Kat Johnston

Tag: school

  • Sketch: Missy Pen-Pen, and ‘Yay, I got my Parchment… ohhh…’

    Kat Johnston Sketch: My darling miss Pen-Pen with her fishie treats… I love my cats.

    My darling Miss Pen-Pen, how I do so adore her. She’s the little sumo-cat of our household, and isn’t afraid to throw her weight around if needed. She truly is a queen, speaking up when she’s ready for a snuggle and somehow -you- haven’t given her one yet. She does have a tendency to get demanding at times.

    A sumo for a queen… now that is an interesting thought, is it not? Its like the daughter of a 1950s mob boss that everyone compliments and so forth, even though in reality she’s no drop-dead gorgeous bombshell: she’s twice the size of a house and happy for it. So long as the situation didn’t change, she’d never have reason to doubt other than what people have told her either, would she? While not exactly entirely true, you get the picture. My Pen-Pen is a queen and a sumo to boot.

    Onto an entirely unrelated matter… I got my parchment yesterday! I’ve now officially got my little piece of paper saying ‘Look world, this person has actually completed a Masters of Arts and Creative Industries Management, and she’s done it in such a competent manner that we’re willing to say she somehow knows what she’s talking about. Yay her.’

    It’s kinda a funny feeling: I have it done, completed, finito, and there’s nothing left to do. I’m not sure if anyone else feels that the receipt of a piece of paper to say ‘Really, I know what I’m talking about,’ is as anti-climactic as I do… but it does tend to feel that way to me. You finish your course, you wait almost five months, and finally some small woman comes a-knocking at your door and says ‘Sign here please.’ You do as you’re told, you open it, and this piece of paper really isn’t all that more impressive than the last one (I’ve done this three times now).

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have it – but it’s almost as if finally getting it is mocking in nature. ‘So,’ it says to me, in a wheedley little voice, not unlike that weasel little tell-tale in the school yard most of us have doubtless encountered. ‘So, it’s been almost five months since you have completed me, and what have you done? Hmm?’

    Here am I, wide-eyed, stuttering out an ineffectual response. ‘Well, I, umm, I was waiting on you before, you know, I, um, got started on anything? Or something like that?’

    The parchment snickers knowingly, a gleam to it’s silvered seal as it glints in reflection of the somewhat dim fluorescent bulb. It’s almost an accusation. ‘Ohhh, but you have me now,’ says he, ‘You have no excuse left! What are you going to do, hmm, what are you going to do?’

    With a barely uttered grunt of disgust I glare at my parchment, and fling it in a drawer with the others. That’ll teach it to have a go at me!

  • Sketch: Miss Liz Gets Her Way.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: Miss Liz gets her way… one way or another. When she sets her mind on something, you had best not interfere.

    I scrolled down the page just yesterday and noticed just how much Second Life stuff was taking up the screen. Well that just won’t do! I want to maintain a balance here, between that which is done digitally in a user-innovation based virtual world and that which is not. Thus, I present to you Miss Liz.

    Miss Liz has always been a curious creature. Her parents always thought so, in any case. She never maintained a steady collection of friends – they would come and they would go just as quickly, once they figured out she truly was as ‘weeeiiirrrrd’ as the other children said. It bothered her not.

    It was late in the month of June when the fateful event occurred: boarding school. ‘There’s nothing more proper than boarding school, to set a girl on the right path!’ her Aunt Hettie would proclaim, while shoving handfuls upon handfuls of glossy brochures with perpetually smiling girls on them under the nose of Liz’s startled mother. Miss Liz just turned her nose up and retired to her room with all the gracious elegance of a marmot with a burr in its tail.

    ‘Don’t humph and moan,’ mumbled her mother, as the last drab dress was wheedled into fitting the tiny suitcase with promises of sweets and warm iron pressings to come. ‘It doesn’t become a young lady to sulk so. Madam Perpetua will never allow it at the Very Distinguished Finishing School for Young Ladies of a Particular Age and Disposition.’ Liz cared not.

    ‘I shall not attend,’ asserted Liz, ‘I shall not attend any school which will not maintain a succinct title, in the very least. What am I to tell people? Hmmm? That I attend the VDFSYLPAD?’ She had to think over the abbreviation for the school’s title – it took her more than a few seconds to work out all the letters. ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Her voice had steadily risen to a screech, though was tempered by a plaintive moan as she collapsed back against prim covers of her overly pink bedspread. ‘What am I to do there, Mother? Hmm? Surrounded by dozens upon dozens of young ladies of a particular age and disposition? A disposition, I might add, that I believe I most certainly don’t share?’

    With a hefty grunt, the lips of the suitcase pursed closed, the solid catches on the side glaring in protest as they were tested and probed – just to be certain, mind, that the disgruntled clothes-carrier would not pop open in the most embarressing of circumstances to spill its contents where all could see. ‘I will not go,’ grumbled Liz, with a resolute set to her pointed chin.

    There was one whole week until the beginning of the school term. Mother had told her to enjoy being home until then. Miss Liz thought differently. She would not be plunged into an over-important school for miscreant girls who needed correcting. If there was anyone who needed correcting around here, it was that Aunt Hettie, who had convinced her mother of it in the first place! She had one whole week to set things right. Miss Liz would get her way, one way or another.

    (a little note… Miss Liz most certainly does not get her way, at least in this instance. Apparently her mother can be quite firm, when the need arises. This is a picture of her at the swimming carnival. All good boarding schools for young ladies of a particular age and disposition must, after all, have at least one swimming carnival. They must also have a lacrosse team, and the school mistress must have a haughty English accent and an upturned nose. So there!

    Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious that these are not overly polished pieces of writing… they’re not. They’re just ‘sitting down and throwing out some ideas about who the person is and so forth. Nothing edited!)