Sports - my specialty

Before I start, Dad said he will go through this before I put it on and explain things. He says it doesn’t make sense when it’s outside of my head.

When it comes to sports, I know pretty much the same as a brick. PE was never my strong point, and I was counting the tiles on the floor for the first year (565 for those of you who wanted to know). The second year was when I had the amazing idea to listen, which lasted for about half an hour before I realised that there were bricks on the walls. I counted them too (2056). The third year we alternated between watching Step Up due to lack of teachers, and playing Dodgeball. I was always out, which gave me time to count the panels on the ceiling. I never finished, because I was also usually out with people I could talk to. I was the only one to dive in the way of the ball though. For the record, I would rather have someone throw the guts of a cow at me until the moon turned purple, than play Dodgeball.

I do like to think I know about it though. In my house, quite a bit of sports is on. I even watch some of it. I watch figure skating and gymnastics. Sometimes. Dad is the one who watches the sports. Football, which honestly is only exciting when there is a argument or penalties. I watch it when England are playing, but I don’t really understand. I mean, the man was in the white lines, but the referee said he was ‘off the side’ and when that man took that penalty, all of the people stood in front of him. I don’t know much about football, but I know a bit about cheating and I am sure that it counts.

The other thing he watches is the the CW, or the NAACP or the FTSE. The not helmetless rugby. The American football. To be fair, i find this more exciting than the football. Mainly because there are a couple of things that make me laugh. Like the names. The New York Knickerbockers and the Boston Red Stockings (These are names from years ago). Come on. You sound very turn of the century.

Also, it’s so exciting – for like ten seconds and then the man blows the whistle and everyone starts again. And when the halfway-forward runs to the end of the pitch they got like 1million points and everyone goes insane.

What I really don’t get is the points in the corner. I like to think I know, and one night I walked through the kitchen, where Dad was watching the Elves play the Unicorns (Redskins against the Bears) or something, and looked in the corner.

“Washington against Chicago. Washington on the 3^rd down,” I said. Dad looked at me like I had walked through the kitchen, and in the most causal way ever told him the secret of life, and then as I do, I messed it up. “On the twenty-one seventeen.” I don’t think I have ever seen someone’s face flip from a state of awe, and then to such confusion in such a short period of time.

“what do you mean?” he asked, looking at the TV as if he was missing something.

“They’re on the twenty-one nine now,” I pointed.

“Erin you flabbergasted little toad (some of these words may have been changed). That’s the time.” Then my face changed, from a state of cocky arrogance to a clear state of shame and embarrassment.

So American Football’s not my thing. The most exciting thing about it is that The Blind Side came from it.

But when that man’s leg breaks! I can’t watch it. I am physically ill just thinking about out.

I suppose it’s not as bad a tennis. When the tennis playing world cup comes around, I think it’s the tournament that that film Wimbledon is about. Mummy and Daddy watch it when it is on, and the one thing I can say about football and American Football fans, is that at least they care. Tennis fans are either mute or bored. They just look at the ball the whole time. At least when they play football they shout things that make me laugh. In tennis they shout nothing. They don’t even shout things when their team, or person, does anything. They clap for both sides. Traitorous little horrors.

What I don’t get about Tennis is why they all were white. They all look like the altar servers. Mind you, those skirts are cute. But with a white shirt, come on.

Don’t get me going on cricket. I don’t know who I am cheering for because they were the same clothes. If I wanted to not know who I supported, then I would watch tennis.  

I don’t mind some sport. When we watch the Olympics, I like the gymnastics. I love when they have those two bars and swing from one to the other. I also don’t mind the high jump (the one with the big stick).

Some good films came out of sports, The Blind Side, which I always have to lock myself in the bathroom after because I cry like I did watching that Derek Redmond video.  Wimbledon – oh, god, what’s that tennis tournament called. Goal, which to be fair is a little boring until the end.

Anyway, I need to go for a jog and then do some push ups. Ah – I’m actually going to watch Mamma Mia.

Toodles.

Concertios

In the past year of my life, I have been to the exact same amount of concerts as I have in all the other years of my life. Out of all six of the concerts I have been to, I have hated one, forgot one and fell over at one.

The first concert of my life came when I was around less than ten. I can’t quite remember my age, but know that I was so young that it was Westlife. The one thing I pride myself in, most people’s first concert was Steps. Mine was popular boy band Westlife. I didn’t much like them at the time, and I was a little disappointed when we got there and they didn’t sing all those Boyzone songs I thought they would (I thought that Westlife and Boyzone were the same thing). It was still good though.

Things at the point get a little hazy. I was still at the tender and impressionable age, which had nothing to do with the concerts I went to, but a lot to do with the fact that my attention was short, and about a month before the concert, I took an odd liking to Busted. Niamh was older than me, like she is now (coincidence I think not), and we could only get our greasy paws on two tickets. At this point mum and dad had two options. Either me or Niamh could go, but not both of us. This would mean that there would be constant ‘but she got to go and see Busted so you should get me this’ and ‘well she got to go to the Busted concert so you must love her more’. In the end, me and Niamh both go to go. This was at the time the most independent thing we had done. We were shouted at before we went in about arguing, or not doing it, and then we were told not to go away from each other. Then there was the walking us to the door and watching until we had vanished, and then the not leaving the car park in case we came out four hours early. In the end, the shocking thing was, we must have been about one hundred metres from them at any one time. This would be the falling over one. Me and Niamh left and went to play a game while they were singing songs that me and Niamh didn’t know, and we were running around when I stood on my shoelace and went flying. It was a head/floor collision that stung me in the morning.

Backstreet Boys was next. This time, I went with Niamh (again who was at this time my concert buddy), along with Mum and our cousins, Sarah and Louise. I liked them actually. I knew the songs and everything. It was a very proud moment in my life. The only thing is I can’t remember it. Seriously. I remember being in the car and then leaving the venue, but nothing in the middle. There is nothing there. It’s weird. Like when you had hold of something and then put it down somewhere and it’s not in the place you left it. It was like that, but it was a whole night and not your phone or the remote.

I didn’t bother with concerts for years. Then there was the night. Taylor Swift. I ditched Niamh, because Ciarra would be a million times me entertaining. Along with me and Ciarra was my friend, Steph. We got there a little early, because I was worried we would miss it. We got there just after the doors had opened, and got to our seats about five minutes later, after a spot of light shopping, which consisted of a programme and a light up stick thing with ‘Taylor Swift’ on. We chilled for a while and then we watched the support act for a while and then she was on. It was amazing, even though my own stupid singing voice is all I got on the camera. Taylor Swift was fab, but we followed it by the worst night of my life.

Honestly, Alexis Jordan wasn’t bad when she was on, but the concert was defiantly for people who liked her and not for people who had been dragged along for the ride, like me. First, the doors said they would open at seven, and i was terrorised by birds until eight, when they finally let me in. Then the toilets, which were the smelliest toilets in the world, were also freezing. I was shivering. Then the room had no seats and half of the sun underneath it. It was the hottest I had ever been in my whole life. I didn’t have to wait long for something to look at. Someone came on and sung for us, and gave away a free pair of trainers. Then we waited while we sweated. Then there was another person come on, who wasn’t Alexis Jordan. Everyone in the room knew the songs, but me of course. I just stood there entertaining myself with my pants that I could make waves with when I moved my legs. When she did come on, she sung about four songs and vanished. By this time I was sweating, bored and tired as well as thinking about better things I could have spent that tenner on.

Then, when I was just on the cusp of my sixteenth birthday, Mummy and Daddy bought my Dolly Parton tickets. Imagine that God is in concert, call is God! Live! if you will. Well tickets for God! Live! come out and you wake up in the morning and watch as they all get sold. At this time, I convinced myself that every ticket was being sold to Justin Bieber, Fiona Phillips and Billy Piper. Then, four days before my sixteenth, we got the tickets and Dad drove me, Nanna and Grandad to go and see Dolly. It was fabulous. Unlike all the others, we didn’t have to wait. She was on when she said she would be and she sung for about an hour and a half. There was short interval where Grandad bought some coffee that was cheaper than my water (seriously, I hope that for that price Dolly bottled it herself at Lourdes). Then she came back on and she sung some more. It was fabulous! It was just amazing! Fabzing!

So I suppose that is it for my musical life. Until next time. Toodle-oo

Filmage - Round Two

Eons ago, when the world was without TV and radio and people read from stone carvings on walls and had to skin Mammoths for blankets for the village; around the time Mum and Dad were born, there were no films. Personally, I am glad I didn’t live then. I love my films. Now this might sound like another post of mine, but bear with me, it’s kind of an expansion. Like Age of Empires II: Age of Kings.

IMDb is similar to the Bible. People check with the Bible before they do anything. Some people check IMDb. The decisions people make when they confer with the Bible tend to be big things, where as I have to check IMDb before I decide whether someone is a complete and utter toss pot or see if the film has ‘rudies’. IMDb is, in short, the most amazing thing to grace the world since Costco.

So I was talking about IMDb. Well IMDb, for those of you that do not know, is the Internet Movie Database (IMDb, see what they did there). Well IMDb, apart from being the be all and end all of movie knowledge, also has this completely amazing list of 250 films that people have voted for as the best films of all time. Among the top ten, of which I have seen the start of one, is The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II and Schindler’s List. I had this plan to watch them all by the time I turned sixteen. When I worked it out, it would be eleven films a day. Obviously, although this would be terrifical, it would also be impossible. I would have to give up school. Mum and dad didn’t like the idea so they told me I couldn’t do it. I hope you understand the predicament I was then put into. I could either watch my films, which would include Dear John, Camp Rock and High School Musical, or dramas that I would have to think about. Turns out trying to focus on the storyline of Inception and The Prestige is hard when trying to do your homework on vectors or whatever, so I stuck with my musicals.

Speaking of homework (honestly, I’m not sure how these are linked but I was actually thinking about listening to some Disney songs), this week we, being the whole family, have been testing out watching films of a morning. Each day was given a catchy and fun name.

·         Musical Monday (which was Mamma Mia Monday and then we realised that there are only so many times you can watch the same film without it being weird. Think The Lion King one billion times since you were born. Yes Niamh, I am talking about you.)

·         Tooney Tuesday (again this isn’t alowed anymore because the first Tooney Tuesday and I chose West Side Story. If you have seen it, then you would understand why mother refused to let me watch it anymore. I was slightly emotional all day.

·         War film Wednesday (I didn’t pick this one. You would have to speak to Niamh about why this was ‘feel good’, which was the original idea. Then again West Side Story.)

·         Theme tune Thursday (Titanic – again not what we had in mind when we thought ‘feel good’. I can’t even put the blame on Niamh, this one was my doing.)

·         Family film Friday (we needed somewhere for Mulan and Pocahontas)

So apart from this being the most amazing and emotional week of my life, we also established a couple of things. I should really think about what I watch of a morning, remembering that I will have to go to school whether ~I am an emotional wreck or not. I don’t like war films, and they are far too long for the morning. Musicals don’t always cheer you up (thought most of the time they do). Finally, after hours of shouting at me, just because it was set in the war, The Sound of Music doesn’t qualify as a war film (even though it does, Dad)

I suppose, on what I am know calling Filmage – Round Two – Dodging bullets, I have nothing else to say. I’m going to go know, because Ciarra is shouting at me for clogging up the TV recording Made in Chelsea and Bondi Rescue. I need to go and watch them I suppose.

Hasta La Vista

My Edumicationicles

I am going into my last year in school, which has started to make me think about what I plan to do when I leave. Princess of Denmark would be difficult, being as I don’t like Denmark and the Denmark castle looks nothing like the one in Cinderella, which was what I had managed to convince myself of. But then again, I assumed the Denmark royal family would also have parties ever night where we always put on sparkly dresses and danced until the clock struck midnight/we woke up/we turned from a human into a mermaid/we turned from a frog into a human. The Danish Princess dream was confused with my Disney Princess dream.

Not that the skills I learn in school would be any good for my desired career. I don’t have a waving class in school, which I know would be needed for Princess-ing. However, I attend a language college, which isn’t much of a language college because there are three languages, French, Spanish and Chinese which we can learn. What about German, Italian and Azerbaijani? I always wanted to learn Azerbaijani. That’s a lie. Until I checked Google translate about thirty seconds ago I had no idea it was a real language. But, I would like to learn German and Italian. That would mean I would be able to tell people on the streets of Spain, France, Germany and Italy all about my family and past holidays.

You see, I thought these things would come in useful. I thought that when I went on an exchange trip to France last year that there would be endless conversations, yet the first thing they said to me I answered with ‘Oui’. Turns out, they were telling me my towels were in my room. When I nodded and said ‘Oui, Merci beaucoup’, I sort of realised what they were saying. They were speaking in English.

For a week, I was basically mute in front of the host family. After the weekend I spent with them in silence, other than a conversation with my teacher on Saturday and the occasional, ‘merci’, I said nothing. When I finally found those English speakers on the Monday morning, I was so excited to finally say something that I just started shouting at them. I swear, my throat vanished that morning. Then it was back when I was shopping.

Anyhow, I have completely gone off the subject I started with. School. I don’t find it pointless and I do enjoy in, but there is the occasional thing that annoys you. For example, Niamh isn’t a full time student. She isn’t even a part-time student. She is barely a student. She does three lessons. History, which is pointless her doing because she knows everything anyway, and thanks to her need to share everything, so do I. She also does Sociology, which I would comment on but I don’t know what it is. The last one I didn’t catch, because I was watching How I Met Your Mother at the same time, but I am sure it is something she knows all about anyway. Niamh feels the need to inform me, after what has felt like a particularly long day that she only had one lesson. She has been watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch all day. She got to go to bed. She didn’t have to get up before the sun to iron her skirt. I envy that one sometimes.

Ciarra, the baby of the family and the last to go to ‘big school’, has had to work to get rid of the reputation me and Niamh may or may not have put on the good Wenham name. Ciarra is the ideal student. She is on time and she comes completely prepared. She listens and does all her work on time and she is what teachers pray they will be blessed with. Ciarra is like Blair from Gossip Girl. She is like Bonnie from Vampire Diaries. She is like the one from Home Alone. That last one has nothing to do with school, but she is like that. I swear. Where was I? Oh yeah – Ciarra in school. Me and Niamh were a little less than ‘amazing’ students. Niamh is too opinionated and argumentative. She was nasty and shouting at everyone. She spoke back to teachers. I simply, spoke. All the time.

So Ciarra, one of the most well behaved students in the history of the world, was going into High School with the worst possible opinions of the little angel.

While I was writing this, I should have been doing homework, so I suppose I should say goodbye here and get back on with writing about Osmosis or something.

Toodle-loo