anti-social and geeky we are. Oh, and after a long wait, both in a queue outside the store and in the many months beforehand, I got my iPhone. Well worth it, I believe.


December... do I even really need to go into that? Last week and a bit of term, if memory serves; not much going on – watched some films in the common room, cleared out the common room, went to last ever Christmas service, went home, had holidays, had Christmas, ended up here, doing this.

That's pretty much it.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my year. It seems like there's a lot I haven't mentioned - going to the computer club each week and helping out the kids there. Sam finally asking out that girl he'd had a crush on for months. All the stuff we did to Jimerson's locker.

It's strange how my recent memory blurs together. Perhaps I only remember the best bits in the long term, making the short term feel a lot more cluttered and connected. Major events like picking a university and doing projects each take so much time that I can't put a precise date to them or relate the details of a single event.

Maybe it was a mistake to go through the year chronologically rather than just think of the highlights. I think tomorrow I'll pick out my favourite bits and put off sharing my resolutions until January 1st.

Yes, that sounds like a plan.

From January to June

I said I was going to do something where I looked back on the year, didn't I? Well, I've got nothing better to do, I guess.


January seems like a good place to start. I expect that at that time I was still getting to grips with my new iMac, as strange as that may seem now that my Mighty Mouse feels like an extra limb. I can't remember what games and so on I would've been playing at the time. It wouldn't have been too long after the release of the Wii and my acquisition of one, so I might have still been playing Twilight Princess. I could have finished it, but I recall I was still thinking about it and discussing it as it took Sam a lot longer to do.


February brought with it my Higher prelims, in which I managed to get all As. Somehow. I do recall that English was rather close but it was the same for everyone else who got an A in my class so we just assumed it was a really hard prelim. Oh, if only we had known what was to come.

It must have been sometime in February that Skippy suggested that we start doing a blog together. I'd had various ideas and projects swirling around in my head for months by then but I was having trouble actually following through so I agreed in order to prove to myself that I could keep something like that going. We put it off until after the prelims, at which point Skippy sent me a rough draft of an introductory post. I almost completely rewrote it and then published it in late February.


My regular posting didn't start until the 1st of March, when I challenged myself to keep up daily posts on a variety of topics for exactly one year. So far, I've made a pretty good job of that, I think. Skimming over some of those posts now, they seem to be a bit more light-hearted and relaxed than what I write now. I can't be sure, although one of these days I'm going to read through everything I've written here and find out for certain how it's changed.

March was the month I went up to Edinburgh to do a Chemistry competition of some kind. I'd completely forgotten about it until I read up on it right now. I've forgotten a lot of what happened in Chemistry, since I dropped it before going into Sixth Year. English, the other subject I dropped, and a whole lot of other stuff that happened in S5 seems like the distant past now. I'm not sure why.

Oh, and it was in March that I was playing the first Phoenix Wright game as well, having borrowed it from Sam... It's still on my shelf.


April... April... what happened then? Easter holidays, I suppose, and the build-up to the exams in May. I went through my general gripes about holidays though I did concede that that particular one had been quite fun – especially the bits that didn't involve anything that holidays are generally supposed to involve. While away, I made fun of the Street Fighter movie and watched House and then when I got back I had to panic about doing holiday homework.

It's remarkable how similar all my holidays from school turn out to be.


May held the dreaded Higher exams. I can distinctly recall the day before the English exam: I spent it lying on the bed in the guest room, highlighted chunks from essays and pages of quotes lying around me and my DS in sleep mode at my side. I somehow found the mental strength to study for most of the day, occasional snatches of Final Fantasy III the only thing keeping me sane.

As far as I knew, the English exam itself went fine. That afternoon, I headed into town with Sam and Sam to pick up imported copies of the new Pokemon games. We'd planned to spend the rest of the day there but it began bucketing down so we headed back to the school, hoping it would pass while we found shelter. It eventually did but by that time Potter had already started jogging home and Stafford and I had called my mum to come and pick us up. It sounds fairly miserable but it was a fun experience.

Interestingly, I suspect it may have been that brief stint of getting caught in the rain with Stafford's infamously unreliable mobile phone my only lifeline that truly convinced me I needed a phone of my own.

The rest of the exams... I don't have such clear memories of. I recall going down to the play park near the school several times and I think that that was this year. It might have been at Standard Grade, when we also did it. Who knows? I'm slightly annoyed that the exams next year, with their greater length and my smaller classes, aren't likely to lead to a similar situation of giving up revision en masse in order to play on swings.


With exams out of the way, June was a breath of fresh air. It also seems so very long ago, when we were trapped in that strange limbo between Fifth and Sixth Year, using our old form rooms but having three study periods a day and spending half of them just lying outside on the grass. That was absolutely fantastic. I think we eventually got told to stop but I can't remember if we actually did.

Then came the end of the term and the last time I would see certain classmates and teachers. I remember Speech Day being held in a local sports hall instead of the town hall, which was being renovated. I went up to collect my prize then I just went back down to my seat to sit through the proceedings. Luck and random chance had placed me next to my two best friends so I was able to pass the time talking to them. Well, during the rehearsals and before the event itself anyway.

At the end, I suppose the departing Sixth Year would have been doing what the departing Sixth Year always do, though I can't recall seeing them directly. They would have been hugging each other and some would have been crying. For many years, I'd never really understood why – I knew they were leaving but the friends would stay in touch. Now, I think I have some better idea.

That'll be me in six months. I doubt I'll be hugging anyone or crying but I'm honestly not sure how I'll handle that final moment of school life, knowing that I'll never again share a classroom with that diverse bunch of people, some of whom I've known for most of my life. Sure, I'll keep in touch with my friends and there's a good number I'll be glad never to see again but it's those ones in between that just sort of make up the background of my life without being close...

I'm not quite sure how to express it. I hope I'll have found a way in six months time. Even if the challenge I started in March has come to a close, I'll still keep putting my thoughts up here and, well, there'll be a lot of stuff going on then that'll give me some interesting thoughts.


And that's half of the year done in over 1200 words. Tomorrow, I'll do the other half and then New Year's Eve will give me some time for reflection and resolutions.


You know what? I feel good. I'll leave it to you to imagine why.