Feb. 29th - An extra day of life and what I did with it

I'm standing in the queue for the bathroom at the beginning of lunch break. A girl infront of me goes upto her friend and exclaims "*insert name here* wrecked my hair! Oh my God. Like seriously, I'm seeing the Newington guys on the train today". Her friend replies "but your hair looks really nice!". "Really?! Wow thanks!" *admires self in mirror*.

Classic example of a weird year 8 or whatever year she was in. I know I was once in year 8, (it was in fact my best schooling year to date) but I also know I was never that weird.

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Caught the bus home today. Twas interesting, seeing as I hardly ever catch the bus anymore. That is, I hardly ever catch the bus at peak social hour anymore. Sucks, but I spose the upside to that is that I don't fall over people when I'm letting someone go through to get off the bus, as I did today.

Embarrassing yet funny.

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Had debating tonight. We already knew that the topic would concern international relations and that we were negative (as we are for all away debates). The debate was at St Brigidines, a Catholic girls school in St Ives. I was hoping for a topic about East Timor because that's what I had read up about and what our coach had prepared us for. The topic ended up being "that Jerusalem should be administered by the UN". I knew pretty much nothing about it, as I did with the first debate. But my 2 other team members were more in the know and so they debriefed me on the issue which was great. Also, as a result of writing many english essays the night before with no substanance whatsoever, I have attained a natural ability for bluffing my way through things. I can write for pages on absolutely nothing (the epitome of that being the 3 page extended response I wrote in a history exam and received a mark of 1/15 because I wrote about the wrong PM - opps). So really, speaking for a decent time on a subject I know nothing about comes down to writing absolute crap :) (I'm amazed, English really has taught me valuable life skills!).

We ended up winning but I think it was a more "in comparison thing" - they spoke for less than 3 minutes each and we spoke for over 5 (you're meant to speak for 6-8) and they didn't bring forward many arguments. But it was still good, first victory of the season yay! And despite the massive migranes I now get from the hour long prep, followed by the usually hour long debate, I am actually beginning to enjoy debating. I'm actually learning about things in the world which I didn't use to care about (i.e. I am becoming a nerd). It may be a tad stressful, but I like the new experience and the way it expands my mind and makes me think. I mean, I've gone into these first two debates thinking "crap, what am I gonna talk about - I know zilch!", but with the help of my awesome team, I actually do write a decent length speech and finish it (usually under the pressure of the last 15 minutes) and come out looking like I know more than I do. And so I learn from the things I say that an hour ago, I didn't know. And even though I thought I would do the exact same crap job as last time, I actually improved a tiny bit to my surprise. Accomplishing something you really believe you can't do is great.

:) Twas awesome.