Christmas in July

One of my favourite memories of secondary school will be the Christmas in July Year 12 Day. It was just so much fun to mess around and all the costumes everyone had on we're amazing. I was on the committee for it and along with my friends and peers we managed to make more than 250 disposable cups worth of jelly and about 200+ lolly bags for the entire year level to enjoy. There was also a massive group photograph taken during recess and musical chairs to Christmas carols at lunchtime. The year 12 lockers were decorated with paper snowflakes on white feathery yarn, fairy lights wrapped around the hand rails and tinsel running from one side of the hall to the other.

There were Christmas trees, Santa's, elves (including Buddy the Elf), a Snowman, presents wrapped up festively, reindeer, Jesus, the Three Wise Men, Mary, Joseph, as well as gingerbread men and women.

I was really impressed by the ingenuity of my fellow peers; there were paper mache snowmen bottoms with little top hats attached to headbands, people wrapped in working fairy lights as well as candy cane people, baubles and stars which adorned people's heads and tinsel galore. I found it really funny sitting next to my friend Lucy who was dressed as a Christmas Tree complaining that her balls were getting in the way of sitting down.

I myself was dressed as a giant pudding, (photos aren't up and weren't taken to the day after) which I had gotten very used to taking on and off at the start and end of each class I had. I didn't dare bring in the costume into chemistry although my Black Milk leggings did catch the eye of my teacher commenting that 'they are the strangest pants' he'd ever seen. I'm glad I was able to make people so envious of my bubbly attitude, fooling around with my fake digital SLR and Film Minolta camera as well as jelly serving skills. We were terrified that we'd have some left over and we'd need to leave it sitting around the kitchen areas so the horrible shit head Year 10's would eat it and take it off our hands. It was one of the smaller events that you could become a member on a committee for but it still took a lot of work since we had only three people to help organise food and needed to take a few periods off to get everything together and get the help of our friends. We made a little factory assembly line of cutting cellophane, placing lollies on the cut pieces, tying up the bags and then curling the ribbon. It worked out really well and I felt so thankful that we had a large group of friends to help us out with it :)

I wish the group photograph had come out a little better, but my camera was the best one available (surprise, surprise) and no one else had prepared a better photograph or Mr Tan who is a teacher at our school and organised our formal photographs this year. Perhaps the people who were meant to be organising the events of the day should have taken charge of that rather than thinking of the ludicrous plot to have the entire year level involved in a game of musical chairs.

The feeling in the air for every costume day we have is static, and I feel really sad that there are only two left really not including the end of year celebration that is muck-up day and the Year 12 concert. I think I'll be a mermaid rather than buy a Bowser monster (super Mario Bros.) suit from China since it's just too much hassle.

Gender Confused

No one can do Free dress days like Vermont. Our theme for the second free dress day of year 12 class of 2011? Gender Swap. Now. I can major issues and gripes with this from the very beginning. We took a vote and the last theme for our free dress day was Animal Kingdom which I did end up liking secretly though my friends weren't so hot on it. I got some really good photographs on my Diana Mini which I have developed recently and some of them look amazing and I was really happy. However the main girls that wanted to have Gender Swap as a Free Dress Day theme are the slutty ones who I have zero respect for and simply use this as an opportunity to borrow the boys football uniforms and wear terrible wigs. One in particular who I will simply refer to as the incognito Tess Pap took advantage of the situation of having a free dress day sprung on the year level after mid year exams and posted on Facebook "this is out theme, don't argue we don't have time." Bitch.

Still I managed to come to terms with this challenge thrown at me and thought I would take this opportunity to dress up as my favourite Gallifreyan, The Doctor. The Eleventh Doctor to be exact, with his cute little trademark tie, suspenders, vintage black boots, shirt and tweed jacket.

But divine intervention through my amazing best friend Clare struck that fateful Thursday morning before school and we made the secret plan to come as the Super Mario Bros. I dressed as the younger, taller and green moustached Luigi brother and Clare, the more recognisable and popular plumber of the two. She searched up tutorials on her smart phone to create two hats to complete the already existing overalls and respective red and green. The night before I busily made two mustaches out of permanent marker ink and fabric band aids as proof of our manliness. With great fury and frenzy after I had trudged to the bus stop and back, my feet already hurting from wearing Doc Marten boots for a mere 20 minutes and commandeering my brother as a chauffeur for myself I threw myself into the task of transforming 4 squares of felt into two hats using nothing but thread and a bucket as a pattern. They may not have been the prettiest of hats but they took 30 minutes to sew and I had to do the finishing touches during my free period with the paranoia that if my Chemistry teacher saw that I wasn't busy studying he would yell and embarrass me warning that I can not access him during Swotvac before the end of year exams.

It was well worth the panic and the adrenaline to look as I did on the day, and even more splendid next to my best friend. One of her teachers pulled us aside in the year 12 corridor for a photo for the Wall of Amazing Costumes the year 12 coordinators have in their office. Secretly I suspect that because of that day my best friend and I are now in the running to become 'The Best Best Friends' of our year level and win the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum award. Something that seems very special to me since my boyfriend and I both like Alice in Wonderland (he's lent me 2 of the 3 Alice movie versions I've seen).

I enjoyed stroking my friends mustache as well as my own all day, swaggering around the school and trying not to laugh as the younger children looked at us in a mixture of amazement, and most probably horror at the boys with their hairy legs sticking out of tiny Summer uniform dresses. A truly mortifying sight indeed. But still, those boys are good quality fun, especially the ones that adorned fake tan and make up.

My favourite girl in drag was my friend Maddy, who in my humble opinion makes the best man out of all my friends and is the most fun to take pictures of with her creepy pedophile face mastered to perfection as well as her posing and moustache fixing.

Out of all the classes of year 12's throughout the years, I think mine has to be the most blatantly and flamboyantly sexual.