I don't think I should be doing this.... ;)

LUUUS. Yesterday I got back home at literally 11pm after early morning house run, school, climbing, fencing, and then I still had to finish all my homework and squeeze some piano, pad, and guitar in.

Just letting you know that that's why I haven't done anything else for a while, such as have 5 minutes to sit down and re-hang my posters, or go just chill with friends. Well, I don't like the idea of having to book a band practice a week in advance and then still have it clash with literally everything. But it's happening.

I'm really tired at the moment, but that's probably because of the house runs. Like, when they're over I should have more time.

The good news is the weekends. Not because I can relax, but because they're a bit of a change. What with working two days straight at CityROCK, what the hell, it gives me a break. Also, I get free tea :)

I get to hang out with my friends at school, obviously. But it really brightens my day when people like James or Chloe give me some hope :)

here we go sex-bob-omb

Because there's nothing that puts a smile on my face more than those good moments like coming out of the perc room after a solid solid sesh and getting a cheery Mr Hoole telling me I was an amazing drummer :) and that (because of that) we're booked for the Rock Band concert in October and could possibly open for the Valentine's next year... a gig is a gig is a gig is a gig, as Stephen Stills once said. And for some strange reason, I remembered something I'd read in an interview in a drum mag:

"Always treat every performance the same, because you never know who's in the audience." Or who's listening from across the corridor :D


like the time when........
;) music students :D

oh god

Okay, seriously now, what is happening to me?

First two days back at school and I was already running a sleep:doing things ratio of about 1:OVER 9000! which is retardedly insane. But yeah, I'm super tired permanently, which is my usual style. As usual.

I have people and things that keep me going. Like I'm on drugs or something. Not that I do drugs but anyway. I kinda crashed massively on Saturday afternoon, but I guess it was the weather because the rest of my family were zonked out as well. I was just chilling idly on facebook, making really really valuable conversation actually. So nevermind, it wasn't that much of a waste.

But, as per usual, there are way too many things in my life to have to go through each of them individually, but I will say that school is a jol, climbing is a siiiiick vaab as usual, fencing has political issues but it's still fencing so whatever, and music. gaah.

Oh yeah, and Chloe wants people to come to the show which she's working really hard on. It's all here, she makes the pitch better than I do. I mean, if ballet's your thing or whatever.

Just by the way, she's really good.

My life is a dolphin

So, tomorrow is the last day of my holiday. Before I have to face down 2 years of solid work. Which is going to be fuuuuuun. :) yay.

I'm just glad I got the chance to play Warhammer and video games and climb and rock out and chill before I get shoved right back into working life. Damn, my friends really make me who I am, and I'm bloody glad for it. Everything, from confiscating Guy's maple syrup to breaking/fixing Andy's amp to embarrassing shopping with Chloe... the light side of the force with Landon and James to magic-throne drop pods with Karl and Chris, and surfer attitudes to everything including sunburn with Joey, and then slappin' da bass at Sevi's house...

hm. I feel like now is a good time to play Siren Song of the Counter Culture on repeat really really loud. But it's half past ten so it'll wait until tomorrow :)

On the fence. Haha.

So, big decision time. And I'm not talking about the

"To delete, or not to delete? That is the question!"
drama which is associated with cleaning out (most of) my external and laptop, because that was relatively easy, just a little time-consuming. bleh. But I'm on Act III of Modern Warfare on Veteran difficulty, so that means I'm almost finished and I'll finally know what all these inside jokes are about in the two later titles. Yay?

No, big decision time is that, for the last time while I'm at school and in 99% probability for the last time ever, I have the opportunity to go to the World Fencing Championships. And because none of my friends are ever on hand at times like these, I had to mull it over in my own little sinking pit of despair for about 30 minutes, and then man up and get over the depression. But I still thought it would make me feel better writing about it.

Basically, aside from all the fencing club politics at Bishops :( I'm also not too sure about how seriously I'm going to take fencing this year. I mean, the choice is kinda between "very" and "extremely", so okes evidently reckon it's a lank chilled decision. Well, obviously it's not, because my life contains literally 20 billion other things. Guy counted :P

Sucky problem is, my coach reckons (and he knows what he's talking about) that I'll need to take it extremely seriously. But then again he always says that. However, what with Northern Russia Gauteng holding all the good SAAFA shares and coincidentally all the crappy fencers, I'm in a bit of a stuck as to whether my pure killstreak will be enough. Because, you know, those guys totally take fencing seriously. The fencers, I mean, not the Northern Russians, because we've established that this is life or death for them. And I'm not even talking about purity and dedication, it's like the guys up north don't even care. And we've got some here too, but they tend to suck and not get into the national team. If you get my drift.

(And they're the ones with all the fancy equipment. Talk about inequality and capitalism!)

And then there's another worry that I won't get that killstreak. Huh boy. I should be okay if I take it at the very least to the same level as last year. But I want to take it further. But at the same time I don't want to give up the rest of my life, especially music. I mean, academics are super-important to me for the next two years. But I can handle them and fencing no problem. But music on top? And everything else on top of that? I mean, I'm not super super duper pro or anything, but still. Tough choice.

I don't know what's necessary and I don't know what's guaranteed, if anything. Argh! Most of all, I don't want to take the fun away from my fencing. Daymn.

Harden up!

I absolutely loooooove scout camps! Partly because I get to do the outdoors stuff I can't do since I moved from Botswana down here, and partly because they're just bloody fun. And I also get to teach people things, which as you all should know gives me an epic rush.

So yeah, fun times. Our troop (1st Rosebank Air Scouts) tagged along on the 1st Bergvliet Sea Scouts' troop camp, and at first we were kind of out of it because they can actually get like 30 people to pitch at a camp and they had all sorts of fancy equipment and stuff. Anyways, I got over that pretty fast and we managed to completely dominate in pretty much most things. Except for the rowing time trials and the commando course, which was avs, but hey. I was pretty bleak that my tankness couldn't carry the rest of my guys across alone :P but hey, talk about team effort! :D

Seriously now :D we did all sorts of cool stuff like sailing and canoeing and hiking and other scout stuff, and it was actually mostly chilled as such. Hey, greatest crack ever: for a survival evening, we told the guys we were going to have a movie night. Later that afternoon, we had an emergency meeting and "evacuated" the campsite because some convicts from a mental facility in Hermanus had escaped. When Adrian told us about the plan, I was like, "Okay, there is no bloody way this is ever going to work!". Hey, human nature surprised me, because everyone swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Some of the scouts still believed it was real at the end of the camp :D God, what are their parents going to think!?

So, what I got out of the camp:

Woodelina, my fiancée, who was 1st Bergvliet's random wooden lady trophy. Which we'd had for the previous five days :D because we'd just been outperforming oaks. And also Bar-Ones and Coke, but hey.

A Tool of the Day award, for dropping the aforementioned wooden lady on my foot during a photo. (Apply directly to face, adhesive optional)

The broken oar and a story. During the pulling, my oar was creaking and cracking, and it eventually snapped. With a loud shout of "F*** IT!", I stole Paskal's one and

All the scouters signed the broken piece and gave it to us/me as a gift, with lots of lulz. And we didn't even win the pulling!

A wife-beating reputation, and another story. So because we were being awesome and stealing their wooden lady, some other oaks were like, "watch out, we'll come put toothpaste on your face in the middle of the night!". Understandably, we were very prepared for this on the final night. So well prepared, in fact, that when Chloe came to our tent at 1am to put a frog on me, she ended up getting whacked in the face and dragged into the tent :D by mistake. Obviously :P it was dark, come on! Anyways, I felt really really bad about it, and even worse the next morning when they put betadine and sand on her face to make it look like she had a massive bruise! And then tuned me about it! God, the shame...

But, best of all, I managed to be friends with her again :) which we both seemed very proud of. I mean, there's still some stuff it would be nice to sort out face-to-face in private, but I'm in no hurry right now. Girlfriends are so overrated actually ;)

Anyone Else But You

So I'm learning more classical guitar songs to play when electric distortion metal is not appropriate or possible.

I've almost got We Are Going To Be Friends down, but then I was looking for a little variety and found this. And I made it as far as verse 2 before I couldn't play anymore.

I hate having a broken heart.