The funeral was yesterday, the first one that I can properly remember. A hell of a lot of people turned up - I think there was about 100 - and the wake went on for a long time (literally twelve hours). We were among the first to arrive though, and I saw him lying in his coffin. I know it sounds cliched, but he really did look as if he would open his eyes any minute. He was so cold, too - it was odd to see someone who looked so alive, yet felt so cold. I didn't know him that well, so I wasn't very upset, but while the priest was talking about him, his sister looked so small and sad.

After the funeral, though, it seemed that everyone forgot why they were all there, as it became more like a party, and for once the kitchen wasn't the quiet bit - food was stacked up everywhere, sandwiches covered tables, cakes covered the microwave, and so on. It really seemed to bring people together, though. My dad had sort of drifted off from the rest of them - some were annoyed that he married a Catholic, while others where irritated that we couldn't go to their wedding. But at the funeral, they were all hugging and crying as if they'd never been apart. I barely knew anyone, however, but that seemed a pretty common problem. I was also the youngest, which never helps matters.

Aside from that though, not much has really happened. A nice quiet half term, it looks like

Bought AW2 today, shows how much self control I have. I was a little worried today, I had a feeling something bad was going to happen. So far though, things have been fine. Except unskippable tutorials. System Shock 2 is finally downloaded, but buggered up, resulting in a few more downloads and problems.

I apologised to David the other day. One minute, not talking, next, apologising. Odd. I was thinking about the first few years of school, and some of the things I'd said and done came back to me, and I felt really guilty and sorry for him. I can't really blame him for he did now - I was far worse. Quiet otherwise, I hope Mrs Hansford doesn't remember about the Young Writers thing. I have enough to be worrying about. I was *so* close to falling asleep in Maths yesterday. Being up at 5:30 for an hour and a half of swimming, then three periods of Maths isn't easy. Half term at least, followed by a trip to W5 in Chemistry. Woo.

In other news, my grandfather is dying, the poor bugger. His hand stopped twitching, which is very bad. Shows how alert nurses really are. My dad's there now.

Shite. He's dead. Five minutes ago.

Recently, my weeks have been starting crap and working their way towards happiness. God knows why, but it seems to have stopped anyway. Today was good, and we had some... interesting discussions. And I might be getting a new mobile! I don't really need it, but if my mum gets a contract phone, then she's not going to use half of the stuff available on the handsets nowadays. So, I give her my Panasonic, she gives me a 7250i. Hopefully. If nothing else, it would be a nice, fairly inexpensive birthday present. I'm definately in the band now, and even if I wasn't, I think I'd like to get a guitar anyway. Problem is, they're so expensive, and a bloody amp as well. But, all in all, things could be worse.

Hello, what a lovely cold Sunday afternoon, with the prospect of more Christmas shopping later on. Woo. Yesterday, however, was great, as Tron 2.0 was finished, and I went round to a friend's house, where I played MK:DD and watched Freddie Got Fingered. We were going to go to a guitar shop, the one thing that I really wanted to do, but never got round to it. But I played his brother's bass guitar, and can now play the intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit! Yay, etc.

In other news, I somehow managed to get stuck in the training level of Tron 2.0. I quite like the game, so I think I'll just restart and skip the training. It's certainly different, and is mighty pretty. I seem unable to use a computer without downloading loads of shit, and I'm currently downloading every Metallica album, which will take absolute ages to do. Other than that, not much has happened. Oh yes, I told my friends who I fancy. Not a great idea, as they are now going to 'meddle', as they put it. Hope it works out well, mind. So, things are going well.

So, last day of school tomorrow, and we're all going to the cinema to see RotK, which looks lovely. However, I feel a repeat of the last incident happening, so Peter and me have booked tickets so that no matter what happens, we can still go. I don't think James likes me, for whatever reason. The rest do, but are a bit like sheep. Hello, if any of you are reading it, by the way.

And in other news, first BF1942 clan match tonight, and I think I'm doing really well on my bass. I'm nowhere near fast enough, and all the mutes and dead notes are confusing me, but I can get going quite well. A lot of songs are just a few notes played over and over again, so they're not too hard. Hysteria by Muse is pure evil, though. I've also abandoned C++, and am going into the modelling/mapping area. I'm making a map in Battlecraft, BF1942's map editor, and I think it's coming along well. So, if I get through tomorrow nice and well, I'll have had a lovely, if turbulent term.

In case you were wondering why I haven't updated this in a while (god knows why you would), it was because I was going to ask out a girl, and then see what she said. She said no, which is a bit of a bugger. I felt a little crap in Spanish (the subject after I asked her), but after I felt fine. And now, I got my bass guitar, so woo! I think I'm playing a little too hard, and my fingers are already sore. I like it though - the problem is, I can't reach my fingers far down enough to touch all four frets. It'll come in time, I guess, so for now I'll just keep on trying.

And, um, that's it. Got a few more errors fixed in my project, but there's more and more as I fix things, revealing new ones. Still, for some reason, I've spent the last few months in a state of happiness. It's a pity something shite is waiting to happen, but there you go.

Hello again. Quite quiet this week, the only thing of note is that I hope to see Revolutions at the weekend. It might not be brilliant, but I'm sure it's worth a watch. Plus, big stompy robots versus flying machines - how can it fail? Luckily for me, I also miss five periods tomorrow, due to a Chemistry trip leading deep into the heart of war torn Belfast, to witness the launch of new chemical weapons. Or maybe a chemistry exhibition at the W5 science center - the teacher hasn't quite decided yet. I'm rereading a lot of my books, because I don't want to go and spend my money. I prefer to leave it sitting in the bank, generating whole pennies of interest.

Nothing other than the funeral really happened during the half term, though my cousin, who is doing some Multimedia design course at Uni, came up for some help with HTML. She lives in the Holy Land, so it wasn't far for her to come, though I feel that I wasn't much use. The only faintly interesting thing all week, actually, is my RE teacher getting annoyed when I wrote "Hello, this is God," in response to "What did God say on the transfiguration?" As if I care about RE - I'm happy enough with getting 52%, as I really don't care about it.

And so that brings me up to date.