I just found out Tim was CHEATING on me almost the ENTIRE time we were going out.

WHAT A SHIT.

Got back yesterday from AFS camp and went straight to bed. Surfaced briefly for roast chicken, then went back to sleep.

Camp was really good, great even. I wasn't sure how it was going to be - whether the other volunteers would accept me for being so young and being so freshly back, whether the students would accept me bossing them around when half of them are older than I am - but I was surprised about how positively everything turned out. I didn't have quite the responsibilities of the other AFS co-ordinators, but I still helped them out, and helped the students in other ways, too.

There was one other returnee, Gareth, who's twenty and went to Paraguay in 07, and he really made the camp for me, to be honest. The students were great, especially some of them, and the co-ordinators weren't bad, but Gareth was the one I had the most in common with and we spent most of camp hanging out together.

The kids were cool; most of them were very friendly and interested in the activities we were getting them to do. This was End-Of-Stay camp for most of them, and it was interesting how much lighter their camp was than my end of stay. We just spent our whole time crying and holding each other, but these guys were just laughing and chilling out and stuff. I don't really feel like we did enough exercises to help prepare them for going back - or they wouldn't have been so cheerful :P - but I talked to quite a few of them one-on-one, just to share some of my experiences and hopefully give them a better idea about what they were coming back to. 

Some of the activities we did were pretty stupid, one or two so dull it left even the volunteers WTFing, but there was no one totally above it all, thank god. And there was plenty of time left for the kids to hang out, which was basically all they wanted to do anyway. On Saturday night, most of them didn't go to bed at all, and I swear, those South American girls are like NOTHING ELSE. One of them danced from about 11 to 6 in the morning. I absolutely do not know how she got the energy.

Oh, and when I say <i>they</i> didn't go to bed, I actually mean <i>we</i> didn't go to bed. All the co-ordinators had to be reasonably well rested to drive back home on Sunday, so Gareth and I stayed up all night to make sure no one set fire to things or got pregnant etc etc. As far as I'm aware, none of that happened, but honestly, I wasn't following people going out for 'walks' just to make sure. No one even brought out alcohol, which is a bummer, because Gareth and I had planned to confiscate any booze presented and drink it ourselves, but it was not to be.

Oh yeah, and Gareth. Heh. 

That is not a guilty heh, by the way. That is a just-as-well-someone-interrupted-us-before-we-did-something-stupid heh. Not saying that we would have, just that we certainly could have. We hit it off really well, so we were hanging out all the time and then went for a walk last night and I was hitting on his knee and we were chatting and he kept shoving his FREEZING nose into my neck and stuff, and... well, it wasn't an issue because then Charles, another of the volunteers came up to make sure we weren't students sneaking off to get drunk and it was all cool. Then after a while we went back inside cos it was bloody freezing, and we sat on the couch together and cuddled up and chatted.

He's got a girlfriend, and I - yeah, that's right, I have a boyfriend (for the first time in like, a century). It wasn't a big deal, we didn't do anything sexual, but you do get the feeling that had we not had partners, or had we been drunk, we would have gotten involved. I think he actually did try kiss me a couple of times, but I kinda turned my face away and just carried on with the conversation, so no biggy. He's invited me down to Dunedin (where he lives, btw) for his 21st, which is the week after mine (18 yay!) and I invited him up to mine. If we keep in touch I fully intend to go down there for it. 

So yeah, we're friends. We've been texting each other more or less since we got back into cell phone reception, chatting about this and that. He's cool, and we do really get on very well, so I'm happy to leave it at that, at least for now. As for the future? Well, I'll figure that out when I get there. Plus, he lives in DUNEDIN, ew.

And I'm going to hang out with Thabo tomorrow, yay!

 

Just realised that by going on AFS camp this weekend, I'm losing the three most important writing days of the month. Not good. On the other hand, I'm sitting at 42k at the moment, so if I can write about 3k a day between no and Friday, I should get it done. Let's hope. Fingers crossed.

In better news, my parents have conditionally agreed to pay my first-year university fees THANK GOD. The condition being I have to apply for the university's excellence scholarship. If I get it, they'll make up the difference between however much they give me and how much the fees actually cost. If I don't get it, they'll pay the whole whack.

I have a snowflake's chance in hell of actually getting the scholarship, but OH WELL. It's an incredible weight off my shoulders knowing they'll come through regardless. 

In other news, I've applied for a summer job that will make me pots of money if I get it. This is because I would be working 9 to 5 every day between here and next February, so I'm not exactly sure I want it, but I did the right thing and applied. Someone called me today to do a quick phone interview, and she says if I make the shortlist, she'll call back on Thurs or Fri. Yay, I guess...

Was at a party last night and had a revelation! Of the five guys I talked to, only *one* knew what cellulite was.

It made me ridiculously cheerful.

Right. First thing first. I'm getting pretty slack about writing my Nano, and haven't been writing 2k a day, but I think I'm still more or less where I should be, and I plan to have hit the halfway mark by tonight or tomorrow (it should be tonight, but I'm going out and I'll probably be too tired to write then). My character has just undergone a very messy breakup, and hopped on a plane to Italy.

I think from here on is the easy bit; mostly it'll just be an amalgamation of my memories and what-could-have-beens, and there's oodles of describing stuff to do, which will just eat up that pesky word count.

In life stuff, I went to the A&P show, which is like THE event in my city, with a guy I met at Hadee's party last Saturday. We had a really good time and we get on really well, and I accidentally stole his phone, but we're going to a movie together tonight so I'll give it back then. I feel a bit like Alannah, actually; a whole date and we haven't even made out! We've barely held hands! But then I did a fortune-telling app on Facebook and it said, "You will receive the kiss you've been waiting for," except in Italian, so that's made me pretty cheerful.

Not that I believe in that stuff.

Though I totally do.

Anyway, I think that's all of interest to add here. Will update later with news of my date, and see whether my Facebook a[[ is right!

Day two and I'm ticking along, kind of. Actually, I'm already kinda behind, but why be so pessimistic?

I got started yesterday and god, it was like pulling teeth. Sleep deprivation/hangovers do not lend themselves to good creative thinking. Mostly, all I was thinking was "Shit shit shit, gotta write something oh god I'm tired this is stupid write write write gotta write..."

I got about 1200 done in the end, which I don't think was so bad, all things considered. So far today I've written another K, and it's only midafternoon so I should be able to make up for my slow start yesterday.

Halloween was good, though, definitely worth the writing issues. I kissed Harrie again, who is officially trying to drive me insane. Talk about mixed bloody signals! But still, fun is fun. And I had a nice talk with Seamus, who I vaguely kinda knew from production last year, and he's really cool. He slightly overdid the drinking thing and ended up throwing up outside, but it was ok. I didn't even mind looking after him, which is definitely a first. 

Freedom* here I come! I just passed my restricted licence and damn it feels good!

*between the hours of 5am and 10pm, provided I have no passengers in the car.

Kinda forgot about DW. Sorry. Will try harder in future.

Anyway, not much going on in my life. I'm working at a cafe, and at a law firm, and at a wedding venue, so at least I've got a bit of variety going on in my life.

I'm still working on my university application, but I've got a place in a Hall of Residence, which is a start.

Sunday is the beginning of November, and therefore the beginning of NaNoWriMo, in which I'll be participating. I have a strong idea for a story and I've already made a start (ok, technically that's cheating, but w/e), so let's see where that ends up. I don't expect I'll get a lot done on the first, because I'm going to a Halloween party on Sat (as Daisy Duke, if you care), and will probably be too hungover to write on Sunday. Oh well. Hopefully it'll be worth it.

A youthful error? Yes, perhaps.
But he's been punished for this lapse--
For decades exiled from LA
He knows, as he wakes up each day,
He'll miss the movers and the shakers.
He'll never get to see the Lakers.
For just one old and small mischance,
He has to live in Paris, France.
He's suffered slurs and other stuff.
Has he not suffered quite enough?
How can these people get so riled?
He only raped a single child.

Why make him into some Darth Vader
For sodomizing one eighth grader?
This man is brilliant, that's for sure--
Authentically, a film auteur.
He gets awards that are his due.
He knows important people, too--
Important people just like us.
And we know how to make a fuss.
Celebrities would just be fools
To play by little people's rules.
So Roman's banner we unfurl.
He only raped one little girl.

by Calvin Trillin