Two Very Different Affairs Related to Pureblood Fanaticism

Whilst I had decided to give the dance a miss in year 10, expecting it to be much like the rather dull river-cruises of years 8 and 9, I knew that their was no way in hell that I’d miss out on year 11 Mocktail, purely because it presented the opportunity for fancy dress. As Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had just been released I decided to go as Bellatrix Lestrange, seeing as she “puts the ‘fun’ back in fundamentalist psycho” as a wise random of DeviantART pointed out. The rest is probably a story best told in pictures, which I may upload at some future point.

There is much I want to say about my next experience, as it provokes musings within my mind as to the reality of…I don’t know if any word is untainted enough to express it. I shall save said musings for a post dedicated to the topic, but for now I shall just describe the experience. My knowledge of history has been fairly influential on my perspective, as has my knowledge gained from other sources of learning, such as science. The history I have been taught in high school has redefined my understanding human suffering. The extremes it can reach are unfathomable. Learning about the holocaust was…I revel in horror stories but this was something entirely different. Horror stories are desirable and fantastical, they’re about exploring an enticing darkness; many of the things I’ve learnt about in history are devoid of anything truly or remotely desirable in any sense. These things can’t be described with words such as darkness or evil because those words have too many pleasurable connotations. Our class went to the Perth Holocaust Centre and listened to the account of a holocaust survivor; I can’t fathom how the human psych can have such an experience and survive. I have the same view of soldiers forced to live in the trenches and run into a barrage of bullets on their superiors’ order. If one’s body somehow survives the ordeal, how can their mind ever recover?

The Novelties of Year 11

Year 11 French presented me with the opportunity to sample snails in a gourmet fashion for the first time. They’re rather salty and chewy, but quite enjoyable. They remind of mushrooms somewhat, although I’m not sure if this is because they actually taste like mushrooms or I just think they taste like mushrooms because they often look so much like them when served for consumption. I had snails on toast recently, which makes as much sense as chicken ovulations on toast I guess. In year 11, we also had a guy from France come over to help in class, his name was Alexis and he was a French man who played the didgeridoo…hmm.

Year 11 also heralded the beginning of my experience with exams. Oh yay. On my 17^th birthday I was gifted with an Introductory Calculus exam. Which I failed. Plus the first words I heard when I got up were “Happy Birthday Sophie”, as my mother clearly can’t tell the difference between me and someone who, at the time, required nappies.

All I Want For Christmas is Something to Bloody Well Do, or Surreal Literature Set in Queenstown

Then of course there was our Christmas and New Year in Tasmania. On Christmas Day we were left wondering the streets of Hobart in 12 degrees (in the middle of summer) with pretty much nowhere to go as all the shops were closed for Christmas. I got my first iPOD, but wasn’t able to put it to much needed use seeing as my computer was on the other side of the country. At least things got more interesting when we left Hobart to spend a night in Queenstown, undoubtedly one of the most badass townships in Australia. The hills that surround it have been ravaged by mining; they are stripped of vegetation and are strange, rusty metallic colours, giving the environment an alien looking moonscape. The road into the town snakes down one of the hills, with a sheer drop into a chasm on one side of the road. I was sitting in the front next to dad as we made our way in; at first I was amused by dad’s alarm and thrilled by our precarious position, but as the extent his apprehension became clear I found myself feeling genuinely nervous in a vehicle driven by my father for the first time ever. The town came into sight when a number of dilapidated shacks appeared from behind the hills; in my dad’s words, it looked like a depression-era dustbowl scene from Carnivále. The hotel room we stayed in was adorned with heavy light-fittings that were kept in place with black chains; my father said it looked as though they belonged in a sadomasochist’s dungeon. I lifted up the lid on the toilet and surmised the cleaner who had placed the hygienic seal across it had been incredibly careless. Upon flushing, to no avail, I read a note on the mirror warning one not to drink the town’s water, and realised the contents of the toilet bowl was MEANT to be the colour of urine. Dad started to have a laughing fit in response to his experience on the brink of the chasm. I mirthfully joined him. It was totally the best town I’ve ever been too.

When we got back dad and I got into a rare row in relation to my fish-caring capabilities. Something I felt I needed to mention for the sake of completion but have no obligation to elaborate on.

Oh! What a Splendid Production

Year 12 drama promised to be a significant improvement on year 11 drama when Ms. Lacy was assigned to teach our grade’s drama class. Year 11 had focused far too much on theory and essay writing for my tastes, but I knew Ms. Lacy would be having none of that. Why did I know this? Because I knew that Ms. Lacy is fucking epic. She’s the kinda hardcore bitch of a drama teacher that wears a black cloak, bejewelled broach and badass beret to class, IF SHE AIN’T WEARING HER MOTHERFUCKING KIMONO. She demands that drama have soul; meaning emotion, intensity and fucking dirty sex gags, none of that bullshit about breaking it down to the mechanics and spoiling the spirit. Our year 11 drama teacher Ms. Irceg (the Jenny of Boing Jenny) had centred our lessons around learning the techniques and history of drama whilst emphasising the importance of maintaining an up-to-date portfolio detailing our lessons, but Ms. Lacy pretty much said, “fuck the folio, let’s make some magic babehs” and we got right down to putting together a production.

The two dramatic works selected from the set curriculum by the mysterious power who directs this scholastic sphere in the academic order of things were “Summer of the Aliens”, our necessary Australian text, and “Oh! What a Lovely War”, our required world text. Thus we could stage either one of those plays. The unanimous decision settled us on “Oh! What a Lovely War” as it had many more roles to cast, as well as the opportunity for song and dance. In addition to us all being given acting roles, most of the year 12s were assigned production roles, as production was an important part of our course. Mine was dramaturge, as Ms. Lacy understood my interest in history and the fact that I have a father with a World War fixation. Although it wasn’t really related to the historical background of the play, the first task I set myself was that of compiling a character list detailing what character appeared in what scene, as it very much needed since the editions of the script we had lacked anything of the sort. Ms. Lacy was impressed with the effort I had put into the task, which seemed to absolve me of any other dramaturge duties as she never asked me for anything more in that respect.

Katie was assigned the function of choreographer, and her proficiency in said role astounded me. Not to suggest I had low expectations for her, but her seemingly improvised choreographies were comically genius, and she performed them with an easy grace. Observing such skill convinced me that the definition of intelligence our society often uses is limiting and flawed. Katie’s skill was unrelated to mathematical or linguistic skill, yet it was certainly an ability born in the brain rather than the brawn. Perhaps the theory of multiple intelligences is closer to the truth. Well, with that in mind, whilst I may be respectfully endowed with certain varieties of intelligence, of the type of intelligence that Katie is resplendent in, I am sorely lacking. I love to dance, but when I say dancing I generally mean jumping up and down, throwing myself onto furniture, gyrating and thrusting my pelvis, acting like a drunken stripper and rolling around on the floor. Memorizing choreographed moves, performing them in time to music, and pulling them off with any form of grace seems far beyond my current capabilities. My utter lack of poise in the chorus line was a source of mirth amongst my fellows, and Katie considered making my ungracefulness a gag that would be incorporated into my Pierrot persona, but I just ended up being cut from most of the more complex dances, and instead had plenty of acting roles.

Like every actor in the production, I played a Pierrot, which in turn played the roles of soldiers, generals, and various other people caught up in the war. Throughout the production the carefree clown personality begins to degrade as the misery of war wears away their whimsy, thus they look more and more militaristic as the play progresses. “Oh! What a Lovely War” is a Brechtian play, so it aims to educate and alienate the audience. That being said, many productions of the show also make an effort to entertain and even elicit empathy at points, and our vision of the play was no different in that respect.

The drama did not confine itself to the stage; tensions between students began to develop, as did tensions between certain students and Ms. Lacy, over trivial matters I can’t really recall. I do believe that one major source of conflict was Ms. Lacy’s decision to bring the year 11 students into the production, in part due to the fact that there was only one boy in the year 12 class, and I guess she wanted some convincing cock on stage. Now, seeing as I almost always get cast in male roles, I didn’t find that a very compelling reason, but I had nothing against bringing in the year 11s, as I was friendly with a fair few of them and I thought a bigger cast made the production seem more epic, and epicness is one of the fundamentals of Brecht (as is small casts, but whatever). I think the thing that put off many of the other girls was the fact that Ms. Lacy gave some fairly significant parts to the year 11s, like the MC and General Haig, and they felt that the large roles should be reserved for year 12s seeing as it was probably the last opportunity for them to perform in a school production. Sensing the tension, Ms. Lacy decided to dedicate a lesson to having a heart to heart between the year 12s. It all went hilariously wrong.

Ms. Lacy doesn’t have much interest in maintaining the traditional teacher-student distance; she likes to invite us to her house to rehearse, feed us her cooking, and lay out her thoughts and feelings for our consideration. Among my year, I was especially close to her, and to me she would disclose her feelings in regards to the class. She was aware of the discontent amongst the students, and was rather put out by it, seeing as she had been the director of a great many high school plays and thus knew how that shit worked. Being an individual so generous with emotional openness, Ms. Lacy assumed that the ease with which she shared her thoughts and feelings with students such as myself would translate splendidly into a share your feelings fest with the class, and all dissatisfaction would be dispelled once our emotions were laid bare, then we’d all co-exist in a fuzzy cornucopia of love, holding hands and skipping through showers of rose petals and unicorns and dancing leprechaun butlers. Not quite. As Ms. Lacy had felt that Alanna’s attitude had been particularly suggestive of dissatisfaction, she addressed Alanna at the beginning of the session, inviting her to share how she felt about the situation. I find it fascinating how certain events can serve to show the contrast in attitudes between different individuals; on one hand we have Ms. Lacy, epitome of a bohemian love child, who saw her gesture as one of pacification, an extension of an olive branch, and on the other we have Alanna, who was regarded as a bit of a primadonna by both Ms. Lacy and many of my classmates, who saw the address as a personal attack, an act of public shaming in front of her peers. So the majority of my classmates and I spent that particular lesson listening to Alanna express her very affronted feelings whilst an increasingly upset and exasperated Ms. Lacy attempted to explain that her intentions were very much misunderstood, although she may as well of been speaking an exotic, dead language, as Alanna didn’t seem to be able to wrap her mind around the notion. Then amongst all this drama Angela, who could be rather delicate emotionally, begun to cry, whilst I simply revelled in the absurdity of the conflict, something I’d always enjoyed, possibly a bit too much. Oh, but it was so very entertaining, as Ingrid, a perfectly insane and insanely perfect individual, put it, this was drama all right.

Well, back to the theatrical variety of drama. We took inspiration from a university production of “Oh! What a Lovely War” we went to see before we begun work on our own interpretation, and opened the play with the Pierrots being all care free, whimsical and clown-like, to demonstrate what is lost in war. The first musical number in the production further compliments this mood as it is a cheery little ditty called “Row, Row, Row”, about whimsy, fun, easy sex and simple romance, to which Katie had choreographed a hilariously sexually suggestive dance. Following that, the war game begins, in which I was cast as the British Admiral. It was a great deal of fun to strut about the stage with my nose stuck up in the air, pinkie sticking out as my fingers curled around an imaginary tea cup, accompanied by the year 11 Alex as the British General, as well an Irish subordinate to pour the tea, a fan holder and a British colonial sitting on the shoulders of a coloured servant, in a rather striking illustration of the period’s power structure. We stood, sipping our tea, scoffing and sneering at the licentious French, drunken Russians and belligerent Germans, before announcing our plans in anticipation of war; as an admiral of the world’s greatest naval power of the period, my plans naturally surpassed that the general, who’s strategy consisted of a blank slide on the projection screen, something that made me especially smug.

Once Alex and I exited the stage, I quickly had to throw off the cap and red poncho thing that made up my admiral’s outfit and pull on a black glove to act as one of the many members of the black hand that stalk the stage before the Arch Duke and Sophie snuff it, thanks to our pistol shaped finger arrangements. Then we all had to scram in time for the scene between the Austro-Hungarian and Serbian Secret Policemen. Shortly afterwards, Darcie, Kirsty and I would gallop onto the stage from behind the audience on our imaginary steeds, members of two cavalries of French soldiers that meet up and exchange pleasantries before charging to their deaths; only Darcie, Kirsty and I survive as we have to retreat off stage and quickly strip off our French uniforms as well as our Pierrot outfits in preparation for the scene that was to start the moment our colleagues dropped dead. I can’t quite fathom why Ms. Lacy insisted putting the three of us in the cavalry charge when we were in the scene immediately afterwards; it was especially hectic for me as I had to show up on the stage as soon as the others hit the floor, and on one night I forgot to take off my Pierrot pants I was in such a rush. I think it was because Darcie and I took French, but there was hardly any dialogue in that scene anyway.

Well, once the French cavalry had charged into a hail of bullets and dropped to the ground, the lights went down for a moment of sombre silence before coming up again to reveal me, standing at the top of the stage, transformed in a few seconds from a French officer into some sort of British, upper-class dominatrix type. My French uniform and white Pierrot outfit were discarded to display the corset, black teddy and fishnet stockings I had been wearing underneath. A red jacket and my admiral’s cap were thrown on top to illustrate the nationality I represented, British once again. Strutting down the stage with a wooden swagger stick in hand, stepping nonchalantly over the French bodies, I broke into a rendition of “Belgium Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser” in clipped, upper-crust British tones. Part way through the first verse Darcie pranced onto the stage to take over the song with a flirtatious French accent, dressed as I was, only her French officer’s hat remained on her head in place of any of the British embellishments. The facade of respect allies preferably share was barely present as we attempted to steal the spotlight from each other; one staring daggers amongst other painful implements at the other as they sang, before butting in (often physically) to take over the song once again, receiving their own death glare in the process. Before the first verse was finished Kirsty, dressed as we were but with a Russian Cossack’s hat on her head, swaggered drunkenly onto the stage to complete the Triple Entente as well as the verse with a slurred Russian accent. And so the three personifications of three nations’ callous pride, myself as an arrogant and dominative Britannia, Darcie as a frivolous and flirtatious France and Kirsty as a drunken and oblivious Russia, strutted over the corpses of fallen soldiers, turning their suffering into a burlesque show as we each attempted to outdo our ally at singing a song celebrating our militarist prowess whilst the bodies of our soldiers lay at our feet. To further degrade them, half way through the song the three of us force the front most three soldiers onto their hands and knees, their backsides facing the audience, temporarily brought to life to act as our steeds as we stand above them, smacking their asses, only to dismount at the end of the chorus and kick them back to the ground. Then for the last two choruses, the soldiers all come to life yet again, breaking into a dance as Kirsty, Darcie and I attempt to barge through their chorus line to have centre stage once more. At the end the three of us break through, attempting to push in front of one another for the final line of the song. As the music finishes, the soldiers, as though their strings have been cut, drop dead.

I was exceedingly happy with the polished version of this scene, which was largely the brain child of Kirsty, Darcie and I, with more than generous input from Katie. I believe the original plan was to have only one singer, but when Ms. Lacy wanted to give more people singing roles the three of us thought that there could be three singers, each one representing a nation that formed the Triple Entente. We decided which nation we were each to be and then split up the lines of the song in a manner befitting each nation. The university play we had gone to see had the song sung by a posh British woman with a horse whip, and I immediately wanted the role. Seeing as we had to add in French and Russian characters we thought it natural that they should be domineering showgirls as well, but in the flavour of their own nation. The placement of the scene was perfect for the sake of sickening contrast; a violent and disturbing spectacle suddenly becomes frivolous song and dance, demonstrating how the leaders of the nations turned the war into a nationalist celebration whilst their working classes were sent to their deaths, the primary theme of the play. Katie choreographed the dance, and she also added in the part where the dead soldiers act as our horses. I really liked this, as it illustrated how the nations used their men as animals to be degraded and slaughtered at the nation’s will, whilst the part where the soldiers begin to dance showed how they were puppets and symbols of this nationalistic war fervour, made to march to its tune. Throughout the play characters representing nations look down upon most characters representing other nations, even those that are their allies, so we naturally kept this characteristic going throughout our song, as each country attempts to sing its own nationalistic praises louder. Plus it was just awesome fun to be a snobby British dominatrix.

Once the song was over, I left the stage to quickly prepare for what everyone agreed was my most memorable role. I had been impressed with pretty much every aspect of the university production of “Oh! What a Lovely War”, but the moment that I described as the “humorous high point” of the play in my review was the scene with the drill sergeant. Although he is given lines in the script, the script itself instructs that they are to be indecipherable as the drill sergeant talks, well screams, in a garbled, babbling language as he scares a group of new recruits shitless. The university actor did the scene in an absurdly perfect way, he had spittle and everything going on, putting me in throes of hysterical laughter. When it came to deciding who would play the drill sergeant for our own production, everyone immediately looked at me, since I suppose they saw me as the wacky kid who does the wacky roles. I was eager to take the part, but doubted that I could deliver a performance on par with that I had seen at the university, and thought that Ms. Lacy might end up giving the role to one of the year 11 boys. Upon asking me to “read” a segment of the drill sergeant’s monologue, I simply did what I do best; I put on a ridiculous accent and spurted the gibberish that comes to me naturally. Upon hearing my “reading”, everyone grinned. Apparently I was the man-woman for the role. A bunch of year 11 boys were cast as the new recruits I was to harass, each one of them towering over me in height. My first session of screaming at them was met with an overwhelmingly positive reaction from everyone present, and I was greatly encouraged. Ms. Lacy did offer me some constructive criticism, saying that my babbling would be better if there were actually some monologue hidden within it. The drill sergeant monologue in the script was over a page long, and I had no interest in memorizing it all, so Ms. Lacy gave me full poetic freedom to write my own monologue. Some of it I took from the script, some of it was inspired by “It Ain’t ‘Alf Hot Mum”, which dad had me watch in preparation for my role, and some of it was of my own creation. Together with suggestions from peers as to what I should be doing to the recruits, this is what I came up with:

~~~~

Marches in.

FALL IN!

ATTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENTION!!!!!

Marches up and down inspecting recruits.

Is this a joke? We demand Britain’s best and you pathetic pansies are all that’s on offer? Well, well, well boys, your mollycoddled days are over. When you’re in the trenches your mummy isn’t there to wipe your nose for you. No, if Britain isn’t going to be overrun by the dirty Hun then someone will have to turn you lousy lot into soldiers, and that someone is going to be ME!!!

Now boys, I’m going to teach you rifle drill and bayonet practice. In war your rifle is your best friend and I’m going to be your worst bloody enemy!

Starts demonstrating bayonet fix.

First thing, get your rifle on your left shoulder, left hand parallel to the ground, right hand down the seam of your trousers. First, move your right hand smartly across your body, grabbing the rifle at the point of balance, and bring your rifle down between your knees.

Watch the recruits attempt to imitate.

You at the end there I’ll have your bloody guts for garters in a minute!

Marches over to Pierrot 1.

What do you think you’re playing at boy?! Do you think this is all a laugh? Well boy, you won’t be laughing when some bastard has his bayonet in your guts while you’re still trying to attach yours to your bleeding rifle!

Stop screaming abruptly before…

ON YOUR FEET YOU DEMENTED POOF!

March to the other end of the line and circle Pierrot 2 menacingly before facing his side.

‘Ello son. Do you think you’re a man boy? Do you look at yourself and see a killer? Do you know what I see when I look at you boy? I see a fancy fairy still clutching mummy’s apron strings who would sooner take it up the backside from a German rather than risk muddying up his pretty little face in the trenches! I suppose you have one of those bloody la-de-dah university educations! Well boy, that isn’t going to do you much good when one of those bastards has sliced open your belly and split your guts all over the battlefield. Do you know what happens after that boy? The bloody Huns will get to England and it’ll be up your mother, up your sister and up your brother too, by the look of you!

March over to Pierrot 3.

What you got there boy?

Take his weapon; inspect it and then sigh with exasperation. Shove it back at him and begin adjusting his posture with swagger stick.

Chin up boy, shoulders back, stomach in.

March behind Pierrot 3.

Nice arse.

March past Pierrot 4, look at him briefly and then spit in his face before marching on.

Right then, you’re now going to watch me demonstrate the lunge.

Stab swagger stick into the air with a crazed scream. Watch the recruits imitate. March over to Pierrot 5.

What the hell do you think this is boy, ballet practice?! You’re supposed to kill the bastard, not make him wet himself laughing! Now watch!

Repeat lunge demonstration with even more mania. Watch the recruit attempt to imitate.

Are you watching me boy?! Do you have eyeballs lodged in that thick skull of yours? WATCH!

Lunge complete with running start, stabbing, kicking and spitting at an imaginary victim.

Right boy, now that’s how it’s done.

Watch Pierrot 5 attempt it and trip onto a lady in the audience.

Get back here right now you bloody little filthy sex maniac!

Stare at Pierrot 5, quivering as though about to explode. Walk over to woman who interjects.

I’m awfully sorry, madam, we were only doing bayonet drill.

Salute woman.

Right now you pathetic little worms, right turn, left, right, left, right, leftrightleftrightleftright…

~~~~

When I had been performing the role without any real lines I hadn’t felt like I’d been acting at all, I just felt like I was being demented. Once I had some monologue to work with, however, I felt as though I was actually making an effort with the role, and was far happier with it. After sexy showgirls entice a group of boys into the forces by singing “We Don’t Want to Lose You” and “I’ll Make a Man of You”, I march onto stage, screaming, swagger stick in hand, to dispel the romantic, sexed up fantasies about war instilled in them by the showgirls with a dose of insane reality. The scene ended up being a highlight of our play; I screamed, I babbled, I made highly disturbing facial expressions, I did ridiculous bayonet demonstrations, I was short, loud and terrifying. And my, people did laugh quite a bit.

Once that scene was over, I could relax a bit, as I had nothing else to do until the second act. When the second act did come around, I assumed the plumy English accent once again in order to be the British Munitions Manufacturer in the grouse shooting businessmen scene, which again serves to illustrate how the upper classes profited from the slaughter of the lower classes. Again, in order to maintain Brechtian alienation, we kept the characters flat and stereotypical, each one characterised as a callous, exaggerated version of the cultural stereotype of the nation they represented. We also modelled the character relationships around the relations and history between each nation, to further demonstrate that the characters we played were not meant to be realistic individuals but representatives of unfeeling nationalistic conglomerates.

After that scene I had a couple of minor roles and was part of the large chorus scenes in which everyone sung, most of us acting as soldiers. In what was practically the very last scene of the play I acted as a French officer. I stood upon the platform, arm pointing towards the audience, screaming at my soldiers to advance into the trenches. They dared to refuse, at which point I promptly told them that for any disobedience they would be shot. They then advanced “like lambs to slaughter”, bleating, and were shot down in a hail of bullets; only I was left standing, arm still pointed forward.

After this, the song that is the play’s namesake begun to play, and everyone took their positions to receive applause whilst singing the words. We then all mounted the stage to finish the song, but on the very last, “Oh, oh, oh what a lovely war” we all fell into a pose that was convulsed in pain and on the edge of death, a morbid ending to a play the begun so whimsically, the miserable transformation complete.

I thought that “Oh! What a Lovely War” was a brilliant show, put together thanks to an inspired meeting of creative minds and combined effort. However, it not give me the high that “Oliver!” did, in that respect it didn’t come close. My roles in “Oh! What a Lovely War” were far more significant than the roles I had in “Oliver!” but for some reason I seem far more involved in and engaged by “Oliver!” I guess this could show that the Brechtian techniques were effective, as in a Brechtian play the actors are supposed to feel detached from their characters, but I think it was also largely due to my emotionally numbed mental state. It has prevented me from reaching any great highs for far too long.

The Year 12 Ball: Neither Sports Equipment Nor Anatomy

Year 12 heralded the Year 12 Ball, that affair which acts as such crucial event in adolescent rite of passage according to so many teen orientated television serials, but to me signified just another occasion where I’d have to tolerate a few hours of popular contemporary music. I dreaded the inevitable stress and argument that would arise from dress hunting with my mother, and was pleasantly surprised when I ended up acquiring my garment after a very quick gander around a single store. The fact that I was wearing a black and red “Bad Alice” t-shirt, with a streak of red colour through my hair probably tipped off the store assistant as to my aesthetic preferences, and I only had to try on two dresses before I settled on a strapless, sparkling red piece that was accompanied by a black skirt, under-piece...thing. It looked pretty. On the afternoon prior to the Ball I went to the hair dresser to have my colouring redone, plus I got a perm. I kinda came out with Marilyn Monroe hair if she was an alternative brunette, but the curls became less, er, curly as the night went on. My sis Kate did my makeup and nails, and I was rather pleased with what I ended up looking like once I had all my shit together.

My girl buddies and I took a limo from Maddy’s house to King’s Park where all the Leeming students convened to have their photos taken before moving on to the venue where the Ball was held. So many familiar faces and bodies now adorned to the highest standard and formal tastes of those who owned said faces and bodies; it was quite an interesting spectacle. I wonder if one’s choice of formal wear reflects any aspect of their personality; my red and black get up probably demonstrated my gothicly-inclined aesthetic taste, which is likely to be in some sense reflective of some deeper part of my personality, whatever than may be. The fact that my guy buddies all rented their tuxes, which looked practically identical save for the colour of the bib/vest thing, was indicative of the fact that they didn’t think much of this particular adolescent rite of passage, but that hardly came as any surprise to me. My stiletto heels kept stabbing through the grass into the soil, causing me to sink and stick into the ground; thankfully however, I didn’t fall over in them until I was in a less muddy environment.

When we arrived at the venue I sat at a table with my girl buddies, and we were fed a rather delicious entrée that wasn’t packed with any of the many ingredients I can’t tolerate, to my pleasant surprise. I think it was some kind of pasta. We played around with the bubbles and glow sticks provided on the table before we were fed the main meal that was similarly delectable by my very finicky standards. I couldn’t say quite so much for the music, which was the modern mainstream variety I had expected it to be. I went over the table occupied by my guy buddies and then followed them into the foyer, where I engaged in conversation with Ben, with whom I can discuss very interesting topics. The enjoyable, familiar company improved my mood, which was already pretty good; Ben and I discussed topics both deep and frivolous, and mocked people that colour their eyelashes after I introduced him to notion by telling him that my sister does it.

I decided to go back to the dance floor; despite my distaste for the variety of music playing, I still love to dance. I’m not entirely sure how it came about, but I found myself dancing with Megan, and I continued to dance with Megan for the rest of the night. In year 11 and 12 I sat with my girl buddies outside a demountable at recess, and with my guy buddies in the AEP room, which we still occupied despite the fact we were no longer in AEP, during lunch. I saw Megan at recess because she sat with us at the demountable, but she was only at school occasionally because she was very sickly, she was repeating grade 12 that year because she’d missed so many days of school the previous year due to her illness. She’d sometimes show up at school with huge bruises on her face because she’d fainted. She was even allergic to chocolate...I mean, for fuck’s sake, fate should not be that cruel. Well, anyway, I didn’t have any classes with her either, and due to these factors I barely knew her. She was rather quiet, but seemed nice enough. That night, I just wanted someone to dance with, and was happy to let that someone be whoever was willing. My guy buddies had absolutely no interest in dancing, and although I attempted to encourage them I didn’t really expect any of them to step onto the floor at all. My girl buddies danced with me sporadically before going their own way, but Megan stayed with me the entire night.

I said before that quiet individuals tend to amplify my gregariousness, and her sweet, rather passive nature encouraged me to assume to role as the entertainer. We joined hands and I guided us through a bunch of silly moves to the unpalatable music, which pretty much consisted of us moving our joined hands back and forth, up and down between us. I fell over twice, I think, which sent us both into fits of giggles, at which point I decided it was time to remove my high heels. We were then served delicious hazelnut cake which I couldn’t finish as I’d already gorged myself of the two previous dishes. When I asked Megan what she wanted to do, she said that she wanted to continue dancing, a response that delighted me. Watching her grin as we did our silly little jig made me delighted to know I was making someone else happy, and that I was sharing something that pleased me also. I loved the way she had gone from being somewhat reserved and a for the most part a stranger to being so very engaged in the fun and, although we’d barely spoken any words to each other since the start of the Ball, it felt like she’d become a very good friend. When the last song finished we naturally fell into an embrace, and it felt like the most logical hug I’ve ever given. Out of all the moments I’ve ever hugged someone, that was the moment that most warranted it, and it felt fantastic. All in all, the Ball was far more enjoyable than I had expected.

Almost Touched By Tragedy

Year 12 was marred for many by a tragedy that had, due to my introversion, less of an impact upon myself than upon some of my classmates, yet it struck me closer to home than I am accustomed to such things doing. News of student deaths and injury in a car crash featured in the news for some weeks, and when it first appeared my mother told me of it and I responded with disinterest; such tragedies were things that happened to faceless strangers, as far as my life was concerned, and were of no consequence to me. The news report had mentioned nothing of Leeming students, after all. The solemn mood amongst the year twelves the following day made me realise that this event was not one that would float inconsequently in and out of my life as a passing mention of some unknown person’s suffering. Most of the people in the car had indeed been students from other schools, but there had been one amongst them who did attend Leeming, and was an individual I was very well acquainted with, Darcie. It might seem appropriate to thank god, or fate, or some suitably great, overseeing force that she was one of the two who survived the incident, and the one who got off with least injury, but why thank the force that condemned the others to death? I will not thank anything, but I will be glad that the person I know and have some sort of affection for was the one who suffered least in that circumstance of unnecessary suffering, for I would have either suffered great emotional torment, or felt guilty for not feeling the appropriate amount of emotional torment.

The year twelves were gathered together that morning to hear the details of the incident, and we were allowed to abstain from our morning classes to provide comfort to one another. Due to my general emotional numbness and a cruel game my mind had been playing on me all year with Darcie as its subject, I was feeling guilty more than anything, but I tried to provide awkward comfort to those who were more sensitive, and/or had known the people that had died in the crash. Angela, being so full of emotion and one of Darcie’s best friends, was curled up weeping. Ellen was close to practically all of the people that had died, so the accident was especially painful for her. The tragedy visibly saddened even Haydn, who was one of my guy buddies, a group who generally preferred not to bother with the drama of extravagant emotion, making them particular choice companions for me. I’d hardly seen him in any mood other than his own very unique brand of passive mischievousness, and I was somewhat intrigued. I embraced him, and much to my surprise he welcomed the comfort. He reminds me so much of a quiet, innocent child, in his strange, passive playfulness, and that impression was reinforced when I saw him in something that may have been grief.

I was relieved to learn that Darcie would probably recover without any serious permanent injury, unfortunately the same could not be said of the other crash survivor who had been partially paralysed, but I was nervous as to what emotional injury the accident could have dealt her. She was so unique and bright in character that the thought of such a wondrous mind turned miserable and brooding was too depressing to consider, plus I was worried how I might deal with her when we next met if she was suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress. However, when we did meet, her character seemed utterly untainted by the trauma. She said she had only known the people in the car for a short while, so their deaths didn’t impact upon as much as they could have, and she responded to her time in hospital, whilst suffering from amnesia and some kind of brain damage, with an air of analytical fascination and good humour. The bright and charming aspects of her personality all seemed intact, and she interpreted her experience in light of them. Her brain damaged ramblings were funny, thanks to her intensely dorky and easily excitable sense of humour, and she spoke about her memories prior to the crash with the philosophical air that seemed natural to her.

I Would Use a Clever French Heading, But I Don’t Remember Merde About French

Darcie attended the Year 12 French dinner at the restaurant Chez Pierre, where she told us these details of her experience. The rest of our very small French class was there as well, with the year elevens at a separate table, and our year 12 French assistant, Amelie, sitting with us. Haydn didn’t like Amelie, probably because we had to practice our French oral (as in speaking, pervert) with her, and that was something neither he nor Declan enjoyed, so as a consequence they liked to pretend she was some kind of raven queen who ate dehydrated ravens and then vomited them at people, as one does when you are Haydn or Declan. I, on the other hand, really quite liked her, and we shared a short conversation about Marquis de Sade, because I am your fellow pervert dear reader (who, is probably me again, cause I can’t really imagine anyone else bothering to read this far) and Marquis de Sade is one of the things I think of when I think of France. Apparently her philosophy teacher recommended that her class investigate his works (legality aside), making me wish I had that guy as a lecturer. Aside from this, the rest of the dinner involved me braced against the wall in uncontrollable fits of laughter thanks largely to Ingrid, possibly the funniest person I have ever known in my entire fucking life, but that being said, the rest of the class, Darcie in particular, played no small role in building the atmosphere of uproarious hilarity that dominated the night. I think that must have been the most I’d laughed all that year, and topics of conversation included 2 Girls 1 Cup and inverting wombs with hooks and keeping them in handbags during menstruation. That by no means put us off the food, I had snails for entree once more, plus Ingrid didn’t want her pate so I got that too. Then we had the steak and potatoes. Oh! The steak! Such miserably small portions, but so obscenely perfect in taste! And the potatoes, how is it that they could contain so much flavour? This was followed by chocolate mousse, which was again a tauntingly tiny serving, but the taste was so fucking amazing. I then got a lift home with Ingrid, her dad had the radio or CD on, and the two of us sang bawdily all the way home. T’was a most magnificent evening.

Destiny’s Cruel Exercises in Judgment

Of course, the latter half of year 12 was dominated not so much by revelling, but by stressful preparation for the TEE, which had been renown for so long as such a momentous event in shaping our destiny. Drama TEE was the worst, we had to perform a piece we’d written and a piece from a play, as well as improvisations based on either, in front of judges. I chose a segment from “Pygmalion” as my written piece, and when I performed it in front of the judges during the assessment that would act as a precursor to the TEE, their reaction was so critical that I ended up changing it to something else. I wrote a very long original scripted piece, which Ms. Lacy’s niece culled down to something that would fit the limits of the performance, but the edit had changed the whole tone of the piece, something I did not like. Ms Lacy invited Ingrid, Angela and myself to her house to practice our original pieces, as well as dine on her curry, which was a very enjoyable, friendly and supportive endeavour. However, as the deadline for our pieces approached, our efforts to polish them became more stressful and tedious. When I did perform mine in front of those same judges, they did respond much more positively, at least. My original performance certainly ended up being much better than my scripted piece, which Ms Lacy told me to change to a drill sergeant, but as the style was more realistic than that of “Oh! What a Lovely War” I never perfected the verbal and non-verbal aspects, so it ended up being pretty awful. Overall, preparation for drama TEE was embarrassing, awkward, stressful and tedious, despite all the help Ms. Lacy provided. Even filling out the sheet of details describing the play we took our scripted piece from was ridiculously stressful and required a lot of Ms. Lacy’s help, as I couldn’t find any of said details on the internet. Pfft, “Chips With Everything”, what is it even about? The written exam was pretty horrible as well. Although drama was one of the top four subjects that ended up being used to calculate my TEE, it was the lowest of the four.

I was so worried about writing my TEE essays that I ended up permanently transforming my handwriting style literally overnight. Where I had once written in painfully slow and meticulously neat printed writing, I began to string my letters together to form running writing that I could produce at a much faster rate. It was like I was forced by necessity to adopt an aspect of adulthood I’d been putting off. It seemed to work, anyway; where I had before been unable to finish all of the exam essays necessary in the allotted time, I now had them done with minutes to spare. My best TEE performance was undoubtedly in English Literature, which certainly benefitted from my new speed; I was able to write all three essays instead of the two and a half I typically managed. I was quite happy with all three of them as well, and English Lit ended up being the highest of my TEE scores.

To imbue us with knowledge of history, that greatest of stories, and get us through our TEE, we had Mr. Nardi as our history teacher, and oh boy, was that an experience. He certainly made history intensely interesting, even if we only spent half of the time actually learning and the other half listening to him rant about his role in the teachers’ union and their impending strike, his opinion that slaughtering and eating animals would one day be seen as equivalent to keeping slaves, the role religion plays in brain washing the masses into compliance, his general disgust with the conformity of society and his scathing opinions on pretty much any political issue one could name. Not to say that his rants were unrelated to his history lessons, quite the opposite, they were usually prompted by the historical events discussed, and he liked to show how such motifs were still relevant in the modern world, such as when he compared the conditions teachers had to endure to pre-conditions in pre-revolutionary Russia, which was perhaps not his best example. If anything the man’s passionate. I gotta admit, he certainly livened up the year and made history my favourite subject. My only complaint is that we spent the first semester learning about the Russian Revolutions but spent the second semester learning about early 20^th century Australian history. Now, most Australian history, as far as I can tell, is pretty dry and dull compared to pretty much anything, but compared to the absurd insanity that is Russian history? How could they torture us with such contrast? Tantalise us with such madness in semester one only to leave us memorising the name of different economic plans in semester two? As I’ve put it so many times before, the difference between Australian and Russian history can be summed up as thus: Australia suffered an economic depression; there was mass employment and people had to go on sustenance allowances. Russia suffered an economic depression; there was a famine that killed 5 million people and the peasants started eating one another. Boring as it was, I learnt my dull Australian facts, and history ended up being my second or third highest TEE score.

Physics had been worrying me a great deal; the end of semester exams had been ridiculously difficult and the complexity of the practice TEE exams was not putting my mind at ease whatsoever. Once again, I had an exam on my birthday, this time being my TEE physics exam, which to my delight, turned out to be a wonderful 18^th birthday gift as it was notably easier than I had expected. Having all of my significant TEE exams out of the way was all the 18^th celebration I really needed, such relief!

I still had to do French, but as I knew that it would never be in my top four scores I didn’t really bother trying too hard with it, and I ended up in the lowest 90^th percentile for the subject. Lol. I didn’t fail quite as miserably in my applicable mathematics exam, but I still failed it. To be fair, most people found it unnecessarily difficult. It didn’t matter though, of my six subjects I only needed the highest four, namely English Lit, physics, history and drama, to calculate my TEE.