The Essay Remission of Blogging

As most university students will know, the first week of the summer term at university is essay deadline week! Also known as Uber Stress Week!!

I have just altered the amount of days I work, and moved it up to four days (work was really obliging for this cheeky effrontery- it hink i mean this word???-, which is truly very sweet of them to an obnoxious studenty type like me!!) My essay was due yesterday at 3pm- not 9 nor 5 but 3- right in the middle of my working day.... thus I was at university at 8:30am to pop it under the door of the MA history dept. I sincerely hope someone has got it!! lol!!

I felt very organised this time, which is good considering I have now become just slightly more than part-time AND I found out yesterday that I got a voluntary (i.e. not paid) position at the archives at work every Friday!! :)

This is amazingly brilliant news. It has put me on a high- definitely yesterday and also today and may it long last till into the future!! :)

This is really just an apology post for such a long time in blogging and also to have a little bit of a boast. I feel I haven't had one in a while.

So work = money = :) (plus I really do enjoy working where I am- I am actually half dreading the day when I have to leave like so many of my friends.)

And archives = personal happiness.

All good times!! I shall post something of interest soon!! I am thinking of something tedious on Queen Victoria (what my recent essay was on) and also meeting my Japanese pen pal, Masayo!! I am meeting her on Friday at Trafalgar Square for a bite to eat and a cuppa tea. She doesn't speak much English and I do not speak any Japanese so sign-language and a lot of smiling will have to suffice :)

Update soon... I promise :)

Brief Update Before the Chaos Ensues...

Okay so it is Friday, THE Friday before the SingStar Extravaganza. Am I hyping this up too much?

I think I may be.

I have been warming up my vocals by singing in my car to Abba, Duffy, Lady GaGa, Florence and the Machine, The Killers, etc whilst stuck in traffic in Egham/Old Windsor of all places!? However, there was a major crash, and little car is now a very tiny car that a dwarf possibly would not fit in. I am hoping the people inside were alright. The Van on the other side seemed pretty badly damaged but still van-shaped. I think we can work out who won the Van vs Small Car competition. It made me and Lil Beryl worried and very nervous. It could have been us, that little red car crumpled.

So I was warming up vocals, passing by bits of car and bopping as I have been given to doing of late, and I was pondering life. As you do. It ain't half bad. So maybe like yesterday's post of "Happy Thursday", this is a bit of a "happy Friday!"

I am a bit of a gimp when it comes to social interaction with unknown/strange peoples but "The Crusaders" are like some of the nicest welcoming people ever on a historically based course in the world!! I haven't been to every historically based course in the world, but I still know that they would be tops! They really welcomed a stoopid, non-crusading, doing-this-for-a-lark-cum-it-interests-me as I was. Genuinely amazing to see them in Crosslands today :) Very nice bunch.
Also had a small amount of chillax time with Lucy and co. Will meet up with her over the Easter holidays for some Essay downtime and lunch procrastination- part of the university culture is to procrastinate by eating. I am down with this!

So yes, all round social thumbs up, all round vocal high five and also got thrown a couple of books by the legend that is Jonathan Phillips (Prof. btw) so I hoping these books will make my essay marvellous. One can only hope.

On a penultimate note, I am going to the pub tonight. I am driving = no drink = good for impending doom of the bank balance. I also have the wondrous sum of £9 to spend tonight on all manner of non-alcoholic beverages. That is my budget and I am sticking to it! We are trying a new pub which is called "The Vanny" by its regulars. Should be interesting. I will give full report Monday/Tuesday time. Right now, I am thinking I need to read those books and clean the upstairs bathroom before the party tomorrow.

And on a final note it is indeed SingStar Extravaganza tomorrow. I will also give you an update of how this goes with some possible photos and almost certainly no voice recordings. I shall not put you through the ear death that will be any inebriate singing at this party. Full update to come beginning part of next week!!

Signing off for the weekend...

HAVE A GOOD ONE EVERYONE!!!!

SMILING DAYS

I am glad to inform you that I have managed to find my happy place again!!

Money worries have been replaced by applying for more days at work which has been duly noted and things are in motion to get it going, so I will be working within the next month four days a week, which my bank manager will be very happy with. University work will be taking a backseat, or rather I will just have to get my arse into gear.... or a into g (my new favourite phrase of the week) and get my Victorian Essay done over Easter and get my Crusades one done ASAP and the horrid philosophy of history one done before end of May too. The project is gonna be a bit of a further delve into my undergraduate dissertation so I hoping that this is gonna be 'easy', maybe I should say easier??

In addition, I am two pounds away from losing a stone (which was my end of March target), which is immense. It is weigh in day tomorrow- so I may blog and let you know. However, if you don't hear anything, fear the worst.

I did have a little bit of a bad week this week- there was a Donner Kebab on Friday evening but the dude who now knows me and my brother gave us uber amount of chillies which are supposed to be amazing for digestion I heard from a mate this week, so yay- I am pretty sure it balances out. Also went for garlic "dough"- friend has given up bread- yes, bread for Lent. I have heard of chocolate, sweets, crisps and even God forbid alcohol for Lent, but bread? Well, let me tell thee, it is a first. SUMMARY: I had an amazing day.

Then I went to go and see Derren Brown (all this was occurring in Soton) and he was literally fabulous!! From making a bloke lay balanced between two chairs, tambourines & chalk and all manner of crazies it was just an amazing entertainment show that makes you come out singing (of which I can't and won't tell ya the lyrics- it is a big give away) and saying "how the fuck did he...." In short it was immense and helped friends get over boyfriend/getting made redundant dramas. It was a great night that I think I may dedicate a wee bit of a post to- I wrote one the morning afterwards on the train back home on a bit of paper and I just need to find it and type it up. Also need to regale the saga of my friends' flat which is a cross between Calcutta and Hiroshima. *shudders* bless their inner studenty soul.

Then I had a visitation from my friend who "lives up north" since I was 17. We went to the hell hole (which we universally agreed on yesterday over lunch and a pint). She lives in Southport now and I haven't seen her in 3 years so it was immense to catch up. Another of our "alternative corner" friends rocked up. It was an amazing afternoon of chicken and leek pie with chips and gravy for me, mash for them. It was just a nice catch up to be honest.

Also it is the last week of being taught for my Masters. I would like to say it had been all fun and frolics, but that is a lie. I am thinking I am glad it is over, to be allowed to get more work (ie. getting paid work- 9 to 5 kind, not the illicit street walking kind either- which has been conjured up several times over the last few months by mates- it makes me chuckle because I am such a prude!!!)and get on writing the essays I wanna write whether they receive a hugely personal character assassination or not. Either way, persevere and slog through it all!!

And lastly, I had a bootiful lie-in this morning. It was lush. I rolled over, fell off the propped up pile of pillows- I do have an insane amount of pillows on my bed- what can I say I am a pillow fiend- on which I had been balanced precariously on due to a cold- I have a scabby nose, which is really the worst of it to be honest, and the pillows just aid the breathing without snoring during the night thang- so there is a genuine excuse this time to have an insane amount of pillows on my bed MWHAHAHAHAHAHA! However, I feel pretty good. So yeah, now I am going to be a cool chick and tidy my bedroom and start getting bits and pieces ready for essays and also the SingStar extravaganza happening at my house over the weekend. Karaoke for the drunk. Good times. I am thinking The Brother (who is back in the good books again- bless his lil cottons) has invited enough people for me not to sing, so I can get merry in the corner and eat pizza. Whoop whoop!!

Roll on the Smiling Days baby!!

WOW IT IS MARCH

Okay, it has taken me to the 16th to realise it is indeed March. I think it is symbolic of my state of mind. Half "Can't Be Arsed", half let's disappear into "Lala Land", my own little world of gremlins, trees, medieval dress and Johnny Depp.

Let's get the bad stuff over with shall we?

Okay, well, here I go... I warn you now it is full of self-pitying humour but without the humour... I have warned you...

1) I have fallen out the wagon on the weight loss front. I am sure as hell not eating as much but the exercise has taken a knock. Well, okay maybe this is not that bad. It is not the first time. But I was looking forward to our family summer holiday to Spain- okay it is the uber Brit/Paddy-ville of Spain but I am not in England. I was losing weight for this, now my impetus to look good in a swimsuit has vanished. I will just wear my "slimming black collection" of clothes for yet another summer. However it is good news for my bank account to not go on holiday, thus leading me to gripe #2...

2) I am broke. My car broke down and cost me £500 to get it up and running again and now have no petrol, with the view of petrol prices going up 3p a gallon. Depressing quite frankly to have a car. I do love Beryl with all my heart but she is literally sapping money out of me at the moment. I also owe some serious money, am owed some serious money, need to flog a few things (bought to flog) to earn me some serious dough, and at some point need to wage war with the TV Licensing company who ripped uber amounts of money off me. Bastards.

3) University. Well, enough said I think. I am definitely not doing a PhD now. I would rather saw my hands off. Essaying for my Victorian culture class is going well; not so much for my Women and the Crusades class. I have no idea of where to tap sources!! Literal nightmare.

4) My family are constantly irritating me, in particular my mam and brother, The A Team. Whatever I do, it is just not enough, for the proverbial sun will always perpetually shine out of my brother rear end for my mother. He 'didn't have time' to order flowers for mum for mother's day, so dad did (OK The Brother did pay for them)and then The Brother failed to pick them up because he was still in bed, so dad went and got them, fell over the step in the garden that has been there for an age and fell on the flowers. STILL he is a flaming saint. My brother, not my dad. My dad got told off for yelling at the brother. I, however, a week in advance bought card and gifts- PLURAL- and really put some thought into it. Humph. I did get a thank you so that is something.
Also on an additional note on the brother- his laziness kills me!!! He doesn't even wash his own shirts!! I sit on the sofa knowing he has none clean for the next day at work and I have to go and wash them because I know he will probably just re-wear the less smelly one!! Also someone (a bitch I might add) at work pulled me up about his deportment!! He is untidy and slovenly. Humph. Like what am I supposed to do about it? Well, I polished his flaming shoes at half seven in the morning and he took them off me and put them on without even a thank you.

Anyway rant on that front over!!

The positives:

1) Went for a cultural extravaganza in Southall- art exhibition and genuine curry :) twas amazing all round. Friend's exhibit was really good. Definitely the best but then I am biased. I am looking forward to the fotos coming onto Facebbok so I can show you some of the stuff there! Some pretty great art stuff going on... but some were a little bizarre like the "70cm Shutter" where you had to crawl into the warehouse to enter whilst apparently being filmed. A great laugh to the creation of that monstrosity but if I ever meet that unfortunate soul, tis beats for them! LOL! Overall, it was a fab evening!! I had a real great night out breaking out from the domestic sphere hemming me in atm!

2) I actually managed to give away some tickets for work!! Woohoo two mates came round the castle and we had a bit to eat and bevvie! Just nice to have a catchup and hang out with a different bunch.

3) Tomorrow I am heading off (spending even more monies but it is so worth it) to Southampton to have lunch with a pal and then see Derren Brown wots-his-name-person-thingy-me-bob with old school mates. That will perk me up.

4) I have a clean bathroom thanks to moi. It has been getting me down. It was a game of who will break first I think. I cracked, but the plus is a shiny clean bathroom though I forgot to scrub the toilet- crucial- I poured liberal amounts of bleach down it but I forgot about it. Went in there a while ago and found it smelling overwhelmingly of bleach. "Doh!" comes to mind!! LOL

5)I am downloading music I can ill-afford but it is making me smile. Check out the following:

a)Stay Too Long by Plan B
b)The Cave by Mumford and Sons
c) Devil's Spoke by Laura Marling
d)You and I; Die Alon; Glass by Ingrid Michaelson
e) The hereafter- haven't bought this yet as it is a bit odd and I haven't made my mind up!!

I am also liking the Radio 1 Live Long version of Halo by Florence and the Machine. Oooooo additionally The Dirtee Love by Dizzee Rascal and Florence is gooooood too!
Also recently downloaded- The truth about heaven by Armor for Sleep, Earth to Bella Parts I and II by Incubus- i forget how much I like Incubus... And also Rock n Roll Queen by the Subways- makes me think of freshers week when I tried to get into live music. I wasn't sure I liked them then but they have grown on me since...

Anyhoo I think that is a long enough rant to catch you up on my moans, grins and whims. Adieu for now...

Thank F**k for today- FINALLY I realise a MA was for me!!

Okay, you know I said I didn't really do any reading for my class?

Well, I didn't need to. I harked back to literature and painting for all things!! LOL as always.

We were talking about social observation and the popularisation of this as a form of media entertainment (like newspapers and books)- it kinda hit the spot for me. We were talking about Dickens (who I am not overly fond of) instead I went off into the world of Elizabeth Gaskell and her way of observing the manufacturing classes in the North and writing about in things like North and South (a very good BBC production of it if your prefer the short-hand version as it were- mind you I can read the book in two days- albeit not doing much else!!) She characterises the manufacturing part of the middle-class as barbarous in the beginning but by the end she realises there is an inherent nobility to earn money honesty by labour. Margaret says "I'd prefer to earn money honestly" rather then let it accumulate. Her aunt calls her "revolutionary" for thinking like this. I was wondering how Elizabeth Gaskell related to the poor- did she? I would like to think she did. She really gets to grip with the working-class issues yet maintains a sense of dignity, albeit of a feminine variety- Nicholas a labourer in Milton cotton mills is effeminised during the course of the book as the unions fail and Boucher dies- in effect he becomes a mother of sorts. Either way she shows a compassion that is masked in Dickens for example. Dickens is preoccupied with satirising and although shows plight of the poor in Hard Times, A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist sensitively, there is an undercurrent of criticism that takes away the Victorian sentimentality that contributes to the pathos of the books. Then we moved onto Engels as a social observer and what his motives and perspective was on the situation.

Elizabeth Gaskell

Engels was a Flaneur(??)- a single man dressing down into a typical working-class person and walking the streets taking in all the information of what life was like in Manchester: "a living hell" as he had called it before writing his book The Conditions of the Working-Class. He was a social observer, but the question rose: were people like him, Mayhew and Booth (all social observers of the time) doing it for the improvement of mankind? For self-gratifing voyeurism? Morbid curiosity? To improve the plight of the working-class? Did they see themselves apart from the working-class? Was that a class apart or a race apart? The "Residuum" as the working-classes were called by Malthus I think were a "race" apart. This is what I am hoping to be looking at for my MA dissertation- what language women feminists used to describe the working-classes.

I love the beard, Engels.

Anyhow we came to the conclusion that Engels had a genuine interest other than an economic agenda to walking the streets. It was a good class... I may add to this post another time with some extra thoughts from the class... I have literally only just got back in... I shall ponder it a while whilst reading primary sources for my class on Monday morning on Women in the Crusades 1000-1300> I have never studied this period of history before!! It should be interesting.

Anyways in short I enjoyed today's class. The cuppa afterwards was also enjoyable. Summary: good day at the office. Rock on more days like this!!

PS. Alex the lecturer is such a dude!! he has a wicked laugh- his face creases up and he curls inwards. Really infectious!! It makes me feel better- I can have a real barking laugh when I want!! lol!! He is, in summary, a dude.

Been a Long Time Coming...

Hey,

It has been a long time since I have blogged. It was a new years resolution of mine to blog at least once a week to vent feelings, well mainly rages and stuff, enabling me to become emotionally balanced.

Well as you can see it is now the 13th of January and there is an auspicious lack of blogs. I owe you two. This one is one... I guess. Kinda.

Anyhoo back to the tedious inevitability of naming the list of impossible new year's resolutions that will have failed by the end of the month.

1) Blog more

2) Lose weight- I have set what I think may be achievable goals.

3) Lose my temper a little less often at the ones I love and more at the ones who deserve it.

Fairly easy.

PAH! I managed to fail the first two through the stresses of essay writing- I comfort ate-I wanna snog the person who invented salt and vinegar chipsticks- you got me through the trials of erotic dancing and prostitution in early 20th-century Britain. "Phallic symbol anyone?" "Yuck! Leazi, please!! TMI!!" *shrugs* what can you do?

Lol gawd love my family for their unwavering support these last three weeks. My mam read and reread my most troublesome essay groaning at raunchiness and my attack on "the patriarchal imperial social order that reinforced misogynistic display of females in adult entertainment in Soho". Yep. As she said to me, "my mother would have been shocked that I am reading this never mind you writing it."

Gawd love my dad for driving me to university at 2:32pm when the essay was due in at 3pm. Also bless him for sliding back down the hill on a patch of ice in car on university territory treating the milling students to a host of vibrant expletives that will educate them far more than that lecture they just attended.
I was still writing in my PJs at 2:20 and also showing my love and affection to the laptop in some expletives of my own :D and Dad didn't say a word but just started the car.

Gawd love the lil brother who came in with copious glasses of lemonade, offerings of sweets and other essay sustaining goods to the wee hours. He learnt never to ask how it was going, just to lay down the goods and rapidly retreat out of the office. He recognised that he was not getting onto the laptop until I was done and stopped nagging me to get on it. And last night he tidied his room so we could watch comedy DVDs have a glass of wine and celebrate the end of the essayness for this term.

So thanks guys. XXXX

I managed to not lose my temper at them but instead at the laptop that is sooooo painfully slow and at myself for not being more organised to have started this essay sooner.

So, that is why despite being a student and having four weeks off for Christmas I haven't blogged. And before then? Well, I guess I was being just plain lazy!! haha!!

So I hope you had a good Christmas and may it be a fabulous 2010 for all of us eh? Good luck to the resolution keeping :D

OMG! It's November!

When did this happen?

Humph. Who knows? It may have possibly started back on the first of November?? Hmmmm... I have lost all sense of days... I divide my week not by weekend/weekday but by work day/uni day/library day... it is a never ending circle of days, or irritatingly "cyclical" as one of the really and I mean REALLY smart boys (emphasis on the word boys here by the way) keeps repeating...

"History is so cyclical... the philosophy of history and the history of philosophy being one and the same thing according to Hegel has a cyclical element..." Someone for Christ sake buy him a Thesaurus... in fact I will and place it in his pigeon hole!!

BTW before I get back to the point of my blog- when I say one of the boys- I mean so much for mature men on Masters courses!? They are all in the gang dominated by Cyclical Guy, who are all still proclaiming the wonders of Marxism (which by the way FAILED) and they seem to be much the same as boys in first year. Go figure huh? Needless to say, that is another added annoyance of the university course.

However, on a finally positive note- the girls have been great and Tom too (who I shall put in the girl category). Went to lunch with them today and yesterday and everything seems hunky dory :) Yay! It is nice to have a mutual rant of a historical and course based nature without people thinking I am a moaning ninny!

And tomorrow I am meeting them at the Wellcome Library for history of breasts, cross dressing and mental deficiency= jokes!! - what a weird and wonderful bunch we are!! haha!!

PLUS I am seeing This Is It tomorrow- I am soooooo excited and I hope its good!

So yes November... Halloween was a wash out cos I got so drunk Thursday night I was still recovering on the Saturday and had to work both Sat and Sun so was probs not a great idea to go out and give the kidneys and liver another bashing!! But I dressed up as a witch again (it may be cliched but I love it with my tarot cards and runes and all!!) I tried scaring children at the door too but failed. Plus there was a definite lack of Trick or Treaters this year due to Upton Court Park firework display!! Grrrr... that should have been tomorrow!!

This is Mum, RJ and Dad wearing my very cool witch's hat!! With a glass of wine or two :)

I am going to no firework displays (again!) but I am indeed as I said going to the cinema to see This Is It which by far makes up for it!

So all in all, good summary of life up to now...

So I shall blog some interesting stuff when I can be arsed :) No offence intended! lol and I suppose I ought to get on reading about Crime in the 1930s for "Public Decency Private Morals" Course and also the effect of the shift of the one-sex model to the two-sex model had on views of cross dressing of both men and women in early modern England and France :)

One Cross-Dressing lady as a man... ok, ok, it's from Shakespeare in Love! Don't hate me for it, you know you love it!

Have a good evening one and all XX

OK, let's face it. It has been over a month of blogging absence.

I have started university (my Master of Arts degree), I have gone down to two days a week at work and all my friends have drifted back off to university or home etc. They only seem to come out in the summer. It happens every year, that sinking feeling. To be honest this year it was worse than last year and I am not sure why.

It didn't help that I don't like doing my Masters at the moment, well that is till today- I feel I made a breakthrough. I really enjoyed my "Body in the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe" course and followed it by lunch (or in my case carrot cake with a huge mug of tea :) yummy) with two of the girls in my course. It was good. We were all in the same boat. All from universities that are not Royal Holloway. We are all finding some of the other courses weird and not really suited to us. None of us necessarily want to be archivists or librarians we idealistically want to bring history to the masses.... make what we find fun and exciting fun and exciting for everyone else. In some ways I hold out for a female presenter on a documentary- they are still mostly male!! Though I do not think for one moment I shall be the face that launched a thousand documentaries, I shall hope to help someone do it. Historical research- research Jane Austen period clothing and eating habits, the Tudor sex life, the Flapper girls and Tommies, and the Romantic poets... oh the possibilities. Today is the first day I think I may have actually made the right decision to go back to university.

Yay!

On a plus note I am getting used to working all the time now (at work I mean). It has been tough. Work has been a huge part of my life for over a year and now it has taken a backseat. Now my brother works there and is getting into the whole thrall of it leaving me behind, or as I am starting to think of it, not behind just adjacent and not necessarily on the same course. This time last year I was unsure of what I was going to do. I was applying for jobs I didn't really want but I didn't really know what I wanted... a whole heap has happened since then. I am more settled. I know what I want, or perhaps more accurately what I don't want.

In short, the world is good now. Before the world was bad thus bloggeth I not.

On a lighter note :)

I think I have almost finally decided that it may be possible that I might actually consider in attempting to do my assessment for tour guiding at work :)

I think.

I will promise to practice more tomorrow on my day off!

I am so glad that I got tomorrow off- I think a 7 day week would near have killed me!!

I am enjoying my time at the archives and I am uber lookign forward to starting my Masters, and the preliminary reading is rolling in already *yikes*

I better dust off my old ring binders and dig out my school supplies.... don't you just love buying school supplies? I do! I love the pensils, the different coloured pens- I love being able to get away using them at uni, and the erasers in various shapes and sizes, my Harry potter pencil case a must, a little ruler, a stapler, a hole punch, paper... the varieties of lined paper... sigh... it makes me think of a quote from "You've Got Mail" with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in *yes, it is a chick flick*:

"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."

Hmmm bouquets of newly sharpened pencils :) It is that autumn time as well and nearly back to school time... hmmm it is just that season to be jolly... fa la la la la la la la la!

Mind you, was it just me or did the novelty of school and the new supplies wear off in about a week... whereas at uni cos I loved it so much the novelty was all year round :) I hope it will be the same this time too...

The world is full of possibilities sometimes:)

My Fear of Lethargy.

I have decided to concentrate a bit on framing what I am thinking. I am having a down day today, so I am going to frame my thoughts that have been rattling around in my mind.

I have literally just realised that I spend a lot of my time thinking, mostly subconsciously doing it, never forming any conclusions or helping me to progress from the same cycle, or perhaps it should be called a rut, of thinking. It is in fact worse if I subconsciously think, because it often bubbles to the surface, explodes and I end up saying something to myself replying to what I had been thinking about (I do have an irritating habit of talking to myself ALL the time!!) And the answer is rarely ever helpful. Another thing I do is go over and over and over until I almost go mad with things I should have done and not done. I again answer my thought with a sigh, exclamation, shout, groan, etc at these memories. I am a perfectionist, and of course nothing can ever be perfection and I constantly berate myself for not being perfect and simultaneously for striving to be perfect. Trust me, perfection is never perfect.

What has been really grating on me lately is that I am really lethargic at the moment. Well, it has been for longer than a moment. I know that I should be doing something but I procrastinate from doing anything. Then I feel bad for doing nothing, then I procrastinate further by doing nothing, well it is obviously something but nothing of worth like trawling the Internet and coming up with a million possibilities of perhaps what I should be doing, but thinking if only I could drive, I could get to that Pilate's class there, or if I had the courage to try that, perhaps I should do that job, maybe I should become that... what do I think of that career?... but I can't do that because of x, y and z.

I haven't felt this for a long time. Excusing myself from doing something by my inability to do it in some way. Feeling so capable and powered by achieving my degree (and yes we are back at this turning point of my relatively sort life- forgive my naivety to those older and wiser than me! I must be sounding like a broken record player!) so back to my degree and the feeling of fulfilment and something to strive for that drove me everyday to get up in the morning and go to my lecture, the library etc etc. In short, this has evaporated.

Now I know that university is not the be all and end all, and this is NOT what I am trying to convey to you. In fact, it was my degree that sustained me. I had fixated on something, but now it has gone, I have this vacancy of a part of me. I don't mean I am missing the degree, but the dedication towards something. At school, I made myself complete the work and not let myself down and to prove to the school I shouldn't be ignored (Gawd, I hated that place!) I was powered by the need to PROVE myself. It was lucky I could pull it off, otherwise I would have looked very foolish!!

Me and my mam had a conversation last night about my first year at university. It was awkward in places, and the worst skimmed over as per, but I stumbled over a few home truths over a shared bottle of wine with my mam. I was a wild child and my mam had despaired, but I came back to her, as she put it. Things culminated in the first year, particularly the first term. I had to look after myself for the first time, I had my independence, I was free to do what I wanted... and I did. I experienced the first joy of being 'naughty', of doing things I would never have done before! Silly things from wearing short skirts and staying out all night had been, up to this point, hitherto never participated in. In fact, I would perhaps consider it a rather libertine lifestyle I had in the first year. Drinking, smoking, drugs, sex... You name it, I would have given it a go. I used people and threw them aside as it suited me, as it had been done to me before. It is so easy to get on that slippery slope and slide all the way to the bottom, oh so easy with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a plethora of cheering mates in the other.

I thought I knew who I was before I stepped onto university soil. I thought I could withstand the rigours university posed. I thought, and I thought wrong. It resulted in a complete collapse. Total Destruction. I faced the abyss with no sense of self. Who was I? And genuinely I could not answer. Well, I can't answer now, but I have an innate feeling of who I am, and I know that if it is tested, I will not waver. I think it has been tested already and I am still around! I would say that this feeling has formed in the last year if truth be told. It has taken me two years, but in that time I never let go of striving to achieve what I went to university to do. The sense of proving myself, perhaps as an atonement for my behaviour in the first year. The third year saw me do it for a different reason thankfully. It can be exhausting continuously proving yourself.

It has always struck me as odd that I chose to do a subject at school that was not my best, that I was told in year seven that I just did not have a natural flair for or showed any interest in it... I think I should have known then that I perhaps chose history as a degree to be stubborn, to prove people wrong and to show that I could be good at anything I wanted. I was lucky that it worked out in my favour in the end. It doesn't work like that normally. You cannot be good at everything. I am not naturally good at history, but I have come to love history in a way that as propelled me to do well in it. It was not a chore to do the stacks of reading I had to do and the long essays I had to write. Had it not been for the love that formed, I doubt I would have done very well. I was not proving anything to anyone then. I was doing it now because I wanted to.

I have deceived people. I have hurt people. I have lied to myself. I have been a complete cow in summary. I have learnt the hard way. I found the bottom of my soul (and though it may seem cheesy, believe me there is not a speck of cheese in sight there). I have found who I am and who I can be, and now I am just facing up to these facts. Many of them are unfavourable and are, of course, taking time to come to terms with. It took no doctors, no prescription drugs and no therapy to sort me out. It just took me and my will to do it. I may be remarkable, but I doubt it. I think people can do more things than they think they can, if they only harnessed their self-destructive will for a strength that is employed for good. It is harder that way; it is easier by far to take the drugs, have a therapist tell you what you are, what you need etc, but I know what I am and if I ever find myself straying that way again, I know what I can do. I will always be my harshest critic and in this case it works to my favour. I will always over analyse everything I do and say, and then check myself back into order.

Now, I am lethargic at the moment, edging to a destructive state due to a vacancy in my life, but I know I am not as bad as I was and I know what I need to do. I know who I am now. I just need to muster up myself and get going again, pick up the momentum of life and enjoy it! Once the ball starts rolling, it is all plain sailing! After all, life is far too short to be languishing on bad thoughts... so I am expelling these thoughts (rather publicly) that have been mulling on in my mind for a few years, and as far as I am concerned that is a few years too many. So up and onwards... enough of this melancholic lethargy...

I will let you know how it goes :D Cathartic rant thus endeth...

Today, I am mostly these ten things...

1) Relaxed- I am currently chilling out, online obviously but have also been watching some good old rom coms, namely You've Got Mail, and period dramas of the A Room with a View variety. Also checked out Charlie Wilson's War today- ace stuff! Political and entertaining. Rarely those two words have been used in conjunction, sparing of course the part-time comedian-cum-politician Boris Johnson!

2) Happy- Surprisingly so. Been to uni this weekend, had a wicked weekend and realised that I have successfully detached myself from it. I do miss it, but I realise I miss the people and the lifestyle more than the actual place, which is good for me. I am continuously surprised by my natural emotional ability to work things out by themselves eventually.

3) Digging my cheap primark stretchy t-shirt! £2 and it is comfy and it is blue!

4) Enjoying roast dinners- something I definitely missed at uni! These are the epitome of English cuisine after fish and chips, curry and the fried breakfast... no wonder on reflection we have some the highest obesity rates! wooo hooo rock on my expanding waist line! More roast tatties please, Mam!

5) Tippling the Lambrini... For old times sake I have bought some and sipping it now. Slightly alcoholic lemonade really. Cheap and cheerful and very studenty!

6) Sad about Sharpe's Peril. Having been recommended it at work, I am slightly disappointed with it. Rock on Hornblower all the way... yum Ioan Gruffard... However, slightly shocked by the way to see him covorting on the screen along side Stephen Fry in Wilde as his gay fling! Very shocking stuff, however, I am sooo going to buy it! ... and some Oscar Wilde books too... I have long been a 'quote addict', that is someone who enjoys reading and gathering quotes, for quite a while and I shall have to put them up here eventually... and Wilde by far has my highest regard, so I have reckoned with myself that I really need to start reading his stuff. A wise man. Plus forever more I do believe I will picture Oscar Wilde as Stephen Fry (God I love that man- check out QI folks- tis the shiz!)

7) Loving the advert breaks today- I have days when I want to watch something on tv and simultaneously read. Advert breaks help me to do both without being mean to the book and not giving it my full attention and likewise with the tv programme! Plus also good time to fetch cheese and crackers with a cuppa tea for the next episode of Location, Location, Location or whatever it is called with my mam!

8) Too hot! This is hot as in the heating is on, half the house is well insulated due to strictly enforced government restrictions on new buildings so the extension part of the house is baking... no heat is going out, but the old part of the house is freezing due to 1933-ness of the house. Crazy shiz... Really need to relocate to shiny new decorated lounge where it is cool and obviously still smells like paint.... I love that smell...

9) Loving my bed... I have recognised the full greatness of my bed. It may be a single but I have had it forever and it is soooooo COMFY. It was my first bed and I have never had another and we are looking at replacing it and I am rather attached to it *sad face* I had a good, long lie in today and it was lovely. I have five pillows but I only ever sleep on two, maybe three, the rest just surround and make the bed uber comfy. I like my bed. I email from it, I watch movies, read, eat breakfast and of course sleep.

10) Concerned about the upcoming USA presidental elections... I am really worried. I am not entirely convinced who should win, who shouldn't win- you make think these are the same, but sometimes it is more about who you don't want to win an election than who you do. I am pretty sure I do not want Palin anywhere near the White House if it can be helped and if McCain coughs it, she will be president. How scary is that.... someone who thought it was the French President on the line... She'll never make it alive through the medianess! Still, media representations are often skewed, so i could be wrong, and to be fair, there is lttle I can do about it from England... good luck to us all...

That's all folks :D

How things change... and faster than I thought!

SJ AND ME
ME, BRADDERS AND JENAH
HATTY, ME, JENNY BURT, JENAH, SJ, RACHEL, NATALIE, BRADDERS... THE BALL...
ZARA, KIRSTY AND LEANNE

ZARA, JENAH, KIRSTY, ME, SJ, HATTY... BEACH AT TORREMOLINOS

TOM, CLAIRE, ME AND LIZ

HATTY, SJ, LEANNE, ZARA BEFORE THE DRUNKEN NIGHT!

So, university will be officially declared over on Friday as I don the regulatory mortar board, robe and hood and walk up the steps to receive my degree. Sad really. All it takes is a probable hand shake, an acceptance of a piece of paper and an exeunt then the best three years of my life are over. They have not been smooth sailing for sure, but they have made me. I am a confident young woman, probably too confident, but a damn sure better than the trampled youth of school, beleagured by bullies and friends alike, though of course in two totally different ways. Still, it is the end. And already I fear friendships are breaking up. Saying goodbye is something I hate but I am wondering whether, if we were to drift apart, it is better to draw the line somewhere and pinpoint the moment when contact failed rather than let it peter out...

hum... I am still deciding. I have got an entire day off tomorrow to ponder the situation, probably talk it over with a mate I am meeting tomorrow night in a pub- much drunken ramblings to ensue I would imagine-and then settle down, grit my teeth and finish off what I set out to do. The void however is unfulfilled. Many of my friends say I have a job, what more do i need at the moment? Indeed this is true (especially since many do not have a job at all), but the fact that I could earn more money in Tescos on the checkout than I do working where I am is depressing, but in truth I would love to stay where I am!! I enjoy it! History and people combined. 'Tis ideal! The idea of working in an archive, although I would love it in its own way, would kill me slowly. I need people and to enthuse them... some say teaching, but I am not entirely sure that that isn't another form of slow death either. Never mind, I have until October and further if I need it, but my own deadline is October... anyways getting back to times gone by and things lost...

Sad times... just want to upload to photos of me and my uni gals enjoying what was our last term together...