- Time: Early
- Location: My bed, My dorm, My boarding house, My school, Berkshire, England
I wake up, as always, early in the morning. My brain is, to put it lightly, not working to its full capacity. I try and gather my thoughts for several minutes, until eventually the house master opens the door and sweeps all them all away. I am expecting this, as half the doors in the house make an appalling racket and my dorm is near enough to the end for there to be a significant creaking build-up. The curtains are rattled open also, leaving the room bathed in a pleasant light. I haul myself up to sit and peer through the two windows visible from my current position, one in my dorm and one in the room opposite. Both reveal largely tree branches, but the lighting difference is evident. Behind me, the many spreading twigs are flooded from the front with the sunlight, revealing every scrap of lichen and change in colour. In front, a little way away in the opposite dorm, very similar twigs are silhouetted against the bleached white sky. Pleasingly different.
- Time: A little later
- Location: See above
The light is turned on, and I climb out of my top bunk blinking.Painstakingly, I tear another leaf from my 'Easy Answers Science Calendar' - or something like that - in search of this morning's enlightenment. I read the day's entry and feel a little cleverer. Then I dress and trudge downstairs for washing, teeth brushing etc. It's a little quirk, albeit quite logistically sensible, that everyone does their teeth before breakfast. With this done, I go to the main common room and attempt to divine which sofa has lost the least stuffing. I sit down and watch the news, which is showing inaudibly on the television in the opposite corner. Soon afterwards we go.
- Time: Quite a bit later
- Location: Lower field, just outside the house
The main portion of the school lies a short way from the house, meaning that to get there you have to cut across one corner of the playing field. There is a lot of frost this morning, which is surprising - given the fairly warm weather of late - but not entirely unexpected. It really is quite cold.
- Time: Breakfast
- Location: The dining hall
I have breakfast, unsurprisingly. Cereal, some food or other, and toast. Highly nutritious.
- Time: Lessons
- Location: Various
Lessons go along nicely, as always.
- Time: Break time
- Location: Somewhere
Dull.
- Time: More lessons
- Location: Various
As before.
- Time: Lunch
- Location: The dining hall
Chinese New Year recently, so Chinese food for lunch today. Chopsticks too. Quite how the Chinese can live with eating implements like that is quite beyond me. I imagine it takes them an entire day just to eat breakfast one piece at a time. I have some unidentifiable curry and some rice. The headmaster says that it is traditional to eat the animal whose year it is, so as it is the Year of the Rat I'm thankful for once that I am a vegetarian. It later turns out to be something mediocre like beef, but not before someone has thanked the kitchen staff for 'the rat'. What a laugh! We also have watermelon, easily the most disappointing fruit known to man.
- Time: Rest
- Location: The music school
A quick tinkle on the ivories before the sports session. Practice makes perfect!
- Time: Games
- Location: The sports ground
I do sports. Badly. It's a miracle they've actually managed to find people my equal. I am what the more sensitive teachers call 'in it for the enjoyment';, and they are what I call 'wildly overstating'. Putting all that to one side, I do actually enjoy it.
- Time: Yet more lessons
- Location: Pretty obvious
Lessons. You know what I mean.
- Time: Tea
- Location: Brink of insanity, somewhere in the dining room
This is about the time when I start feeling like throwing myself in the path of a large ballistic missile. I have to supervise one of the tea tables, even though there are probably a number of human rights regulations explicitly banning it. Trying to serve 10-12 unruly school pupils an entire meal, and get them to clean up afterwards, is no easy ride. Take it from me.
- Time: Bed
- Location: The house, again
Thank goodness for sleep! One moment you're yawning beneath the sheets, the next an entire new day of pure horror has arrived. Goodnight.
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