Hallelujah!

We got gas today for 80.3 cents.  Whoopee!

And THAT was expensive!  Update on December 16th... it was something like 69.4 this weekend!

62.4 now!

DUDE!

So it's Chaos season... our school has been turned into a backstabbing, deceitful, dangerous nest of treacherous, conniving spies, who enjoy betraying each other to their cut-throat enemies.

(Impressive adjectives, n'est pas?)  By Chaos I mean chaos, and by chaos, I mean Chaos.  Ha ha.

What I really meant by that cryptic and unintelligible message was that the annual school game of Chaos just started this week.  Each person is given the name of another person at the school.  The objective is to eliminate that person from the game by killing them.  The way you do that is to find that person away from the arms-reach of anyone else and tag them.  Then once you have done so, you have a funeral for them (kidding.)  They give you the name that they had, and the game goes on.  The only safe zones are the washrooms.  The only safe times are during classes.  If you're on school property at any time of day, watch out.

There are several strategies and types of players in the game.  I will now outline a few.

1.) The Alliance Maker.  This person goes around and makes pacts and alliances with as many people as possible.  They help their alliances kill their target to receive help with killing their own.  However, alliances are broken off as easily as they are made.    

2.) The Stalker.  Generally, the stalker is a much more cautious person, who concentrates on staying safe.  They take several days to stalk their target, all the while making sure their target doesn't realize that they're stalking them.

3.) The Aggressor.  The player who concentrates as getting as many kills as possible.

4.) The Super-Aggressor.  There's always one of these in every game.  The Super-Aggressor is a whirlwind killer who seems unstoppable, burning through victims like a forest-fire.  This player is usually a grade twelve student, as they are more experienced in playing.  The Super-Aggressor usually lasts only a few days, as they do not concentrate on keeping themself safe.

5.) The Teacher.  Teachers play too, and only last a little while due to their more isolated position.  Teacher strategies include calling students aside for meetings during lunch, pulling them out of class and talking to them until the bell rings, and sneaking up on people.

6.) The Faker.  Freaks people out by acting suspicious and pretending that they have people that they do not.  This keeps people from looking out for the real killer, and generally ends with the death of the Faker's target.

7.) The Safe One.  Doesn't kill, doesn't try to kill.  Just concentrates on being safe.  These are the people who usually win, as the game can go on for months and months.

8.) The Grade Nines.  Clingy, Giggly, Paranoid... enough said :)

Anyway, I love chaos.  And I got killed yesterday.  Fun fun!

In which a bunch of small children invade our school and I procrastinate the afternoon away

So, today is a day off school for most people.  Or, as I should say, most sane people.  I happen to be musical, and insane, so I was swept up into Not Sleeping In and Coming Into School to Play Music on my Day Off.  

Ahh, grade eight day.  I happen to love it.  For some reason I take joyful pleasure in shepherding kids around our school, and watching them get lost in our 2 and 1/2 hallway school.  I love telling them that our "swimming pool" had needed to be chlorinated so we would have to skip that part of the tour, and telling them all about the "arcade" and the "bowling alley" in the basement- off limits today, unfortunately.  And watching their faces as they see how much grease is on the pizza is priceless.

So, why didn't I stay today after playing music for them?  Probably because I thought I would end up doing homework all day... what a laugh!  I sure need to kick my butt into gear or my math grade is going to drop right back down to the fifties.  My problem is that I do not have the focus for it.  It doesn't make sense to most people: here's a girl who can practice violin for an hour and a half every day of the week, but cannot stand to sit down and answer a few problems. I just don't like math, that's all.

At least I stayed at school for the doughnuts.

Tout Le Monde En Français

So, the other day in French class, we were taught how to pray en Français.  Being at a Christian high school, I suppose it wasn't unexpected, but it did surprise me a little.  Why, I'm not sure.  I suppose it was because I'm not used to the idea of someone teaching us how to pray.  I mean, sure, we were taught how to in Sunday School or whatever, but, prayer is supposed to flow naturally.  And in all honesty, it's expected.  I mean, after being in Christian Education for 7 years, I should have learned something.

So, on we were, into the bold realms of structured prayer, and in all honesty, I had no idea what some of the things taught were.  Like some guideline that someone wrote up.  I think it's based on the Lord's prayer, so it's canon, but I'd never heard of the thing before!  It made me feel distinctly awkward while everyone was talking about the different parts.  I know Jesus instructed his followers how to pray, but since when did prayer become a formula, and how did I miss learning it?

Then we learned the vocab words, which were slightly essential.  Apparently Amen is the same in both languages.

Then on to writing it, and all I could think about was how much I miss Geoffrey.  And so, at the end of the prayer, all I could echo were the lyrics of the song played at his funeral.  

Tu donne et emporte, You give and take away.

In which I am the mediator of The Eternal Conflict

    The funny thing around my house is how everyone over here is completely used to the fighting between our cat and dog.  It's a common procedure for us to mechanically step to the side as a black and white blur shoots past, followed by a noticeably slower gray one.  This procedure gets repeated so many times that we barely notice when a rumble like thunder echoes through our house.  Sure, we yell at the dog when she starts barking at squirrels, and we even reprimand her with "Bad dog: NO CAT!" every once in a while.

    However, if there are people over at our house while this tumult ensues, it becomes a focal point for the conversation.  They ask us how we handle it.  And we shrug and say "It's perfectly normal" with a smile.

The problems with death/ my special project

      As I read my title I laugh because death is a problem in itself.  It sure doesn't need anything else to go along with it :)  However, things do, and that's generally where the problems occur.

I am a good student.  Sometimes freakishly so.  I'm the only person I know to ever get 100% on a course (although it's slightly less impressive when I say that it was Grade Nine Bible.) 

    However, Geoff's death has sent me on a crash course of disaster.  And no wonder, seeing as it was just one week before school started.  For example, the fact that I'm actually close to failing Functions and Relations.  I've never been close to failing anything, mostly because I'm such a perfectionist that I don't like getting less than nineties.  It also seems that grief has somehow affected my memory in French as well, as I can't even remember how to write in present tense correctly, let alone the passe compose, and the other thousand tenses that we learned in the past few years.

    I'm not even sure what I think about doing so poorly.  I almost felt proud that I was doing so badly in math.  Now I just feel tired, because I have to come home each day and teach the stuff to myself our that math "teacher" lectured on us today.

      Anyway, I've found myself a special project to keep my mind off things.  The fact that yellow is both our favourite colour, and the fact that he asked to be buried in a yellow tux made me want to make him a present.  Grace took pumpkins up to his grave because he adored pumpkins as well, and it got me thinking.  If Geoff loved yellow so much, and if I love yellow so much, why not make his grave a glowing yellow beacon.

    So every day I'm outside with plastic bags collecting the most vibrant yellow leaves I can find.  And it's therapeutic as well, because every glowing leaf I find reminds me of him and why I miss him so much.  I talk to him too, and tell him how much I miss him because I know that he'll always be beside me.

If a tree falls in the forest...

I find it kind of funny.

We have this huge tree in our backyard that looks sturdy and immovable, like iron, or steel or maybe diamond. My dad is in the garage minding his own business when CRASH, he heard this ridiculous noise. A limb wider than me had broken off, slammed its way into the neighbour's backyard, and smashed a rather large hole in the fence.

Sure it's not funny that we have to replace the fence and get this massive limb hauled away, but the fact that the great demolition came out of nowhere is. Here's a tree that seems to stand the test of time one minute, and with no good reason, detaches with great gusto the next.

There's probably some kind of lesson or proverb to be learned here.
Maybe that people aren't always what they seem underneath?
Maybe that it's easier than you think to break down?

One thing's for sure... if I accidentally throw my dog's ball into the lot behind us, I won't have to scale the fence like I usually do.

Heroes Season Three, Villains! AHHH!