When did 22 start feeling so old?

I think I want to dance. Like properly dance, as a job. I love belly dance, I love Ceroc, I love salsa when I've got the right partner and right now I have this incredible urge to dance with Scott Maslen. Or anyone who could lead me. I want that feeling I get when I'm dancing and I just can't stop smiling, and I want it more often. To be paid for it would just be unbelievable.

What a shame I'm about ten years too old to start training to be a professional.

xXx

Oh my word

I've just got home, ten hours after leaving the house. My feet are screaming at me that it feels more like ten days. They feel twice as wide as normal and I keep getting shooting pains in my heels. 

 It was the salsa that did it. By the end it felt like my shoes were lined with hot metal and my brain was completely clogged with spanish words that I couldn't remember the meaning of. When it comes to salsa two hours is fun, three hours is okay but four hours is torture. I stayed for the intermediate two hours because I'm a sucker for flattery. The instructor singled me out in the beginners class and used me to demonstrate some of the moves to the newer people, then said that I should try intermediate because I was really good. So I did! It was a humbling experience.

 I think I might try just the intermediate class next week so I've got enough energy to do it properly. When it works it's such incredible fun! I most enjoyed dancing with the instructor because he was by far the best leader. The problem with dances like salsa is that if the man doesn't lead properly you can end up walking into people, standing on each others toes and generally having a rubbish time. But when you get a good leader it is amazing. 

 I really struggled with being led when I first started Ceroc: I don't see why any man should be allowed to tell me what to do!  But now I've got it, there's something sexy about the man being in control. The way he can get me to do almost anything just by having his hand on my back or my shoulder. Mmmm. 

  Anyway, those of you who might be hoping something will happen with sexy, in-control instructor (as I was, briefly) can forget it. My flirting voice is remarkably close to my whining voice - I reckon he's sick of the sound of me. I know I was!

xXx

HA!

I both love and loathe boxfit. 

I love it because there is absolutely no denying that I've had a good workout by the time I get to the end. It sets me up for a whole day of slobbing because I can't physically move myself any more than I did in that class.

I hate it because so far I've always been the biggest person there and this wee toned instructor keeps yelling at me to "PICK YOUR HEELS UP! LET ME HEAR THOSE PUNCHES!"  I would love to pick my heels up like everyone else, but I'm at least 4 years older and 4 stone heavier than all the skinny twigs around me and my heels just can't handle being up. As to 'hearing the punches', I'm having trouble breathing enough to stay upright, never mind shouting every time I throw a punch.

At least I managed to stay for the whole hour this week. I was ill last time but I still felt a bit feeble for giving up halfway through. It probably helped that I got an incredible breakfast cooked for me this morning. I've made friends with two girls, Rebekah and Lindsay, who live quite near to uni and even though I'm older they seem to have adopted me. So last night I was round at their's and we had lasagne made with cottage cheese (nummy and low fat!) and this morning Lindsay made pancakes, scrambled egg and garlic mushrooms for breakfast. I was stuffed completely full, which is a feeling I haven't really had since coming up to Scotland. I'm feeling like a total scrounger though so I've bought the ingredients to have another go at banana bread. Let's see if I can get it to rise this time and I'll take it round as a thank you.

xXx

Ping

I've always preferred listening to other people's conversations to taking part in them. But the last couple of days I've realised that it goes a bit deeper than just lack of conversational skills. I went to see Aunty Edie earlier this week because I was feeling quite low and discouraged and a little bit lost. I think the word is weary. I got there and we started chatting about uni and such, and I instantly felt a bit better. But then Aunty Muriel turned up (I never knew I had so much family up here) and when the two of them got talking it was phenomenal; I only understood about two words in ten! I didn't get to say more than three sentences between then and the time I left, but when I did leave I realised I felt a hundred times better than I did when I arrived.

 So I started to wonder. Maybe I don't just like listening to other people talk, maybe I need it. I got chance to test the theory at house group last night. It got to the end and we were all chatting away, then the person I was talking to got up to get ready to leave so I was sitting on my own. I looked round at everyone talking and I thought I would feel left out, but I didn't. It felt good to be in this room full of conversation that I didn't have to put anything into. It's like conversation is the electricity that recharges my batteries.

 Now I kind of want to experiment with it, just sit in a cafe or pub and see what effect the conversation has on me, see if it only works with people I know.  It's kind of strange to get all the way to 22 and only just realise something like this. It seems this year is a year of discovery.

xXx

Little stones

CU was amazing last night. Well, the worship didn't go great as they picked some pretty obscure songs and the way the projector's set up meant that we couldn't see the first or last lines of the verses. But the talk was brilliant. It was looking at Ephesians 4 and 5 and the challenge that it sets for Christians. 

  

  First of all it was incredibly helpful because it cleared up a few points that I've never been sure about, like the drink issue. I could never work it out - Jesus drank, the first miracle was making wine and there's even a verse that says 'drink wine because it's good for your heart', but then the Bible says such a lot that drunkenness is a sin. The speaker cleared it up in a couple of sentences. Ephesians says that we are supposed to live as God's light in the world and to be holy, so drinking only becomes a sin when it affects our holiness. So if you're starting to say mean things or to consider doing things you never would when you're sober then you've gone too far. How simple it that!

 It highlighted a lot of things in my life that I hadn't even noticed, like how angry I get. You'd think that'd be kind of hard to miss, but in my whole life I'd say I haven't shouted more than 10 times so I thought of myself as a non-angry person. I didn't really register the absolutely furious thoughts that go through my head on an almost daily basis. Then there was the time I was washing up and two cups got stuck together and I got so angry I threw them into the sink and broke a plate. How ridiculous does that sound - I was angry with some cups. 

 There's also not forgiving people. The speaker said if you've been holding onto something for more than 6 months then it's a problem. And I realised I was still holding something from my 21st birthday, something from 2007 and something from pretty much the first time I was aware that parents could treat their children differently.

 But this is the amazing thing; we prayed for freedom from these things we couldn't stop doing and couldn't let go of and I got a feeling in my chest, a physical feeling like little stones were being lifted out of my heart. They were only small but there were so many of them that I'd been weighed down and when they were all gone I felt incredible. I'm not saying I've forgotten what hurt me in the first place, but it's not about that. It's about getting rid of all the revenge-type feelings inside that weren't hurting anyone but me. 

 I feel so much better :)

xXx

Yawn

Now that was a rubbish sleep. Thanks to the howling gale outside and the complete lack of double glazing in the flat, I now look like I've got a halloween costume ready a week early. Zombiiiieeeee. 

 Oh well, I'm going to visit Aunty Edie today, which will be really good. I know I'd only met her once before I came up here but she's still family. I feel like I could do with a bit of family right now.

 I'm trying to SORN my car so I can claim the tax back, and because I can't afford insurance any more. But my licence is registered at Nantwich Road, so before I can sort the SORN I have to change my address. The problem is the paper part of my licence is at home (genius) and I need a number off that to be able to change my address. Dad said he would email it to me, but of course he hasn't. There's no way I'll be able to get my new licence, send the SORN info off and get confirmation back in time to tell the insurance people that I don't have to pay them this time because I'm not driving my car right now. I really, really can't afford this.

 I just want a job. No, actually I just need a job. If I can't get one by January 19th I'll be out of the flat. I'll have to go home and use the deposit money to travel up on Mondays and Tuesdays for my lectures then go home again. I just don't understand, ever since I've got here I've had this concrete feeling that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be and exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. But if that's true why can't I get a job that will let me stay where I'm supposed to be? My next plan of action is to take a day wandering round the city centre and mithering at every agency I come across. Something's got to come up soon. I don't want to go home.

xXx

Grrrr

I'm very irritable today and I don't know why. I mean I should be happy; it's reading week, I just got some much-needed money in the post, my weight is finally going down again and my cold has almost entirely gone. But for some reason I just feel like screaming.  

Maybe I've finally lost it.

xXx

Mmmm new hoodie

I love the inside of new hoodies, it's so soft! The problem is it's so soft I want to wear it all the time and then it'll need to be washed which will stop it being as soft :( If only there was a way to make hoodies permanently soft inside...

Anyway, here is the last parody that I've written so far. There should be five at this point but I'm seriously struggling to write an ironic one. It would help if people could make up their mind what the heck 'irony' even means. But anyway here is my parody of Natalia Ginzburg's The Things We Used To Say.

When we were younger Dad used to take us to see our grandparents almost every day. Each time Nanna opened the door she would say, "Haven't you grown!" This annoyed my brother Andrew who, being much older, realised that it was impossible to have grown a noticeable amount in a single day. He would stamp into the house, muttering, "I literally doubt it." He had read a book with the word 'literally' in and he used it enthusiastically without fully understanding what it meant.

  Nanna's "haven't you grown!" could have been referring to our waistlines. We mainly enjoyed going there because we were allowed sugar in our tea and unlimited access to the biscuit box. It was inevitable that we would get fat.

  Gramps never seemed to have an ounce of spare fat on his body. He would sit in his chair and hold out his skinny arms as we entered the living room. We took it in turns to sit on his knee, give hima hug and answer the question, "So what have you done with yourself today?"

 Andrew would sigh and say, "Literally nothing." Before stepping away to turn on CITV. Rachael would give him a replay of her day in minute detail, sitting there so long that Gramps' legs must have ached by the time she clambered back to the floor. I would just lean into the hug and tell him which book I was reading at the time.

  Nanna and Gramps always knew when we had tests or exams at school, and one of them would lean forward over their cup of tea and say, "So how did you do?" If we had done well Nanna ordered us to have another biscuit to celebrate, and if we failed she held out the biscuit box as consolation.  Gramps would always react the same way. We would say, "I got seven out of ten on my spelling test!" and Gramps would reply, "Where's the other three?" He always smiled to show he didn't mean it. We never minded but it was still motivating to try and get full marks just to see what Gramps would say.

  As we got older our visits grew less frequent. We no longer sat on Gramps' knee in case we blocked the pipe to his oxygen tank. But he still used to smile and say, "So what have you done with yourself today?"

  One day Nanna opened the door with a digital camera in her hand. "Haven't you grown," she said, "Can you help me with this thing? I can't make it work."  We explained batteries and memory cards to her and eventually she managed to take a picture. "Let's have one of you all with your Gramps," she said. We carefully crowded round him and smiled as the camera flashed.

  When I was fourteen I got full marks in my music exam, but by then it was too late. I stood in front of that photograph of Gramps surrounded by his grandchildren and held up my certificate. "They're all here." I said.

xXx

cha cha cha one two cha cha cha

There's so much going through my head at the moment, I'm just gonna splurge it out as and when it comes to me.

Today has been a really, really good day. I gave myself an extra hour in bed and still managed to make it to church in time to get my cup of tea and doughnut, because I managed to find it without getting lost once!  I'm starting to learn the songs so I could actually join in with the worship and the sermon was really relevant to me. It's really making me think about the way I'm living.

So far I've managed to have four portions of fruit today, which is far more than I ever usually manage. I've had some really good faff time in the library (it's so nice knowing that this week is reading week), I've been to salsa which is SO MUCH FUN!!! And I've just had a nice healthy baked potato with tuna and mayo. I feel good! 

Now I've been here a while I can't deny that Glasgow is a beautiful city. If I stopped to take a photograph every time I noticed something I'd never have time for anything else. I wish I had a camera good enough to capture all the different colours I've seen in the sky as the sun's gone down, or the way the church spires look against the night sky, or the way the main tower of uni stands out above everything around it. It's gorgeous. But it's still not home.

Some people have 'one of those faces' that just looks familiar even if you've never seen them before. I think I have a face that just looks foreign. Over the years I've been told I look Indian, Greek, Spanish, Italian, mixed race (don't get me started on this), Asian, Native American and black Welsh (apparently that's what Catherine Zeta Jones is). I get why people may think I'm not English, although I think my tan is undetectable when I'm this tired, but I wonder why I remind people of so many different places.

Every time I even begin to think along the lines of 'hey, this guy's cute' I find out that he's got a girlfriend or fiancee or wife. I'm not too bothered because I've learned the art of being happy single, but it's started me thinking. They're all paired up because they're around my age, which is the age where it wouldn't be unreasonable to consider getting married and settling down (what a hideous term). But I don't have a boyfriend, never mind someone to marry. And I wonder if that's right. I wonder if the perfect man for me has been and gone in my life and I didn't see it because I was too busy looking at David. It's over three years since we broke up, that's more than enough time to meet someone new and get to know them really well.  I'll never know, will I. But still, it's something to think about.

I wonder what 'English' looks like. what kind of person would you look at and say "you look English!"? I honestly can't think what it looks like. How strange. 

Okay, I think that's my head empty for now. Aside from one last thought that seems to pop up completely at random from time to time.

I wonder if David hates me yet.

xXx

How to be famous?

Every Saturday at about this time I find myself trying to work out how I can get famous enough to go on Strictly Come Dancing. I'm not saying I would be any good. I mean, I would probably be the one they yell at for not showing enough facial expression, but I don't care! I'd just love to have a chance to try. It can't be difficult, I never recognise half of the 'celebrities' anyway but so far I can't think of a way to do it. Any suggestions?


This week it's left me with a piece of tango music stuck in my head and I think I'm remembering it from when I had ballroom lessons. Like 14 years ago. That can't be right, not with my memory,  but I have no idea where else it could be from!

xXx

Ohaiyo! ^-^

I'm rediscovering the anime series Ranma 1/2 at the moment. I forgot how much I love it!  

 Just a quick post today before I go and get some exercise at last. I have been milking this cold way too much and haven't really left the flat except to go shopping.

 Today, to prove that I'm not completely focused on myself,  I'm going to skip to the latest parody. This one is absolutely nothing to do with real life! So, here is my parody of Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star:

Sweeping Statements

or

the cat sat on the mat

or

?!@this is not an ironic sentence@!?

or

My Banana Bread Is In The Oven

or 

How sarcastic can a parody be?

The feline reclined upon the exquisite afghan. But the feline was actually a slice of pizza. If indeed pizza exists, which I know it doesn't. In fact nothing exists so I am not actually writing this because the world never started, and you cannot be reading it. What with not existing.

My apologies for speaking so simply. If you want something a bit more complicated you could try reading the texture of a brick wall as braille. Alternatively, read Harry Potter.

The quadruped alighted upon the floor covering of intricately woven man-made fibres. Before the first chocolate there was pre-chocolate. And before that there was pre-pre-chocolate, also known as coal. But before the coal there was a pineapple.  Oops, there I go again with the simple writing. I can't help it, it's super-trendy at the oment. Or perhaps it's not and I'm just being deliberately awkward. No, I'm making a point. A very pointy point.

Oh yes, I had a story to tell didn't I. About a cat. Do you like my style of writing? I think it reflects a lot about my inner insect.

But the story. Yes, I have a story to tell you. I simply must tell it or I shall spontaneously combust or something equally messy. It's about a cat, a white cat. Shall I tell you how long it took me to write my first essay in secondary school? I don't know how I ever got it finished, I have such a short attention...

The story! There's this white cat, although I'm sure you couldn't care less at this point. I can't help this meandering you know, writing is just so difficult! So many words to faff around with like 'star' and 'yes'. The possibilities are endless.

So anyway there's this cat and... oh forget it, you wouldn't like the story anyway. The cat dies.

My main worry about this one is that it might sound as angry as the book made me feel, and that might drown out the humour that I want to be in it too. Not that I'm too bothered, this is the first piece I've managed to submit on time so I'm proud of it no matter what!

xXx

Gotta love Iceland

I've just got two weeks of meals for £16. I love you Iceland! I also love that I managed to get there and back before it started raining again. No wet socks for me *thumbs up*. 

 You may think that this waffling entry is simply a desperate excuse to get away from a book review that I can't even begin to write, but you would be wrong. Kind of. Okay, you'd be right BUT I also wanted to put up the next parody. Keep the momentum going. So here is my parody of Flaubert's Parrot by somebody Barnes:

Chronology

1988  Birth of Hannah Thorley, second child but first daughter of David Thorley, a fabricator at Crewe Works, and of Gillian Thorley, nee Dodd, a full time mother.

1990  Gillian returns to work so Hannah begins playschool. Due to her crippling shyness she doesn't speak to anyone and makes no friends. She is left to amuse herself with the small selection of children's books.

1992  Enters Beechwood Primary School and receives a report that will be echoed throughout her primary and secondary education: "Excellent work, but needs to speak more." Despite her almost constant silence her teacher manages to establish that Hannah's strongest subjects are maths and English.

1993  Meets Stephanie Waddington, her first friend. She does not make friends easily at any point in her life, but once formed her friendships are hardly ever broken.

1994  The Thorleys move to Kent. When she refuses to answer the register her new teacher removes Hannah's name from it and reprimands her for stubbornness. Hannah never speaks another word to her.

1995  The Thorleys move back to Crewe and friendship with Stephanie Waddington picks up where it left off.

1997   Rachael is bullied at school so Hannah is forced to move with her to Shavington Primary School. Hannah now answers the register but doesn't say much else. After reading the entire library she falls slightly in love with her teacher, who lends Hannah her own personal books. She also allows her free use of the dictionary while the rest of the class is learning to spell 'difficulty'.

1999   Begins at Shavington High School where she is bullied and quite miserable for all five years, but manages to make several good friends including Kelly Bampton, Hannah Falvey and Emily Fairclough.

2004  Suffers a disappointing two years at South Cheshire College. Makes no new friends, doesn't enjoy her chosen subjects and develops a deep dislike for her sociology lecturer, Julian Salisbury. She thinks up the inspired nickname 'Julieeee.'

2005  Hannah's initiation into the realm of boyfriends with one David Gawne. She has no idea that almost exactly two years later it will all go horribly wrong.

2006  Spends four months of a gap year in Sweden acquiring skills which are interesting but bear no relation to her life in England, such as knife making and wood chopping.

2007   Enters her last choice of university, Manchester Metropolitan, and discovers to her horror that she is based at the Crewe campus so will not be moving away from home.

2007   In spite of the fact that driving fills her with a sense of dread, Hannah passes her driving test first time and begins to wonder how she will ever afford a car.

2008   Finally moves away from home, but only makes it ten minutes down the road.

2010   In an attempt to avoid reality and fulfil a lifelong dream of visiting Scotland, Hannah begins an MLitt at Glasgow University.

xXx

You should see this rain

I really need to go shopping, what with having no food in, but I can't decide whether to wait and hope that the torrential downpour stops or go and enjoy the relatively empty shops. I'm thinking I'll wait. This is Glasgow, I don't suppose a little bit of rain would stop the Glaswegians going shopping!

 After all the worrying about my tutor, she turned out to be really nice. And she's good. She could tell from my story that I read far more than I write and that I read mostly sci-fi and romance. It was really encouraging to hear a lecturer say that my work is good, especially as all I can remember my workshop leader saying is "I don't care." It's completely out of context because I can't really remember what else she said but still, it's not nice. So yeah, no more fear of Laura. I'm almost looking forward to my next tutorial!

On a kind of related note I think Twilight may be replacing Pride and Prejudice as my ultimate comfort book. I can't decide which to read!

xXx

Greeeeat

Oh joy, a cold, period pains and a tutorial with the most notoriously rude lecturer on campus. Bring it on. 

Keep smiling, keep smiling, keep smiling, keep smiling, keep smiling.

xXx

Fail

Thanks to an incomplete recipe I now have a banana brick. Stupid regular flour not being self-raising flour. It still tastes pretty good and I'm sure as heck not throwing all those ingredients away after I've paid for them. 

I suppose if I get tired of chewing it, I could always use it as an offensive weapon.

xXx

urgh

I've got a norrible cold so I'm making banana bread as I can't afford to go and buy some comfort food. I'll let you know if it turns out as much of a mess as my cooking usually does.

So for one of my units we've been looking at set books and writing parodies of them. I was absolutely dreading it when the lecturer told us this but I've actually enjoyed writing some of them. I'm going to post the ones I like up here. In chronological order unless I get bored. The first one was a parody of Kafka's Metamorphosis and/or Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  I'm not entirely sure which mine is, but here we go:

Hannah stared at her face in the mirror and wondered why she no longer recognised it. After several hours of staring she turned away and began to get ready to go out. 

 On the night of David's grandparents' golden wedding anniversary there was a party. Hannah, David and David's new girlfriend were invited. Hannah and David had always misunderstood each other, which was the reason for their separation, but never as much as they misunderstood each other that night.

A short list of misinterpretations

 NAIL VARNISH

David had hardly ever seen Hannah wearing nail varnish so he assumed that the effort was for him, to show him that she was celebrating her freedom from him.

  To Hannah the wearing of nail varnish was a treat, as she hardly ever wore it, but also a trial because she could never paint the nails of her right hand neat enough. She saw this as evidence that she was not feminine enough to be a real woman. This time the treat outweighed the trial because she had never painted her nails red before. She liked the way it felt, despite the suffocated sensation that came from her fingertips.

THE SHIRT

Hannah had hardly ever seen David wearing a shirt so she assumed that he had never loved her. In two years he had worn a shirt for her only once, and now she imagined him dressing up every time he went out with the new girlfriend.

 David didn't like the black shirt because the sleeves were too tight and pinched his biceps. He had been forced to wear it because he wanted to drink, and his mother refused to drive him to and from the party unless he was wearing the shirt.

LITTLE BLACK DRESS  

  David thought that Hannah was wearing the little black dress to show him what he was missing. So did Hannah, until she saw the new girlfriend (who was fat, a fact that made Hannah sad and angry by turns, although not as angry as the size of the new girlfriend's breasts). When she saw her, Hannah realised that the little black dress was for the benefit of the new girlfriend. To show her, with a level of leg exposure that Hannah would have condemned on anyone else but justified by not wanting to waste the spray tan she used on her legs, just who she was following and what she had to live up to.

 The look on David's face when he saw the tanned expanse of Hannah's legs was merely a bonus.

THE SHOES

Hannah wore the scarlet heels because wearing flat shoes with a dress as short as her little black dress would make her legs look even shorter than they were. And they matched the red nail varnish, which she wore because she liked the way it felt.

 Although Hannah had never seen the new girlfriend before, David believed that the purpose of the scarlet heels was to bring the two girls closer in height so Hannah could look the new girlfriend in the eye. As well as further showing him what he was missing.

 Hannah had no intention of looking the new girlfriend in the eye. She was afraid that while she was looking in the eye she might also spit in it.  When the new girlfriend approached, Hannah went into the bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror. Despite the makeup she was wearing, she recognised the face in the mirror.

 She had a sudden but quiet revelation. The problem was not that her face was unfamiliar in her house; it was knowing where she was (in a new bathroom, in a new house) and trying to imagine her familiar face in that strange setting, without David. Her eyes had refused to register this thought and so she had stared into the mirror and not recognised her own face.

 Hannah didn't believe in makeup but she wore it that night as a shield between her face and David, a mask to prevent him from seeing her clearly.

 David didn't notice the makeup.            


Feel free to comment/critique/rave about how good it is :p
xXx

The problem with dull lectures is you have so much time to think

I wonder if I'm a snob.  There's a boy I used to work with who apparently fancies me, and the reason I won't even consider him is because he can't spell. And I don't just mean missing the occasional letter out either. He has no concept of their, there or they're. 'Where' and 'were' appear to be completely interchangeable as do 'had' and 'has', and he sees nothing wrong with telling me all the things he 'would of done' if he had the time.  

If I ever have a boyfriend again I'll want him to write letters, that's part of the deal with me. But if I got a letter from this guy I'd just be reaching for the red pen. 

Am I a snob?

xXx

Wow

What a strange walk home. I'm still not entirely sure I'm awake. 

I was walking down University Gardens and just happened to look up at the tower, and it literally stopped me in my tracks.  The sky was navy blue and totally clear, and in front of that background the tower was lit from below so every angle of the filligree carving was lit up golden. Then dead in the centre above the point of the tower, the moon was almost a perfect circle. It just looked so unreal.

 Then I got to library hill and had a sudden urge to run up it. So I did. There were people around me and I didn't even care. I think I must be asleep!  At the top I stopped to catch my breath, which didn't take as long as I thought it would, and that was when I saw the fox. It can't have been more than five metres from me and it was just merrily trotting along as though us humans weren't even there. It was amazing.

 I was grinning like a loon all the way home, even when I ran again until my lungs were slightly scalded. Did you know that loon is Glaswegian for boy? I was grinning like a boy. Hmm....

xXx

Scotland

I miss:

my car

my cat

wii fit
book shelves

my mattress

carpets

hugs

reading for fun

my parents

my Winsford parents

living on the ground floor

having enough money

I love:

that my campus is Hogwarts

Monday afternoon coffee

Tuesday night conversations 

"beware the Scrabble ninja"

"can we get the bill, I'm about to morph"

always being able to see at least one spire

laughing until my stomach aches

discovering that there are 2 men in the world who like Twilight

distance

finding a church where I belong

living near an actual river

getting a workout every time I come home

stumbling into the perfect house group

realising that I can actually make friends

the library

the gym

xXx

The unthinkable has happened

I've found a book that I don't WANT to read. There have been exactly two over the years that I haven't been able to finish because they were a bit beyond me, but I regretted the fact that I had to give them up.

This book I could quite happily never look at again. I would go so far as to commit that most heinous crime of tearing it into pieces. I would then throw those pieces out of the highest window I could find. When it was raining.

It's the most annoying load of rubbish I have ever read. I suppose some leeway could be granted as it was written by a Brazillian writer and has gone through translation. But that still only makes it incredibly annoying instead of utter claptrap. I mean it waffles on for an entire page in a kind of stream of consciousness gibberish and then goes 'I do not mean to write anything complicated'. I nearly threw the whole book out the window when I read that. The prize for the second most stupid line goes to 'I feel ashamed at pouncing on you with a narrative that is so open and explicit'. I can only desperately hope that the writer is being ironic.

The book, if you ever fancy subjecting yourself to the tedium, is The Hour Of The Star by Clarice Lispector. It comes highly recommended for use as the lining of a cat litter tray.

xXx

There is always, always something to make me feel bad about not talking to David. There was his girlfriend cheating on him and his friend died and now his Mum's in hospital. And I know they're all awful things, but that just makes me feel even worse about the fact that I'm tired of them.
I'm 250 miles away. Three hours away by train. Five hours away by car (unless you drive like Dad). How can I still not get away from him? How far do I have to go?

So ends my break from poor sleep

The most annoying thing is that I didn't even notice. I didn't notice that my dark circles had almost completely gone. I didn't noice that I was getting out of bed when my alarm went off instead of rolling over and trying to get back to sleep. I didn't even notice that I was managing a twenty mintue walk to the gym, an hour and a half of exercise at the gym, a twenty minute walk home and 62 steps up to the flat without feeling like my lungs were going to burst! What is wrong with me??

I can't work out what's caused it. I'm still in Scotland, still got no job, I haven't eaten anything unusual or out of date, I'm still boyfriendless and I've still got quite a bit of work to catch up on. Maybe three weeks is all the good sleep I get, I've used up my quota for the year. 

I'm just so cross with myself! How did I not notice??? Hopefully (all fingers, toes and other appendages crossed) the good sleep will come back again so I can fully appreciate it.

xXx

It's not about how you look at the gym...

It's about how you're going to look because of the gym. So I tell myself every time I catch sight of my red face in the hideously big mirrors, hair plastered to my forehead in sweaty knots. It will be worth it.

On a different note, has anyone been watching the commonwealth games? I've seen odd bits of it and I can't seem to stop crying when they show the podiums. Even if there's nobody from any GB countries up there it makes me cry! No idea what's wrong with me.

There is a bit of a dilemma when Scotland and England are in the same race though - I just don't know who to cheer for!

xXx

How is it that I can go to America for three days and come back saying "awesome!", but this is my fourth week in Scotland and the only change to my accent is that I sound more English?!

Right now I feel like I'm finally doing uni the way it's meant to be done. Only three years late but never mind.  I think it's partly the fact that I'm actually away from home instead of ten minutes down the road, but I think it's mostly to do with people. 

 At MMU I spoke to people if I had to and if I didn't then I pretty much ignored them so they wouldn't try to speak to me and discover that I have absolutely no conversational skills. But last night I met someone called Ben at the CU and it turns out he lives quite near me, so we ended up walking home together. That in itself is completely out of character for me but then he asked me in for a cup of tea and I said yes. I don't know what came over me! Possibly the fact that it was bucketing down and I wanted to wait inside until it stopped :p so last night I met Ben and Scott, who are both physicists in the navy, Bex and her boyfriend who I think is called Craggy. Possibly. 

That was my exciting day yesterday. Today I've managed to faff for exactly 5.5 hours and do absolutely nothing off my to do list. I might add 'write on blog' just so I can cross something off!

xXx