One of the boys

I am a teenage girl. I imagine that all sorts of stereotypes have just jumped to your mind: makeup, One Direction, hopeless crushes, 3-hour long phone conversations... And apart from One Direction, yep, I am kind of like that. Also the hopeless crush morphed into a boyfriend about two and a half years ago.

So being such a girl, I have more male friends than female. I have a few very close female friends, but then the rest are all boys. I'm not really sure why it happened, but I find myself getting on really well with boys. I don't have any brothers, and I get on really well with girls too, but I know I would never cope in a girls-only school. Sleepovers with girls are fine, but I'm going on schoolies with a mixed group, mostly because we girls didn't know what we'd do for a week or so by ourselves!

Recently, my male friend called me a 'bro'. I took this as a massive compliment, as I hope it was intended. I'm delighted by the fact that I find it easy to relate to boys, because in the 'real world', I'm going to have to talk to all sorts of people, male and female.

I think that boys can teach girls a lot. My girl friends and I joke about 'typical boy behaviour', but then we turn around and realise that it is this behaviour that girls could benefit from. Caring a bit less and taking friendships lightly are things that boys are particularly good at. Girls, who tend to get caught up in the smallest details of who said what about who, could learn a lot from the way boys let things slide off them.

One thing that scares me about leaving school is leaving these boys behind. Or should I say men now? They've been such a big part of my life and I don't want to lose them now.

Sorry for being soppy, gentlemen. Remember I am a girl!

Technology >:(

Wrote a big long post the other day, which I was writing on Word because I don't trust websites to properly save text. Had almost finished when the computer did an automatic restart to install updates or somethinglikethat.............. ANYWAY it was a starter version of Word, so didn't save like Word normally does. Nothing to restore.

Which is why you did not get to read a post I slaved away on for nearly an hour the other night. I will rewrite it eventually but this week has been hectic.

Just a hint - it's about male/female friendships. FRIENDSHIPS.

Torture in the form of a camera

On Monday, I experienced my last ever school photos. Yet another last for this year, following on from last Swimming Carnival, last Cross Country Carnival, last first day of the year, Music Camp, last first day in winter uniform, last ever day wearing white socks to school... No more hanging around waiting for the previous group to finish. No more rushing out of class, hoping not to miss out on something that will be in the next exam (Yes I am a massive nerd). No more being seated in the front row because you're teeny-tiny and happen to go to school with the world's tallest teenage boys. No more worrying that the top row is going to fall off the flimsy scaffold-thing and crush all those below them into a mush of blazers, braids and shoe polish.

And most of all, no more horribly embarrassing posed photos that you have to wait months to see and are hardly ever happy with.

I'm one of those people who has NEVER been happy with a school photo. Well, not since Year 4 when I somehow managed to pull off a decent smile. That particular photo is still the one in my mother's wallet. And then, the hormones kicked in, the mosquito-bite scar arrived (a putrid scab for Year 5 school photos!) and Mum stopped doing my hair. Not one good photo in high school. So this year, I was absolutely determined to finish Year 12 with one decent portrait photo of myself in school uniform.

In Year 10 one shoulder was higher than the other, so I practiced standing nice and straight. In Year 11, my hair was disastrous, so I washed it the night before, tried to scrunch it with product to get nice waves to add texture and intricacy to my ponytail (or something like that), talking to myself in the mirror like a beauty guru on YouTube... And The Rudolph-style nose I've been sporting every year since Year 7 thanks to a tendency to flush when embarrassed/hot/cold/angry/happy/sad/tired/hungry/asleep? Covered with a layer of foundation.

Of course, we sat down for the photos. I hadn't practiced sitting straight! And my hair? Well the product did work, but as I sleep on my side, instead of the waves I'd been aiming for, I got one VERY flat side of hair and one just normally untameable. It took longer than normal to do my everyday ponytail, and no time for clever braids or face-framing curls. I even think I forgot a ribbon! My red nose was successfully covered the morning of photos, as planned for, but, as if I was being punished for my vanity, a couple of nasty pimples popped up overnight on my chin. Concealer was hastily applied, and then put in my pocket for touch-ups (it was a stick concealer), where it promptly melted. Only within the tube, luckily not on my school skirt, but it was pretty much useless throughout the day. Yeah yeah I know, #firstworldproblems. But I had my heart set on not looking gross! When people look back at their passport-photo sized image of me in 20 years, I wanted them to remember me and my personality, not the leering lady with the nutty hair and the wacky skin.

So my perfect school photo? Well I still don't know. Maybe it will be fine! Maybe I'll look like a witch! Or maybe I should just stop caring and think about how much fun it was to laugh along with my grade at the photographer's lame jokes, and try and get away with flipping over the dangly crests on our prefect badges, and just look back at all the old dorky, silly and embarrassing school photos and reminisce about how amazing these last six years have been?

The art of not killing all your school friends

Anyone who has been to high school is going to know what I’m talking about here, particularly those who are doing or have already done the HSC.

For those who haven’t, I’ll just quickly explain something. In Year 12, your rankings in every subject matter a lot, as they moderate your marks in the final HSC exams. If you come first in a subject, your mark is set, but for everyone else, this system can be pretty terrifying, as you have no idea what effect everyone else’s marks will have on you. The higher your ranking in each task, the better. This leads to something quite odd, something which I like to call ‘The Love-Hate HSC Complex’.

By the time you reach Year 12, you’ve been at school with the same people for six years, maybe more if you went to the same primary school. Deep friendships have developed over years of shared classes, moaning about homework and lining up at the canteen. So in your head, this year is getting quite emotional, as you imagine next year, when, no matter what you do, you’re not going to see these people every day anymore. You start to appreciate everyone in a really, quite freakishly positive way. You forget all the times they’ve wronged you, that party they didn’t invite you to, the way they won’t let you copy their maths homework, that one time they hit you in the face with a cricket bat during PE (Accidentally! Of course!)…

While all these over-the-top emotions are rushing around inside your head, BAM! It’s time to get your marks back for an assessment. Suddenly, your passionate love for your classmates is buried under your passionate desire to RANK FIRST and WIN AT THE HSC. The whole grade is called into one classroom, and you’re sharing a seat with your best friend. You know, the perfect one with the perfect hair and the perfect work ethic? Yep, that one. The teachers are going to give you a big lecture about the assessment before they hand back the marks. This is the first problem. No one listens. They are too concerned with their ranking. Finally the teachers finish, and the assessments are handed out. You hold your breath as your essay/speech/exam is placed face down on the desk, then you turn it over.

18 out of 20. YES!

A great mark, of course. Yet, a niggling doubt still rests at the back of your mind. You crane your neck to try and spot other people’s marks without being too obvious, and catch a glimpse of the red number written on the Perfect Best Friend’s assessment.

19.

What?

The hatred takes over. For a few, blinding moments, you forget all that they are to you. You forget those flowers they gave you when you were sick/sad/happy, or the way they’ll answer their phone to talk to you even when it’s past midnight on a school night. All you feel is PURE, UNADULTERATED HATRED.

It’s natural of course. Everyone is feeling it right now, except the kid with 19. And you know that they must deserve the mark, and that you have no reason to hate them, but there it is. You want to wriggle off your chair and go booby-trap their locker.

Suddenly, they turn to you. Smile. “How’d you go?”

It sounds like an innocent enough question, but everyone knows that behind that open-ended inquiry is the burning desire to ensure they are the best. They want to know your mark. And because they’ve probably already spied, you answer. “18”.

They grin. “That’s great!”

You could interpret their response as them being nice, and truly affirming your result, but you’re still a bit blind, so you instantly think that they’re only glad because you didn’t beat them.

And so it continues.

I frequently see and experience this. You can get a great mark, and still not be happy, because your ranking is not good. It’s unfortunate that the year when everyone finally seems to love each other is also the year in which we have to compete with such stakes. But in my time, I’ve figured out a few ways not to kill my friends (and make sure they don’t kill me!) when the Hate aspect of the ‘Love-Hate HSC Complex’ sets in…*

1.       Remember, if you can, that they are still your friend.

2.       Think about your different goals. Take university entry as an example. Unless your friend wants to do the exact same course as you, you’re only competing to do the best you can, not to get in to the course, so you can’t hate them for threatening your chances.

3.       Remember you’re not the only person who wants to do well. Try and feel some happiness for the people who did well as they try and achieve their dreams.

4.       Don’t take it out on anyone. Wait till you get home and then rant to your soft toys.

5.       Try not to cry or say that you did awfully (at least in front of everyone – again, wait for the soft toys). Sure, everyone has different standards, but even if you think coming tenth is a bad rank, imagine how the person who came fortieth is going to feel hearing you moan about how badly you did. If you come dead last, moan all you like.

*Anyone who knows me may think I’m being hypocritical writing this because of my tendency to lost it a bit over bad marks. To them I say... do what I say, not what I do. But I do try to follow my own advice!

Omitted history

I am currently doing the HSC, and studying Modern History. As part of this course, everyone has to do a personality study. At my school, we're doing the wonderful horrible Leni Riefenstahl.

Before this year, I'd never heard of Leni. Turns out she's a really important person. She worked as a film director for the Nazi Party in the lead-up to World War Two, directing a very propaganda-y film called Triumph of the Will that glorifies all things Nazi, followed by a documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

After the war, Leni was arrested and trialled on the grounds of being a Nazi, but was eventually acquitted. But she never worked as a director again. Ever since the end of the war, until her death in 2003 at the remarkable age of 101, she protested her innocence, stating that she only did what she did because she was passionate about film and her career, and had no real idea about the Nazi policies including the concentration camps. Considering her close relationship with Hitler, I'm not convinced, and neither are most of the historians studying her life.

But it begs some interesting questions - when investigating a person, can you take what they say about their life as truth? Are autobiographies reliable sources? (Is the HSC making me overthink things???)

For an assignment that I'm finishing off at the moment, our teacher pointed us to 'The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl', a three-hour epic documentary of her extraordinary life. The best part about it is that the old footage and recounts are spliced with candid interviews with Leni herself. When I heard this, I though 'bingo! I'm going to hear it exactly as it was!'. Alas, no. She lies, sometimes right out. If anything, the documentary has made me even more confused about what really happened, and what her real motives were.

But it has brought me one major epiphany: perhaps we find the truth about history in what isn't said. Maybe all we'll ever know about Leni is that she didn't want to tell the truth about why she worked for Hitler, and maybe that's enough - if she won't tell the truth, she's obviously got something to hide.

A home for nerds

I am a confirmed nerd. The very name of my blog asserts that fact. And everyone knows that nerds LOVE the internet. They can connect with other nerds, create nerdy things and just be themselves. So out of all the websites, which is the best one for nerds?

Of course, I used nerds in the absolute COOLEST sense. I have simply observed many nerds finding homes on the internet, and have joined them.*
Well, in my opinion, the winner is Youtube. Tumblr might have nerdy elements, but it's so full of hipsters and quotes about romance to be truly nerdy. Facebook has everyone, plus all your non-nerdy friends can see when you do embarrasingly nerdy things. Twitter is too full of oversharing B-list celebrities. What does that leave? Well, MySpace... no I kid. No one cares about MySpace anymore.

Youtube! Youtube is the home of nerds. Before you protest, here are my reasons.

1. Tutorials. Yeah, beautiful people watch hair and makeup tutorials, sure, but they are NERDY people who can be bothered sitting through ten minutes to LEARN. Also, the hair and makeup is far outweighed by the 'How to be awesome', 'How to integrate an inverse trigonometric function' and 'How to solve a Rubik's cube'.
2. TV Shows. If you care that much about a TV show to want to either a) catch up on it online or b) get it sooner than everyone else in Australia, you are being an Internet nerd.
3. Things like this. This is Pride and Prejudice done in a video blog from the perspective of Lizzie Bennet. Absolutely brilliant, hilarious, and featuring the witty, incredulous line from Mr Darcy 'These people are enjoying popular music unironically!' Fantastic!

I could go on about the nerdy value of Youtube for many more points but my subscription box is calling.

*Nerdfighters! If you don't know what this means, shame on you. Now google it.