Class clown Michelle Meng is laughing all the way to her HSC Michelle Meng pictured at Kogarah High School / Pic: Sam Ruttyn Source: The Daily Telegraph IF you are currently studying in NSW, Michelle Meng is funnier than you are. She's so funny, that despite having never previously made a joke in front of an audience, 17-year-old Meng won the Melbourne Comedy Festival's Class Clown NSW competition in her first time on stage. "I was really amazed," Michelle said yesterday. Everyone would always tell me I should be a comedian. But that's like when they tell pretty girls they should be models - nobody ever expects you to actually do it. Michelle went to the national competition in Melbourne in a quest to be crowned the country's foremost class clown. "Nobody has asked me to represent anyone in anything before so to be there representing the state was amazing," she said. I think when I look back this will be one of my starting points, it will be the catalyst for what I do in the future. Michelle lost the overall class clown competition to a Tasmanian who made jokes about his monobrow. "But he was really nice," she said. Michelle says being the cream of the state's joke-cracking crop has not changed her life and the Year 12 student at St George Girls High in Kogarah still spends most of her time studying for the HSC. "Nobody has challenged me to a comedy duel in the courtyard yet," she said. But I'm always the funniest person in the room. I'm not going to stop even if people tell me to stop. Despite her bravado, Michelle said hours of preparation went into her performance at the competition. "I would sit in my room with my phone and record myself doing 30 minutes of talking," she said. After I had about five of those, I would listen back and try to find what worked together. Then I tried to get it all working in a narrative. Michelle said her comedy was based on her personal experiences. She draws material particularly from her mother ("she says crazy things"), her sister ("she has cold dead eyes") and her friends ("they're shit"). "My jokes are what I think," Michelle said.