Sweet 17 and never been gagged bound and dragged to a beach

This blog shall prolly be a little all over the gaff, seeing as we had a whole week full of BANT for Chinese New Year. I'll try my best though. So the last one ended with me heading off to central on Saturday night, to go see Dan Deacon. That never actually materialised, however I did end up having an absolutely megapants night with Tomi, Lee, Andres, Arshia, Clara, Mia and Leila on the YMCA roof in Tsim Sha Tsui. We ate samosas from Chung King and sang very loudly whilst gazing round at the uber views. Tar éis é sin we went to Lan Kwai before heading back to school on the MTR.

Sunday was spent pretty lazily, I went shopping with Áine for cheese and crackers to watch with a movie, but this took FOREVER because of the apocolyptical queues, not unlike those to be found in Supervalu Loughboy on Christmas Eve, when tins of quality street are rarer than a happy person in Athy. After overcoming the hoardes of last minute shoppers, and armed with mozzarella, brie, carr's table water crackers, mini wheetabix etc. we headed back to campus before I went to Sai Kung with the co-years from UWC South East Asia (Singapore). We got paisano's pizza nomnomnom and ate it on the pier. I left to  to watch The Tree Of Life with Áine, which I found pretty dismal, and nawnee quite enjoyed. Nevertheless, it was about 4 hours long and we both fell asleep sporadically before even the laptop decided to give up with it. I think it was the 30 minutes of constellations and prancing dinosaurs to a background of epic Star Wars-esque music that got to me.

Monday I really can't think of what I did. The prospective campers had a meeting at 11, and everyone wussed out save for myself and Lee so that was called off. I moped a bit, did a whole lot of nothing (as far as I can remember) before heading to Rosie's Godmother's apartment with a few peeps for good food and movies (Being John Malkovich INSANELY AMAZING). We tried to get stuff in Park N Shop to make an epic cake for Mia but that didn't quite work out unforch. We wrote her a song instead on the bus which was pretty funny. A little while after we got there James and I decided to hunt down some Mickey D's and went on a 2/3 hour excursion in a deserted central, trolling playgrounds and navigating dodgy back alleys.

Tuesday morning I came back to school le gach duine. Rosie cut me hair, I messed up my bedroom a little more and then at 6:30 I went with Queeny, Oda and Amanda to go see the fireworks in Kowloon. We found a nice spot in TST then got samosas from Chungking Mansions, ate them at the star ferry pier and headed across to Hong Kong island, where the others left for Lan Kwai and I walked up to Rosie's again for some deece food with herself and Laura. We got back to campus in a taxi after thinking we were going to be late and the MTR shutting down etc etc. We then chopped off aaall of Laura's beaut long hair, temporarily turned her into Rod Stewart but remedied that so fear not, before I went off to bed.




Wednesday I stole clothes from Laura, waited for the good shower, watched the Swedish version of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo (it comes in handy knowing what the Swedish word for rapist is), stole Jkwok's CDs and put them on me iTunes, went to a partaaaay in Precious & Oda's room where I stole aaalll the food and then headed out to Rosie's agaaaiin, for din dins and getting ready to test out what Wanchai had to offer. Hailey, Rosie, Laura and I looked like a weird set of hipster Barbies.


On Thursday morning after most people had left, we (Rosie, Laura and I) pootled around a bit and watched some of Inception. At 3 I left to go to to meet Áinee in Park N Shop at Ma On Shan. We gots a helluva lot of ingredients for these babies, before letting the student kitchen violate our plans. We struggled on though and churned out some successes, before les Canadians came and made hot pot with us. Nomnom spicy leaves. In fairness twas pretty good. I then went back out to Lan Kwai with the vast majority of campus, came back to Rosie's with the vast majority of Lan Kwai and had an impressive brit spoon in the double bed. There were 5 of us all squished in, including an incredibly cold Laura, an irritable Olivia, a roasting Paloma, a violated (thanks to Laura) Bellamy, and a sleep deprived me. It was obviously very successful.


I woke up on Friday, spread-eagled on the bed, now minus Paloma and Bell. Most people left around 11 but I hung around again, for the chance of some more free wholesome food. Rosie scrambled 10 eggs and lost 6 of them from the pan and all over the side. Lawwa and I had to clean up. Yay. We then proceeded to lose the $5000 siamese cat of Rosie's godmother and freaked out for a very long time. By the time I found the nasty yoke behind a mirror, looking at me like "U mad bro?", Rosie was already on her hands and knees looking under cars in her pajamas outside, and Laura was checking in pans and cupboards. I got muchos first year points for finding Oscar. We headed back to school, and I worked on my physics lab. Which was overdue. Muchos happy birthday to me. At 3.15 (precisely) I had a shower in the good shower, when in comes Rosie incredibly inauspiciously asked me to go to MoS with her and Laura to get bubble tea. I accepted on the basis that Matthew would help me with my physics lab. So on the back way to MoS I was brutally attacked, gagged and bound with my own scarf in front of a poor old chinese couple who gazed on in horror as I played victim. They dragged me to the beach, and, joined by other..."friends" I, still gagged and bound, was further attacked until they released me and proceeded to force 17 shots of Guinness into me. It was tough but I had to persevere when Andres questioned my manhood. After all that kerfuffle I went back to school, claimed my first birthday parcel (!) from the office (funny t-shirts and Dumb & Dumber) did s'more physics then finished the hotpot in the block 4 dayroom with Áine & Bobby. Áine modeled her grad dress for Bobby and I and now we're going to burn in hell. It was constructive criticism dangnabbit. Heels >> slipper socks. Besides, I've always admired Maggie Smith as an actress. A while later James, Rahael, Apopo, Quentin and Bellamy picked me up and we explored campus with a few packs of pringles before getting in a heated debate about Obama. After that I had a roof chat with Apoorva and Rahael before having a sleepover in Rahael's room.

I woke up in time for lion dance on Saturday, pure legged it down like, and guess what? Nada. Well, loike 3 people. Muchos grrpants. I worked on my geo presentation with Mia in le block 3 dayroom. Went for a walk in Starfish Bay with James, Lee & Tomi. Cut my foot errywhere. Got AIDS from sewage water. Skimmed stones. Found a kite. And a tractor inner tube. Tomi contracted some strange disease which turned his foot scummy and black. After trekking back to campus we went our seperate ways. I did my physics lab to a chorus of CCE mishaps then later on I threw juggling balls at James in Lee's room, sat on Bellamy's magic sofa for about 7 blissful years, then had the biggest fashion faux pas of me life in Laura's room before going out for dinner in TST with Mia, Dilene and Heather. We found this Mongolian bbq place then discovered it was HK$200 each so we went for a scabby chinese which was just as delish, although my tongue's still pretty burnt. When I got back I watched the tail end of The Help with Hetty, Carol, James and Lee. Then there was supposed to be a beach affair, I however may have walked a few metres ahead, stayed on a deserted beach for an eternity, lit my own fire, hid in a bush to jump out and scare people before they arrived, ate my ice-cream alone and devoured my entire pack of chewing gum before realising that no one was ever going to come to the beach and walking back in the dark with creepy taxis stopping me every 5 metres. To make up for my supreme loner status I joined the (constant) party in Dilene's room and had a country music session with herself, roomies and extended roomies. Thankfully, we replaced the country music ("I love rain, rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey, whiskey makes my baby really frisky oh raiiiiin is a good thiiiiiing etc etc") with Avril Lavigne, R Kelly and the likes. Once Hetty had conked out, book in hand, I migrated to Laura & Sarah's room next door where we told jokes until loike 3am. (Favourites? What do you call a russian with 3 testicles? Who'd-ya-knick-a-bollock-off?)

So I wake up in Laura's bed and a disheveled and terrified Rosie walks in, shellshocked after being woken up in the block 1 dayroom from sleepwalking. I took my time getting up, stole Laura's pjs, went to brunch, did mooooore of my physics lab, went to a lion dance performance in Yiu On which was well impressive, got banana flavoured bubble tea, almost went to Mong Kok, didn't go to Mong Kok, got some food in Circle K, grabbed dinner, went to today's Voice talk (MY GOD VINCENT WANG'S HEAD IS UNREAL) and sent. off. my. physics. lab. Good lord took me long enough. Then I had a café meeting, the next café is on the 18th, so after Valentine's day and the theme is forever alone. Formulating costume ideas already, ngl. So after my Sunday night skypage with the rentals (consisted of "Hello daughter mine, LOL jk gotta go watch tennis match") here is this week's blog in it's entirety. Back to school tomorrow wahey. GUNG HEI FAT CHOY to y'all and happy year of the dragon!

Xin Nian Kuai Le to that!

      So last Sa'urday after my nice relaxing sit in bed write blog routine, I banted off to Park N Shop in Ma On Shan to pick up some groceries with the second year. Now I never understand why I ever went to Wellcome over Park N Shop. I mean really, there's no comparison. It has mini Wheetabix Fruit and Nut! And resealable jaffa cakes! I was fair disappointed that I wouldn't have to import the squashed packets of emergency jaffa cake supplies anymore so as of yet I've neglected to inform the parental units (although the truth'll come out now innit). Got some sushi for me dinner too and had pineapple wars with Áine on the pier before walking back to campus along the beach in de dark which was zehr nice indeeds. We watched The Girl With A Pearl Earring which I quite enjoyed, if only because of Cillian Murphy's cheekbones and because I could take th'absolute piss outta ScarJo errytime she had a spaz attack. Which was pretty often. 

      Did very little on Sunday, save take self portrait for photography which involved some intricate lighting techniques and hanging Paloma's ubes expensive camera from my bunting and leaping over chairs whilst the self timer ticked down. I also slept in, did some homework, skyped the rentals, nice Sunday shtuff like. Worked in Trevor's room avec le Mia and le James but ended up trying to out-youtube each other with ghetto rap. Surprised Bobby in library for birthday. Had judo and destroyed some people, it's a little scary how angry I get. Pays off though. Went out for bbq pork shtuff with cúpla daoine for Bobby's birthday.

      Monday was a little crummy. Jason broke my iPod. And now belongs to me until he gets his priorities straight and hot-foots it to the Apple store. Did have a free morning block though which was nice. Went to stoooopid drugs talk. Ketamine makes your bladder smaller and as girls, unless we wear incredibly tight jeans when we go to house parties in America, we'll get assaulted. Had coral monitoring and discussed lots of shtuff about project week GOING DIVING IN MALAYSIA LIKE A LAOBAN (bawse as sínís). Had photography which was coolaboola indeeds, we debated and critiqued those self portraits like you wouldn't believe. I didn't go to lion dance fitness because I thought I had a theory of knowledge essay to write (turns out it was due Friday but I found that out a little later, aka after all 500 words had been vommed out). Popped into Arshia's birthday for a while before spiralling into The XX and Radiohead and found myself wandering campus at 2am with Rosie and blueberry tea (courtesy of block 2's other resident Welshie, Paloma) before getting a grip and going to bed like a normal bean. Albeit iPod less. 

      An lá tar éis é sin, I had a pretty stretched out day of school, before a french comprehension in order to GTF out of chemistry. It was about genetics and the progressions in the field. As part of my test, I'd to write a personal essay. I ended up banging on about mammoths. Syntactically it was quite wonderful (peut-etre nous verrons un mammouth dans notre vie). That afternoon I did a wickle bit of homework, ate some sour blueberries left over from Sunday night, tidied the bedroom and wrote some postcards. Had planned to go to the gym with Heather but by god by the time 9 rolled around we were not up for it.

      Wednesday, or the third Friday of the week as it came to be known, dragged by quare slowly too. I had a physics lab, did some mapwork in geo that kinda thing. Had jazz band tar éis an scoile, we did this yoke called Poco Loco which was pretty mint despite the fact that I didn't have an amp so stood there a little uselessly but with all the best intentions. I think I tried to go to Ma On Shan to get a key cut and send aforementioned postcards but when I went to take some money out in the Wu Kai Sha station it turned out I had HK$4.80 in my account. Which, at today's exchange rate is pretty much 48c. So that plan diminished. I decided to put a wash on and was shocked and muchos appalled to find that someone had changed it from 40 @ regular dirty to 90 @ COMPLETELY SOILED. Still a little scarred that my clothes were boiled. At least they smell like Persil. Home comforts like you wouldn't know. Wednesday night consisted of some intense lion dance training for Chinese Cultural Evening. We did it on the tennis courts and ended up doing it in the dark when the floodlights cut out because it was time for normal people to go to bed. Hoping to have a video of it so y'all can know what th'actual hell I'm always banging on about with this lion dance malarky. Had a wickle chat with mammy on the skype that night cause I still can't get over having internet in my room.

      Thursday I woke up at 5am to skype the besto. Who decided to bail on me. Ungrateful ginger fraaaaaaaaaaaaake. After an indignant hour's nap I popped along to maths for intensive revision lesson for the test the next day and ended the school day with an hour and a half of english. The hunger really gets to you in that class. We had to endure this video as an example of media bias, although really it was just to horrify all females worldwide and make them ashamed of their gender. It's quite horrendous. Went to art for non artists and did a self portrait (fair amount of selfies in this blog). I was pretty happy with it, might take a pic for next week's blog. Went to the GIF (global issues forum) on Islam and Pakistan given by our Pakistani 3rd year, Taha. Twas really interesting although Carol and I joked after that it should be renamed GIPP (Global Issues Powerpoint Presentation) due to all the people who just up and leave before debate. That said, I appreciate that we're all busy busy people. I then decided to set up a very tentative fashion blog. Tentative because I myself don't generally endorse them. Y U set it up then? Pretty much just cause I aaaalways want to be that person in the Sunday Times Magazine's "What are you wearing?" section, as conceited as that may be. Link available on request I shpose. Had block meeting but Wendy was sick so Trevor was just like "um any news no kthnxbai". Had another lion dance session after that, this time in the courtyard before heading up to José's room and migrating to the block 1 computer room for some seriously intense math studyage. Legit until early hours. We're usually a lot more put together than that. Managed to complete the square without cheating, and logarithms can just go die.

      Friday I got up nice and early, had a shower, intended to go to breakfast but ended up loling my face off in my room looking at Paloma's culture. Who said we don't practice cultural understanding? This was followed by theory of knowledge whereby there were some strange opinions about survival of the fittest and why we vote for politicians. Then BAM math test. I experienced that post math test feeling. The kind of "What's done is done. Basic concepts understood. All questions answered. Head fuzzy from 45 minutes of pure mathmatical focus." type feeling. All of a sudden it was chinese new year. Holidays loike. Had a bit of a SCHOOOOOL'S OUT FOR THE SUMMER! SHCOOOOOL'S OUT FOREVER moment, if only internally. Went to Mong Kok a bit uselessly with James and Bellamy, but we got delish din dins (nomnomnomribsnomnomnom) and went to Park N Shop on the way home. I then napped a little, wrote some of this before heading out to the stairs. Back at a reasonable time though becaaaaaaaaause... 

      ....I had to skype that ginger frake. Safe to say she had to endure my morning voice which is at least 10 octaves lower than regular voice as well as some chronic yawning. This was followed by a snatch of sleepage before 2.5 solid hours of lion dance. Madison and I be rolling like pros. After that I grabbed some lunch dans la shitang, before going to the ehhh flower market with Celine and Mia. We didn't quite find it but we found the goldfish market and bought various dodgy juices from the dodgy juice place. At 2:10 I legged it all the way from Kowloon back to campus to watch a weird ass french movie with MY NEW FRENCH CLASS. Oh so ubes excited. Movie was good (slightly lacking in subtitles) and Michele had made us brownies so that was lovely so 'twas. Now, I'm just chilling in me bedroom, anticipating the absolute BANT that shall be had tonight. Snow Patrol in Dublin? Try Dan Deacon in HK. Yeaaaaahhh buddy and a half. Xin nian kuai le to that!

FOX NEWS ALERT*

For those of you who   like to procrastinate   lead unfulfilling lives   can't get enough of me  want to pander to my evidently desperate bid for more followers   have twitter and would like to get useless 140ish characters of twaddle and rot from me every now and again in between blog posts, voilá ma Twitter. 


*Used to indicate breaking news of no real importance and a clear bias (#yaymediastudies)

‎'W'hatever 'M'inger your 'M'other 'W'orks in 'M'cdonalds

Yes. It's been a while. I'd rather not go into it. I did write a blog over crimbo (Christmas for those of you grimacing). Twas entitled "One Parsnip Away From Certain Death". It suffered a painless death and disappeared into thin air almost instantaneously. Poor mammy had to endure a lot of this face:



 and agonized ranting before calmly suggesting I write it again. Fall-off-bike-get-back-on-Savlon'll-fix-it theory like. I wasn't taking any of it and wallowed in my despair instead. So sorry bout that. To paraphrase it, it was basically just about buying dodgy granny cardigans, playing board games, watching copious amounts of Gavin & Stacey, eating crumpets and other wholesome foods such as oranges for breakfast (albeit of the Terry's Chocolate variety), blasting the choooons, cycling into town for Sunday Times magazine on New Year's day and other beaut things about my holliers.

I came back to Hongkers on Sunday last? Left via lunch in Avoca, flew uneventfully to Heathrow (save being 8kgs overweight and having to throw things at the maternal and siblingly units to take home), had to travel to the Dundee region to get to terminal 5 from where I landed, then had a 5 hour overlay in Heathrow. Would've shopped but me hand luggage was so unreal heavy that I was pretty grounded. I stocked up on good aul british toiletries in Boots and got me some dinner, began a physics lab report and fretted about why my plane was the only one without a gate no. Then for another 5 mile trek to gate 16 at 10pm ish, follwed by pretty much continuous sleep for 12 hours with all the intentions of studying Chinese/watching films. I was in the awkward by the window spot too so I felt totes guilts about moving out. Talk about your numb being arse*. Pure flew through immigration like a bawse with me HK ID card, leaving gaping bedraggled tourists in my wake. Got back to school on the A41p with Sam (Thai) at about 8pm where I pretty much just crashed after visiting a few peeps.

The jet lag were pretty bad and for the first couple of days I was a little like:



Luckily I had geography first class (what a gorge subject) then physics, Yingyu and Sinís. Then first free block of the year. Noice wan.Tried and failed to move out of Chemistry but that's an ongoing quest. Watched the Savage Eye xmas spesh le hÁine i seomra Bobby, before photography followed by not going to lion dance fitness and crashing instead.

Tuesday I'd morning math bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. Follwed by other average subjects. Went out for a brit meeting. Ate a crunchie bar. Broke into third packet of Jaffa Cakes from home. Did physics lab with Ella Chan laaa. Went to James' birthday where cake was thrown so I scraped a bit off the floor and wolfed it down before legging it. Rang mammy. Watched a bit of Gav n Stace.

Wednesday was morning free, followed by the typical 8:55 CLASS IN 5 MINS THROW ON TRACKY BUM BUMS AND LEG IT TO TOK routine of every morning free day. Went back to my room after class to find I was locked out so did some physics problem and sent off me lab report. Attempted to study math with José. Ended up joining in with the bant in the block 2 computer room. Saw Oda's fam before heading over to Wendy's house for tutor dinner of mega gammon shteak, nommy potatoes and azzolutely delish lemon meringue pie for puddicles. Heard stories of her hubby's upbringing and fear of turkeys and learned unbeatable insults of the ‎'W'hatever 'M'inger your 'M'other 'W'orks in 'M'cdonalds variety. Had fun playing with 3 year old's toys. Bheki & I particularly perplexed by purple giraffe. Wednesday night was spent in le Halfdan's room with James, Apopo, Quentin and Halfdan himself, watching Justice videos and going uuuuh whenever there was an evident drop. We be cool like that.

Thursday after school I made rice cake bun things for our elderly neighbours cause we keep them up when we go out or summat, I sadly missed art for non artists and was reprimanded by Laszlo (won't happen again soz). Hung out with Madi and Olivia in block 4 dayroom. Watched series finale of Gav & Stace with Olivia, not gonna lie, there were tears. Ate loads of dairy milk and skipped dinner...potentially bad idea right there. Felt really wrecked so after block meeting I had a real deece shower in the 3rd shower from the door (aka th'only one with any water pressure at all at all) and slept.



Friday started out pretty badly, school was just painful, but by the time 4 came around things were picking up. Went to Lee On with Rosie, sent a couple o postcards, bought a hottlie wottlie bottlie, heat packs, an extension lead, more hair dye and a smarties McFlurry. Stole clothes from Rosie to wear to Osage (art gallery) trip with da kool kids (lol jk art students). Went to Osage, my favourite was a heap of sandcastles under a red light entitled "Mars". Decided to head back to school via Pizza Express with Heather in Soho. Dough balls disappeared in legit under a minute. We then decided, seeing as we were in the general vicinity, to gander up to Lan Kwai and find the boys. Which we did after only about 5 minutes. An impromptu night was enjoyed, despite some insane taxi rank goings on.

This morning I had lion dance, my phone died in the middle of the night so I woke up at 9:50 instead of the planned 8:30. Throwing on tracky bumbums routine was repeated. Since then I've done quite a bit of nothing which is nice. Currently lying in bed, eating dipdabs from home and pure blashting The Raconteurs. Going for bubble tea with the secondie later. Reckons I'll leave y'all with me addy as I used to do back in the day. 'Til next week you goyyys. I feels it.



Hannah Read
Room 2/204
Li Po Chun United World College
10 Lok Wo Sha Lane
Sai Sha Road
Ma On Shan
Sha Tin
New Territories
Hong Kong SAR






*Intentional