There Is An Owl At My School.

I have swallowed molten lead. Swallowed it myself. It tasted like empty seats in crammed up rooms and a pile of gathering dread.

It tastes like whispers I can't hear, my mouthful of molten lead. Like train tickets, bus fares I've never seen, and farewells that remain unsaid.

It tastes like rhythms I can't balance, my stomach of molten lead. Like the half rotted sweetness of memories in retrospect, and a pile that is already dead.

Hi all,

Honestly, I think this is the most regularly I've posted. The end of the exams are nearly in sight!

The above photos are of my frantic preparation for my Ancient History exam after realising I know less than half the syllabus—although I blame that on bad, very bad teaching this year. Also inconsistent teaching—my ancient history class has been fast becoming the real life equivalent of the Defence against the Dark Arts position at my school, with our teachers leaving after only a term or two.

What I've done in the past two days:

about 6 or 7 short answer questions

research for my ancient history exam

reading way too many academic articles for my brain to handle

If any other ATAR students are reading this, hopefully we can all end this exam season with a bang! Nearly there!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're productive this week!

My smile's going stale. How long was I supposed to grin? Until I wore down and accepted my fate, or sometime before?

Fuck this shit I wanna go bike riding with my friends around the streets while the sun is setting and the ocean is sparkling and the trees are green.

I don't know how much energy I have left for writing. I'm tired, and maybe this is giving up. Or maybe it's not.

Maybe it's more like sleep (even though I've been sleeping already for far too many years). Like rest, like rain pouring down on hot summer soil.

I'd like to think that way.

But maybe it is giving up.

And that's okay too.

Hi all,

it's term 3, and the assessments are piling up higher than Mount Everest. Exams start in slightly more than a month, I have some heavy-weighted tasks coming up, and as the days start to dry up so too does my optimism. Hence this post.

The above pictures are of some notes I've been taking on disease, our new biology topic.

What I got done this weekend:

A practice literature essay

Literature research on Hamlet

Biology notes

Ancient history exam notes

I'm hoping to complete some maths revision later tonight, as well as a timed practice essay for literature. Also, if anybody who reads this blog has any tips or tricks for writing literature essays under timed conditions and would be able to comment that (and something more constructive than "time management") I"d really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're productive this week!

Yellowed fragments of summer grass, The days are long but go too fast. Midnight moons light my dreams, Of mundanity found in the crowns of queens.

Our friendship deader than the sea on which we sailed,

Too long ago on a cloudless night.

Maybe if I'd known better then, I would've paused,

And never let myself drift out of sight.

How often do you taste the wind on your face? Let it whip the leaves around you? Standing in a hurricane of nature, the creation not your own.

I'd rather that than a hurricane of worry. Each day I add another leaf to my pile. Taste it on my face as it wraps itself around me.

But for now, I shall not turn away when nature spins beside me.

Hi all,

It's November, and, like an ant standing before an inescapable tidal wave, I have been hit by a deluge of exams. Alas.

The above pictures show a practice response to an past Indonesian exam, which is what I have been focusing on today.

What I've gotten done the past two days:

Two practice literature essay introductions

Analysis of past literature essays

A literature past paper

An Indonesian past paper

Hopefully I can complete a few more literature and Indonesian paragraphs tonight, however, the exhaustion is setting in and I'm not inclined to push it.

Instead, I'm trying to focus on the little things. When the door to the exam room closes, and the answer booklets are all sent off in a flurry of paper and half-finished answers, the world outside will still tick on. The rain will still fall. The trees will still cast patterned shadows on the grass outside. Exams may be much, but they are not everything, and the world outside them is far greater, and wider, than will ever be able to be expressed by a leaky pen in a mere three hours.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're productive this week!