Burn, baby, burn!

Hello there my dears. Haven't said anything all week. How very odd.

Well on Sunday I had my first Corps show as Drum Major. Well, it wasn't much of a show. It took hardly any time at all and I did nothing but stand there. Will and Weeman's bugling was good though, the best bit being where they both made the same mistake at the same time, making it impossible to tell that anything had got wrong (unless you knew the tune, which, let's face it, no one did).

Then on Monday there was a French language conferencey type thing in Potter's Bar. That was better than I thought it'd be actually. There were some very boring exercises that I liked, because I'm a weirdo. And they were those kinda exercises where you don't really have to do anything for them... Oh, I dunno. I can't justify my enjoyment, I'm just silly.

The next day was a very long one. I went to Auschwitz on Tuesday, leaving my house at 3:30 a.m. and getting back to my house at about 12:33 a.m. on Wednesday. I'm glad I went, but it wasn't exactly what you'd call 'fun'. I met lots of cool people, but there was also the fact that it was really sad and everything you'd expect Auschwitz to be. Very different from just being told stuff. It's something I reckon everyone should do at least once, because I think that racism and intolerance are really bad and that there's a danger of them getting worse, and I don't think that people should forget the Holocaust, because (maybe I'm too pessimistic) I think it could be repeated too easily.

Wednesday... I slept till about 10, then got ready and went to school in time for about 15 minutes of art and then a rehearsal for the 'John Rutter Concert' (not its real name) at Chelmsford Cathedral. I enjoyed it, except for the fact that John Rutter told me off! I came in two bars early and he said something along the lines of:

"That was lovely, but it was two bars early. I can stop you coming in late but I can't stop you coming in early. Don't do that again please."

...which made me a bit sad. But there you go... It made me scared enough to get it right in the concert itself. Before that though I went into town with Rosie and we had a nice little heart-to-heart before seeing Abbie Connor and talking to her for a while. That was an interesting conversation! But I enjoyed it. Yeah, then the concert, which went well, and I got John Rutter's autograph. He made the old Maxwell's Silver Hammer joke (never heard that one before) but didn't say anything about earlier. He was obviously thinking it though.

Thursday. Just a normal day at school. I saw Raz before going to choir, which was nice. Then I went to Subway with Sam and Rosie, then we met Sarah Cripps and we also saw Will and Sarah Orr, Charles and Olie. Olie stayed with us for a bit before we all went back to school. Orchestra was alright. Half of it was taken up with sectional rehearsals, which is fun if you're a percussionist. So I did my German homework. Wow I have a fun life. Anyway when I got home I saw that the camera I'd ordered had arrived! Yay! Nikon D40X. But I didn't have time to use it yet...

Friday, normal day, but fun. Corps after school then a music quiz in aid of a leukaemia charity of some sort. Our team, Toby, Lara, Bob, Harvey and Rob ('School of Rock') did pretty well in my opinion. We came 13th out of 21, which wasn't that good, but we weren't last by a long way and we beat a lot of teams who were actually alive when the music was around. And we beat the A2 music class, so woop. Yeah I really enjoyed that, and I managed to get one question that no one else in the room seemed to, so I was pleased.

Today I've just mucked around - done a bit of maths and art, but mainly experimented with my new camera which is cool. We also watched Harry Hill's TV Burp, which we watch as a family every Saturday cos it's one of the funniest TV programmes I've ever seen, which I think is good considering it's aimed at families. I like other, post-watershed comedy programmes, but not as much.

Anyway... I'm off to Paris on Monday for a four-day art trip :-) which means I'll be abroad on my birthday for the first time in history!!!!! But almost definitely not the last. It should be really good, and then maybe I'll have some presents and driving lessons to come back to! Hehe...

A bientôt!