157 - People who never meet their deadlines

I'm not the only one who's bound for University College London in the UK. I have a classmate who also plans on heading to that institution for university. He's an interesting fellow, someone who I feel privileged to know. He's very conversational and straight-forward, and tells a lot of fascinating stories. He doesn't really know how to complement people, though, and he's not the kind of person you would typically look to for consolation. But that doesn't bother me, 'cause I appreciate his cynicism, however, the thing that does annoy me about him is the way he leaves everything 'til the last minute.

No, let me make a correction: he leaves everything 'til after the last minute, after every deadline.

The university wants us to apply for accommodation before the thirty-first of May, and he hasn't done so yet. At the point when I heard this, I was already quite annoyed because I thought I didn't have to think about university applications ever again, as I had managed all the paperwork a while ago now, but apparently not - I have to help this guy out.

He says he didn't receive the application forms from the university. He realized two weeks ago that it's the only university he applied to that hadn't mailed him any information yet.

But it's only at this point that he thought to himself, that maybe he should have sent them an e-mail, asking why. And now he plans to write an e-mail of inquiry, one day after the deadline for the accommodation application.

Seriously, then what? Wait another three weeks for the form to get sent here?

The deadline was the thirty-first of May. You have no guaranteed place to live in anymore.

He's been like this since I first met him, he's been late with his geography coursework, his mathematics coursework, his English essays, and his physics lab reports.

Everybody waits until the last minute before they have to do their work, of course.

But get your shit together before the deadline arrives, because if you really wanted to go to London, like I do, that's what you have to do.

156 - People who can't dance

Frankly, I'm still learning, but I think I've fooled people enough to make them think that I know how to shake what my momma gave me. Afterall, I've been going drinking and clubbing for a couple of years now, dancing is a vital part of the Get Drunk! package.

Two days ago, I had my graduation ball. It's where we all get dressed up nice and pretty, and there's a big buffet at dinner, then raffle prizes are given out, and last but not least, the lights dim and a DJ puts on some music for us to dance.

I danced for a few seconds, then I sat back down again. My friends came up to me and said, "Go up and dance, man. You belong on the dance floor!"

I replied, "Sorry, but I don't want to dance with the people there that don't."

155 - Rust on the guitar strings

I have one electric guitar and one classical guitar, and they both have rusty strings. It's my fault for neglecting them, placing them in their respective cases, and putting them in the dark corner of my room for the past two years. I remember I loved playing music on those things, but schoolwork, exams and time spent with classmates consumed me, and got in the way of me actually making some music in my spare time.

My best friend was talking to me the other night on the phone, and he was playing the guitar while doing so. It prompted me to take out mine, and I played and played and played 'til the sun came up, 'cause now I have the time and luxury to do so.

And it feels great, to make music. And to record myself on my computer again, to work on my voice, and to try and play better.

It just irks me that these strings are rusty and making my fingers orange. I have to go buy the strings, and change the strings, and that's such a hassle. Damn me, for not taking care of them continually in the past two years. If I had cleaned them and played them regularly, none of this would have happened.

My poor guitars...

154 - When people don't trust your directions

Tomorrow, I graduate from high school. I will shake hands with the headmistress and will finally, officially, be out of secondary education forever. It's an exciting feeling going into tomorrow's graduation ceremony. Our parents, and our teachers, will all be sitting in the audience, feeling proud of us. My mom will be there, and so will three of my aunts. It's a happy occasion.

Tonight at dinner, they were asking me how to get to my school. I told them they could catch a cab from this location, or they could take a bus from that place. And then - they didn't believe me. They thought that that road would be busy during the evening rush hour. They told me that the bus doesn't go the right way. They said they had another means of getting there in mind. They asked me if I was sure those were the fastest routes.

Uh, of course I'm sure. I've been going to that school for four years. I've gone up that hill over a thousand times. If you want to go the long way, the more expensive way, the busier way, fine. I just don't understand why you asked me for directions in the first place, honestly, if you had already planned on going your way.

153 - When websites require long and complicated passwords

I always have very simple, vanilla passwords. They've worked for me for my entire internet life, and I believe it will always continue to do so until some hacker hacks in. I hate it when a website requires you to have upper-case and lower-case letters, a couple of numerals, some punctuation marks and a space. And then to follow up with a listening of a confirmation code, or a reading of an annoyingly warped and illegible CAPTCHA. I just don't want anyone to break into my account. Are all those requirements being demanded of me really necessary?

Uncomplicated passwords are also easier to remember, and easier to type. How much time in the world is spent remembering and typing out persnickety passwords that require you to scout characters on your keyboard, one after another, that are completely different from each other?

How much of a bitch would it be to type 4$Mj@a(D< out every time you wanted to post a reply on a forum?

If you want a completely labyrinthine Daedalian password from me, then I'm not joining your website.

152 - When people get 'bright ideas' when a pen runs out of ink

When pens run out of ink, what are you supposed to do?

I hate shaking them, 'cause I've seen pens splutter all over the place like a guy with a terrible lisp. Sort of like cannons loaded to the muzzle with ink, people unintentionally blow an all-consuming blackness everywhere at a single discharge. That's really idiotic, and I hate seeing it happen, and I hated it when it happened to me the first and only time. Of course, the solution is to keep the cap on, then shake it. Sometimes, the ink's simply stuck in the barrel.

And what about licking the tip of the pen?

I was watching one of my classmates do this during an exam, and I couldn't help but smile to myself as I looked at him because... it's just stupid. You're licking the pen. Licking, the pen.

What has this world come to?

After the exam, he had blue ink on his lips and his tongue, and I had to fight hard not to laugh. It's so funny what some people do sometimes without even knowing it. I just think it's such a ridiculously bad habit a lot of people have, and unless something is edible (or sexual), I don't think you should lick anything.

Licking a pen... jeez.

151 - When people laugh at you when you simply want to look good

I have no time to do everything I've been wanting to do after high school finishes. I could only manage to fit in so much in the last 24 hours, but I still haven't gotten round to reading a single blog, or a single page of any book considered a classic. I've caught up with tons of people on Facebook, I've watched a lot of TV series, downloaded an album or two, gone out with my friends, slept in this morning, etc... etc... but there is just not enough time for me to sit back and read, to go to the beach, to write on my other blog, to see other people, and the list goes on forever...

Anyway, tonight I'm going to a banquet. It's funny because I don't know what the banquet is for, what host I'm going to be a guest to, where this thing is, or why I'm invited. To be entirely frank, I don't even know what a 'banquet' is and what you do there.

But my grandparents and my aunt are going, and I'm invited to go. I figured, I haven't been out with them in a while, and I haven't made dinner plans yet. A spontaneous free dinner from a random host I don't know the identity of yet?

Sure.

I tried to dress up nicely, but my aunt was snickering at me when she saw me leafing through my button-down shirts. She thinks it's funny that I wanted the blue shirt at first, then I switched to pink, then I changed my mind to the white one. Truth is, I was trying to match them with a particular pair of shoes.

I don't understand why she was laughing at me, though. I just want to look nice. God knows she's not fashionable, and I'm sorry if I don't want to dress up like I'm from the 50s. I will dress my age. So what if girls fuss over makeup, or if guys fuss over their hair? People need to be presentable in, and dress appropriately for, the given event. Do you want to look like an idiot in photographs? Do you want to be stared at by everyone around you?

You see, I was leaving you alone to dress up all old-fashioned, but if you want to laugh at me, I'll... I'll... I will...

I will BLOG about you. Humph.

150 - Talking about exams

Like the husband who talks incessantly about his boss and his work and his colleagues at the dinner table in front of his wife and kids, students who chatter non-stop about an examination after the examination is over can be so annoying. Pondering whether or not you got this question right, or that question wrong, or drew this diagram incorrectly, or calculated this distance to the right degree of accuracy, continually for two weeks straight, induces such a headache. All these words being exchanged about how this exam was easy, but that one had a lot of tricky questions, and about how you managed to draw this graph, and how you did this question, scratched it out, and decided to do another one...... why?

Why do you want to talk about it? Why relive the pain, or the boredom, or the feeling of stupidity if you didn't do so well, or, if you did well, the so-called 'challenge' the examiners think will stump you? Why does it matter anymore? What's done is done, no? So why talk about it? Seriously?

Maybe it's fun to compare what we each did, sharing is caring, lalala... After all, going to school is a communal gig. Maybe we just want to have a better idea of how well we fared amongst our class. Maybe we highly value education, and ask everyone about what they put down as their answer so as to confirm or enhance your current amount of knowledge.

Oooooor, maybe you think education is actually a pile of horse poo, and find it funny how badly you did. I personally don't see the humor/sense in that.

Oooooor, maybe you're so confident that you did well, that you just want to show off your wonderful grasp on the information we need to know every minute before and after the exam.

Oooooor, maybe you knew you did badly, and just want to confirm... which makes you sort of sad.

It goes to show how I don't really believe in people's goodness. In conclusion, anyone who talks after exams are either cocky, arrogant showboats, or disappointing good-for-nothings who may or may not be using self-deprecating humor as a defense mechanism. Boo.

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My exams are over! I personally try not to bring them up in conversation... but they do, some how, every time.

That means I'm done with high school. For the next two weeks, I celebrate my 18th birthday... I also celebrate graduation. And I also celebrate the coming of summer. More than ninety days of fun until university begins... It's going to be wild.

On September 1st, I should be living and studying in London already. I look forward to writing entries everyday 'til then. Hope you've all been doing well since I've been gone. I'll be blogging more than ever now that I have so much free time. Hehe.