_{... And a whole lot of trouble.}



Monday: Art trip to museum, Liverpool.
Intention of trip: gain a deep and useful insight into the world of marine life and fish, receive a wealth of knowledge on nature's colours and patterns, and collect a gold mine of resources for the Marine Life project, and many other projects to come.
Result of trip: take photos of each other wearing ridiculous hats, spend three hours in the gift shop, and get stuck in the lift.

What did you expect, really?

As ever, Monday was extremely eventful and ended up being extremely off-topic.
Unfortunately, that was, like nearly a week ago and because I've been revising and writing so much over the past seven days, my head is just full of "Yeast cells reproduce by budding" and "Christians believe in 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed'" and "Tas and Chrys are too similar, I need to find one strong difference between these two characters so that I can balance out my stories more..." - so I shall divert back to that classic, easy form which people have been using for hundreds of... Uhh... Well, about a hundred years. Which is to say, a bullet-pointed list!
Bullet-pointed lists are amazing. You'll be seeing a lot of them today.

• On the way to the museum, the coach was stopped by one of the passenger crossings - a normal thing, usually, except that this time it was because an old woman had run up to the crossing just as the bus approached, pressed the button so that it went off and we had to stop, and then ran away again, laughing;
• Rao found a room which was stacked floor to ceiling with chests of cabinets with drawers with dead animals inside. It was AMAZING;
• H-en, R-se and H-ah refused to take the stairs one floor down, so Rao went without them and had to wait ten minutes at the bottom until the lift picked them up and brought them down;
• Rao took a picture of them in the lift in order to make fun of the fact that she arrived way before them, but when she went to look at the photo on her camera, she found a pirate ghost in the back of it. It was really creepy because it was a woman who had been in the lift, but in the photo she was wearing an eye patch and she wasn't wearing one in real life;
• Rao dressed up as an anglo-saxon;
• H-ah and H-en worked together to open trading routes between China and England;
• H-ah found the Japanese section and spent half an hour listening to the music, and translating what it was saying;
• Rao danced to the music when she thought no-one was looking;
• R-se showed everyone the video she had got of Rao dancing to the music when she thought no-one was looking;
• A-mi thought the lift was really cool because it went so fast, so she made G-ce go in it for nearly an hour straight, and then G-ce threw up;
• Rao and D-id swapped lunches like they were in Year Two;
• Rao found more dead animal drawers;
• R-se found a giant model of a fly larva in the insect section, but didn't realise it moved until she went really close to take a picture and it waved at her;
• R-se screamed so much that a security guard came over to see if she was okay;
• D-id got scared by a tarantula, so D-id* told him it had escaped and D-id screamed so much that the security guard had a go at him;
• It was thus proved that security guards are sexist;
• Rao found an epic mask of a shark and put it on and then put her glasses on top of it, and Miss took a lot of photos of her;
• R-se and H-en found masks of a seal and a turtle, and they had a lot more photos taken;
• Rao found an amazing hat which had a fish on it, and had even more photos taken;
• Rao, R-se, H-ah and H-en sat outside in the sunshine even though it was only 12^Dc because they were bored of sitting inside and Rao's pain medication had worn off;
• The coach nearly left without G-ce, who had gone to throw up again because A-mi made her go back in the really fast lift;
• The coach actually did leave without D-id and D-id, and had to go back for them, because they got stuck in the other lift;
• Rao drank some water and then laughed so hard at D-id and D-id that she spat it out over the person in front of her;
• Rao referred to herself in the third person all day.

_{*a different d-id}



Tuesday: Geography Trip to four different points along Pendleton Brook.
Intention of Trip: to gather information for coursework about the changes in stream velocity, water depth and bedload composition, in order to gain an accurate cross-profile of the river and develop understanding of how transportation effects erosion and the shaping of the land around water.
Result of Trip: walking about twenty miles up and down hills in the pouring rain, getting stuck up to your knees in the water, Sir shouting at J-ke and R-an repeatedly, and S-eb being in everyone's photos.

• Rao had to do mission impossible and steal the rubber duck from the bathroom without her mum noticing;
• Rao tied the metre ruler to the strap of her backpack using her amazing skills at the Falconer's knot, but it got caught in the doorway of the classroom on the way out of the school and she had to bend double to get out of the building;
• J-ke missed his bus - which is amazing because he walks to school - and tried to skive, but on his way into town we passed him, and Sir made him come anyway;
• Everyone climbed up Pendle Hill, which is really steep and rocky, in the pouring rain;
• Rao fell over;
• R-se fell over;
• Rao fell over again;
• Someone threw E-ly's first sketch into the stream;
• Rao refused to put her wellies on;
• It stopped raining;
• Everyone walked down Pendle Hill, which is even steeper and rockier, in the burning sunshine;
• Rao fell over;
• Rao fell over again;
• R-se fell over;
• Rao fell over and skidded down the rest of the hill on her backpack;
• It stopped raining;
• R-an found a dead lamb;
• S-eb found a sheep's skeleton;
• Rao found a piece of wool, turned it over and discovered that she'd actually found a piece of dead sheep;
• Rao and S-eb traded lunches like they were in Year Two;
• Rao refused to put on her wellies;
• Rao spent half an hour dangling over the edge of the river cliff trying to rescue her rubber duck;
• Everyone walked to Waddington;
• Rao fell over;
• R-se fell over;
• T-ha fell over;
• Rao fell over again;
• C-or lost one of the panes of his glasses and everyone had to stop and wait for half an hour so that he could find it;
• Rao refused to put her wellies on;
• S-eb got chased by a cow;
• Everyone walked to Pendleton;
• Rao did not fall over;
• R-se fell over;
• S-eb fell over and fell in the river and R-se and Rao laughed at him;
• Miss asked if Rao hurt because she'd fallen over so many times and she said no, because she was on 15mg of codeine;
• T-ha said that in Citizenship they'd just learnt that codeine was used to help heroine addicts;
• There was an awkward silence;
• Rao put her wellies on;
• Sir said that the river was too fast for anyone to collect water samples or measure the depth;
• Rao was wearing waterproof trousers, wellies, two waterproof coats and a rubber duck, so she did it anyway and felt amazing;
• Rao forgot that her waterproof trousers had holes in and got really wet and didn't feel amazing;
• Nearly everyone walked back to school;
• A-my and K-ra snuck away and went home;
• J-ke and R-an went to Sainsbury's;
• Someone tried to sneak out of school early and felt really proud of themselves and was like "Yeah b*tch I snuck outta school innit I is amazin innit yea" and then Sir caught them;
• S-eb's bus driver wouldn't let him get on to go home because he was so muddy;
• Rao sat outside school for half an hour after it finished because her feet were soaking wet and she didn't want to walk home like that;
• Rao remembered that she'd stolen the rubber duck and had to get it back before her mum got home, sprinted the mile to her house, got inside just before her mum's car pulled up into the drive, and managed to put it back in the bathroom, really dramatically, seconds before her mum came in;
• Rao continued to refer to herself in the third person.



What Rao Learned [this week]:
• E-ly's dad got a U in his German GCSE when he was at school - his total mark was 3/200;
• The rough-legged buzzard is the only long-winged species of buzzard;
• Miss Caswell wanted to get a degree so that she could teach English, but she was told that there were no jobs for English teachers so she got a Biology one instead.

Text of the [week]:

• R-AO: IT'S TOO MUCH. EUROVISION, GUYS. Belarus and Russia and Denmark and Greece and UKRAINE MY GOD UKRAINE. IT'S TOO MUCH. MY MOTHER IS STARING AT ME. And Jon Hurt is the new Doctor BUT HE ISN'T THE DOCTOR. WTF ARE THEY DOING TO ME?
• R-SE: No spoilers I haven't seen it yet but what do you mean?
• R-AO: I HAVE NO F*CKING IDEA.
[...]
• R-AO: IT'S OKAY, WE BEAT THE FRENCH IN EUROVISION. I AM SATISFIED.

BULLET POINTS.
BULLET POINTS EVERYWHERE.