Maybe I'm not so dim-witted after all...

Mocks are well underway and haven't been going too badly (except Maths this morning... that wasn't a nice experience). Anyway, I found a few of these answers to GCSE questions on the Internet, and thought they were quite amusing. And note that these are actual answers that people wrote in their exams. Enjoy!

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.

Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.

Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practised on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire's in the East and the sun sets in the West.

Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practised virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

Tallie xxx

Happiness, television and uber-cool videos.

I am in an insanely happy mood today, for no reason at all. I shouldn't really be so happy, I have three days left of half term and half done practically no revision whatsoever, but I'm still weirdly cheerful. I'm beginning to think someone slipped me something while I was asleep last night. Everyone who knows me will know how generally I am pretty chilled and even-tempered. To hell with that, I'm probably the most even-tempered person you'll ever meet, but yesterday I was in a really bad mood and today I'm in a really good mood. Maybe my normally even-tempered body has to balance itself out, so when I'm feeling miserable the next day I have to feel fantastic to compensate. Anyway, onto slightly more interesting topics than my current dispositions...

What the hell is up with Britney? I really feel for her kids, having such a whacked-out mother. And she used to be so sweet and sugar-coatedly wholesome. I agree with the ever-wise Meg Cabot's thoughts on the situation, that "she needs to get herself and her babies on a plane back to Louisiana, hunker down at her mom’s house, not date, not drink, eat home-cookin’, watch Judge Judy, and just CHILL for a couple of years."

TV is so good these days! All my favourite shows are on (with the exception, sadly, of Ghost Whisperer, but hopefully they'll show the new series soon) and are all really good! The O.C. has restored itself to its former awesomeness after a teeny dip in its usual zestiness last series. And I love Ryan and Taylor together! An unlikely couple, yes, but a great one!

Desperate Housewives has also come way back on form after a rather larger dip in juiciness last series. Two weeks ago they had one of the best episodes of anything ever, with the episode entitled 'Bang'. I wonderful example of how something can be so exciting and so funny at the same time.

I have been getting in 'Ugly Betty' recently, which is very enjoyable but isn't going up as one of my favourites just yet. And then there's Skins, a new drama on E4 filmed here in Bristol which is supposedly realistic about modern teenager's lives. And in a lot of ways it is, I guess. Some bits are really good, others are just random. And there's loads of nudity that is frankly, a bit unnecessary. You get the impression that it is written by lots of young guys who want to see naked women. Which, come to that, it is.

And of course there's the usual Friends, Scrubs and Smallville. Is it any wonder that I haven't been revising???

OK, all Wicked fans HAVE to see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEhVbAxYEc. It's the cutest thing ever! I love it.

Also, for all Idina and Taye fans (probably only me, but who cares) see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs8vafTAsek. I know I'm a giant loser, but this video makes me so happy! They are the sweetest couple on God's green earth. Whoever sent them that hate mail should rot in hell. Also I love the song.

Tallie xxx

Summer plans and the advantages of mocks

I am finally on half-term! Hallelujah. I've had three days of mock exams this week, and they have all been surprisingly easy. So I'm feeling pretty confident, although that's never a good thing to do when it comes to exams... oh well. But after half term I have all the hard ones, like maths and the sciences. Aargh!

At school everyone is massively looking forward to this summer, as a kind of light at the end of the tunnel after our GCSEs. Lots of people are going to Newquay (seaside surfer town about three hours away), which is where practically every teenager in the whole of the south west goes after their GCSEs. There are lots of parties, drugs, alcohol, etc. as you would expect with about 2000 teenagers all gathering together. It doesn't really appeal to me, though, and I'm not going.

I don't know what I'll be doing this summer though. I have an interview for the National Youth Theatre next Sunday, to do stage management, and if I get in (and I haven't the faintest idea what the chances are) I'll basically be spending the whole summer in London. Like, seven weeks. And if I don't get in I'll do the Bristol Old Vic Summer School again. EXCEPT that if I want to get a place at BOV I have to apply now, which means sending them £270 cheque for the course. Which I don't know whether I'll be able to do. Oh, it's all screwed up.

Anyway, this past week has actually been kind of fun. During our mocks we are allowed to come and go from school as we please, so when we don't have exams on my friends and I have taken to walking down to the nearest Starbucks and whiling away the hours having hot chocolate, smoothies and muffins, and revising while curled up in those nice big comfy sofas. It doesn't sound like much, but it is a big deal for us to be allowed out of school during the day, so we try to make the most of it.

We don't actually want to go to Starbucks, though. We would much prefer to go to some interesting little individual coffee shop, but none of them have sofas, and we need sofas! There's no point spending three hours sitting at a table on a wooden chair, is there? So we have to go to Starbucks, even though we don't really like supporting them.

Have a great half term, or, if you don't get a half term, have a great week!

Tallie xxx

Snow and death

So I wanted to do a really quick post on here before I go babysitting (the dad is coming to pick me up, but I'm not sure when he's coming so it could be any minute) and when I try to log on I find out I have to like switch my whole account and register with Google. I was quite happy how I was, thank you, but never mind.

It's been snowing here in Bristol for the last couple of days, but it's really pathetic snow that only stays for a couple of hours and leaves the pavements filled with grey-brown slush that makes it really slippery to walk on. And at school we're forbidden to slide down the hill, throw snowballs, or do anything else that may be remotely fun because of health and safety. Pah.

My mocks begin next week and I am in deep shit becasue I haven't done anything for them yet. Except write out some Greek vocab. Oh well, no-one else has done anything either, so we'll all fail together.

OK, oh my god. My mum just called me to come and watch the news and I've found out that the actor Ian Richardson just died. He was married to my dad's cousin and I met him a couple of times and he just suddenly died in his sleep last night. I talked to my dad and he's been trying to get hold of Maroussia (Ian's wife). Anyway, it's a bit shocking. He was meant to start filming 'Midsomer Murders' next week. It's funny 9well not actually funny, but you know what I mean), his last part was playing the voice of Death in some Terry Pratchett adaptation. Hm.

I'll try and post again this weekend, to put off actually doing some revision.

Tallie xxx