The time has come (the walrus said) for me to stop blogging for a long while. Justablog (or Justakiwiqueen) has been here for a year and a few months, and has born witness to many interesting developments. It will be updated no longer. The archives, however, will remain here and intact, but only at kiwiqueen.twoday.net, and not at kiwiqueen.co.uk, which surely must expire soon.

So...

I turned sixteen with this blog. And then seventeen.


This blog was there when I panicked and procrastinated before, during but not after the GCSE exams.


Justablog saw countless family fandangos, reported in such a way that bad things were made to look better, and even sometimes amusing. Which helped.



This blog GAVE BIRTH TO the Kiwi/CoffeeBean Package of Awesomeness! I remember her first comment. She promised to stalk me forever. Which she is still doing, only now it may have to be in letter form. We shall be friends forever. (Read: we shall internet stalk each other forever. And occassionally stowaway in plane luggage compartments to see each other when webcams don't do the trick.) This blog documented the first Meeting of Minds. And the second. Finally the third.


Leaving school...

...and starting college.



In October, I started to get to know Jules. I read her blog for a long time before we first talked. Which I found in a roundabout way through both RandomShapes and Joe. We had an amusing conversation about the headless quack. Countless other such conversations followed (about laminatability, our shared dream of hermitude with a goat, our mutual loathing/fear of McDonalds...)

Look - there is your picture. Cyberspace has not yet exploded, and it has been up for at least half an hour! Nevertheless pleasedon'tkillme.






My NaNo toil, an eskimo rant (or two), break-ups, and another one. Justablog was around when I wanted to spontaneously combust. Which I wanted to do for a very long time, on and off.


It told of silly customers I was forced to wait on.


Dodo the budgie had several moments of fame...


...as did my favourite books.





It was there when (was in fact the reason that) I was in a book. And when I joined Random Shapes. Where I met Joe, who first read my online rambles, went on to watching (and laughing at) my real, 3D-self tying herself in verbal knots, and now listens in amusement to my half-finished sentences over the telephone.







It brieftly documented the first drunken girly evening, and thereafter hunkered in the background sulking when I stayed in bed instead of writing after other parties. It watched on in silent approval as I became closer to a few friends, and made buckets more of others.





Perhaps the most memorable thing that happened because of Justablog was Norway. And then London.The links say it all.

There is much more, of course, but the night is old and anyway, it wouldn't do to bore you.



I will be back in the New Year sometime, in a different form, with a different blog. Skulking behind 'Kiwiqueen' (which began as an injoke between Matt and myself back in the day) is over.

If anything interesting happens, it'll be noted down in Moleskine form, to crop up next year.

I can be emailed at kiwiqueen.1234@gmail.com. Yes, you may laugh at the irony.

Bye bye people!

(A few final wise words...)

*sniff*

She's like a mother, Steph said of another friend yesterday.

When she found out I was with him again, she nodded and wasn't too angry. She said 'just make sure he treats you right'.

... And then she rang him up and said 'you have to respect her this time. R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to Steph.' You know...sort of sung it.

We cringed and laughed.

Bless her cotton socks.

I won't be doing blogathon tomorrow. Again, I am working as I have been for the last few days, and it is not possible for me to function for two and a half days after seven hours work AND only one night's sleep (especially as sleep does not come easy at the moment. Rather like pulling teeth with garden shears.)

I will, however, be cheerleading Elisabeth, who will be performing the astounding task of being at a party AND blogging every half an hour. Drop by. She will provide you with amusement. She will possibly be doing her series of 'funny words', which had me in hysterics last year. If you're lucky, there might be the occassional tipsy post. Bekka's blog will also be worth stopping by at tomorrow!

*dances around the box set*

*glances at the picture on the back cover - a gathering of main characters*

*more dancing*

*realises Nate is not there and the others are dressed in black and look sad*

*gathers this means Nate dies in this series. Staggers with anger at having it spoilt, and a little grief for a fictional character*

*stops dancing*

*gets over it already. dancing continues*

*opens box set. is FORCED to glance at the paper inlay on which Brenda is wearing a wedding dress.*

*curses EVIL PEOPLE who draw the pictures. Mental plan for letter to draw-ers comparing the pictures to internet Harry Potter spoiler is drawn up. Resolves never to dance again.*

*breaks resolve as the title music plays, and a little tree sprouts magically from the ground*

NO NO NO.

No.

Nononononono.


HELP.

He! Did! Not! Did!

(Not!)

That was the perfect ending, quite possibly. I admit a tear of happiness came to my eye (the left) when 'mouldy voldy' lay there on the ground, dead. And then more tears of happiness (from the right) when Dumbledore cried (tears of happiness from BOTH of his portrait eyes).

Ahaha, and they have CHILDREN!!


(On a totally unrelated note, if the weather stays like this until the sun goes down tonight, this will be the SECOND day of sun in almost two months.)

I have already had enough of the holidays.

Five people trapped in one (relatively small) house, miserably watching the rain cascading down the windows and getting in between each other and the crunchy rolls in the breadbin DOES NOT WORK.

It has got to the point where I am taking large gulps of air and counting to ten very slowly with my eyes closed and my fists clenched when one of them does as much as breathe too loud or stand too close. The ten minute struggle my sister and father had to insert a new film into her new-ish camera was particularly gruelling. Whilst they made impossibly loud and infuriating clacking noises with the camera and snapped far too often 'it does not work, let ME do it!', Mami and I stood in the kitchen baring our teeth.

Don't let's get started on the stealing of clothes or iPod headphones, all the more frequent grievances since my siblings have finished school.

I escaped to my second home (a.k.a. Judith's house), where I was relatively safe and happy learning how to play monopoly with her younger brother and sister, when in came her father, who grabbed my copy of Harry Potter The Very Last. I don't dare to leave it in the house for fear of stealage or plot-spoilage.

What's this?? he cackled joyfully, Can it be...? He picked it up and flipped to the last page. From my sitting on the floor position, I crawled over speedily (almost as if made to be like that, moving on all fours) with my little silver top hat clenched in one hand, colliding with a wet dog on the way, and grabbed his wrists. Judith's father's, and not the dog's.

NO. I told him very firmly. He scanned the page. No!! I shouted at him as his lips began forming a word from the page. I sort of knelt there before him in a pleading, frantic way, and eventually he took pity on me.

How old are you? he asked, and laughed for a long time. And anyway, I was only trying to read you the last sentence. He looked all innocent-like. If that had been my father, I would have thrown something at him.

See? I am safe nowhere.

(...in acknowledgement of, rather than in answer to, your unanswered blog letter, as I re-read it after writing this,)

Hurry up and finish having time off. Today I semi-planned how I would next see you. My ideas got more and more outlandish, until it went something along the lines of 'stowaway in the suitcase of my mother's colleague, who happens to be going to Bergen for a few days in September as part of the Bergen-Keele Uni link. Track down The Bean. Go to swimming pool soley to drink the amazing coffee from the amazing machine which looks not unlike Marvin the depressed 'bot.'

I want to discuss Harry Potter theories with you whilst reading the book. It could be a bit like that 'conversation' Harry and Sally have, when both are watching Casablanca and neither are talking. Only over Skype. And we could do gasping-in-unison when people die. Or perhaps even crying-in-unison. If Rowling is lucky.

Also you have to come and convince me to partake in the 'thon madness. I know I won't bring myself to do it after seven hours of work if you're not there to convince my inner-sensibleness it is wrong, and to cheerlead. Only yesterday I was thinking '24 hours is a long time to do anything at all, even sleep. It'll seem even longer if all I'm doing is sitting at my screen drinking coffee and panicking.'

Blub,

Kiwi xxoxoxoxoxoxox

P.S. I am looking at the coffee-sun-laughing photo, and you have a strange tuft of hair which stands at exactly 90 degrees from the rest of your hair. It is almost like a cute, hairy extension of your forehead. Is it still alive? Send it my regards.

P.P.S You know how the mafia send people fish through the mail? I am seriously considering sending you one of the three babies from my family of Venetian glass penguins. See how desperate I am?


:D

I promised for there to be no more flurries of exclamation marks, so there won't be.

Twenty minutes and then Harry Potter The Very Last comes out. I feel bad being excited. I tend to stay away from hype. I guess chair dancing and stalking JK Rowling via her website is a very mild form of excitement in comparison to camping outside Waterstones for three nights. Now that is silly. And dangerous. Especially in this weather. I saw a photo earlier of a girl sitting inside a plastic shell thing, brandishing a torch in the one hand, and Harry Potter the Penultimate in the other. I saw no breathing holes in the plastic shell. And there was rain.

So I am not queuing up. I will, however, be at Morrisons not long after 8am. My aim is to read it before anyone has the chance to ruin the ending for me. Having to work tomorrow ruins this a bit, unless my customers are very understanding about me having my head in the book whilst serving them. My hope is that the town will be dead, because the vast majority of the Newcastle-under-Lyme population will be ensconsed in their homes. Reading.

I wonder how it feels to be the author of a series of books causing environmental concerns with regards to excessive paper usage.

That little orange box, which has been saying for at least a week now that I'll be doing Blogathon?

It lies.

The 28th is a Saturday.

On Saturday I am working.

Therefore no Blogathon.

:(

(I did for a moment contemplate leaving the orange box up there. It makes everything more colourful. But it lies. So it's coming down.)

Another very bad thing?

The rain. It rains. And it rains. And there is occassional thunder. And then we have a gorgeous day like yesterday, where we have picnics and sunburning going on, and sitting with legs slung over rooftiles with a book, and dinner in the garden, and then it's all TAKEN AWAY AGAIN with more rain and more greyness. I'm sorry, but if that's not depressing, I don't know what is. Only ONE nice day in about seven weeks!

ARGH.

Update:

Blogathon may be salvagable. It may mean starting at 5AM instead of 3PM. Which means I can go to work AND stay up for 24 hours. I said to Mami, it's crazy, isn't it? And she nodded and seemed relieved that I'd been the first to say it.

I am so incensed that I only just restrained myself from starting this post with a flurry of utterly incensed exclamation marks.

£17.99 for a BOOK? What?! Why???? I. Have. No. Words. to put across how shocking it is that we will have to pay what is for me the equivalent of four and a half VERY painful, VERY boring and VERY MUCH dreaded for the rest of the week hours of standing and smiling at people and running up and down a flight of disgraceful, lethal obstacle course-esque stairs. Which leaves me exactly one and a half hours of pay to live on for the rest of week.

And what about all those poor kids who are not old enough to stand painfully and smile at people, or perhaps even to tip accidentally red wine over a posh person's £223 beige leather skirt (deceptively known in the trade as 'waiting on', for which one gets paid around £4.35 an hour, ish, if you are under 18)? Hmmm?

Imagine their little faces when they get to Waterstones and realise that despite having saved up for TWO WHOLE STUPID YEARS since the last one came out, they STILL don't have enough! Imagine the ... heartbreak. And the temper tantrums. Imagine the debt parents of big families will be driven into when each of their 7-child clan wants one NOW, or risk seven little people jumping up and down on the spot in a public place screaming their little red faces off. Perhaps even rolling around spectacularly before large displays featuring the be-spectacled Daniel Radcliff looking out mockingly with an owl perched on his little finger, knowing he could afford tens of thousands of the aforementioned ridiculously over-priced book if he wanted them.

We'll be paying three pence per page for this seventh book. Will each page be worth that much? It'd better be very very small (yet new and exciting) font. There'd better be a lot going on, per page. I imagine there will many, many disillusioned readers reaching the end of a page full of waffle and thinking 'That's three one penny sweets I could have had there. I think reading this book will be like drinking a glass of the most expensive wine there is out there.

"Come on," you will say, sniffing the wine delicately to put off the drinking "this is wine from a bunch of Holy grapes, pressed by the feet of monks from the year 129 BC. This HAS to be the best glass of wine I've ever tasted. I have to MAKE it the best glass. Oh god, SMILE and bear it and ignore the sour-grape taste. For God's sake, no-one must ever know this wine is corked!" That's what it will be like, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We will all be so conscious of how much we've paid, that there will be a humungous effort put in to extrapulate the equivalent to the money in enjoyment levels. And no-one has much fun when they're forcing themselves.

I am contemplating not buying it until it comes out in paperback, although I know it is impossible for the world to keep quiet about the ending for much longer than all of the two hours it will take the speed-readers to get through the doorwedge of a book, perhaps even for the thirty seconds it will take some killjoy to flick to the last page.

On the other hand, I might just go to Asda.

!!!!!!

Dear five-year-old-nephew-of-a-friend,

When your aunt and I jokingly told you not to go breaking hearts when you're older, I did not expect you to say that you already had. Five is the wrong age to start! And when you told me you want to make girls bleed, I'm afraid you had me there. I think my backing away from you was quite justifiable. This came after I bought you a cookie, and that's how you show your appreciation?!

It had no comical effect on me, how you said 'r' instead of 'l' - I want to make girls breed. Your aunt may have laughed, but I know what your game is.

I'm staying away from you.

Kiwi

Today I attended a French lesson at the school-with-attached-sixth-form-centre (a.k.a. The Torture Centre Which Requires Two Whole Extra Weeks Of Study).

I hadn't been for a while. I didn't take paper, or even a pen, as I rightly assumed that our very pregnant teacher would prefer to sit and a) talk to us about how many times a day she pees as a pregnant woman compared to how many times she peed before she became a pregnant woman or b) sleep whilst the rest of us watch a film. The rest of us being four. Numbers have dwindled drastically since last September. She has chased away half the lads we had in the class with all her talk of peeing. Half being exactly one.

So we watched Ma Vie En Rose. For a long time I was very very confused. I thought to myself no no no, this is not Édith Piaf, where is the Parisienne wailing, or maybe it is her, at seven, being a boy but wanting to be a girl... After half an hour, someone put me out of my misery and nudged me, whispered C'est LA Vie En Rose, pas MA Vie...

Only not in French, because it's not that sort of French class.

I loitered suspiciously around the Sixth Form Common Room for a while afterwards, to postpone returning to the drudgery of having nothing to do at home. I pilfered maltesers from poor, unsuspecting randoms, and gloomily thought to myself that there is something very wrong with the world.

The Torture Centre Which Requires Two Whole Extra Weeks Of Study today charged every student who had bothered to turn up £1 for wearing their own clothes. And a green item of clothing, to please the geography buffs, who called it Save The World By Wearing Something Green Day. Or something.

Around me shimmered the most horrendous spectacle. Two Orange Tangerine Things (I assume they were girls) minced around. Wearing horrible green things. The Orange Tangerine Things had no natural hair left on their bodies. Everything was either frizzled to a bleach-blonde, stringy crisp, lasered into non-existence, or plucked into nothingness. There was nothing natural there. They looked around forty-five, both of them, which cannot be, as The Torture Centre Which Requires Two Whole Extra Weeks Of Study does not educate those over 18. And they minced. In an orange, breathy way.

Fuuuuuckeen ellll, one pronounced into the air in a voice resembling closely that of a 90 year old chain smoking man from Stoke. The lid of her lipgloss stuck fast. I am not joking.

The horrendous thing was that they were SURROUNDED by Orange Tangerine Thing worshippers. Who simpered around them and unscrewed the lipgloss lid. Who clung onto their every monosyllabic word, and traipsed around after them, tripping over green shawl things.

What is the world coming to, when Orange Tangerine Things are more popular than a real person, with a real personality, who is capable of a real conversation? Someone who has real skin and real hair? Someone with real feet, and not pointy plastic ones moulded into pointy Barbie heels?

At this point I became so depressed with the state of things that I escaped and went home to face the drudgery of having nothing to do.