Sleeping With Wet Hair

As much as that title might seem like some sort of creepy euphemism, its not.

Surely you've heard from your mum/ nan/ some random old lady (or man, but I've really only ever heard this from women) that you should never go to bed with wet hair because it will give you a cold. I can tell you now that IT IS AN UTTER LIE. Unfortunately, the results can prove to be far worse.

First off, the common cold is caused by a rhinovirus infection, NOT FROM BEING COLD. Being cold can deplete your immune system, hence making it easier for rhinovirus to take over, but it wont actually be the cause of your cold. I do have a point with this. Keep reading.

This is the rhinovirus

This week from Monday through to today, I've had my end of year Year 10 exams. They're not super, super important like Year 12 ones, but they're still pretty important and quite a pain in the ass to do. My week (beginning on Saturday of last week) was supposed to go like this:

Saturday: Go to friend's place and have a study sesh with her and 2 others. Do book learnin' real good

Sunday: Study on own at home. Clean up the house. Go to band practice. Bring my keyboard home from studio because friend who owns the studio is going to Europe for 2 months. Get exam materials ready. Go to sleep at 10.30 at latest for once in my life

Monday: Wake up at 7ish. Prepare for school. Go to school, do awesomely in my first 3 exams (Being English, Advanced Maths and RE). Walk home with most of the contents of my locker. Study a bit. Sort out some of this years school books. Be a ninja at training. Come home and study for Tuesday's exams. Do piano practice. Shower and de-grossify. Go to sleep at a reasonable hour again.

Tuesday: Wake up at 7ish again. Prepare for school. Go to school, do awesomely in French exam. Read Divergent during free exam period that I'm forced to sit in the exam room for. Do awesomely in Physics exam. Walk home with another load of what was in my locker. Sort more books. Maybe do some more music. Go to sleep at a reasonable hour yet again.

Wednesday (today): Wake up at 7ish again once more FOR THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL FOR THE YEAR!!! Go to school, do awesomely in my last exam; that being History - Contemporary Society. Celebrate finishing by going to the second dodgiest part of town to Waterworld where we were likely to get raped. [Also, here's an interesting fact: Waterworld (the one where we were going) has been shut numerous times because of people getting their legs sliced by razors blades purposefully embedded into the water slide.]). Walk home with remaining contents of my locker. Sort final books and such. Do piano practice + theory homework. Go to piano lesson. Come home and fully celebrate the end of the year by eating lots, watching TV and staying up till around 3am on pinterest and youtube.

That's all I've had planned specifically for the week. Anyway, coming back to my original point, here's how my week actually went:

Saturday: Went to friend's place and had a study sesh with her and 2 others. We did book learnin' real good and it actually did help me on my exams

Sunday: Attempted to study at own home. Hated everything. Spoke to previously mentioned friend on fb. Hastily cleaned noticeable parts of house. Rode bike to her house. Had band practice cancelled because friend and I were too busy studying (surprisingly true) and studio owning friend had to finish packing. Didn't manage to retrieve keyboard. Spoke on phone to study friend till sometime around 11.30pm until she could hear I was getting delirious and forced me to go to sleep.

**Something you should know at this point in the story is last year I got tonsillitis and glandular fever pretty badly and was off school for a total of a bit over 2 weeks, although if it wasn't holidays, it would've been round 3 weeks or more. Since then, whenever I get over-tired, my tonsils flare up and are like "If you don't sleep well for one more night, it's tonsillitis again for you, bitch."

Monday: Woke up around 7ish. Prepared for school. Freaked the hell out trying to find exam materials that worked. Went to school, did (probably) quite well in my English exam. Fucked up my Advanced Maths exam whilst wondering how the hell I ever got into that class (can't wait till next year when I'm dropping down a level). Did awesomely in my RE exam because it's complete bullshit about ethics and good old fashioned values on which we used to rely. Walked home with quite a few school books. Didn't study. Sorted out some books and longed to burn them. Had self esteem crushed by coaches at training through an overly patronising talk. Didn't help that I was generally pissed at the world anyway. Came home and still didn't study. Didn't do piano practice. Decided to have a bath because I couldn't care less about my hair at that point. Held my head underwater for I have no idea how long for. Too angsty to dry myself. Stood naked staring at myself until I got freezing. Got dressed. Chucked on a towel turban and threw a towel over my pillow. Tried to sleep.

This is still part of Monday/ Tuesday. Do you know the sort of dream where you're actually still awake and partly hallucinating, then 'fall' and regain full consciousness and a heart attack? Well this is the horrific recurring state I was in all night. I didn't sleep at all the entire night. On top of this, I was freezing cold, then boiling hot and so on, as well as constantly sweating and being dehydrated. This was far from pleasant. Upon getting up at about 6am because I felt it was reasonable enough, I attempted to have a shower but ended up sitting on the edge of the bath uncontrollably dry reaching, sweating, falling over, not being able to see, being dizzy, having the worst headache I've ever had, being insanely hot, and shaking. In this awful state I managed to get my mum to come assist me, and from this, she prohibited me from going to school which is entirely understandable. I was a bit annoyed at not being able to go to school and do my exams, but I hadn't slept at all and was clearly pretty sick. Mother dearest took me to the doctors and she asked me what was wrong and I said the above, then she went to check my throat and I realised I had completely ignored that my throat was all gross because I'm so used to it being a bitch to me. Anyways, long story short, the doctor said "Yep. You've definitely got pretty bad tonsillitis" and prescribed some pills

 then said "If you're not any better by tomorrow, come back and I'll give you an injection of penicillin." Oh joy. My tonsils weren't actually any better today, but because I'd managed to sleep, I felt way better and didn't have to get the injection. Another thing you should know, needles freak me out a fair bit and this needle was likely to be in the ass cheek (no joke). Also, last time I was this sick, I had to have a blood test which resulted in my very first panic attack.

So to carry on:

I missed school on Tuesday, meaning missing my best 2 exams, then today I came to school to do my History exam, but left straight after. The other day our year level coordinator sent us this email about today's end of year celebrations, so I actually am a tad disappointed for leaving school straight after my exam

Tomorrow I'll be going into school for most of the day to finish the exams I missed instead of celebrating the first day of holidays. At least it's now, not when I've comfortably fucked up my sleeping habits by next week. 

My point for this whole story is that (in my unprofessional, not so much medically based opinion) it was going to sleep with soaking wet hair that made my body temperature go up so much that I had a fever, hallucinated all night and didn't sleep, thus causing my tonsillitis to show up again.

Super super super super super long story short; don't sleep with wet hair. It won't give you a cold, it will give you one the worst nights 'sleep' ever, screw up your exams and make you have to swallow horse pills through an extensively inflamed throat.

I'm not going to sleep with my hair that wet again.

- A recovering SnailOnABicycle

Weekend Funtimes

Hello and hello again,

IT IS THE WEEKEND!! Hooray for Saturday.

As I've alluded to before, I'm not much of a socialite. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so much of an introvert either - I do enjoy the company of some other people, but usually I'll be spending my Friday nights/ weekends at home or with my parents and/ or possibly one friend. Last night was pretty awesome for me because a) It was Friday and I managed to get out of a period of French and period of RE to perform for 200 people (even if they are just the year 11s at my school..) and these 2 periods were period 5 and 6 meaning the end of the day. b) I SPENT MY NIGHT IN TOWN, NOT AS A TOWN RAT BUT AS A PERSON WITH A 'LIFE'!!!! :D c) I SAW NITRO CIRCUS 3D!! Shit it was an awesome night. Also, I highly recommend you watch NC3D. It's hilarious and awesome and just everything that Nitro Circus is.

It really was great to be asked to do something on a Friday night. This is a basic outline of how the night went: 1. School all day until period 5 + 6 (yay performance). 2. Hanging around the library until we got kicked out. 3. Hanging around one of the music rooms having a ukulele/ guitar sesh. 4. going out for tea at nandos 5. Going out for dessert like the classy bastard I am 5. NITRO CIRCUS 3D

After coming home from this wonderful evening, I got onto the old facebook as usual, but instead of reading/ seeing pictures of "Taking selfies at ........'s party cos we cool kidz", "before ......'s!" or "beeeeeeest night at .........'s party", I read many a status along the lines of "So sick of not doing anything on a friday night" "Why is there nothing on tonight?!!?!" and "Inbox if you wanna do something. Seriously. ANYONE inbox me. I'm bored. I'm lonely...." which ultimately made me really really happy because THEY DID NOTHING AND FINALLY IT WAS ME, ME, THAT HAD A SOCIAL LIFE! This is one of the statuses I came across (it is a real one, obviously I just derpified it because I'd be killed if she saw me put it on here)

Long story short, if you're sick of not getting invited to parties, events or gatherings, do it yourself. As I've mentioned, I'm not a commonly invited figure so somewhat often, I am just sitting around waiting for something to happen, which in this case it did. BUT in my own experience, I've found that there's soooooooooo many people doing the exact same thing and waiting for something to happen. Hence, you should be the one this time to make something happen. This way, not only will YOU not be bored shitless and probsibly jealous of people doing stuff, the people you invite (even if that is a small group like the one I went with last night) will also be having fun and (lets be honest) hopefully have people jealous of them doing stuff.

Being almost Summer here where I live, here are (in picture format) numerous suggestions of what to do for fun times:

Step 1:Ask at least 3 friends/ acquaintances to attend (unless otherwise stated)
Step 2: Decide on which of these fun times might be amusing/ possible to do.

1. Acquire some black lights. Install them. Adorn yourself in fluoro, highlighters and white. Crank up some music. Dance your pants off. (This can be taken literally if desired)

Without Black Light:

With Black Light: 

2. Find a bus. Find a beachish thing. Use the bus to get to the beachish thing. Beach it up! I went on a bus for the first time ever on my own only a few weeks ago and I had no idea what I was doing, but I did manage to get where I was going so if I can survive it, you can.

This is my preferred beachish thing; it has a pool, playground, grass area, safe beach swimming area, skiing area and food places around it. Also, apart from the food, it's completely free.

3. This one can be done with just one other person; in fact, the more people you have the less fun it gets because too many people want to do different things. Get onto a train. Head to the nearest massive city. Get lost on the way to finding Krispy Kreme. Find Krispy Kreme. Purchase an over-priced beverage and donut. Have a picnic. Almost miss the train home because you took the tram a stop too far and had to walk back (its a surprisingly long distance between stops).

When having your picnic, picnic behind this busker dude. The buskers where I go are pretty damn good so I don't mind sitting near them.

4. Acquire a large piece of cardboard. This can be done tastily by buying a pizza or four and using the boxes. Find a large, steep hill that preferably does not end in sharp rocks or prickle bushes. (For a hilarious/ dangerous variation, find one that DOES end in sharp rocks or prickles). Get your ass on the cardboard at the top of the hill and slide down. My personal favourite cardboarding hill is incredibly steep with palm trees everywhere which one must avoid and ends in a vertical drop to a road.

In fact its this hill at my preferred beach

This is the view from near the top

5. Get a table. Chuck it outside. Put sparkly things and teacups everywhere. Surround it with chairs.  String fairy lights everywhere. Get people to bring a small amount of sharable food and make/ buy some yourself. Put fancy awesome food thingos on said table. Make everyone dress up a tad (that does indeed mean wearing dresses for the guys or girls - if both are attending). Have a tea party.

6. This is also another one with less people than previously suggested. The max. amount of people I'd invite for this one would be 2. Find a river and/ or bike track. Get on a bike. Explore. If you're near a river that won't kill you, perhaps jump in. Don't blame me if bad things happen.

 When I did this one, my friend and I both jumped in and got soaked. Both tires on both of our bikes then got punctured and we didn't have a repair kit with us. We then rode literally about another 15km to my nan's place, soaking wet and covered in algae on a stinking hot day with dead bikes. The next day this came up on the front page of the newspaper. Oh dear

7. Plan to go to the movies BUT instead of just going to the movies and that's it; go out for dinner at one place beforehand and then dessert at another either before or after the movie. That way you're more full so you don't waste quite as much money on food in the movies and also, I can assure you that its super fun and going out for dessert somehow makes you feel classy. If you can't afford to go out for dessert, head to the supermarket, pool your money together and buy a tub or two of ice cream and a pack of plastic spoons. Find somewhere to sit and have an ice cream picnic! It's super fun and fattening in the best way possible. I've done this many many times.

Btw, there should be waaaaay more ice cream than in this picture, but it's the only decent one I could get. Fear not, I'll be doing this one again soon enough.

A final suggestion:

8. Go camping. And by that, I mean go camping in your back yard because really, who can be bothered travelling and preparing to go on a SPONTANEOUS camping trip? Exactly! You can't really prepare for something that's spontaneous. Get a tent. Spend hours quarreling over how to set it up, or if you're a genius and manage to do it first try, sit inside discussing how you're amazed that you didn't spend hours quarreling over how to get it up. If you don't have a tent or can't be bothered setting one up, hang a long sturdy rope/ line from one point to another. eg. a tree to a post. Lay a tarp down underneath and one over the top of the line. Peg this to the ground or weigh it down with rocks or something. You can also use a huge sheet for this, but it will get dirty and if it rains, then you're screwed. Fill this with pillows, blankets, food and a torch or three and do sleepoverish things. Seriously load up on the blankets too, even though it's Summerish at the moment, you'll get cold. PS. Ensure there's no dog crap underneath your tent before you hop in. It stinks and is upleasantly squishy.

Also, fairy lights make a fantastic edition to a back yard tent. I suggest you use solar powered ones so you don't have to worry about reaching a power source

Considering this whole blog is supposed to be full of suggestions on what to do with your time as a teenager and more 'living' than just merely 'existing', I'll obviously have a lot more posts like this. Also, just to be bitchy, it's your problem if you found this post to take too long to get to the point. Just skip whatever I blab on about at first if you want. :D

I am glad that this blog is now in swing of what I wanted it to be about. PS. For the pictures that aren't actually mine on this post, when I get around to redoing all these awesome things (which I look forward to, they're so fun), I'll take photos to replace the current not-mine ones.

TTFN!

A Bit of Hello

I go by the name of SnailOnABicycle. I'm like to think I'm somewhat of a 'normal' teenager in the way that I don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life, and I love it. I'm 16 years old, and very recently became so. At this stage I've only been 16 a bit over half a month, so I'm younger than most of my friends. I'm not someone that would be considered a 'popular' person, and of course I have my times where I envy and despise those people, but at the same time love them because they provide an endless source of entertainment for me. More on that later.

I'm in year 10 at an all girls Catholic school, but in no way whatsoever am I religious. Being at an all girls school might seem like a pain in the ass, but honestly I like it. There's a fair bit less bullshit around guys, but at the same time I do wish I had some guy friends.

My huge passion in life is music, and like most people, going a day without listening to music would almost kill me. I play piano and I've been doing so for 9 years. I play at grade 5 level and am doing my grade 5 exam next year. I'm in a band called Falling Sunday and I'm doing Certificate 3 in Music Performance and Certificate (I can't remember which one..) in Music Industry. I don't listen to just one specific genre of music, in fact I listen to and like bits and pieces of just about every genre, but my favourites are Punk, Punk Pop, Punk Rock, Hardcore, some Death Metal, Metal, Rock, Hard Rock, Post Hardcore and Ska. This might be a bit of a long list, but trust me, this is very limited for what I listen to. My favourite bands are All Time Low, Chunk No Captain Chunk, Fall Out Boy, A Day To Remember, HIM, Bring Me The Horizon, Asking Alexandria, Bullet For My Valentine and The Cat Empire. Apart from this, there's a lot of bands I love but it would be a bit pretentious of my to name them now because I only know a few albums worth of their songs and can barely play any. As well as Piano, I play ukulele, mini accordion, sing and am learning guitar. I really really really want to be able to play the mandolin, so that's my next big goal - saving up for a decent mandolin.

One more big part of my life is Umpiring. I'm not a sporty person, and I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really don't like netball, so don't think I umpire that. I'm not that good at sports and I love footy (that's Australian footy for those of you wondering), so I took up goal umpiring. It's better than a job, I only train twice a week and work once a week. Also it's only for half a year. As well as this, I get paid more per hour than most part time jobs. Hell yeah.

Alright, enough bragging about myself. The reason I started up this blog is because lately I've been going through a shit load of boredom and have been thinking about how awesome it is to be a teenager. I loved it when I was a kid and didn't want to grow up, and now that I'm 16 I can honestly say that I absolutely love being a teenager, despite this year being pretty damn shitty for me. In this blog, I'm just going to describe my life in anecdotes and offer stuff to do for teenagers with less than loud social lives.

Have fun killing boredom.

- Snail