There is something to be said about standing in front of a wasted printer, with grey-on-white stack of script pages in your hands. It's not finished, I hope some day it will be, but at the moment I can't help feel proud when seeing the 39 pages that came out from 1-2 weeks of work. It was worth it. It was really worth it: to ignore sleep, common sense, homework, holidays; everything and to simply write. It sound more romantic that it was. It was hard, and daunting, and exhilarating and I stopped, didn't reach the finishing line, gave up; gave in. But not before 60 pages of work. 39 of those being this newly printed script.

In these pages you can track my everyday life, the events that influenced me scene by scene; here let me show you:

Scene Three: We danced in the rain that day. It was the last day of term 1 and it was raining. The school got flooded in the end. After science, me and Sarah run about in the rain until we were breathless and our legs were covered in mud. We attempted to dry our clothes and hair in the toilets by the canteen. Yesterday Amy remembering that day, called Matt a hobbit. Rita was sensible and a boy from year 11 -takes my bus from my station, Nick-gave us an odd look as we ran past. In Maths the sky was purple, or maybe another fantastic colour; no work was done: naturally. The boys (year 8?) corridor was flooded. Arriving at writers workshop (R1) I stood in the doorway letting rain drip on me, the I sat by the doorway, took of my socks and attempted to squeeze the water out of them. We made a trip to get our bags from the locker room, and I returned with an umbrella. We watched Rowan Atkinson talk about humour.

Scene Four, A few days before I've been browsing youtube, and one song got stuck in my head. Relativ, by Wise Guys. It was in German. My amusement could go a long way. I wrote it in two scenes, only one was in this play.

Scene Seven, we went to the Casino, that day or the day before. The one on south bank, near the river. It was grand, no specific decorations for Easter. There were lights however glittering from the celling in front hallway/grand staircase. They had a chocolate shop with painted wooded eggs, they reminded me of Russia. Mum too. I couldn't breathe in that place, my thought were morbid, and somewhat tainted by the unobservable sleaziness of the place. I realized it was due to the fact, that there were no windows, no wood. Only stone, metal and people. I hated it.

Scene Eight, we were in Adelaide. We visited a garden there, a gift from a twined city in Japan. There was a African wedding leaving, bright colourful clothes. It was the first time I've seen a zen garden, but what forced me still was a deer scarer. I'm not sure why.

Scene Eleven, I've been obsessing with one phrase that day, attempting to remember it right: "Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there, He wasn't there again today, Oh, how I wish he'd go away". For some reason those words remind me of the stairs leading up to my grandparents flat. More memories. I also mention the bush fires. Then quickly make up for that mistake.

Just a small insight in my writing process. A small glimpse in to my memories of times past.

Иисус воскрес!

It's Russian Easter today. Feeling lonely I must admit. Most family have traditions for Easter, mine is no exception. Today my relatives will be going through a tradition they've done for years. As long as I can remember.
They'll meet up at the family graveyard (where several of the family ancestors are buried), with painted eggs, and bread, and other smaller food things. They'll talk and reminisce and cry.
Then they'll move the celebration to my and mums flat (formerly my grandma's) and have a grand feast. I haven't done that in years. We haven't even brought eatable paints. I do have food colouring....

May either post a new post today, or just add to this one. I am surprisingly in a writing blog mood.

It was a warm day, which makes me assume it was either spring or summer; summer I personally suspect, as the event was for children so either a weekend or a school holiday. The Lab (MSSL- Mullard Space Science Laboratory where my parents worked) was having a children’s science day; young children mostly. My mum was one of the organizers/helpers and wished me to come along. I dragged a friend, J. One of the things we could do was a treasure hunt, for planets I believe. Each planet had a specific colour marker next to it, in which we needed to mark of our finding. Having done that, and with a barbecue yet to begin we began exploring.

Now before I continue, I believe a background setting is important. MSSL is set on a hill among sheep farms. The building used to be a private boys school and some of such assets have remained. (Like the old wooded sweeping staircase, football field and outdoor swimming pool). The actual research facility was modern, but adjusted to the atmospheric surrounding. But in places the old school was left untouched.

And so, as I said above, we went exploring. More precise I gave a guided tour to my friend. One of the places I showed was odd to say the least. It was a tiny toilet on the top floor. Nothing fascinating by itself you see, but it had a window that led to the roof. You can probably see where this is going.

We sneaked past a scientist next door, and got inside the small room. Now I told her that I already climbed out of the window before and naturally J wanted to go on an Adventure. With a capital A. We locked the door. Unlocked the window and made sure it wouldn’t close and trap us outside. And climbed outside onto the roof from a toilet window. I would love to excuse our actions on young age, but we were in high school and from my memories about to go into Yr 9.

This part of the roof was actually a small courtyard. No actual plants, but a small walk way of a fire escape, still shining metal, but dusty and spider-web covered in misuse. The walkway lead to the next building in a bridge-like fashion, and then later turned and led towards the ground. The bridge part, had large wall rails so they were easy to hide behind if we kept low.

Surprisingly there were pebbles on the roof (or at least they were, we may have went down and got them from the path below). I’m not sure how we reached the idea but we ended up sitting on the bridge and throwing pebbles if anyone passed by – to scare them off/ or did we pretend to be a ghost?- We also tied a red ribbon that used to be in my hair, onto the rails flay in the wind. We probably thought it would appear to be spooky.

And then we talked undisturbed.

Holiday

My plane landed around 4 in the afternoon in St.Petersburg, Russia. While I have some photographs to show you, only my grandparents have internet and I doupt it's up for uploading photograhs. This also means I only have internet once a week or so.

I am taking a break and am glad to do so. While people can speak English they rarely do it unless they have to, so I am surrounded by Russians, it is 11 in the morning, and the outside tempreture is -12. The daylight hours last between 10 (in the morning) and 4 (in the afternoon). Well, when I say daylight, I mean it is somewhat lighter than at night, generally not enough light to read by the window. Accourding to my grandparents, today is the fourth day of when they could see the actual sun since the beginging of winter several months ago.

This is as far from Australia as one could get, cold, no-one speaks English and it is on the other side of the world. And I am relaxed.

A slight book review: Agatha Christie emains the Queen of Crime and 'The murder of Roger Ackroyd' proves it. I can't say a lot without giving away the plot. But if you are looking for a master peice: it is well worth reading.

Just General

It is 20:50 pm and the light's aren't out. I don't really know why I'm writing.... to avoid homework? Maybe. To feel normal, also maybe.... Who Knows?
The main problem so far with the Land of Oz isn't the poisonous snakes, numerous spiders or bathroom-dominating ants. No. It is the flies.
Really, here they are not only to big to actually logically fly they also seem to take to following me around. And let me tell you, it is not fun attempting to iron while a fly attacks you from above (and you think it's a spider a let out a scream.) In the end desperate measures had to be taken: I put a cake box over the fly.
I would also like to comment on Australian Spring. Today in P.E. we played cricket. Which is lovely really but by the end the sun was ready to fry me alive. It was only 20 C. However it seems that due to this dry heat, 20 degrees feel a Russian 30 degrees which I assure you is no fun.

On the subject of... Australian Winters in Melbourne

I never thought I say this but I can't wait till September. Not because it's my birthday, or because I miss seeing my friends but because: maybe...maybe it will get a bit warmer.

We have the heating on constantly (and it's very odd type of heating too, there are floor vents in every room and the heating blows warm air periodically through them.) Not that it's of any use. The whole place reminds me of the dratted trip to Cornwall were we stayed in a caravan, during winter holidays with no heating. Its like that. Only worse somehow.

I suspect that it's that way because, well it's Australia. Where are the parrots, and kangaroos and hot weather? Maybe that's it.

Or maybe it's because I'm constantly ill. You know not fully... but, under the weather I guess.

Or quite simply maybe it's the cold. The fact that I haven't felt warm for so long, the fact that even thought I'm wearing two jumpers and knitted socks I still can feel the cold. My hands and fingers and feet are still cold and numb.

All I want is a room somewhere,

Far away from the cold night air.

With one enormous chair,

Oh, wouldn't it be lovely.

Lot's of chocolate for me to eat.

Lot's of coal making lots of heat.

Warm face, warm hands, warm feet,

Oh, wouldn't it be lovely.

On the Subject of...Science.

And I don't mean the science that we do at school but the science at an laboratory like MSSL. Now MSSL belongs to UCL (Univercity Colage London) and the letters stand for Mullard Space Science Laboratory. Now my mum and Andrew work there that is where I am now going instead of school to help them pack all their belonging before we leave.
Now imagine this picture, you are going to your mothers leaving lunch and you see a scientist, you know the proper the one's who don't sit at the computers but do physical work. In a white lab coat. Washing his car. At his place of work, using a bucket sponge and a hose pipe (to where he attached it I have no clue.)
In a way I believe mum is right. MSSL is not a job, it's a life style. There is four people working in her office. One of them - now this is a he - has an origami calender and pictures of him on quite a few roller coaster. The other -she - has a marble run thingy system on her filling cabinet. So this gives us the statistic: 2 out of 4 scientist haven't left childhood.
No that's unfair but moving on to the more important news. I doubt I'll be able to use the Internet for the next month or so, so there is a chance I'll have some guest speaker on here to do that for me. Have no fear.... I am saying that just to know how many people know that I am on here as I forgot to give this to my class, so the people right now possessing this knowledge are: R, and Westlake, Charlotte (the one who draws the sweet cuboid fluffy things), and two teacher one of which hasn't been at school yet (as far as moi goes).
Other than that I've been having some theories, I'll write the shorter one down now....
To the Truly English people our there...Can you ask the guest at your wedding just to bring money? I mean I know all about the list and all that rot but just cash..money...vouchers? I do have a base on my theory, a family friend is from India and he's marring, around now and he has about 1 000 (that's thousand for those of you who hated maths!) so if every person brang (this doesn't seem to be a word...oh well) 10 pounds that will be 10 000. So do give a answer if you may...
That's for now,
Love
Sasha (or as Becca's Byron called me the other day Sashiiiiiiiiiiiiiii)

On the subject of Getting Ill during English and Having Good Friends

I get the first and have the second.
Yesterday during RE I wasn't feeling too good, but well, thought nothing of it until in English it got much, much worse. I can't describe it really. Pain, yes, but not unbearably so, rather like a goblin took up living in my tummy and inviting his friends over to party. You can't ignore it, it - or rather the goblin - wont let you rest until most of your mind is focused on the pain and the feeling of bile rising up your throat. I wasn't sick - puking on the floor - no but I could feel, the whole disgusting lot of it.
I decided to go the medical room, but lost my nerve closer to my goal, I guess. As I arrived to reception they were just 'releasing' the people from the medical room. I saw very little point in going in if they aren't going to do anything useful. So I ran with the tail between my legs back to behind the art rooms.
It is there that my great, brilliant, one in a hundred, lovable, the best, friends caught and forced me to see reason. While two rushed of to a club, a pair lead me to the medical room, from very soon I was taken to the doctors then home. To A, J, R and P, my greatest thanks and to the others as well who weren't there during the incident but if they were they would have acted the same.

On the subject of Rain and Sitting on Radiators.

While the first today it seems was invertible, the second sweetened my deal greatly. I love rain. One of my favorite childhood memories is to do with rain. It takes place in the summer, during the sweet, tropical, type of rain. I am in an attic on top of an old wooden datcha (summer house). The atmosphere is hot and stuffy, and the air smell of burning herbs. The air sickly sweet. I am sitting on the rough wooden planks that constitute for a floor and am leaning eagerly towards the ill - fitted window. Outside the rain is pouring in steady strings, ignoring the supposedly sunny time. I close my eyes and all my senses turn to sound. The pitta patter noise of strings of droplets hitting the roof intensifies and multiplies in the dust filled room. I take a breath deep enough to choke myself on the stifling air and begin to daydream. My breath evens out to the rhythm of droplets and I am lost.
That's my good memory of the rain. My worst - or one of my worst - memory is not bad in the sense of things nor is it terrifying. It does however appeal to the prideful side of my mischief. It takes place near the same datcha as mentioned before. The detail of my memory are blurry but what I remember is me and a couple of friends (Sashka and Denis) were digging a grave for a bird. I think one of them found it somewhere and we're decided to give it a proper burial. Now we're already made a grave cross - a couple of sticks - and began digging. Now knowing our luck, it wasn't even raining, it was pouring. So there we were, standing behind the bushes of my family's datch, soaked to the bone trying to bury a bird. The there was a flash of lightning with a minisecondal succession of thunder. The rain must have intensifies, as we decided to give up and run. As we neared the door, lighting struck again, at the same time thunder exploded in our ears. Now have you ever been 75 or so meters away where are lightning struck, as it struck? I have. Our ears were ringing but the thunder seemed to go on and on in our heads.
Sashka lives just down the road, it was his neighbours water canister that was struck.
Is it wrong of me to be twistedly proud that I went through that and nearly went deaf?
Having said that, generally I like rain, I like the smell before and the atmosphere after. But to me it seems the best way to enjoy rain is somewhere hot and dry.

On the subject of... Candles

Candles are only romantic when they come with a man and a ring. But even then they are not that romantic. I love the smell of smoke therefore I am easily convinced to burn candles and oils. But only in the case when at any minute I can if -if I wish- to switch on the lights. Not in times of dire need in a power cut, in a shower.