so as it might/might not be apparent, the last few posts have been just some drafts that have been hanging around in my folders i've staggered out to make it look like i'm active when really i've been quite negligent in the blogging world. but, in a surprising twist, i actually have a valid reason for ignoring maintenance and am not just procrastinating because i am a lazy piece of shit. instead it's exam time over here in victoria - the moment of truth. if i'm being truly honest, i can't say i have a valid reason for procrastinating my studying like i'm doing right now but, hey, no one's perfect. also, i usually don't like being really personal here as i find straight-out baring my emotions a lot easier in the covers of my notebook that i know no one will see, but i figured i'd kill two birds with one stone: (a) vent & (b) explain my past and future absence.

i officially graduated from school about two weeks ago and yet it still hasn't really sunk in. twelve years i've spent going to the same place (after a brief stint at a local primary school). even though i only missed out on prep with my classmates, i still always kind of felt like the new kid, and it wasn't until the last few days that, in waves of nostalgia, we flicked through old photos and memories that i've realised that i grew up with these people. from awkward side-fringes to growth spurts to the acne that still taunts my face, i've done it with the vast majority of the these people that, come next month, i will probably never see again.

if i was not at school, i was on holidays, and if i was on holidays, i was just doing time until i would eventually have to go back to school. school has been all i've known until now (you can't count infancy, no one remembers shit during infancy). it's so easy to say that school sucks. the evidence is there in homework and rules and conformity. but i am truly going to miss the community that i've become so comfortable over the past twelve years. as shitty a day i could have been having, i was always comforted by the thought that right here, right now, i was where i was supposed to be. granted, it's government-mandated, but i knew i belonged - my parents paid the fees. and now i realise how truly lucky i was to go to the school i went to. academically we might not have been the best, but at least we were friends. teachers, students, ups and downs, we were a family. huh, i guess i can't say 'we' anymore.

in other news, in exactly 24 minutes from this moment i will be 18 years old. an adult. i can vote. i can get my license. i can [legally] drink. am i ready? hell no. 23 minutes.

but the list doesn't end there. a couple of months, i was helping out at the annual career expo my school holds every year. there, i met a lady from a renowned university interstate. she told me about a scholarship. i applied.

the whole application process happened across a week from when i even heard about the offer so my reasons for applying were pretty hasty. if i'm being honest, i think my imagination clouded my better judgement. moving away from home after high school was what i'd grown up seeing in movies and tv shows shipped out from hollywood. it was the american dream. but it was not the norm from where i come from. my brother graduated from school two years ago and everyone in his year level still live where they did two years ago. here. and, if i'm being honest, i secretly hoped i wouldn't get it because then the decision would be made for me. i could stay in the place i knew, doing the things i always did, having said i 'tried my best' and everything would be okay.

i received a call today. i received the scholarship.

things are going too fast right now. the exam period started on wednesday and my first exam is next week. but it still hasn't hit me that this is the end. i've been 17 for 364 days, but it still hasn't hit me that in fifteen minutes i'm 18. i've been growing up, but it still hasn't hit me that i've grown.

in video games, when things are getting crazy, you can pause. take a break. take a breath. and continue.

well, things are getting crazy right now. but i just can't find the pause button.