Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

I don't know where that phrase came from, but I'd like it to apply to me. I wonder if it's something you can learn? It sounds pretty passive aggressive, I don't want to be passive aggressive. I just want to have hidden power and beauty. I don't think beauty has to be a solely facial event, it's more of an aura.

Calories are listed in a written diary today. 1520 exactly. Which is too much. Bastard sultanas, dried fruit, you are my downfall. They don't even exude laxative effects, just give me wind and make me put on weight. How very ironic. This has always happened.

My posse came for a revision session today; we took over the living room with junk food and dried fruits, and attempted some learning. If anyone out there knows how to distinguish categories from thematics, taxonomically speaking, I'd love to discuss it. I felt slightly better about being shit, because they were about the same level as me. I think. The exam will prove it. This year only counts for forty percent anyway.

Ophelia's respite among fronds of reeds
Supine in madness and drown'd indeed
Lilies bloom and silt billows round
The pale white bone and last ludic crown.

Syllable structure isn't quite right on that one. I've got a picture of Ophelia on my wall, it's very dark, sepulchral, and pretty. Erin O'Connor is modelling it; she has the look of someone being borne away on a tide, just keeping their head above water until eventually the current takes them under. It's a beautiful picture; only beauty is allowed on my walls. Or something I really adore; my friends sometimes draw me pictures, or write me limericks, and I like them there for sentiment. Then there are birthday cards, pictures I have drawn that I deem acceptable, some fairy lights, pictures of me as a child (three), a timetable, pictures of my friends and mementos here and there, a T-shirt pinned up, a bell from a long-digested chocolate, a map of the London tube though I hail not from our capital (except in spirit) and a tattered OS A3 map of Muenchen. No pictures of food are allowed, temptation is not endorsed in my inner sanctum, though pictures of alcholic beverages are fine as they are the most aesthetically pleasing. Most of the things I like are lakes, Russian sights, opals, carefully crafted jewels to look like vines... and city scapes.

I have always wanted to visit Russia. I am not quite sure why; I remember, vaguely, a Children of the World book. There was a girl in it, my age, called Olga from Russia. She had a sister named Dascha. Both of them wore the shiniest shoes I had ever seen. I knew, even at that young age, that she was at the top of her social hierarchy. She went to a ballet school, away from home, and lived in a flat with her parents. Her life, her clothes and her house all seemed like something I would love to have (finding shoes was always a problem, and I had ideas of victorian dress, though this was not feasible for me). From that moment, or maybe before, Russia seemed mysterious and brutal. I have wanted to go ever since. A land of Tsars, of corruption, of bleak lacquer and old decaying riches. Russia is full of treasure amid the wreckage of communist blitzing, at least, to my mind.

Another girl in the book was from an African Maasai tribe. She was called Estha, or Esther. She was fifteen, and she seemed so happy. She didn't have much; she loved to wear her school uniform, because it was the prettiest thing she owned. I thought her necklaces were more exciting, but each to their own. The other month, I read an article about a woman called Esther who had a son, who was going blind because of cataracts. She was about the right age. I wondered how many African women, that age, are called Esther. I thought, how strange that I feel I have been privy to her growing up, and she knows nothing of me. I thought how happy she looked, and if, looking down the line, she saw a half blind son and marriage, waiting in a clinic for hours and hours on end. I suppose she did, because her sisters were married and must have gone through similar trauma. I can't remember what she wanted to be; I hope she got it. A teacher, I think.