You wake up, shake a leg, go to the loo, brush your teeth, drag a comb through your hair, slap make up on your face, shrug out of your pjs and into new clothes, grab some breakfast, run out of the door, travel, travel travel, walk, walk, walk, sit in mind numbing lessons, and again, and again, and you're walking and you're walking and you're travelling, and you're home again, shrug off the clothes and into lounging clothes, scrape your hair up, start working, working, working, typing, typing, grabbing food, working and typing, showering and sleeping.

Life can be great if you let it be.

Happy doesn't cover it.

End of placement, finally starting to like this infernal course, actually looking forward to my next placement, sat surrounded literally by files and by sunshine.

I'm content with my love life for once.
I massively underestimated the pros of going out with someone who lives just down the road.  It's perfect.  Those hidden moments you can snatch without worrying about abandoning work for a long time or having to go out of our way.

Without sounding OTT I'm just really happy and hope this never ends.  Roll on the Summer :)

Spending the night in a hotel in the City, overlooking the lights.

Jimeoin :)

Happiness in Darkness

It's a shame that I write in this so infrequently these days even if it is but a random dip into my life as it is right now.

So what's happening.

I'm still with my boyfriend.  My ex now has a girlfriend and I'm happy for him.  He's probably a lot happier with her and she probably makes him smile a lot more than I could ever do so.
I'm still happy.  I'm the happiest I've ever been for a long while.
I hate my course.  Can't stand it.  It's far too much paperwork and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that all teacher's are vindictive.  I'd swap the teaching environment for a shelf stacking one no problemo.  But I'm not a quitter, never have been.  It shows weakness to let something get the better of you.  So up on the tidal wave of pain I'm going to rise and I'm going to knock it flat.  I'm going to be the best goddamn teacher you could ever imagine.  And when the time comes I will look at this course and obliterate it from my memory.  I will do something that makes me happy for once.

Yes, this is a major problem for me right now.  I'm happy but I'm in a dictatorship.  My parents are still omnipresent in my life.  And as the times I stay out are getting longer and later their patience is wearing thin.  I'm being bitched about behind my back, I'm getting the looks of disappointment and I'm getting the feeling that they want me long gone.  And I want to be.  Let me out of here.  Let me into a household that welcomes me and I'm not ostracized   That I'm not expected to go out with a certain type of man (cos lets face it my current one isn't want they want but I'm not happy with what they want, I've tried it) or expected to kill myself by trying to do a 101 things just to make them happy. No.  I'm sick of it.  I'm sick of it something terribly.  I just need to get out, don't care who with.  But when I leave this house, even temporarily it's like walking out of the steel bars and into a haven.  It's a release.

However, I can't complain too much.  This year may have been the best year of my life.  So many changes, so many experiences, so many significant happenings.  I've passed my driving test, I've lost people to death, I've lost friends and people I've spent a lot of time with, I've gone into things that are way above me, but I'm sat here smiling.  I'm sat here smiling cos life couldn't have taught me a greater a lesson day by day if I hadn't gone through it all.  I was ditched on a train platform, I was picked up in a pub.  I left depression and entered exhilaration.  I've had the love of my friend throughout it all, even if I don't get it at home.  I've gone through stress in my course and complications and come through it all fighting.  And I'm still having a bloody good time with it.

In a bitter sweet way, I've never been happier.  Life can throw it's worst at me, I'll keep batting it away.

Innocent

At 8 you see the world how you want to see it; imagine it how you want it to be.
At 16 you see the world ahead of you and long for how perfect it's going to be
At 18 you realise the world isn't what it seems and is full of heart ache and people disappearing from your life.
At 22 you realise that there is no such thing as pure happiness.  Things just aren't that simple.  You won't wake up and smile like you used to and you won't go to bed smiling either.

Life sucks.

So Day One

And it bloody nearly killed me.

The mundane life of one post-Summer

So what does one do after a rollercoaster of a summer?

You go back to work.

You start your course.

And you live in hibernation for another year.

Apparently.

Having trouble coming to terms with life...

...everyone should have a hero.  And they do.  Most people's heros are those who have done life changing things, won nobel prizes, got over a life struggle by climbing a mountain, raised lots for charity, managed to find the cure for cancer, walked on the moon and the like.  They've made something of their lives.

However, for me, I struggle finding a hero like that.  I can't think of anyone I can wax lyrical that I admire in that way.  For instance, my hero isn't someone like Florence Nightingale, it's the bloke in the street.  It's the bloke in the street that has been raised in hell, has had a horrific accident, but yet still walks down the street smiling and calling out hi.  It's the man who doesn't become tied down to one thing, he listens to what he wants and he does it.  Whether it be changing job, moving house, going on a spontaneous trip down the country, throwing all their money to the lottery even.

101st post. Missed that Celebration...!

Due to my misery of the last couple of weeks I'd absent mindedly surpassed the fact that I'd posted my 100th post and not really noticed it!

But I thought the 100th post should not go unmissed, and instead should be used to explore how time has passed over the last year since I started using blogger with immense gusto having brushed off the dust from my sixth form years.

The Curse of the Memory

Waking up today I felt a renewed passion to sort my life out.  Starting with stuff that I still possess from university.

So straight away I extracted my old 'school' bag.  Having grown mouldy in my college room, I'd brought it home and dumped it, abandoning it, not wanting to go through the memories with the whole thing so fresh.  But now I saw fit to literally blow and hoover off the cobwebs, scrape off the surface mould, and delve into it's contents, making it respectable enough to throw into the trash.

The Endless Frustration

I am sure I've used this metaphor before with you but bear with me.

Imagine you're swimming in the sea.  And you realise that the ball you were playing with floats a little too far for your liking.  You swim towards it, but it floats out that little bit further.  You're getting frustrated now, because you can see it, it's right in front of you but it's teasing you.  You stretch out your fingers and just brush it but it lifts on a wave and moves further away from you.  You keep going, but you're feeling your feet lift up from the sea bed, and having to paddle.  But your movements are carrying the ball further and further away.  So you stop, you tread the water, and you watch the ball linger, stagnant on the sea, bobbing up and down in the water and you know if you jump forward like a cat pouncing on a mouse, it's just going to escape out of your hands.  

I'm 22, and I'm old.

All I hear day in and day out is 'you're only 22'.  This kinda irritates me.  Yes, I'm 22.  And by that logic I'm still young.  Certainly, if anyone's reading this who's older than 22 I'm sure you're sat there going 'What is she talking about, she is young'.  But let me tell you something, I'm old, and I'm feeling it.

Here's just a few instances why I know 22 isn't as young as everyone thinks it should be:-

The Start of Summer

Chilling by the riverbanks in the sunshiiiinneee

In the high temperatures, I worked all morning yesterday.  The library reached a high point of 25d.c. which meant for me a general frying feeling.  However, by 2pm I finally had people to enjoy the summer with, thanks to friends actually being relieved of exams for another year.  The day was a cracker.

Drinks by the river.
Pub meal.
Drinks in the house whilst chilling with housemates and friends.
An episode of EastEnders.
And this morning - a movie in bed.

Couldn't be a better way to start they summer :) And here's to this blog filled with many little adventures and wanderings :).

MamcanItellyousomethingIhaveaboyfriend

Thursday 24th May 2012 at c.4pm I did something extraordinary.

I finally told my parents that I have a boyfriend.

I started this blog in the hopes that it would follow me from graduation to settling down in life and my biggest hurdle was going to be my parents.  And finally I've cleared the jump!

All of this week has been a scorcher, beautiful clear blue skies and hot weather to boot and so I spent my rare two days off basking in the sunshine and getting far too many burns from the sun's rays.  But I was also battling a burning problem of my own.  I'd told my parents I wouldn't be coming home on Friday but stopping through Durham, and I thought this time, this time I will tell them exactly where I'm stopping.  But the conversation was sidetracked and I was given permission to stay out (yeah, I know...permission...*rolls eyes*) without too much details of what I was doing that night.  So I started thinking - I have to tell them, I have to be fair, and I want to tell them so I can start leading the free life I want without having to cover my back in case they plain out reject me.  This was coupled with the persuasion of travelling down to the South for some weeks (which I really wanted to do but couldn't without running it by my parents who would have been rather suspicious...) as well as a number of adults I'd confided in who thought it was imperative I told them.  I mean how bad could it be?

So on Wednesday, every time I'd managed to corner my mother, make her in a good mood, and had a view to tell her, I started hyperventilating.  I couldn't get the words out, my breathing picked up, and I felt like I was going to pass out.  So with the aid of sunglasses I managed to cover up my anxiety and it went unnoticed.  However, by Thursday my internal dialogue was shouting at me to do something.  And so what if they kicked me out?  So what if they forbid me to see him.  I could live with a mate who has a spare room.  So with this I set out to tell them.

The church clock struck 4pm.  The sun beat down.  My dad was nowhere to be seen.  We were sitting in the middle of our back garden, there was nothing that possibly could go wrong.  So I spoke...but what came out was me asking about the book she was reading.  And thus 10mins ensued of me not really listening to what she was babbling about but privately chiding myself.  So as she grew quiet again I watched her under the cover of my dark shades, and willed myself to just say it.  And so my mouth went into overdrive, forming the words but yet no sound.  How was I going to do this?!

Within a few minutes I'd come to an agreement - when I have bad news to tell I distance myself from it and make myself feel like I'm in some outta body experience.  I'm not the one that cares about the situation, I'm merely a passer by that observes the situation completely by chance.  So I tuned out and engaged my voice.  And so it came out.

MamcanItellyousomethingIhaveaboyfriend.

One long garbled sentence. 

But my mam rose from her dreamy stupor and said 'Good for you, is it someone I know?'.  And I was struck.  I expected total silence before a 'Think you need to see your father' as has happened before in this type of scenario.  So I whispered 'No.

Mother: Where does he live?

Me: Durham

Mother: A student?

Me: Yes

Mother: Well with any luck he'll be graduating soon.

Me: Next year, four year course. Maths.

Mother: Maths?! You'll have nothing in common.  Surely he'll be going back home, he doesn't live here.

Me: Essex. But he might do a PhD

Mother: You can't marry another (not sure what she meant by another :S) Essex man.  *Brief silence* Does he have an abacus in his attic?

Me: No.

Mother: *Silence*

And that was it.  15 minutes of silence and my mother gets back up.  She babbles that she'll have to put the tea on, despite my brother not returning for another 45mins, and asks me what I want in a repetitive nature 'Do you want them potato things? I'll put the potato things on'.  And this is when I thought she'd lost it.  She followed this with 'will have to do them seeds later on and will need to clean the house up.  Yes, ought to clean the house.  Where's your dad?  I'm going to go find him'.  And leaving me bewildered, she gets up and goes in.  And I'm left sat there thinking 'OMG' as my soul slides back into my body and the realisation of what I'd done hit like running into a brick wall.

When I finally got my wits together, I re-entered the house to find them talking on the couches - highly unusual for this time of day so I creep upstairs.  Twenty minutes later I'm called down to get my fruit.  When my mam stops me on the stairs and goes 'You not going to tell your dad the news?'  I died a little.  Right there with my right foot hovering mid-step holding the bowl of fruit.  And I shake my head.  And she goes, 'Dad get in the same room as her'.  So buoyed on by my boyfriend's comments moments beforehand I have the phrase 'I've done nothing wrong, let them hit me with the backlash' in my mind and I open my mouth, face my dad, move closer to him and say in a really defiant voice bordering on anger 'I HAVE A BOYFRIEND' and he goes, with rehearsed practice 'Well done son'.  And my mam says 'He's from Essex' and he goes 'that's where all our family come from'.  So I add 'and does maths' knowing this to be a thing he'd admire considering my lacking in that department.  And my dad goes 'And a geek! Well done son' and he walks away.

Nothing else is said on the matter.  And what's more they let me stay around the said boyfriend with not another word about the matter.

And I'm left thinking - there must be more to it.  There always is with them.  They seem to be letting me be independent and lack of suffocating unlike usual but still there is some kind of odd resistance in their behaviour.  I may be paranoid but I wonder if they'll eventually say something negative eventually and are biding their time.  I mean are they really going to let the daughter they've kept trapped have free will over having a relationship with a guy that might not even live in Durham in a couple of years...?

But all in all I finally told the truth.  As people say - 'I'm finally out of the closet' and maybe now I can start living a real life...?

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. 

They may not mean to, but they do. 

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178055

A very cynical view you may think, penned by a man plagued with pessimism about the world. But just sit and contemplate it for a moment.

Reading back over my blog the last few days I can't help but sigh and think I'm a moody, grumpy and bitter person for such a young life. I'm so young and have so many things to explore, to experience, to live, to feel and all I can do is moan.

I look at other people laughing and smiling in the street and wish I was that person that I was not so many moons ago. The girl who cracked up with laughter and every little thing, that would smile in the street at some secret musings. But now I'm some cold shell that seems all shriveled up and black inside. That I look at the world and think things bad foremost, that doesn't trust no longer, or think of the brighter side of life. I have in essence aged 50 years in the two that I have evolved into this monster.

And I wonder how this came to pass. And all I have in my head is those words 'They f**k you up, your mum and dad' and I just can't get rid of them. I'm the young girl who was repressed from friendship, from enjoying sleep overs, parties, and going out. I'm the teenager that wasn't brought up to be who I wanted to be, instead I sat and read and educated myself following the path that my parents had carved out in their mind. I went to the University they wanted, I stayed in the same region they wanted, I didn't go out and do reckless stuff like they wanted, I didn't have the friends that they didn't want me to have. And now as a adult, I'm trying to get on to the career that they wanted, I'm staying where they want me, I'm doing as they say and I'm not having the life that they didn't want me to have.

And I hate it.

I end up leading a double life, of lies and betrayal. I'm not what they created me to be, but am what they tried to repress from me. The only difference being that I don't tell them.

And now I'm sat hating them, hating them for turning me into something devious, for keeping me trapped in a dead end town in a dead end place with dead end people. But I'm their perfect daughter. Well, when they remember I'm their daughter. I'm their porcelain doll, their china doll with rosy cheeks that has the same look preserved on it's face. I'm their Peter Pan. I do not grow old, I'm forever young and forever wrapped in bubble wrap.

And that line keeps going through my head 'They f**k you up your mum and dad'. And I think of their mam and dad in return, and those before and I think this is it, this is my past, present and future. And it's the generations that have passed and those that will be. Time is moving and equally standing still.

I really do hate it.

Someone has to get me out of this soon somehow...



Edit: Interesting article on this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18367053

Today, I

I thought this image would sum up my feelings on life.

I couldn't help but add this picture to the blog.  Here is my Sim.  She is earning little more than 300 simeloens (can't spell that!) a week.  She's trying to make it as a rising star.  All she owns is what you see and a fridge, cooker and counter.  She can't afford to pay the weekly bills.  Her cheap sofa was stolen by a burglar and her bin kicked over by a random man.  She does Sing-a-grams all day and even interrupts her sleep to cater for the population.  She is single, and doesn't even own a pet.

Here she is having made her dinner on an oven she replaced after having a house fire whilst sitting on a blocked toilet.

This is my image of everyone's life just as they're starting out.  It starts out rubbish, but hopefully with time you'll find your place in society, lay down the bricks and mortar and build your life to something you can be proud of.  And then you can reflect on your low times and smile.

I hope this is true, and I hope I end up doing that!

Spending and Failing in life

I've just spent the last day deliberating over purchasing a game for £29.99.  It seemed such an extravagant price, especially considering I have around 50 games waiting to be played in my games library as it is.  But there was something about the game I wanted and couldn't put it to the back of my mind, yet equally a part of my mind was telling me that there was nothing that I wanted and I wouldn't miss it.  But my impulse won through and there it is currently downloading...

A part of me though was sensible.  I performed some sort of mental spreadsheet which calculated my expenditures over the last month and the future requirements I'll need.  I weighed this against the hefty £9000 tuition fees of my course next year followed by the increasing debt of my current student loan of the last three years and I felt guilt.  The debt has this uncanny omnipresence, yet it's also never there.  It's hard to explain unless you're in this situation yourself.  When you go to university and take on a loan it's not from your personal account, you don't see your own money in the red, you see what you've got without thinking that there is money elsewhere to worry about.  Therefore it's so easy to forget how much you owe the company.  So much so that it doesn't even worry me, not like the thousands of people who say that they can't stand it being around their shoulders, the stress of not paying it back.  But that's the thing, I've come to except that I may never pay it back, and if that's the case, on my death day, that loan will be released without me having paid it back at all.  Then again the realisation that I'm in £20,000+ worth of debt floods back in bouts and I panic.  I'm never going to get anywhere in life while having to pay that back.  All the dreams of economic security with a degree are tarnished by having to have paid for that degree in the first place.  To get that well paid job I have to pay off that high debt.  And sometimes I think that the degree would perhaps have best been forgotten, that I should have gone straight into the career world rather than stressing for three years.

However, the vast majority of the time this doesn't even blemish on my conscience.  I even considered taking the maintenance loan so I could live out next year, regardless of what it adds to my mounting debt.  And so when I make extravagant purchases (in my eyes) I just think 'well that's one mornings wage gone-easily replaced'.  But I forget that that job won't be there forever.  From September I won't be earning to the following year - and this scares me.  I need to put a break on my spending.

Not to mention I had a mini wake up call yesterday.  A grandmother of one of my old classmates stopped my mother to inquire into what I'm doing and to boast about what her grandchild is doing.
The grandmother seemed to look down on my degree, the fact is wasn't law but psychology, that it was only 3 years and not 4 years.  And just as my mother was about to say I was going on to do a teaching degree, the woman went 'She wants to become a teacher but I've discouraged her...anyone can be a teacher'.

This made me feel inadequate beyond belief.  Angered that yes, my degree subject is laughable, that everyone believes it's toilet paper, that the job I'm going for is one that 'anyone' can do and that I've spent three years wasting my life and wasting my money.

I feel this low *puts thumb and finger together*.

I feel that I have no direction in life, and the directions I have taken are pointless.

What's more, I'll probably go nowhere.  Even looking at my jobs now - pretty much a shelf stacker and a receptionist - jobs that anyone could do without paying £21000 for a bit of paper.

At the same time I'm also angry.  Angry that everyone seems to demand an explanation for everything.  Angry that I can't live my own life without people telling me what I can and cannot do.  And hence why all my posts lately seem to be grumpy.  I'm 22 yet I scream 'grumpy middle aged woman'.  My life seems over when it only should have just begun.

I started this post about a game.  I've ended this post about my anger.
Dramatic much?

With age becomes the meaning of self?

Some say that when you reach a certain age in your twenties you begin to get over the angst and complete self-infatuation you had as a teenager and begin to adopt an introspective viewpoint of yourself. You begin to understand that you're not the centre of the universe, your flaws are not unique to you and nor are your strengths. You are in fact a statistic. You also start to think that, yes, you are at a point that you have to choose which direction you are going to travel in. Some psychologists describe development as a ball rolling down a hill; it can follow a channel, and every now and again it will change direction and choose between an intersection which determines which line you will ultimately end up in. Life is nothing but a continuous rolling of never-ending choices, and it's up to you which one you choose.  And here I am, supposedly sat in that age of knowing where I'm going but instead sat on the verge of uncertainty.

I mean look at the educational system.  From the age of about 3 or 4 you're in a compulsory structure of education.  By 16 it's your choice (or was until the interfering government) whether to continue education or to withdraw and go straight into working.  I saw only one channel for me; to got to sixth form, to go to university, to come out of it with a qualification that will put me in good stead.  But like so many, I failed to plan forward which is why I'm in the predicament of spending a gap year before going back for more education.  But I still don't know if teaching is the right profession for me.  I just do not know.  I am barreling along in life with no set plan, but instead some sort of rudimentary rough draft of what I'm going to do until I decide.

So I sighed when I reached 22 on Friday.  I feel content within myself and have mature to the point that I could be independent if needed.  Yet I still lack introspect on the career side.  When one birthday message asked me if I'd gained the introspect and wisdom that the twenties promise people I was left wondering what to reply.  After taking a day out for recuperation (it seems what my 22year old body, can do, if lack of introspection, is not do what I could do in student life and party all night!) I replied with this:-

I feel so old that I've taken a liken to staying in on a night and watching documentaries. I was even musing today that I'd quite like to be a lawyer! It appears that being this old still hasn't made me content with where I am/any closer to knowing where I want to be in life. 

But I'll still be in ____ next year doing a PGCE and wasting my life until I do know exactly what I want to be! So maybe if you ask that question in a year I can give you a better answer.

And that's exactly all I can provide.  That I have matured.  That I am suddenly aware of all the options out there that I'd never considered.  That I'm following some sort of road and I don't know where it's going.  And I'm fine with that kind of life, only if you watch enough horror movies as I do, you'll know that actually travelling along a road you don't know can lead to disastrous consequences...

So I'm guessing this time next year when I get asked whether I have wisdom and have deep introspection of life I'll be able to give them a clear answer.  But as of yet I can't, and maybe we're never meant to be able to.

Living for the Weekend

Most people utter 'TGIF' as they wake up on a Friday morning.  It's the last time for 2 days that you will have to get up and do a clothes scramble in the dark or face traffic queues or just face actually having to do some work. It's fantastic.  After slogging hard for 5 days with only a couple of hours to call your own on a night, you're about to have two lovely stress-free days off.

But is that really true?

I tend to live for a Friday - have a drink or two, have a takeaway, enjoy some TV and laughter with your friends.  But it's just dawned on me how little I use my time.  For instance, drinking inevitably leads to a hangover.  And so Saturday is spent being a recluse in bed, with the TV on and nursing a headache.  So what do I have to show for a Saturday? Nothing.  Having spent all Friday night's sleep in a drunken haze which, to me, means not a good nights sleep, I go to bed early on a Saturday and wake up midday on Sunday.  Now Sunday's are always fantastic TV days again.  Wake up to The OC, wack on some T4 before whiling the afternoon away by dunking into a good book, hot chocolate by the side and waiting for the Sunday night TV to start which almost always means a good film premiering on some network channel.  But looking at that I've literally spent my entire Sunday lying in bed again.  The only blissful thing is that my hangover's gone but I'm now drunken with too much sleep and feel restless and tired at the same time and unable to put my head down come night time.

So my weekend consists of doing nothing.  Which is how everyone likes it right?  Wrong.  I could do with a hobby, something to keep me distracted and actually having something to show for it.  My main motivation for working so much is that working means you're actually doing something and when you're actually doing something you have money to show for it and plenty of stories to tell others about.  You don't seem boring.  However, I can't go into work on Monday and regale all the stories from my weekend as there isn't actually anything to tell.  And that's quite depressing.

Even those who are more proactive on a weekend probably find themselves doing tedious family stuff such as the weekly shop which is impossible to do in a morning these days.  Not when you need to price compare as the major supermarkets all conveniently placed next to each other wage their price war, so to buy a simple box of cereal in one shop often leaves you feeling robbed of a whole pound compared to the exact same box in the other shop.  Life's just unfair like that.  But then you'd usually get back and put your feet up to watch the television and the weekends football.  But that again, is not showing anything.  

I think it's time to come to the conclusion that we're all stuck in some kind of a rut and that we need to spice the weekends up to be able to justify uttering 'TGIF' every week.

Trouble is, how?