Panthera Sapiens Ellipsis: The Blog

I'm assuming Way tagged me with this, since he unfortunately did not put a surname on the list and I'm assuming I'm the only Jonathan he knows. Not that the name is that unique... Seven things I can do: 1. Totally irritate the hell outta people with neverending questions. 2. Correct people's English. 3. Give a really good tongue-lashing. 4. Sing in tune at perfect pitch. (Really. This is all that saved me in piano exams...) 5. Make farting noises by clasping my hands together and squeezing 6. Write lots and lots of crap in English essays... and get an A 7. Twist my little finger 270 degrees on the horizontal plane Seven things you plan to do before you die: 1. Finish reading every single fantasy book I can find. 2. Fall head over heels in love (to see if it's really everything it's supposed to be.) 3. Accumulate at least 60 different specimens of frozen and preserved insects. 4. Carve a screwdriver out of ordinary chalk. (I've never been able to; the chalk k...

My Physics results came back yesterday afternoon, and when I saw the teacher's face I knew nothing good was in store. I've said before he can look amazingly sarcastic. Well, he can also look angrily disappointed. (This was proven when he later asked me why I'd scribbled nonsense all over the answer sheet.) I hate being right about things like that. Well, I failed miserably. And now I'm being quite miserable about it. 14 marks out of 39, which gives me a whopping percentage of 35--5 marks below grade. My parents are so going to flip when they read the email I've sent to inform them, and I can almost see their faces when they read it. And well, why wouldn't they? Considering I kept telling everybody how absurdly easy I found the exam, this is the perfect opportunity for anybody to get a few jabs in. Not, of course, that I won't jab right back. Nobody hits me when I'm down and gets away with it. Well, here's my own analysis of my failure: I underestimat...

My father recently took a break off his job to go check up on all his family. He gets 5 days off each month or so, and since he hasn't taken any days off for the past year or so, he's accumulated a bunch of off days...so he took seven of them and came gallivanting here for a breath of fresh air (comparatively; the haze here is nothing to what's in the Big S) and a bit of a break. He naturally looked me up; in fact I was told about it by everybody else in the family until I had his travelling plans firmly engraved in my memory, and so I arranged for transport and dinner. Well, to be honest all I actually did was ask a couple of his friends to go pick him up from the bus station. There's not much I can say about the weekend with my father that would be of interest to anyone outside the family, so I won't say much except that we spent a few nights of quality time together, gossiping about the lecturers (the age of the College can be gauged from the fact that my father...

The haze is back. I'm going to suppress all my urges to tell you that I told you so, but anyway, I told you so. I do declare that the Australians invented the boomerang under a fit of inspiration from the haze. So, it's now busily clogging up the view from my room--already the hills are turning gray-- and is now bringing a wonderful message of headaches and burnt smells. I'm going to look up rain dances shortly, try them out, and tell you which ones seem most effective. My hostel block's washing machine broke down last... Thursday, I think it was. I only discovered it after lugging two buckets full of one week's worth of dirty laundry down two flights of stairs, and found out when I kicked the thing and bruised my toe. I decided to pray for a miracle and lugged the two buckets full of clothes and dirt back to my room while waiting for said miracle to take place. My room mate looked askance at the smell I brought back in with me (usually, I take smells out , not the ...

When I joined the school editorial team, I had this idea that I'd be sitting behind a computer churning out articles and doing research for said articles. That's what msot people associate with the idea of working for a periodical, isn't it? It turns out I was optimistic. The editorial is recruiting more members, and I got somehow drafted to help do that. As a result, I got entrusted with a thick sheaf of forms to pass out (I passed out as well, but that's of little consequence here), and a deadline by which to collect them back and prepare the editor to interview more potential slaves. That deadline is tomorrow, and I only just finished handing out those forms today. To the wrong person, it seems, because now Tee Four, who is also on the recruitment sub-committee, is hounding me to get those forms into the right hands. I told her I'd had enough stress for the day, but she didn't listen properly. My adrenaline glands are still pumping concentrated Essence of...