Great. It’s a new year again. I’ll have to say, 2005 has been a great year. Just for the tradition, I’ll do a list of good and bad things that happened…
Good things:

• Moving – I’ve been going on and on about this, but it’s true. Life in Sydney has been so different. When I left Hong Kong last January, I wasn’t expecting much. I wasn’t expecting it to be bad or anything, but it was definitely a lot better than I expected.
• Starting to work harder at school – The work at the school in Sydney is a lot more difficult, but it’s the challenge I’ve always wanted. I even realised my past mistakes and started working harder. I think that was the best thing that I got out of the move.
• Talking more – May be I’m actually too noisy now, but at least I can be open about what I want to say. Come to think of it, I think it was because my first impression of my physics class was that everyone called out responses to the teacher in unison and I thought that was the way to go if I wanted to settle there. Surprise, I’ve actually became louder than any of them now.

Bad things:

• My eyesight is getting worse – So why am I still in front of the computer? If it gets worse I won’t be able to get contact lenses.
• Being unbalanced. – I chose subjects according to how well I did in them before, and outside of school I do activities for balance. It sounds good but I’ll have to say that I’m becoming unbalanced the other way. I’m now obsessed with the sculpture class that I did last term, even if I don’t even like it that much. I mean, I like it, but the whole sculpture VS maths extension 2 problem was a sign that I’m becoming detached from school. It’s not even the time management that’s the real problem. The attempt for balance seems to be splitting me to the two extremes – It’s like the song Karen By Night – “We know her by day but we don’t know Karen by night”. I’m like that Karen in that most of my classmates and teachers don’t know that me, the one who does chemistry, physics, maths extension 2 and economics is actually so focused on a sculpture class.

Hmmm… Just for a change, let’s see what I saw outside today. There you go again, whoever that asked why I’m never in any photos. Here’s one with me actually looking.

Hmm… Surprisingly, food isn’t the only thing I have to talk about this Christmas Eve…

This is the candle I made yesterday. I think it looks like a pear, and it’s a bit plain, isn’t it? Of course it won’t stay like this. This time I’m trying something I’ve never done before. I’m playing with hot stuff… Perfect for this cold weather. Well, playing with a soldering iron doesn’t sound like such a good idea, but luckily, I didn’t burn myself.

Here I am, carving at the candle. This might not look like the most exciting thing to do on Christmas Eve, but it cheered me up a lot… I must’ve been getting high on wax fumes. xD

Just kidding, melting wax with a soldering iron produces a lot of smoke, but at least I had the windows open and I’m not getting high on plastic fumes. (No prizes for guessing who I’m referring to xD)

The soldering iron might be hot, but I realised that melted wax cools down quickly and I can touch it even before it hardens. I added other colours to my green candle, and by now, it should be quite obvious what I’m trying to do…

Here you go… My Christmas tree… candle! That’s all the Christmas spirit I’ll have for my place, but I think that’s enough… I don’t even care about having Christmas decorations, I just made this because I wanted to make it. May be this is why I can never make anything nice – I make things just for the sake of making something, because I want to make something but I don’t know what. This Christmas I’m totally on a Christmas tree theme even if I don’t have a Christmas tree at home. There are the cards with the cellophane Christmas tree on the front, and now this candle. May be it’s because it’s the easiest. Even I can cut a Christmas tree shape on a card, and for the candle I just need a cone to start with. I’ll move on to making other stuff with wax. It’s a shame that I didn’t have the wax and soldering iron with me last term. I could’ve tried making wax figures in sculpture class. Oh well, making this candle is probably a sign that I wish I didn’t have to quit it. It would’ve actually been cool to bring the candle to class if I’m going back.

I said that my Christmas eve isn’t all about food, but of course I keep up with the tradition of the photos that make everyone hungry… xD I realise that the majority of photos I put here are either stuff that I made or food from special occasions, hence someone asking me why I’m not in any photos.

I left my candle to burn during dinner. This is all that’s left of it now. I decided to let it burn because I think the place can do with some extra Christmas spirit. I’ll make a new one next year, this one isn’t so good, it’s only my first try at decorating candles this way. There I go again, I’m writing more about making things. I think may be it’s a good thing I don’t do anything like that at school, how unbalanced would I become? There, more about being balanced (or may be more about being unbalanced).

I’m still feeling miserable even if it’s the holidays… Here’s something I’m doing to cheer myself up.

Usually people do things like this during Lantern Festival, but I think this is a good time. After all, I could use some warmth, it’s actually quite cold today. I haven’t made any candles for a long time. I always got a lot of help too, this time I can manage the whole thing on my own.

Surprisingly, for the eight (it’s probably wrong but no other number sounds right even though it would’ve meant that too many things seem to have happened that year) years that I’ve had this kit, I never used the cone. That’s strange, I vaguely remember making a cone shaped candle before.

It took me a while to get this colour, and my hand is all blue from handling the crayons. The whole candle is green. A bit plain, I guess. It should be ready tomorrow.

Luckily, I didn’t get lost on the way to the Entertainment Centre. I arrived early even if I took a wrong turn or two. The rehearsal didn’t take too long, but it didn’t help that I don’t like noisy and crowded places. Needless to say, that made me feel nervous, but once I got to the seats it was better. All that changing seats trouble was actually quite funny.

As planned, I went to the Thursday class to make up for not going on Monday. It’s not so perfect timing after all, because the double figure wasn’t dry enough to be bisque fired with the last batch, so I couldn’t glaze it. The tall figure came out fine at long last (it was what I did right at the beginning of the term, and I’m only just getting it back now, right at the end of the term), but there’s a part that was a bit brown. Burnt, may be. The hands covering the face makes it look like that it’s crying. At first, it might’ve been crying because it was scared of the (relatively) huge mouse, and then because the glaze cracked, and now it’s because it has a burnt shoulder. xD

It’s good that I didn’t go on Monday. Both classes are having their end-of-term party, but the Thursday class brought more food. The Monday class had more men and apparently most of them brought beer or wine. xD As for the Thursday class, the food was great. There was chocolate cake, fruit cake, cream puffs, spring rolls and a cheese platter. It was kind of awkward to start with – I joined the class for the last lesson of the term, and I didn’t bring any food, and I ate so much. Luckily, the people in this class were friendly. Since I didn’t really have anything to do, I made a mouse with the leftover clay that I had from a week or two before, and of course the mouse is after the cheese platter. It was good that I made another mouse, otherwise I would’ve been there just to distract everyone else. The people in this class are older than the ones in the Monday class. They were more than three times my age so I stood out a lot. I ended up telling them why I didn’t go on Monday, and they all went like “4 unit maths? That’s a lot! How do you manage to have time for anything else?” I told them that I won’t be able to go back to the Monday class and I can’t join this one either, so one of them said “make sure you come back when you finish year 12″.

As for speech night… Taking the train at 6 pm was not a good idea – it was so crowded on the train that there was barely enough space to stand, and of course I hate crowds. Surprisingly, it didn’t make me nervous. Once I got there it was alright. It’s good that there were words for all the songs – I didn’t know any of them!

Now that I know what I got for my maths extension 2 assessment, I feel even more guilty about not going to sculpture on Monday. It’s weird. I know I’ll get to go tomorrow instead, so why do I still feel bad about it?

I think I’m becoming obsessed about the sculpture class. Then again, it started when I started having to go to maths extension 2 on Tuesday mornings. Am I just obsessed with it because of the timetable mess that I now have?

Come to think of it, may be I should quit maths extension 2 instead. Given my assessment results, I might as well drop it now so I can keep going to my sculpture class? All that joking about how ironic it is for me to do maths extension 2, may be I really shouldn’t be doing extension 2. (Not that I should be a scientist like someone said either, but then that’s an established joke ever since I brought it back to school. Why did I do that? Hey, that came from the same place that this whole thing started too…)

No, I’m just saying it. I don’t think I even like my sculpture class that much. Definitely not so much that I’d quit a subject at school because of it. (Does that mean I like maths enough to quit sculpture for it? I don’t like maths that much, but then if I like maths enough to do extension 2… Ahh! I started another circle trap for myself.)

I’m glad that it’ll all be over tomorrow after I go and finish off the last of what I’ve started. This circle of trouble needs to end. I think it’s actually affecting my other subjects too. I’m feeling bad about this all the time. I didn’t even worry about my assessments. I don’t even feel that bad about the results even if they aren’t that good.

Why am I worrying about sculpture when I have so much work to do this holiday? Let’s see… Physics worksheets and summary, chemistry dot points, English past papers and other questions, heaps of economics worksheets… Ahhh!!!

I know that I’ll manage to get everything done with perfect timing. May be that’s why I don’t worry about my school work and end up going around in circles instead.

At long last… I’ve finished all my assessments for this term. I’ve skipped sculpture class yesterday because I couldn’t risk being tired today, not when I had an assessment starting at 7. It just doesn’t feel right, even if I’m going to go on Thursday instead. I know it would’ve been more inappropriate for me to go though.

At long last… I’ve taken the half-finished basket that I’ll never have a chance to work on at school from my locker.

At long last… I’ve finished that basket. I’ve been planning it during the last holiday, and now it’s almost the holidays again and I’ve only just finished it. I know, not very efficient. Since I have to take it home even if I haven’t finished it at school, I have to stitch it together with needle and thread, no sewing machine. I’m so bad at using the sewing machine that I should probably have just did that right from the beginning anyway. From here it almost looks fine, but it’s not.

See? I’ve got the measurements all wrong. The frame is too short. It flops. Everything I do ends up like that. Really, read the back posts and there’ll be an entry on something that I’ve got all wrong. I can’t measure anything right. I can’t count. I get all my numbers wrong. I probably won’t get around to making a new frame. May be I’ll try to extend this one, but I know it’ll end up being so fragile that I shouldn’t bother.

OK, here’s something more positive. I like being the one with the camera all the time so I always get the group photos.

YAY!!! I’ve figured out a way around my circle of worries! I can go to the Thursday class next week instead of the Monday class. That way, I can finish what I’ve started, and I don’t have to worry about falling asleep during my maths assessment. It’s perfect timing for me after all. I guess the only downside is that I didn’t say goodbye to my class last week and I’ll never see them again. Oh well, I don’t even know them that well.

The physics assessment that I had today was the least of my worries, and it turned out to be alright except that I misunderstood the instructions and it was really obvious. I was so embarrassed that I almost wanted to run away, but at least I caught my mistake in time and I managed to do the right thing and still finished on time. It was really humiliating, but at least it didn’t make me feel as bad as the time when the train station guard yelled at me…