Shiny new Smiley Town *bling*

[Gavin Luper]

Last exam (Physics) is tomorrow morning. HURRAH! And then it's off to sunny Mexico ... er ... Jurien Bay ... for a week of LEAVERS!

*explodes*

Cheers!

[mr_pikachu]

Gabi: Thanks. I did surprisingly well on the exam, obviously, considering that I read the material that the test was over during a period of two days before the exam. Hooray for procrastination once again!


Gavin: Hey, glad to hear it! But out of curiosity, what are leavers? I don't believe we have those here in the states, and I've never heard of them at all.


Well, I'm probably going to be up most (i.e. all) of the night working on several essays that are all due over the next couple of days. (Did I already say hooray for procrastination?) So, I figured I'd start the night on TPM, work for about three minutes, and then alternate back and forth between five hours of TPM and fifteen seconds of work.

Procrastination rocks.

[Gavin Luper]

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Finished ... after so many years ... :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:

Words can't even come close to describing how happy I am right now.

Um, yes, going on leavers as of tomorrow morning. 'Leavers' (called Schoolies over east ... and over here by some weirdos) is when all the school leavers who have just finished year twelve (ie finished school forever!) ambush small coastal towns for a week of sex, drugs and rock and roll. And alcohol. Lots of that. Of course, not for us responsible people

Anyway, I should get back to bouncing off the walls. Good luck with those essays mr_pika!

Cheers everyone!

- Gavin.

[Lady Vulpix]

Brian: procrastination is a dangerous tool, but it can be useful occasionally. I doubt I would have achieved the top grade in my language theory exam if I hadn't started typing up the first chapters of Quest of Twelve during the 2 previous weeks. That made me feel a lot better and gave me the energy I needed to keep studying.

Gavin: is that the same as a graduation trip, or is it different?

[Gavin Luper]

Back from leavers. Was awesome.

Gabi: I dunno, what's a graduation trip? Leavers is basically everyone going south or north in a big group and staying there for about a week. Parties and a lot of drinking follows. GREAT FUN.

Anyway, I'm back now. So modding duties have returned to full capacity, or whatever. Hurrah!

Cheers!

[Lady Vulpix]

A graduation trip is when a whole class that's about to graduate goes somewhere for a week, or maybe longer. Here in Argentina, Bariloche's the most popular location for graduation trips.

[Gavin Luper]

Oh ok, is it a school-run thing or a completely student-led thing? It's different in that we go after our exams are over and we have already graduated.

[mr_pikachu]

Hey, good to have you back, Gavin! Again, congrats on graduating, and I hope you had a blast at leavers!

And Gabi, when you say that the class is about to graduate, have those students already passed their requirements, or do they have something (like finals) left to complete? Just wondering how Argentinians (sp?) usually handle those trips.

[Lady Vulpix]

It's normally organized by the students, but sometimes the school authorities help. There are agencies that are dedicated to handling graduation trips and extracting as much money as possible from the students. I'm glad my class didn't use one of those agencies when we went on our trip. Normally there are some exams left after students return from their trips, but since no one can retake the last year of high school, it still means you're not going to attend classes there anymore. (Students who fail one or more subjects on their last year can take the final exams any amount of times until they pass).

What is it like in your country?

[mr_pikachu]

Well, my school actually didn't have a graduation trip (*cries*), but those who do typically arrange it themselves. Usually each student has to donate a set portion of money determined by dividing the total cost by the number of seniors (basically making everybody pay their way). The trips often go to places like New York City, Washington D.C., the Caribbean, etc. Of course, the trips sometimes don't go as planned... the suspected murder of a high school girl earlier this year is only one of many examples.

As for exams, if the students plan the trip, they usually have it after all the exams are over. Here, if you don't pass the course due to a bad final, you usually have to take the whole thing over again if you want to graduate. And since most seniors don't want to risk that, they tend to schedule the trip after finals so that they don't have that possibility to worry about.

[Gavin Luper]

Gabi, your system sounds awesome, if you can take the exams until you pass them ... that would be good.

We're lucky in Western Australia, we've already graduated before we do the final exams. Our year's marks are final and we've left school already. All we have to do are the TEE (Tertiary Entrance Exams) to determine what score we get for University qualification. It's pretty good. And then, after the TEE, we go on our trips, once we are completely free, it's awesome!

[Lady Vulpix]

Well, it's good except for some teachers who have this kind of reasoning: "it's your last year and you can't retake it, you have one foot out of school already, so why bother with classes? Let's talk about football instead." My physics teacher was exactly like that. And my chemistry teacher didn't talk about football, but kept repeating the same things again and again and only taught us around 20% of what we were supposed to learn on that year. I had to learn the rest at university, and only because the half-year chemirstry course happened to be one of the pre-requisites for computer science. Most of my classmates have probably never learnt what an ester is.

*Looks at her postcount.* Nice, it's a palindrome.

[PancaKe]

hmmm...

hi?

[Lady Vulpix]

Oh, hi, Tara! It's nice to see you around here. Are you still writing?

[PancaKe]

only for school.

im doing a major work in english extention 2 ~ where i have to come up with a novella.

i have a year to write it.

should be fun ^_^;

how is everyone?

[mr_pikachu]

Hi, Tara! It's good to see you!

Things are going pretty well around here, I think; the writers are still writing (and we have a brand-new crop of them, haha), the readers are still reading, and even though fanfiction discussion is a little slow at the moment, I'm sure it'll pick up soon enough. It does seem to be a little cyclical that way.

That project for school actually sounds kind of fun, despite the nature of the smiley beside it. Although I can certainly see how it could be frustrating. You'll have to let us know how that goes. No procrastinating, now!

(...Procrastinators forever!)

Anyway, we hope you stick around Fanfic. It's been lonely without you the last couple of months! Here's hoping you keep coming back! *clinks glass ceremoniously*

[dratinihaunter13]

hey tara!

i've been busy with school and work at the genetics lab. Finals are the next couple weeks for me so I won't be around much. i'm starting to see how impossible it would be to be a doctor and a writer at the same time (no we can't all be crichton).

[classy_cat18]

I...*bangs head*...hate...*bangs head*...financial aid. They had me sign a sheet that I had already signed twice! Why do I always have to have a hard time at financial aid?

Well, my classes are approved. I have a Sound & Video editing class, English Literature, and Cultural History. The problem is that two of those classes begin at 2:00 (one during M&W, one during T&Th) so I'll be getting home even later.

[Gavin Luper]

Ah yes Tara, that's it, come crawling back, eh? ^^ Hullo.

dh13: ecch ... exams. good luck with them!!

classy_cat18: Financial aid sounds like a big bucket of crap! With reference to your classes, what do M&W and T&Th stand for?

Well, being free from school is righteous. Apart from working a few full time days at the supermarket the other day it's been great. Veging out today and then going bowling with my mate. :biggrin:

Cheers!

[classy_cat18]

classy_cat18: Financial aid sounds like a big bucket of crap! With reference to your classes, what do M&W and T&Th stand for?

Monday and Wednesday and Tuesday and Thursday.

[mr_pikachu]

Martin: Yeah, college can be really rough. I'm dealing with a ton of essays right now before exams, so I feel your pain. As cliched as the phrase may be.


Shonta: Oh, jeez, I know what you mean! They completely screwed up my account, and I missed out on a bunch of classes I really wanted to take because they wouldn't let me register. They somehow botched the paperwork and gave me almost ten thousand dollars worth of debt in my account. By the time it was sorted out, I had to choose from the worthless courses that were left over (i.e. that nobody else wanted to take, for good reason).


Gavin: I am a sad, sad little man, because my mind flashed to a scene from a romance movie I saw recently, whose title I pathetically cannot remember. But I do remember that the plot centered around a lady who had a traffic accident, and who suddenly woke up and found herself invisible to everyone except one guy she had never met and who, to her bewilderment, had moved into her apartment. ...Why can't I remember the name? *screams*


So, yeah, I'm masochistically writing exams and studying for finals. Oh, the woes of the college student.

[PancaKe]

gavin im not crawling back to anyone.
besides if i was crawling, i wouldve sent you more than one text message.
lol

^_^; yeah omg I went to this really good extention 2 writing day yesterday!! It was SO helpful! Omg!! lmao i sound like a noob again XD
but seriously, it was extremely good.
if you guys want, I can post up the notes. we had an author come and talk to us about starting a fic, and about characters and setting and things like that. It was just such an excellent speaker. I'll post the notes, but later.

I'm lazy right now.
And I'm working in an hour and need to shower.
hey wow, they rhymed!!!

^_^ augh DH!! your STILL here? you're like the dinosaur of the forum!! *hugz* when your a doctor you can fix all my problems (not that im sick).

and yay for mr pikachu *hugz* i'm glad your making a better mod than i did. XD

[mr_pikachu]

Hey, wait just a minute, Tara! Don't you start talking like that! You were a great mod, and I certainly haven't proven myself yet. So stop with the self-degradation already!

And an author talked about starting up a fic? A fanfic? If that's right, well, that's awesome! (Not to harp on ff.net again like I always do, but since they always get all the attention, fanfiction has been given a bad name to the public and even to authors. ...Yeah, I'm harping. So sue me.) If we've got a pro who's endorsing fanfiction like that, then that could be good for the future of writing. :biggrin:

And Martin, you've definitely been around longer than the rest of us. Gavin's been around longer than both Ada and me (although Ada was modded first), but dh, you've been a fanfic mod since the oldest version of the TPM forums I've found! Congrats on surviving the stone age, and welcome to the future!

[mistysakura]

Hi Tara, it's great to see you here! You're always welcome (just be sure to stay clear of Gavin, lol). And it's cool that you're still writing. It would be great if you posted the notes, thanks in advance. I'm sure lots of people here (including myself) would be interested. About raising the profile of fanfiction... well, even off ff.net, my impression is that most fanfiction isn't much to harp on about. there's some decent stuff, but it's not really anything special. Although, to be fair, I guess most internet fiction would be like that, so it's unfair that fanfiction gets all the blame. But I guess even I myself, who should really know better, discriminate against fanfics -- when I hear of people reading fanfiction, I do think that they're reading the trashy stuff. So anyway, to wrap this tirade up, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's obviously not good to have to stereotype that all fanfiction is bad, but when you look at most fanfiction, it seems as if it almost deserves its bad reputation.

But AI suspect Tara is using the word "fic" to refer to fiction in general. As in "an original fic".

On another topic, yes we're all alive and well. And I won't go into the whole self-degradation thing; I'll just say that mr_pika and Tara are both great mods in different ways. On the other hand, I'm sure dh loves being called the dinosaur of the forum, heh.

And as to myself, it's the time of year when school isn't out yet but everyone's just lazing around because they're not in the mood. Exams went better than I expected, so I'm happy about that. Just another week or so until the end of school...

[dratinihaunter13]

RAAWWRRR!!! glad to hear your exams went well ada. and tara that speaker must have been awesome. i love when writers come into class and start talking about stuff like writing characters and keeping good habits and stuff. if i become a doctor i'll push for tpm to get free healthcare nationwide.

despite finals, there's a fiction competition deadline coming up for my college so i might be putting up some non-pokemon related stuff in a bit. hopefully i can scrounge up something to submit. i'm competitive about nintendo, foosball, and whoever calls shotgun first on the way to the car... but not writing for some reason O_o;

[Lady Vulpix]

That reminds me... it's an early Sunday morning. What am I doing here not writing?! *Goes to fix that.*

[Chris 2.1]

*Appears*

I haven't been around here for a while.

Dunno why really, I guess everything in ASB's been a bit hectic. I'm still writing, On Ch26 of MV, so I'm nearly 13 Chappies ahead of the readers, since theyre on Ch12 . I haven't really got any posting readers so it's a bit of a low blow, cos one part of my fic I loved was discussing chapters with the readers.

But I'm still plugging away because I've put a lot of effort into Monica's Vendetta.

As for the ASB Fic, we're currently at the OzAndrew 2-parter. And I've spent considerable time plotting future chapters until about Ch17.

Yea, I'm way too organized. But at least it keeps me inline. I'd hate to arrrive at a chapter and think "whoa....no idea's for ANYTHING..."

Go me!

[Gavin Luper]

Dum de da ... no work today, so finally I get a chance to sit down and do nothing. Hurrah. Might do some writing later. Or send out the bloody practice reviews for the FFRO (which I'm going to get around to ... eventually ...)!

Oh, Tara, those notes sound pretty good. I'm usually not that into authors giving tips and stuff for writing, I prefer to be completely freelance (or some other word that makes sense) as I am really stupidly stubborn when it comes to people telling me how to write ^^ ... but still, I wouldn't mind having a look at them, if you can. :biggrin:

And now it's off to kill some time. Hurrah!

Mr_pika, you remembered the movie yet? :p

Cheers!

[mr_pikachu]

Yeah, it would be interesting to see those kinds of notes. It's nice to get tips from a professional author.

As for myself, I'll be starting finals this week, so I probably won't be on as much. (If I am online as much as I've been lately, I probably won't even remember enough to put my name on the exams.)

And Gavin, no, I haven't remembered the movie title yet. But it was the "Righteous" line of yours that made me think of it... And let's see that FFRO!

*runs off to procrastinate some more*

[Lady Vulpix]

I managed to write a little yesterday, and bought 3 books, which is always a good thing. Then I went to see Joan Manuel Serrat in concert, with my mom and my grandparents, and some of my mom's friends, and I met one of my brother's friends there. It was exciting to see 3 generations gathered to see the same person sing. And he sang some of his old songs and I wanted to sing along but had to do with singing to myself since singing aloud would have bothered others. Anyway, it was great, but it finished too late for my liking and I got very little sleep last night, which means today is a less than productive day for me, but I can always read some webcomics and go to bed early tonight.

Oh, and I got a raise at work! Without even asking for it. Now that was surprising! And gratifying.

[Gavin Luper]

OK, mr_pika, FFRO Practice Review is done at last, it'll be sent out in the next day or two.

Gabi, congrats on your raise! That's great!

Anyway, I wrote something today. And discovered Killing Heidi's new album is coming out in February next year, which is always something to look forward to.

But as if to make my day worse, work called me in and asked if I could work 4-7. And I said YES! I'm working/have worked every day this week except for Monday, which sucks ... but at least it's money I suppose.

Cheers!

[PancaKe]

well, gavin, welcome to the REAL world.
where you will work, and complain about work.
and then you will get a very interesting text message from me.
and it will proclaim the P word.
it begins with p
and ends in enis.
and lmao you are so funny.
XD

as for those notes, lemme stop being lazy and ill post em i promise xD

[Gavin Luper]

Lmao ... Tara I got it ... as you well know ... damn your second message though. I do not love it! (Well, not in that way. Ecch.)

Evil child. This is not the end. Muahaha.

Cheers!

[PancaKe]

i know its not the end.
you love it in the end.
XD sorry !!!!

[Lady Vulpix]

Thanks, Gavin.

What's the use of sending a text message when you've already told the other person its content?

[mr_pikachu]

Is there perhaps some witticism
Behind Tara's fanaticism?

...

AARGH!

[Chris 2.1]

Roses are red,
Violets are Blue,
Some poems rhyme,
But this one doesn't.



Meh I tried.

[Lady Vulpix]

Well, I laughed.

[Greyfox]

Grey has returned.

[i]-Grey

[Gavin Luper]

Welcometh back.

Well, Tara's messages concerning penises have ceased for the time being. This can only be a good thing. Although I haven't spoken to her for a few days ... it may not be over yet. Ecch.

In other news - NARNIA! Hehehe. I don't know about anyone else, but I've loved The Chronicles of Narnia since I was a little kid, and now the second book in the series, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, is coming to cinemas on Boxing Day (well, in Australia, anyway). I absolutely can't wait to see it. Has it been released in the UK/America yet? And what does everyone else think about the fillum?

Cheers!