Reading a Book

Yesterday, I finished reading The Amber Spyglass (by Phillip Pullman), signalling the end of the His Dark Materials series. What's funny about finishing books, particularly series or one that took time to read, is that you're not really sure what to do with yourself afterwards. Once you read that last page (which will almost always be disappointing), there's not really much left in reality that interests you. If the book is particularly long, or you enjoyed it lots, the characters become people. I remember reading a book, and not being able to read anything else for two weeks, because I couldn't manage to start reading about other characters, with different names, histories and traits to the ones I'd been used to.
 
Maybe I'm just emotionally volatile. But I'm also as tired as hell, so this blog post is roughly 150 words. You get my disappointment at the end of a book.
 
Although I rarely wait two weeks for my books. Until the next time.

School Holidays

Today, I was freed from school for two weeks. Excellent! Two entire weeks! And then, I shall have six/seven weeks of school, followed by a week of holiday, and then another six/seven weeks of school, and then two weeks holiday. Six/seven weeks of school, followed by a week of holiday, followed by six/seven weeks of school, and then six weeks of holiday. Then I begin Yr 11, my final year of secondary school, and continue on with more of the same.
 
However recently, a little birdy (in the form of BBC Breakfast. The Beeb has taken my soul. No more.) told me that the government are thinking of changing the holidays. Instead of six weeks in the summer, we'd have four. And for two of the three one-week holidays, we'd have two weeks. The idea is that many people fall out of synch with school life over the six weeks, and forget much of what they learnt. By making the long holiday not as long, and spreading it out over the year, pupils engage in school when coming into the new year and much less time is given to revising of the past year.
 
I'm not happy about this. First, because my parents are divorced, I have to split my holiday time between the two families. When I'm at home, I can get stuff (i.e. extensive amounts of art homework) done, however when I'm away at my dad's, I can't do as much. I class my time spent up there as lost holiday. The six weeks holiday gives me three weeks of holiday, something I don't get any other time. If it was reduced to two weeks, it'd just be like any other holiday, when I occasionally spend the two weeks of Easter at home.
 
Secondly, living in South East England, it can get pretty hot in the summertime. Not insane levels of hot, but fairly toasty. Concentrating during July is near impossible, and that's only the first two weeks before they end the year. Having to attend through all of July would just destroy us, as we wouldn't be able to listen or try in the final critical weeks before the holiday.
 
Thirdly, it'll take away the sheer joy of six weeks of wearing whatever the hell you want, eating when you want, and swearing until you go blue in the face. Holidays are full of freedom (family commitments permitting), relaxtion and sleep. The six weeks (sometimes seven, sometimes five) are long awaited from the moment we begin the new year in September. Although the change to four weeks would mean no lost holiday, it'd feel like much less.

Going Abroad

I have never been outside Europe. Yes, I've still got quite a few more years left in me. But as yet, I've never been outside Europe.
This is not particuarly relevant. Slightly, but not totally. I'm talking about tea. Ah, yes. Beautiful tea. Not about the history of tea, but tea abroad.
 
Being from (East) Sussex and all, I'm not very picky about my tea. I'm not fussy about what different herbs have been infused with, or what it smells like, or what colour it is. Put the bag in the cup, add water, sugar and milk. Done.
However, go abroad and it's almost as if the concept of a decent cup of tea has never reached them. Go out and drink tea, and you get a pathetic little taster tea bag from PG Tips that'd only taste good if it had about three drops of water in it. So you go to a supermarket for some teabags, and you get more of the same. Pathetic little bags that have about six tea leaves in and you need two or three bags per cup. And even then they taste a bit crap.
So, you've found a problem, find a solution. Bring your teabags with you. So you exceed your Easyjet baggage allowance with an extra suitcase full of teabags (while attempting to not look like a smuggler), and bring it with you to have some excellent tea. Congratulations, you look like an idiot. Besides it still doesn't taste nice. Foriegn milk tastes funny. And sugar. Come to mention it, the cups give the tea a funny taste. And not forgetting the water.
 
I don't like going abroad because then I have to rely on coffee. My current limit is six cups of coffee a day (2nd July 2011, I traveled in a coach for three hours through the same amount of countries), and that was borderline jittery. But I like to drink tea at midnight, 2am, 3am even. I've had twelve, thirteen cups of tea in a day. And decaff coffee is more expensive and harder to find. Besides, it doesn't taste too great without excessive amounts of whipped cream in it.
 
I like going abroad, but I like my tea. Saying this, I feel a bit like Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but there you go. I really like my tea. Ah well, I guess I'm stuck to the UK. I hear Bath's lovely at this time of year.