A Day in the Life of Penguins Quack

Both my beloved Zella (Grammatically Motivated) and Scott (Ergo) have written "A Day in the Life of..." articles on their blogs and I have been inspired to write one of my own.

May day's are pretty irregular. Because I broke my leg I've had to postpone Uni and I can't work so most days are spent bludging around the house. Except on Wednesdays and Thursdays I go with my mum to the school she teachers at as a volunteer. So here's a typical Wednesday/Thursday in the life of Penguins Quack.

6:45 - my alarm doesn't go off. I forgot to set it again. Instead I'm woken by mum's alarm going off in her room. Screw it. I'm not getting up.

6:50 - I realise mum will kill me if I don't get up but still can't be motivated to get out of my warm, comfy bed. I turn on my CD player. My theory says the Alkaline Trio will help me get up. For some reason Birds of Tokyo starts to play and I doze off again.

7:10 - Mum charges into my room telling me to get up. I tell her I already am, I just finished rubbing bio-oil on my scars. She leaves and I start rubbing bio-oil on my scars before putting on some jeans and my periodic table T-shirt.

7:15 - I stare into the fridge, then the pantry, then the freezer. I complain that there's nothing to eat for breakfast. I don't eat cereal and we're out of raisin toast. And bread. And milk. In the end I settle for mum's crumpets.

7:45 - Mum comes into the kitchen while I'm still eating and asks if I'm ready to leave. I'm not. I spent half an hour chatting to my brother, O'Malley, instead of getting ready. I run to the bathroom and brush my teeth while also brushing my hair and putting shoes on.

7:50: Mum makes me drive the 20 minute drive out to the small Aboriginal school she works at.

8:10 - We finally arrive. 10 minutes late. We go to the library where mum, the teacher-librarian, turn on the computer and sets up the borrowing system while I read picture books.

8:45 - School starts. All 23 students line up for morning notices and nose-blowing. For some reason we have to teach the kids how to blow their noses, and for some reason I have to participate. The kids then do two laps of the oval. Luke once again manages to get away with only doing half a one.

9:00 - Literacy. I take the slow learners out of the class. We do Look Say Cover Write Check with their spelling, I give them a test and then we do readers. The most boring stories ever written that i must read through about 4 times each day.

11:30-ish (I don't really know the school bell times) - Recess! Ramsey's about ready to thrash me with his reader and Maylan is asleep. The bell rings and the three of us enthusiastically run outside. I eat while chatting to the teachers. Someone asks Mr Nayler to peel their orange.

11:45-ish - Numeracy. I play snakes and ladders with the slow learners. The aim is number identification and counting forwards and backwards from a number. I lose the game, having gotten no closer to 100 that 20 the entire game.

1:15-ish - Lunchtime! At last! Escape! I flee from my horror, pledging never to play snakes and ladders again. Someone asks Mr Nayler to open their can of tuna.

1:45-ish - I have a choice. Take the infants for library with mum, or take the primary class for information tech. with Mr M. (the kids can't pronounce Reece's last name. I can't spell it). I take information tech. because Maylan wants me too. They're writing picture books for the infants class. Maylan and I spend all lesson trying to draw an alien on the un-oriented smart board.

2:30 - Mum returns and we do HSIE (human society in its environment). She's teaching "communities" so everyone has to draw a building in their community. At Natalie and Brianna's request I participate. I draw the doctors surgery. Then Brianna makes me draw a dolphin.

3:00 - Finally school ends and we head straight out to mum's friends place. He has a spa/hot-tub which I use for physio. Even when using it for physio, a spa is super-duper awesome.

4:45 - On the way home mum and I buy something for dinner because there's never any food in the house. When I say buy something for dinner, I mean a BBQ chicken.

5:00 - Finally home and I go straight to the computer. Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, Sparklife, Manga. On good Thursday afternoon's all the Shounen Jump manga's could be out. Otherwise I spend all evening refreshing the One Manga home page.

6:30 - We eat the BBQ chicken. Mum asks O'Malley how his day was and he gives an average answer. Mum and I then go and eat our dinner in front of the TV. O'Malley somehow manages to eat while playing TFC online.

7:00 - O'Malley and I wash up while mum goes for a walk. I then check Facebook and One Manga.

7:30 - after reading all my Shounen Jump I skype my twin brother, the Chairman, who is at a college in Canberra and whine about the latest Bleach to him. We then analyse everything that happened in Naruto to the point that an English teach would be shocked. We have nothing but praise for One Piece. I then complain that Skip Beat hasn't come out for three weeks and the Chairman hangs up on me.

8:30 - On Wednesdays I watch Spicks and Specks religiously, followed by Hungry Beast. On Thursdays I procrastinate until How I Met Your Mother at 9:00.

9:30 - I hope into bed and read and listen to music, at some point remembering to apply my bio-oil. I forget to set my alarm.

10:30 - Lights out. Music off.

11:40 - lights back on. Inspiration for something to write.

12:00 - back to sleep.

What do your day's involve?

Balls of a King

Okay, because Script Frenzy and physio (and maybe a little bit of manga) are all that's on my mind at the moment, and because there's pretty much nothing interesting about physio, I've decided to blog my songs from Xerxmania and have you guys tell me what you think.

So here's the song I mentioned in my previous post, the Balls of a King. This song is sung by Darius on Xerxes wedding day.

It takes balls to be king!
It takes balls to be emperor!
And what proves you have balls
Is how many wives you can tether!

A king with one wife
Goes the way of Macbeth
A sap ground down
And whipped to his death

The ballsy king tames her
Then ropes him a second
It’s a ménage à trois
For the well hung husband

What's better still?
Aim for the forgy
Buckle up three wives
And it gets so much more sexy

(What about four, sire?)
High five to ya, son!

(And another, sire?)
Almost half a dozen!

(And that many, sire?)
A fucking stallion!

Xerxes is on his way!
Now he has another wife at the tether
He has the Balls of a King
The Balls of an Emperor

The balls to tackle Greece!

When they burned Sardis they disturbed my peace
And after Marathon my anger increased
With balls too big for any codpiece
We'll crush them and finally my vengeance will cease

(Yes!)

It takes balls to be king!
(Xerxes has balls!)
It takes balls to be emperor!
(Like your balls, sire!)
And what proves you have balls
(Like a fucking stallion!)
Is how many wives you can tether!

Tell me what you think. Tomorrow I might follow it up with I Won't See You. A love song sung by the second wife.

Twitter and Xerxmania

Just thought I should tell you all that penguins_quack is now on Twitter.
I got sick of suscribing to peoples tweets using RSS feeds.
But now that I think about it penguins_tweet may have been an appropriate play on words for my user name. Oh well. Penguins_quack it is.

~

In other news, Script Frenzy started yesterday and I'm already hating Xerxmania. All because Darius sings a perverted song that starts:

"It takes balls to be king

"It takes balls to be emperor

"And what proves you have balls

"is how many wives you can tether."

~

And it all goes down hill from there.

Musical Tag

After writing that title I wish I could say that this post is about an awsome game of tag that's similar to musical chairs (still trying to figure out how this game would work) but actually, I found a tag over with RandomRawr which I decided I had to do, although I think it could of had a better variety of questions. Here it is:

List 10 artists in no particular order (do it before reading the questions below).
1) Rise Against
2) AFI
3) Coheed and Cambria
4) The Killers
5) Alkaline Trio
6) British India
7) The Amity Affliction
8) Birds of Tokyo
9) A Day to Remember
10) Funeral for a Friend

What was the first song you ever heard by 6?
Run the Red Light

What is your favourite song of 8?
Medicine

What kind of impact has 1 left on your life?
They saved me when I could no longer breathe. They keep me alive.

What is your favourite lyric of 5s?
Sorry I'm late, I was out spoiling my liver.

How many times have you seen 4 live?
Never. Sadness.

What is your favourite song of 7?
Hard. Maybe their cover of Love is a Battlefield. Amazing cover.

Is there any song of 3 that makes you sad?
Not really. Their songs aren't really sad ones. Maybe Neverender, and if you're in the right state of mind maybe Keeping the Blade

What is your favourite song by 9?
Ergh! Hard. You Should Have Killed Me When You Had the Chance or Last Request or… I can't really decide

How did you first get into 2?
My cousin introduced me too them. I was staying at his place for a week and he was struggling to keep me entertained.

How did you first get into 3?
Again, my cousin. He played me one of their songs and them I went out and bought all their albums.

What is your favourite song by 4?
All These Things That I've Done from their first album. Was listening to it yesterday. Pure awesomeness. Or, I suppose, Glamourous Indie Rock and Roll.

How many times have you seen 9 live?
None, I missed them when they were out here last.

What is a good memory concerning 10?
Rocking out to Waterfront Dance Club in a total Risky Business kind of way.

Is there a song by 8 that makes you sad?
Yeah, a lot of it actually. Some of it just has this beautiful, melancholy feel to it.

What is your favourite song of 1's?
Ergh! It's like Sophie's Choice. I love them all. Um… I really love Ready to Fall, Roadside, Everchanging and Anywhere but Here, but I seriously can't decide

How did you become a fan of 10?
A frienemy piling as much music on me as possible. As I shifted through it all Funeral for a Friend just seemed to stand out.

Things That Make Me Happy

1. Foggy mornings
2. Dipping my toes in a pool on a hot day
3. Eating lemonade icy-poles
4. Balloons
5. Daydreaming to music
6. Dancing
7. Sitting on the grass on a sunny day
8. Rain on my face
9. Rollercoaster's
10. Writing something that I know will make people laugh, smile or cry
11. Making pancakes with my brothers
12. Writing at 4am
13. The trees through the mist at that spot down near the river
14. Lying on cement on a rainy day
15. Singing songs I carry inside
16. Pulling my blankets up around my ears on chilly nights
17. Standing on a precipice on a windy day
18. Mooing at cows
19. Running without a reason
20. Playing cards while sitting on the floor
21. Doing shots of straight cordial
22. Losing myself in a book
23. Getting stuck in the moment
24. Knowing I'm loved
25. Making someone else's day
26. Looking out windows
27. Make-believe
28. Glow-in-the-dark stars
29. Swings
30. Old doorbells that no longer work
31. Swinging on hills-hoist clotheslines
32. Jumping waves at the beach
33. Jellybeans
34. Hugging my teddy bear close to my chest
35. Wearing dresses
36. Accidently using Japanese suffixes because I read too much manga
37. Answering the phone with ahoy hoy
38. Fancy dress
39. Driving with friends
40. Friday night burger and LAN
41. Completing a picture and feeling like an artist
42. Someone telling me I have talent
43. Looking through photographs
44. Reading old diaries
45. Rain that lasts for days and days
46. Walking without crutches
47. Talking with little kids
48. Rocking out
49. Letting myself go
50. Un-awkward silences

Harmony Day

Harmony day was last week which is about dealing with culture, race and religious tolerance. So for Harmony day the Aboriginal school I volunteer at went on an excursion to another small school a long with the school for students with disabilities.

Unfortunately, even during Harmony day, people can be racist. I have never thought less of people of different race or considered them differently, and I am fascinated by different cultures so it shocks me when even young children make racist comments. I guess they must have been brought up with different attitudes than I was, but even so, I don't really understand why this thing goes on.

No that the disrest was one-sided. Kajika did get punched for making a comment that he was not willing to repeat.

Despite this, the day was great fun. Our school put on a performance of Aboriginal dances, there was a dance and a sausage sizzle. Highlights of the day for me included:

• Dressing up with the kids for their performance.
• Tangoing with Casey, the too-cool-for-school student
• Freaking Luke out by trying to get him to dance with me.
• Dancing while on crutches.
• Telling Jahnali she could only eat the watermelon she had been told not to eat if no one saw her take it (there's no way I can be a teacher. I'm too mischievous when around little kids).
• Ramsey, one of the kids who is always getting into trouble, saying "yeah I'm black, and I'm proud of it" to a kid after a racist comment.
• Arguing with Casey over horror movie cliches
• The look on Uriah's face after my mum (who is a teacher at the school) said that the 11-year-old she was dancing with from the other school was her boyfriend
• Hannah.

The major downside, besides Kajika (isn't that an awesome name) getting punched, was discovering that orange face paint does not come off easily.

100 and a Disco

Yay! My 100th post!

Time for a little 100th post party. Help yourself to the cupcakes. Sorry about all the confetti, it got a little wild for a moment there.

Anyway, on to what I was actually going to talk about (there's fairy bread, too, by the way. Just over there, behind the party pies. Yep, that's right. All sorted?).

Don't you love dances? Or, as they're still known in our backwards town, discos?

(Me: Didn't discos go extincted after the 70's?
Town elder: What! We're out of the 70's! Quick notify Mr.
Sheridan!
Me: Wasn't he like a town founder or something? Either way, he's
dead.
Town elder: Oh my! The town can't cope with such dramatic
change!)

Well, we have Youth Week coming up in April; a nation wide celebration of the youth of the community (that's me, by the way.) And so, as per town tradition, there's going to be a disco!

Of course, the Youth Council, a committee without any power run by the youth of the community, are running Youth Week and trying to organise some other activities (Movie night, LAN Gaming comp. and laser tag!!), but they're just to radical for the Town Elders that run the local council. The disco on the other hand, is something we know.

Unfortunately, I missed the meeting when the disco theme was decided upon. So I'm afraid it's going to be a rather unfortunate disco. The disco theme:

Twilight and Avartar

So... Um...

Well I have a choice of covering myself in body glitter or painting myself blue. This is a hard decision.

So. I can either look like a smurf or Lady Gaga...

This will take some thought.

Screw it. I'm dressing up as Russel from Up.

My brother's old Scout uniform, a sash and a zillion badges. Easy. Of course, Batman, James Bond, Ghostbusters and Darleks may not exactly be Wilderness Explorer badges, but they'll do. As will badges saying Sarcasm Society: like we need your support, my imaginary friend could beat up your imaginary friend and this is not a badge.

So I guess that's the disco taken care of. Sort of... The rest of Youth Week seems like it's going to be gnarly, so bring on April!

And that's all folks. Feel free to take a slice of cake for the road. Don't forget your little goodybag.

P.s. While writing this a had to go answer the phone and on my way back I forgot one of my crutches. No an easy thing to do. Just thought I'd tell you that.

2020

I was tagged by Scott over at Ergo (or Epic Ergo as I like to call it) and I'm supposed to predict where I'm going to be in 10 years time and tag 10 people. So here we go:

• In 2020 Australia will finally be achieving everything its aiming for (yeah right) like the 2020 Summit stuff and whatever Defence 2020 is on about. So I'm assuming we will be living in some kind of magical world.
• In this world I will have become the Cultural Vigilante, a misterious masked individual who is returning all artifacts back to their rightful countries (lets see the marbles back in Greece and the mummies back in Egypt!).
• This will have gotten me arrested and unmasked. My trial would be very controvertial as the British would probably hate me but the Italians, Greeks and Egyptian would worship me. But luckily the magistrate judging my case has an Italian grandmother who had seen a family heirloom (looted in WWII) returned thanks to me. I get released but banned from museums around the world.
• This spirals me into depression and I begin teaching Australia history to highschool students.
• This makes my depression worse and I get hooked on wizzfizz (now known to be a deadly drug).
• My family refer me to a clinic and I eventually get clean. Emerging from this I see myself on an E special showing a superheros downward spiral to drugs and addiction.
• I relapse.
• One day the magistrates grandmother visits me while I'm in the clinic. She thanks me and her gratitude is enough to get me back on the right track.
• Eventually the grandmother sets me up with the magistrate and we get married. This causes a lot of controversy but my case doesn't go back to trial.
• E does another story on me.
• I go back to work at the highschool but instead teach senior history and get to stay away from that horrible Australian stuff.
• After a very eventful year, life is pretty good.

I don't know 10 people, but I tag:

Lucy @ Amusing Seth

The Public Donut @ MyBlog

O'Malley @ The Battle of Yonkers

Laura @ Zoidburgtales

Aliases

Okay, so I just had a friend begin writing a blog and in his About Me information he has listed some of his various aliases. So after reading this I thought I'd share some of my various aliases with you guys.

Gaming Names:

I do a bit of LAN gaming with my brothers and their friends and every gamer knows that you need an epic gaming name. I have a few (they change with each game):

• Spawn Camper
• Sasuke's Lovechild
• The Abyssal One
• Harley Quinn

Superhero Names:

I admit, I'm a little superhero obsessed so I have a couple of superhero aliases:

• Grammar Girl
• Laurizzle
• The Cultural Vigilante

Nicknames:

I didn't realise I had any nicknames until I began thinking about it here:

• Lozzle
• Losenger
• The Crazy Scary Lady
• Scarecrow

Alter-Egos:

My brothers and I all have alter-egos we introduce ourselves as when we don't think we're ever going to see those people again.

• Hi, I'm Risa Hawkeye.

I also occasionally introduce myself as Harley Quinn.

Internet Names:

• Penguins_Quack

I've been Penguins_Quack for so long I can no longer remember what my LastFM username was.

So what are you also known as?

Xerxmania

So it's March and, because I have nothing else to do, that means planning my Script Frenzy for April. Do you remember me telling you about National Novel Writers Month back in November? Yeah, well similar thing, but you write a script.

30 days. 100 pages. April. Are you in?

Well, I'll be writing the script to Xerxmania: Xerxes the Musical, it's the play my Ancient history class planned while procrastinating instead of studying.

Xerxmania is the untold story of Xerxes second wife who petitions for divorce because she's not his favourite wife. The play was based of the idea that only the king's mother and favourite wife could sit at his table.
Anyways, here's me encouraging you to get involved in Script Frenzy this year. Now I'm going to run (well the crutch-using equivalent) off and procrastinate elsewhere.