An online journal

For me, trying to revise is like trying to stay cross legged on a trampoline while your friends are jumping up and down around you. For the first few seconds you’re concentrating real hard contracting your core muscles and staying seated and then-thud- out of nowhere your fat friend crashes down and knocks you off your balance. Personally I think chairs will be the death of our species, they are the number 1 cause of lower back problems in both the USA and in the UK, and even worse 4% of the Amazon rain-forest is logged for the factorization of these timbered time bombs, this is most probably why I cannot stay seated and still for more than 2 minutes.

I’ve never really fussed about my hair, i either grew it for 3 months and chopped it all off or maintained a short hairstyle getting a trim every few weeks. But just over a month ago two of my close friends and I made a promise to each other that we wouldn’t get a haircut until our exams were over. It wasn’t really a serious promise no blood contracts were signed or anything like that, however for some reason even though my hair is at that awkward not short but not long stage I think I will stick to this promise. I’ve never grown out my hair before, and as I’m 16 with years of even more regrettable decisions surely too come I feel as if this is a good time to test out a new look.

You, yeah you. The reader from Singapore Waddup man you da real MVP

Josh

23/04/15

The days are really starting to get longer now the sun set today at 20:01. 

Thankfully my drama performance went by without any major hiccups or mistakes. As horrible as it may sound I could sense a collective sigh of relief from my group after a member who has a track record of choking on stage went through his ‘dramatic’ monologue stammer free. The fact that I have completed a GCSE feels as if a massive weight has been lifted of my shoulders, the remaining 10 odd subjects seem surprisingly less daunting now that I’ve put Drama to one side.

Recently you might have noticed poems of ‘etiquette’ around London bus-stops and train stations. This is due to a new initiative set up by TFL to encourage better environmentally friendly behavior in a new ‘edgy’ way. TFL have called out to all the aspiring poets and eco-enthusiasts to enter into a poetry competition with the top prizes including a chance for your poem to be put up at a station of your choice. An example being-

My Drama performance is tomorrow and frankly I should be feeling a lot more nervous than I am right now. Especially since I have to get 111/120 to average an A* grade for GCSE Drama.

I’ve come to the realization recently that I just might be a perfectionist. Two different scenario’s aided me in coming to this conclusion in the past week. First was on Sunday, I was in the library doing some revision really digging out some elbow grease and after my 5 hour stint, however hard I tried I could not feel a sense of satisfaction. It’s not as if I have yet to ever experience satisfaction for I regularly experience it when I; perfect a piece on the piano or climax at the same time as the male porn-star. The second time was on Tuesday, I had just finished learning my lines and had sorted out all the various equipment’s I need for my performance. Unlike my friend Shakeel who flooded me with messages of satisfaction and content after he was prepared, I was expressionless, I hadn’t done enough. I could not hide away from the fact that I could have worked on my articulation or movement for an extra hour, I couldn’t shake off the knowledge of knowing I had slacked off for that 15 minutes during my revision session.

My failures follow me like an overhanging shadow.

I suppose it helps facilitate good work and work ethic but for once in my life I would really like to know what it feels like to be free from this weight. I really want to stretch my back and relax.

p.s. If you care about the less fortunate, If you care about the state of the NHS in 10 years, If you aren’t a snob towards those who don’t attend universities, vote for Labour. Vote for Ed.

p.p.s There are a few things I regret happening in the past week, most due to my own short comings. If you’re reading this I’m sorry I could not be a friend to you, I’m an inherently selfish person.

Josh

15/04/15

Around two weeks ago my grandfather entered a comatose state most probably due to his black shriveled up lungs, a result of 60 years of smoking. A few days later his organs started to fail on him one by one to the point where he was only deemed ‘alive’ due to a machine whirring and beeping feeding vital nutrients and oxygen to his brain. Understandably my father who hadn’t seen his own father for a little over ten years wanted to be there when they pulled the plug on him and so off my father went and hastily flew to Korea, on the cheapest ticket he could find which involved two flight layovers.

My parents are both extremely devout Christians, they avidly believe in miracles and mystical experiences. They’re the simple kind who thank their God for the sun rising every morning and starve for 3 days every month in a futile attempt to purify their soul…

Anyway fast forward to yesterday around midday, whilst I was brooding around the void like abyss otherwise known as the World Wide Web I received a Skype call from my dearest. Now my father is a very mellow calm fellow, rarely does he raise his voice or stumble on his words, but this call was riddled with stammers, frenzied in nature and ultimately unlike my father.

What I managed to pick up from his mumbled sentences was that his father had regained consciousness and was showing a response to certain stimulus’. My father put the cause of this ‘miracle’ down to his continuous prayers to God begging for at least one conversation with his father before he passed away. My mother who was sat next to me during the call, upon hearing this news plummeted down to her knees and started praising God for this ‘miracle’, my father a thousand miles away across the Atlantic Ocean also started praying.

I remain skeptical.

Cranberries, Cranberries & Cranberries, my new-found love in life, preferably dried  but I’m not picky. If each fruit were designated a human experience a Cranberry would definitely represent love.

On a side note I have been given the legal responsibility over a 2 year old girl if by heinous chance both her parents were to die. That’s right, me the 16 year old who’s yet to learn the difference between left and right has been entrusted with the pastoral care of a child.

What must her parents have been thinking!

Josh

10/04/15

tick tick tock

between dusk and dawn

convulsions of my mind

a small cat of my imagination sitting on a leather

chair- licked black steered to precision between acute and obtuse

facing a fuzzy Television.

Aware but unprovoked, disinterested

not long before the bomb drops- inevitable yet unmoving

cat stays still mind blank yet knowing.

Reoccurring dream I’ve had since i was about 8, I found it hard to describe it legibly, so I thought in prose would be easier.

Josh

08-04-15

2 exciting things occurred today, one of them involved an AQA physics textbook and the other involved my dearest mum.

Woke up late today, a documentary about Manny Pacquiao kept me up late enough to hear the rustling of foxes on our shared rubbish dump. And so after a rushed breakfast i stepped out of the door, a backpack full of textbooks on one shoulder and my mother’s words of encouragement ringing in my ears, not that pleasant soft ringing like a small bell, more like the high pitched ringing after a slap on the face.

3 things stood out during my 6 hour excursion in the library.

– A water bottle stuffed with a lemon, once asked what the lemon was for the owner proceeded to drone about the secret skin youthening powers of the lemon. Bonkers.

– Notorious B.I.G’s song Juicy is a fucking great revision song.

– AQA’s terrible physics jokes. ‘What is the the first electricty detective? Sherlock Ohms’

skip forwards several hours- I’m in my living room having a conversation with my Mum, our chat skips and glides through the general topics: GCSE’s, Work Experience, Girl trouble and then abruptly the mood changes, my mum pauses mid sentence composes herself then reveals to me how she feels her religious beliefs are effecting our mother son bond. This is roughly how it went.

‘I’m more understanding than you think, are there any secrets you’ve been keeping from me because you were scared of how i might react if i found out?’

‘No mum you know i wouldn’t do that’

‘Please tell me, i know you’re keeping something from me.’

‘Fine, I smoke mum. Probably a pack a week, i’m surprised you haven’t caught on already.’

‘I understand son.’

My mother is grew up in the countryside in Korea, went to church from young and married my father who is a minister. You can imagine how shocked i was by her seemingly understanding reaction to finding out her son whom she thinks of as an innocent virgin in fact pollutes his lungs with a substance which i shouldn’t really be able to buy considering my age.

Perplexed, bewildered, discombobulated.

Josh

07-04-15

Monday

You could tell everyone was surprised by the sun today. Outfits varied from shorts & t’s to jeans and thick coats, probably due to BBC weather’s highly inaccurate forecast this morning of high winds and cloudy skies. I had slept with the burden of knowing I had done no work the day before so early on I went to a local Library to get on with some revision and settle the guilt which built over night.

Did you know a piece of white paper reflects sun rays just as effectively as a fucking mirror? I had to re-positioned myself more times than i care to remember because of this. It is near impossible to read what is on your paper or write on it, if the sun-rays are reflecting straight onto your face. In my rush to compensate yesterdays idleness i had left my Ritalin pills at home. For those who don’t know what they are, Ritalin is a pill prescribed to people with ADHD to increase their concentration. Although I don’t have ADHD recently I’ve been taking a pill a day to help ease the workload, and without that daily pill my session at the library was shit. Countless minutes were wasted staring out of windows, staring at faces and trying to recall some of the details of last nights weed sessions.

I’m not sure in which direction this blog will go, It might be one of those things I forget about after a month or two, or maybe this is a start of a new passage in my life that i look back in my 60’s and only then realize the significance of. Either way hopefully this will at least help with my English language exam in June.

Josh

06/04/15