Ramble on

Round 32: September 2036 (Spring)

last update/Mitchell's next update/next update

Abigail Carmody is 53, Jesse is 51, Mitchell is 17 and Austin and Lauren are both 15.
(Louisa is 16 and Declan and Justin are both 15)

Narrated by Austin Carmody

Dad turns 51 this month, so we threw him a family party at home to celebrate.

Our family is pretty big, so the party was huge too. There was barely enough room in our house for all the family members who showed up.

We’re a close family too, so everyone just makes themselves at home.

51 isn’t a particularly memorable birthday but I think Dad just kind of wanted to have a party this year and Mum was happy to oblige.

As well as Dad’s birthday, a lot of the talk was centred around Mitchell heading off to university in January.

We just found out that Mitchell got into Suffolk and my parents are both pretty excited about it. He got a whole ton of scholarships, so Mum and Dad will save a lot of money on his tuition as well.

He’s known for ages that he wants to study culinary arts. It’s kind of weird that Mitchell has been so sure about what he wants to do from the time he was 12.

Mitchell already cooks a lot of meals for us at home. I’m no foodie, but they taste pretty good, so I guess it’s a good path for him.

Mum is really insistent that Lauren and I both go to college as well and she’s already asking us about what we might want to do. She says if she graduated with a kid in tow, we should be able to handle it just fine.

Lauren wants to follow Mum into journalism, so Mum is satisfied there.

Lauren started a blog this year, just to practise her writing and maybe be a step ahead of the others when the time comes.

I don’t really know what I want to do though, or if I want to go to college at all. I’m thinking of graphic design and for that, I would need a degree.

But I also love painting and I think my stuff is good enough for people to want to buy. I don’t need a degree to save up some cash and buy a little gallery or something.

I don’t need a degree to be a photographer either, which is something else I’m considering. I’m still new to photography but I’ve been practising a lot.

Dad is okay with my skipping college, if that’s what I end up doing. He says I already have a better idea what I want to do than he did at my age and that’s a good start.

Mum doesn’t think much of the idea. She’s pushing for me to go and study fine arts, even if I settle on painting or photography.

I don’t even know if I’d be able to get in anyway. It’s not like I’m a star student or anything and I don’t have much motivation to try and improve.

I’m really much more interested in girls right now.

They’re not so interested in me though, which is a problem.

Declan usually thinks it’s pretty funny.

He doesn’t really try flirting with girls, so he just gets to sit back and enjoy my failures.

Declan just has secret crushes on girls, which he then denies.

It’s so obvious to me that he likes Louisa but she’s dating our friend Justin.

I hear a lot of guys talking about Louisa, like she’s really hot, but I don’t see it. She’s pretty but nothing special.

Lately, I’ve been focusing my attention on Violet. She goes to a private school, so I don’t see her in class but I always notice her when I see her around elsewhere.

She seems like kind of a slob but I don’t mind a girl who likes her food.

Our first conversation didn’t go so well. I said something dumb and I think she just thought I was a big weirdo.

I guess she decided to give me another chance though, because she ended up joining my solo darts game outside a little while later.

Once I actually decided to think before I opened my mouth, we got along much better.

I threw in some compliments, just to smooth things over. Flattery might not get me everywhere but I figured it couldn't hurt.

It seemed to work. Just before I had to head home, I asked her out and she gave me her number.

I really like Violet and I hope this thing with her goes somewhere.

Spam:

Just some Catherine spam from the party, because she's cute!



I ended up putting this in her inventory and letting her take it home - she loved that robot! It was once Lauren's.

She was super-sleepy, the poor little thing!
Not too sleepy to check Jack out though!

If she was angling for some attention from Jack, I guess she got it!

Notes:

• Title is from Ramble On by Led Zeppelin.
• First update of the year! Hope you all enjoyed ringing in the new year and are set for an awesome 2012!
• I think I've said before that I want to start celebrating birthdays, when they happen to fall in a convenient place in the schedule for that particular Sim. Jesse's birth month is September, so this works for him. I'll still be doing my age-ups in January though, because doing them month by month seems like a) more work and b) like it has the potential to be confusing in terms of starting primary/high school.
• Austin's eventual career is probably going to hinge on whether he gets into college or not. Mitchell is in, as I said and I think Lauren already qualifies as well but Austin is the least motivated.
• So Austin finally got to narrate an update. Lauren hasn't narrated either but I feel like we've seen a lot more of her anyway. I guess she's made her presence felt quite strongly!
• I will probably delve a bit more into Austin and Violet when I play Declan's house. And I'll see if I can see what Declan's thinking, romance-wise, as well. ;)