The Budding Roses

En Francais

Wednesday 3rd September

School has reconvened which means I have now officially entered Year 11. The horizon of my future looms closer. The pressure is on as it's less than a year until we take our GCSE's, and then that's it, I have to decide what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

Will I just wake up one morning, et voila, I now know that it's my life's purpose to pursue a career as a teacher, a lawyer or some other insipid, mind numbing existence? Or will this epiphany lead me to realise that "whoa Maths isn't totally boring and useless after all", and all I desire to dream from this point forward is how much I want to be...an accountant? I really need to get top grades if I'm ever going to reach such dizzy credentials, otherwise Mother will be right and I'll end up working in a factory forever. But compared with counting numbers all day long I really don't to see how that can be so bad?

Making the gloomy mix of end of summer depression / impending future doom murkier still, is that the school in their wisdom has decided to enforce upon our still malleable minds the worst of our societies draconian class structure, meaning that I'm now imprisoned around the clock with only the other swots for company. But at least someone is pleased,

'She's studying for her GCSE's you know, and she's in the top set,' Mother announces to anyone who will listen, like I've just passed some sort of prestigious entrance exam. Doesn't she realise that everyone else's offspring are also studying for their GCSE's, because that's the standard objective of attending school in the first place?

But for me the dread only increases, and rather than spending the finest years of my life listening to Flora Sidebottom shout obscenities, I now have to endure a constant stream of correct answers being spewed from the self righteous mouths of Liam Payne and Eleanor Baxter. Add to this the moronic noise of Harry Styles, and it's going to be a tediously protracted unnecessary year. Which raises the question, how has Harry even managed to get into the top set since he's such a dunce? Bribery must have featured heavily in such obscure decision making, otherwise he'd be in his rightful place, right down at the pit of the bottom class.

Whilst I'm naturally mortified, Natasha's dreams have come true, and further to last week's motion picture disaster her love for both Liam and Harry has only strengthened.

'Gosh, don't you think he's so clever? Gosh, don't you think he's so cute?' Blah, blah, blah...It's all way too grotesque, and I'm forever struggling to keep up with which of the two losers she's talking about. All I know is that they're both wretchedly boring. Worse still is something which I hadn't foreseen; Natasha is in awe of super swot Eleanor Baxter,

'I know Miss. Me Miss.' I can picture them already, giggling together, whilst I sit quietly in the corner, forever beaten in to submission, and all the time the teachers will look at me concerned, saying things like,

'Why are you so quiet Simone? Why don't you ever speak? Is something the matter?' Isn't it obvious that silence is easier?

Saturday 18th October

I've been sat on this wretchedly rickety old bus for nearly six hours but can you believe that we're only half way there? If we don't stop soon then I'm certain to vomit onto the already present sick stain which was staring at me from the back of the seat in front.

'Please don't make me go.' I had begged Mother as she waved me off on my journey to the European continent; a requirement of Year 11's Language Exchange Programme. 'I can't bear to be away from you for an entire week.'

'Don't be silly Simone. You're a big girl now, and if you learn your verbs it will take you anywhere in life.' Anywhere, are you really sure of that Mother? I beg to differ, but I suspect that learning my verbs will take me to France and that's about it, and right now I'm not too sure that I want to go there, especially not with this bus load of monkeys.