UNFINISHED - Please Read and Give Me Pointers!

Oh god, that noise, that torturous noise! My alarm. 6:30 Monday morning, time to get up...1

I stumble blindly out of bed, trip over my uniform from Friday and trudge out the door. I can hear my dad snoring, sometimes I envy him. He got laid off three months ago, sleeps 'till 12 each day. Suddenly deafening "screamo" music comes blaring from behind a door marked "Death Awaits All Who Ente", the 'R' fell of a few weeks ago from the force of my 16 year old brother, Marcus, slamming the door in one of his hissy-fits. The door flies open. "MUM! MUUUUUMMMMMM!" He screams down the stairs. "What are you looking at dipshit?!" He barks at me. Nothing out of the usual though.2

I amble downstairs and into the kitchen. Mum's burned the toast... Again. "How's cereal sound Ally-Bally?" Gahh pet names, what's the point? "Yer whatever," I reply with a defeatist attitude. I reach for the top cupboard but am rammed out of the way by my 12 year old brother Shaun. "Me first! I was here first!!!" Someone needs to teach this kid ordinal numbers. Last week he came second last in his 'Under 13s Sprinting' and spent the whole day singing about getting second! I wait for Captain Douche Bag to get his cereal then reach for mine. We all have a different box, we can never agree, except for my little sister Danny; she's 7 and eats whatever she's given. I feel up in the cupboard. Marcus's Nutrigrain, mum's Special K, the space that Shaun's Coco Pops goes in, and... Nothing? "MUM?! Where's my Cornflakes?!!!" They are the only cereal I eat, and I have to sieve all the milk out and cover them in sugar. "In the cupboard, where they always are," she said calmly, how could she be calm at a time like this?! I feel around again, "They aren't here!!!" Now I'm really starting to freak out. "Eat something else, I'll buy some more today, there is plenty of fruit." Something else? SOMETHING ELSE?! I can't just eat something else! I look over at the fruit bowl. Two brown spotty bananas, one apple that I swear was here when we moved in and a shriveled old plum, long story short, I skipped breakfast.3

I crawled back up the stars and into my room. I look around for a clean uniform. There are several days dirty clothes piled on the floor, last night's dinner plates stacked on my bookcase, school books thrown in disarray all over the place, in short, my room was surprisingly clean. I step over several of my sister's toys to get to my cupboard; god knows why she plays in my room and not hers! I struggle to slide the doors open until I discover that my stuffed rabbit's ear is blocking the track. I get my uniform out and begin to undress. There is a noise behind me, I turn around. Shaun is standing there with a camera and before I know it, CLICK, he took a photo of me with my shirt half over my head and my mouth wide open. He runs out the door screaming "These are going on facebook! These are going on facebook!!! "COME BACK HERE YOU LITTLE FREAK!!! MUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMM!!!" I yell and it echoes through the whole house.4

I finish getting dressed and go to the bathroom. The door is locked. "Who's in there?" I say as I bang on the door. "Piss Off!" Marcus shouts back. "Hurry Up!" I yell through the door. "I said, PISS OFF" I swear the whole neighbourhood can hear us. "MUUUUUMMMMM!!! Marcus is hogging the bathroom!!!" Just then the door flies open. "There you little twerp!" He pushes past me. I smile to myself.5

Finally the best part of the morning. Shut in a room all by myself, perfect! I spend about an hour in there. Fixing my hair, brushing my teeth, putting on eyeliner and mascara, popping my... ahhh sorry got um distracted... Anyway... I pack my bag, head down the stairs once more, walk out the front door, and sigh. 8:13am. Finally I'm out of there, although, that was a rather uneventful morning compared to what I'm used to.6

I set out on the incredibly grueling walk to school. Down to the end of my street, turn right, follow that 'till the end, turn left, after about twenty metres turn right and budda-bing-budda-boom, I arrive at Torture 101. As I near the end of my street I see Miranda Collins walking up from her house. She will walk the same route as I will, this must be changed. I stop and pretend to search for something in my school bag. I fiddle around for a fair while until, with relative speed and distance; I should end up approximately three metres behind her... Perfect.7

I arrive at school at 8:21am, of course on any other day when not faced with the terrors of walking to school and breathing from the same air space as Miranda Collins, I would have arrived at 8:20am. I dillydally up to the gate, after all the drama of walking to school, I now have to face the fact that I need to go in. Just as I go to walk in the gate, two boys go screaming in on skateboards, Justin Barlow and Nick Schultz, the "cool" guys. All the guys want to be them, all the girl want to be Jacinta Moore and Chrissy Donahoe, their girl friends.8

I walk through the gate and around the corner of the Manuel Arts building. I love the smell of woodchips in the morning! Anyway as I go around the corner the last bus of the morning pulls up. I stand and wait, watching the stairs of the bus. "C'mon" I think to myself, "be on the bus, c'mon." And there he is. His perfect curly hair bounces as he strides down the bus stairs. He looks around and sees me. He walks over and waves to me. "Hi Leroy!" I say, trying not to sound too excited. "Hi Alexandria." For some reason he always uses my full name, everyone else just calls me Alex.9

We begin to walk into school and up to our form room. "Is Ashleigh here?" Leroy asks me. "Her bag isn't," I reply. Suddenly someone throws their arms around his waist. "Hi Ashleigh," I say with little enthusiasm. "Sup Ranga!" She replies. She rests her head on his shoulder. "Hey sexy, gunna kiss me yet?" Ashleigh has this idea that everyone has to be as slutty as she is, so when someone doesn't quite reach those standards she does everything she can to change this person from who they are, to the slut they always bitch about. She tried to work her magic on me but I have some "personal bubble issues". Nothing serious I just, more or less, have a fear of people. Anyway Leroy is getting sucked in, he has never done anything thing with a girl, or a guy for that matter, and Ashleigh is so determined to force him into stuff.10

Monday, first up: science... woot... Last year science was almost my favourite subject. We had this young, easy-going teacher that would much-around with us and I had so many friends in the class... This year? Some old guy, Mr Rodgers, that never changes the pitch of his voice. Don't get me wrong he makes jokes, but because he doesn't change the pitch of his voice they all go unnoticed. All except the only person in class listening... me. I can remember the feeling I got first time I stepped into that science class: panic. Absolutely none of my friends were there. The closest person to a friend was my ex-bestfriend, Serena, we had been close but drifted apart because the boys that she hung around bullied me every day that I was there. 11

We are ten minutes into the lesson when Jackson walks through the door. "Stop!" Mr Rodgers shouts just as Jackson passes his desk. "Get outside!" Jackson lets slip some smart-arse comment and shuffles back out the door. This is meant to be an extention class, with smart people, and yet people like Jackson end up here. You may be thinking "So what, one guy mucks-up every know and then." Wrong. Lets see, along with Jackson's on-going charade, there is Shanley, Monica, David, Marie, Courtney and Bradley that all join in. Ok so that is 7 students, out of 15. That is half the "extention" class, HALF! Gahh... 9:59am. 11 more minutes. Mr Rodgers is hell bent on stuffing the periodic table into our brains. I bet not one of the students in this class will ever follow a scientific career, yet we all must suffer. 10:02am. So close, so close! C'mon 8 minutes! I seem to be under the impression that the clock can hear my thoughts. I know that's ridiculous, but science really sucks. 10:10am, it's over!12

Next on our list of tortures for the day: SOSE, specifically: democracy. Learning about democracy itself is really quite ok, I find it quite interesting. The thing about it a don't like is the fact we learn about American Democracy! We live in Australia, lets learn about OUR politics! It's not just the democracy unit, last term in Geography, The Great Plains. Not Uluru or The Red Centre, The Great Plains. I hate it, if I wanna learn about American Democracy I'll watch the news, enough of it is on there. I have a theory, I reckon that there is more American politics on our news than there is Australian, what gives?! Anyway back to school... SOSE is ok, the class is ok, the teacher is ok, so I really don't have much of a problem with it. I used to sit with Ashleigh, every day, now, I resort to Serena because of Ashleigh's charms... The best thing about this particular unit of SOSE is the teacher, Mrs David, insists on keeping the classroom a democracy. That's awesome for the students that just want to muck around, as for the likes of me that wish to actually learn, it gives up a chance to voice our opinions and get answers from, not only the teacher, but the other students aswell. After a long discussion on why the Mona Lisa is so important, Mrs David tends to go off track a little sometimes, it's time for lunch.