High School Muse: Hannah on her 18th birthday

I AM 18!!!! I can now do all those things I talked about in my last blog! I still can't get over the fact that I'm technically an adult; a small part of me was really nervous on Saturday when the barman at The Feathers in Chalfont St Giles checked my ID even though it was real. Nonetheless, I had such a good evening with my odd arrangement of friends - many of them decided to royally embarrass me by hijacking the karaoke but I saved my dignity from that particular horror and danced along when no one was looking instead.

Best Birthday yet. And I think I may announce that if anyone wants to hire a cake maker for any occasion, one of my best friends Georgie Barwick has blown us away time and time again with her culinary skills even if she does have a slight addiction to crazy food colouring.

But sadly now that's all over, I merely have a cold to remind me of the experience. Strangely enough when a large number of teenagers are making a fair amount of noise at four in the morning the wrath of my Mother-on-High will inevitably descend on them and lock them out of the house; hence I spent the rest of the night camping in my garden with wet feet and a meagre corner of a sleeping bag! Still, I think it was worth it.

So apart from that I have reluctantly now settled in to the old mould of school life, though admittedly this time with a few changes. I am now one of the oldest students in the school to start with, a scary enough fact in itself, and that means that the revered common room is now the temporary property of my year to decorate with fairy lights, embarrassing photographs, used mugs and a bonsai tree in the sink.

There are some drawbacks, namely Personal Statements that are intended to make you look like the best thing since sliced bread (but not at all arrogant) for University Applications, however I have mercifully put off UCAS for another year due to my genius decision to take an Art Foundation Course next September. Another change is the addition of 'Curriculum Days' which I suspect was another one of Miss Preistley's crazy ideas (our wonderfully insane PE teacher who likes to think she is Australian) that was taken seriously; a day of sixth form tug-of-war, catch-the-egg, and bury-your-wet-face-in-flour-to-get-the-sweet and all in the name of sport! And despite the scandalous amount of cheating going on by one particular nameless house *cough* Rowan *cough* in the tug-of-war I had a surprisingly good time considering the hatred I have always felt for every type of strenuous activity ever invented.

But seeing as I am desperate for a really hot mug of Lemsip right now I think I must sadly say adieu to you all and leave you with a picture of my unstoppable Head Teacher coming towards me yesterday enthusiastically yelling 'The blog Hannah! Include our Open Evening in the blog! It'll be thrilling!' So there you have it, we have an Open Evening on Wednesday the 7th of October so please join us for fun times and jubilations! Mmmm, Lemsip.