Progression

Its been a while since I wrote up last, I'm not doing too great at keeping up with this :P.

I am just finishing my AS exams, I am supposedly on study leave.... *cough* lol. Lots of riding and procrastinating. I am finding it hard to concentrate on revision - and It dosn't help when I'm not even sure how I should go about it! I have had my Art and Psychology exams, as well as general studies - they went ok. I think my Art went the best, I said an oil painting of my friends dogs for my final piece (left). I'm glad its over - there was so much work to do. I'm not sure what I am going to drop next year Chemistry or Art - Arts got a LOT of work, chemistry is really hard.... I think I'm going to wait and find out my grades, then decide.

I got a school officers position at school too as a senior leader. (like a senior prefect) and I think my job will be in the canteen helping to organise and run it a bit better :)

I have started my Kayaking course, paddle power discovery, the new BCU2* equivalent, and I'm really enjoying it. Was hoping that I would find it a bit more of a challenge, so I suggested it to my teacher and she said she would try and sort something out. I think they are going to give me something else to do while everyone else is still practicing something I can allready do! Oh and I remembered why I didnt like long think kayaks last week, they make my back ache! I think I will stick to the playboats!

I also had a nice photo session with Bach the other day, (some pics on Facebook.) We are really progressing, and I feel that our flatwork has increased greatly. Our jumping is great too, we have a new XC course in the field, and he loves flying over them. He used to rush at fences, and go flat, but we are really starting to collect up now. Same with his canter, we got our trot finally about 4months ago, and the canters almost there. I just need to work on ennsuring hes on the correct leg. He prefers one rein to the other (dont they all), so one way hes fine and the other it can take 5 attempts to get it right!
Hopefully we will be back competing again soon, especially now i have possibly found some transport. I really enjoyed the dressage that I did with him in october, so I want to try and go back to that.Anyway, I'm off to watch Reaper on TV :P, Bye! xxx

A Class act of Clowns... and Other Stories...

Well time has flown by since my last post, I've been on stage an had a custard pie thrown at me, Raced a postman in his Van at a gallop on Bach, and started my 6ft high painting of a horse for my AS Art course!
Last Friday I was in a sketch at my schools 'House Evening' Where everyone from years 7 to 13 could join in and do a dance, sketch, song etc. So my class decided to be clowns....
Our school is being knocked down, being rebuilt ecologically friendly and in the shape of a flower :s - so we were taking the piss out of it a bit. It was apparantly really funny; we supersoaked the audiance, threw custard pies, made a hash of building ( with really bad jokes) buthad a great time. I had the problem that i was scared of clowns however (hence why I'm not one - I was the 'serious' foreman' :-D ), one of the boys really scared me (the guy with the black lines on his eyes) - im so silly, it just frieked me out a bit... luckly I didnt have to look at him too much! I am not sure why i signed up for being in a sketch with clowns - I guess i didnt think that they would look so clownish... So after a bit of being petrified ( i was crying and shaking like mad - so embarrasing! ) lol I had to get over it - I had o be on stage in 10 minutes! Dont know why it scares me.. its completely irrational. But anyway i managed to go though with it, and remember my lines, and finish up with a bucket on my head...
My major piece for art is also starting to take shape, 6ft high, bay horse cantering towards you in a meadow, it has a big effect on people when they walk in the room - which was the desired effect, but gets a bit embarrassing sometimes! I hate people seeing my art half finished, it looks awful!
And I have finally got a lovley trot going on Bach, we have worked on it for a while, and then it suddenly clicked last week. So after todays schooling session I took him out for a treat - a nice gallop! We walked down the hill (which runs parallel to a long strieght country lane with not much of a fence between) and as we reached the bottom the postman drove past and waved, by the time I gt to the bottom of the hill turned and started to trot up it, he was back. He wound down his window and called out "I'll race you!" He was a very friendly chap, and quite comical, so I agreed, but looked up to see a car coming in his direction and some walkers, so concluded that since he'd have to slow down I'd beat him, so I added on the end "I'll beat you!" and was off! It was really fun, he stopped to let the others past, walkers watching as they had heard our little conversation, and I beat him! I could hear him charging up behind me but he didnt quite reach the top of the hill in time. "I win" I called over to him, " I suppose I'll have to give you that one!" he replied. It made me smile the whole way back as I hacked home...
Isn't it nice that there are people out there who do that - make you smile? You don't even know them, but they are friendly towards you, funny and caring.
xxxxxxxxx

Recap 2007 - Entering 2008...

New year, new start, new blog!
I have been meaning to set one of these up for a while but never got round to it - until now.

A quick overview of the last year is as follows (Most of the content is copied from my Christmas Thankyou Cards!)

This time last year I was in my brothers (Alex) shoes getting ready for my GCSE exams at Easter, I had over 15 exams to sit, spanning about 10 subjects! However I was very pleased with my results which came out in the summer: 1A*, 10 A's and 2 B's. From this I chose to stay at St.Barts for Sixth Form, which I am finding extremely different, and much harder, to regular school! My final choices of AS subjects which I chose were: Psychology, Biology, Chemistry and Art. It was really nice to do a new subject (Psychology) which is very interesting, and my favourite subject is Art, My final piece for this unit is a lifesize painting of a running horse in oil paints... Its going to take me a while!
I am still riding my lovley Morgan, Bach and we are doing really well. I have a new riding instrutor this year, and I really enjoy my lessons with her, especially now that I have the use of a nice rubber and sand school to use! I have been focusing on getting my balance better to help me improve my dressage, and on our paces and appearance when in a show!
I also worked for my Dad over the summer, getting about 8 weeks of valuable work experience, and a nice little profit! From the money I earnt, I bought a video camera to help with my riding, and to have some fun with, and I also put some money towards a new computer which was also funded by some money that I got for my exam results. Its really nice to have a super fast (quad processor 2gb RAM...) computer which I can do my photo and video editing on both for leisure and school.
Mark and I had been together for 18months by Jan the 8th, and I have just got a letter back from a photo-studio that we went to just before Christmas, to say that our picture is ready! It was a really fun experience; I went with Mum, Dad and Alex last year and so we got a discount voucher, which they didn't want - so Mark and I had it instead! It was a really relaxed and enjoyable photoshoot, and when we went to view our pictures afterwards there were loads to choose from!

Lastly we had a lovley, different, Christmas this year - We went out for a meal! It was really nice, a varied menu with 5 courses, including the very filling, traditional turkey (my choice!) while Alex went for a more exotic swordfish dish. I think Mum and Dad really enjoyed not having to cook, however they didn't completely escape the buisiness of Christmas, as we had an 'open evening' at the house later that week, which got quite busy! New year was good, I spent some of the 'countdown' evening with my family before disappearing off to my friends' house-party to see in the New Year! On New Years day Mum, Dad, Alex, Mark and I went to see ' I Am Legend' at the cinema, It was quite jumpy - but I enjoyed it!
I hope you had a good Christmas and introduction into 2008!

I will be posting again soon, but for now I will say good bye! xxxx