I went to St Aelred's this morning with Dad and Nathan, conscious that the academic year was drawing to a close, in order to pick up my artwork before it all got thrown away. The weather was glorious, ELO on the car stereo, sun on my face - I was quite looking forward to seeing my artwork again after all this time - to feel the weight of the sketchbooks and the sheer size of that bloody huge A1 piece I'd done for my exam. A whole academic year had gone by, I realised, since all that stress, all that mithering, all those all-nighters with the thick aroma of coffee choking out my room.

We arrived and were received by a receptionist who asked what we were visiting for as we signed in. When I explained with a smile that I was picking my artwork up (at last!), she gave me this blank look and said that I'd be lucky if it hadn't been thrown out. She just said it, direct and devoid of sympathy. Gave Dad and I our visitor badges and hurried us on.

( Panic set in as I led the way to Mr Kelly's art classroom... )

This one wasn't so bad. I was quite pleased with the way I portrayed my ideas, and in the way I portrayed the character; the wild hair, the half-eaten face, the bulging eyes... it worked exactly as I wanted.

What I wasn't happy about was the proportions. I feel her hand should have been much larger, for one; think about it, when you hold your hand up to your face, it goes from your chin to half-way between your eyebrows and hairline, generally. Her hand is tiny (and I mean it is way too small), and I don't think it stands out as much as it should have done.

Another fundamental aspect was looked over for this reason; the dice in her hand. It is by rolling dice in the epic that she wins the Mariner's life, and so I feel the poor little dice should have had a better portrayal.

Oil pastel, 2B pencil and touches of acrylic paint on torn, coffee-washed paper collage. It would have been A2, only it got on the right side of a pair of scissors.

The first, and in my eyes the best, of my A2 Art final pieces. This is the piece in which I discovered how much I loved working with oil pastels, for their boldness, the way they blend and for their ease in covering such a large scale.

Oil pastel, 2B pencil and touches of acrylic paint on torn, coffee-washed paper collage. It's vaguely A2 in size; or it was before I got to it.

All went well and I'm officially a Y13 student. And guess what? Grade E's at A-Level are equivalent to a C at GCSE, which to me is a satisfactory result. And considering there's only one year's difference between A-Levels and GCSE, I haven't done too bad. Not only that but an E at A-Level is also a pass. Yes, chums, I'll be working my face off next year on three A2's, one of which is... *drumroll* Art!

I didn't pick any AS subjects in the end. Yeah, no Media for me. Sian is going to kill me for being one of the most unreliable people she's ever known. But with three A2s to focus on, I don't think any more subjects would be a wise choice. Even Mrs Vernazza said it would be too much work. So, I have my three subjects, all carried on from last academic year (except Photography), and I intend to get good grades on all three of them.

School looks a lot different now. They've been working on it over the summer. There's a patch of previously unused and derelict-looking ground outside the Sixth Form block that's had a garden put in - it looks pretty good.

We nipped up to Earlestown on foot to tell the opticians about my glasses fee problem and it turns out that my glasses aren't even there yet anyway. So, Wednesday, hopefully, I'll have my beloved eyesight back so I can read Mrs. Hughes' ghastly black-text-on-purple presentations. On the way back, it rained. Hard.

Ooh, I also need some new biros (for writing, not art). Most just disappeared during the move.

In other news, I'm hungry. We've got baked potatoes for dinner, though. Awesome!

Lee's getting his new car on Monday. He said he'd visit once he has it. Yay!