You are...(looks)
[ ] tall
[ ] in between
[x] short (yes, I'm a short ass :( )
--
[ ] blonde
[ ] redheaded
[x] brunette
[ ] black-haired
--
[x] blue-eyed
[ ] brown-eyed
[ ] green-eyed
[ ] hazel eyed
[ ] gold eyed
[ ] grey eyed
[ ] with glasses
[ ] with contacts
[ ] with braces
[x] with freckles
[x] with piercings
[ ] with tattoos
[ ] and have long hair
[ ] and have short hair
[x] and have mid-length hair
Your favorite color(s) are?
[ ] red
[ ] pink
[ ] yellow
[ ] black
[x] green
[x] blue
[ ] gold
[ ] white
[ ] silver
[x] purple
[x] brown
[ ] orange
[ ] indigo
Some things you've done/played include...
[ ] soccer
[ ] cheerleading
[ ] dancing
[ ] lacrosse
[ ] field hockey
[ ] hockey
[ ] football
[ ] softball
[ ] wrestling
[ ] gymnastics
[ ] track/cross country
[ ] basketball
[ ] baseball
[ ] golf
[ ] chess
[ ] playing in the mud
[x] playing music
[ ] hiking
[ ] kayaking
[ ] camping
[ ] horseback riding
[ ] marching band
You are sometimes...
[ ] annoying
[ ] talkative
[x] shy
[x] sweet
[x] funny
[ ] mysterious
[x] serious
[ ] bubbly
[x] spazzy
[x] paranoid
[x] fun-loving
[x] laid back
[ ] strict
[ ] hyper
[x] nervous
[x] weird
[ ] get in a relationship that you are pleased with and then just fuck it all up leaving yourself alone and friendless once more
The music you like is?
[ ] rap
[x] rock
[x] pop
[ ] country
[ ] hip hop
[ ] r&b
[ ] slow jams
[ ] Christian
[x] classical
[ ] techno
[ ] oldies
[ ] the 80s
[ ] punk
[ ] Metal
[ ] reggae
[ ] Goth
[x] Latin
[ ] 90's Grunge
[ ] musicals
The pets you have are?
[x] cat
[x] dog
[ ] lizard
[ ] snake
[ ] ferret
[ ] spider
[ ] rabbit
[ ] fish
[x] bird
[ ] hamster
[x] little sister
[ ] other
You're mostly labeled as?
[ ] goth
[ ] emo
[ ] prep
[ ] punk
[x] hippie
[x] nerd
[ ] ditzy
[ ] hyper
[ ] happy
[ ] everything
[x] I hate labels! I'm just me!!!
[ ] have no idea
You eat?
[ ] dessert every night
[ ] no meat
[ ] diet stuff
[x] healthy foods
[x] junk foods
[ ] a lot of carbs
[x] ice cream
[x] lots of meat
[x] salad
[x] seafood
[ ] exotic dishes
[ ] Mountain Dew
A typical friday night...
[ ] mall with your friends
[ ] partying
[ ] doing my homework
[ ] watching movies
[ ] going to the club
[x] staying home
[x] playing videogames
[ ] babysitting and getting $$
[ ] hanging out w/ my friends
[x] hanging out w/ your boyfriend/girlfriend
[ ] working while your friends are out having fun
Currently you are...
[x] in a relationship (<3)
[ ] single and lovin it
[ ] crushing
[ ] single and looking for someone
[ ] just broke up... and so sad about it
[ ] just broke up... and its not affecting you much
[ ] just broke up... and you're wayyy happy about it
Online, you use:
[x] lol
[ ] sup
[ ] rofl
[ ] lmao
[ ] wb
[x] ty
[ ] j/k
[x] <3
[ ] ttyl
[ ] g2g
[x] xD
[x] ^^
[x] T_T
[x] x_x
[x] ^_^
[x] o_O
[ ] TOT
Hehe ^^ I liked this quiz, I stole it from my sister's journal.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Demons of Procrastination
No, of course I'm not avoiding doing my coursework *whistles*. But when you have inspiration, your motivation to do work plummets like anything. I don't want to be typing up my physics coursework right now, I want to be creating my new race I thought up the other day.
An old friend of mine had an analogy to go with this feeling, since she had always (and still does to my knowledge) wanted to write and publish a novel. I still ask her how her writing goes from time to time, but she was one of those who didn't like sharing her work until the whole thing was finished. Which could have been years in her case. Eventually she finished a novel and sent it round to a few people, but... well. Let's just say I only struggled through the first couple of pages out of loyalty, but after gently hinting (and it was very gently mind) that dialogue ought to have been intersperced with a little more description, and that punctuation was pretty important (so that your sentences didn't run on like this one and go on for ever and if you were reading it aloud your breath would be failing right about now and you'd end up sounding like a dying vaccuum cleaner you get the picture the end amen), she decided to scrap the entire thing. I believe she is writing a second attempt at a novel, but, y'know. Hats off to her; it's something I haven't managed to do.
Anyway, she had this analogy. As your inspiration increases, you school work production tends to decrease, and vice versa. I think this is actually pretty accurate (she even drew me a graph so that the scientific bit of my mind could comprehend it), I mean, I never feel like working when my mind is so full of other ideas. I don't want to loose them, and so I waste time writing them down when I could be doing 'useful' work.
This leads me onto another point, this time insightful. I have always been a highly imaginative person; I love creating, but these days instead of playing pretend or drawing pictures I have to channel this energy into more 'acceptible, adult' forms. (Or else just be classed as weird, which happens anyway I suppose). So hence I find myself writing music, writing stories, daydreaming too much and wishing there was an easier way to capture my ideas instead of having to write it all down in boring black and white text. Once on paper, my once brilliant ideas just seem so stupid I never do anything else with them.
Enough said I suppose, another post about nothing in particular. Just a ramble and a waste of time :)
An old friend of mine had an analogy to go with this feeling, since she had always (and still does to my knowledge) wanted to write and publish a novel. I still ask her how her writing goes from time to time, but she was one of those who didn't like sharing her work until the whole thing was finished. Which could have been years in her case. Eventually she finished a novel and sent it round to a few people, but... well. Let's just say I only struggled through the first couple of pages out of loyalty, but after gently hinting (and it was very gently mind) that dialogue ought to have been intersperced with a little more description, and that punctuation was pretty important (so that your sentences didn't run on like this one and go on for ever and if you were reading it aloud your breath would be failing right about now and you'd end up sounding like a dying vaccuum cleaner you get the picture the end amen), she decided to scrap the entire thing. I believe she is writing a second attempt at a novel, but, y'know. Hats off to her; it's something I haven't managed to do.
Anyway, she had this analogy. As your inspiration increases, you school work production tends to decrease, and vice versa. I think this is actually pretty accurate (she even drew me a graph so that the scientific bit of my mind could comprehend it), I mean, I never feel like working when my mind is so full of other ideas. I don't want to loose them, and so I waste time writing them down when I could be doing 'useful' work.
This leads me onto another point, this time insightful. I have always been a highly imaginative person; I love creating, but these days instead of playing pretend or drawing pictures I have to channel this energy into more 'acceptible, adult' forms. (Or else just be classed as weird, which happens anyway I suppose). So hence I find myself writing music, writing stories, daydreaming too much and wishing there was an easier way to capture my ideas instead of having to write it all down in boring black and white text. Once on paper, my once brilliant ideas just seem so stupid I never do anything else with them.
Enough said I suppose, another post about nothing in particular. Just a ramble and a waste of time :)
Friday, March 30, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Biology
These past few weeks I've been trolling through the annual coursework for Biology. I can't stand anything that's repetetive, call it a pet peeve of mine if you will. Anyway, this coursework demands that you justify why you're doing everything, but because I've already explained it all in my introduction, I have to write it all out again. Hand writing it out mind. I can understand coursework perhaps preparing you for research or something, but it seems like an awful lot of work for not many marks, and it doesn't interest me in the slightest. Anyway :)
I've always loved 'biology' - I put this in inverted commas because it's sort of a loose term. Let me explain.
I often get from people 'how can you like biology? it's so boring' which yes, I can understand perfectly well - you don't blow things up in biology, nor do you seem to ever have to explain something so abstract and complex that your head drops off thinking about it. I'll admit that there hasn't been a lesson in which I myself have been sitting there thinking 'god this is so boring' - I'd say that perhaps 5 out of 4 lessons of biology are boring.
The most fun other people seem to glean from the subject is 'cutting animals and stuff up' aka 'dissection'. I wouldn't say I dislike dissection, I do, but I never really learnt much from it save from that you get to see what organs and stuff feel like, and look like. You can't tell how they work from hacking it to pieces. Anyway, I was explaining what appealed to me...
The fact is, they never teach you the interesting parts of biology, or... they never go into enough detail about the few snippets that catch my attention in lessons. When learning about the nervous system for example, we did a measly five minutes on animal behavior - I'm sure people would have found that far more interesting than synapses and reflexes etc (retold in exactly the same amount of detail we had at GCSE). We did photosynthesis to death five times over amen jesus christ, but we haven't once touched upon the evolution of a pentadactyl limb. If I wrote the syllabus, everyone would take this subject :D
That's another thing, that I mentioned before - this subject is such a joke. I don't feel I'm learning anything new (perhaps it's due to the fact I read too much), we did it all at GCSE. I could probably go into detail about how the kidney works even though we haven't covered it yet in class, and I'll bet it's exactly what we need to know. *le sigh* Every other subject does new and exciting things - why doesn't Biology?
Anyway, for your interest and amusement, here are some things I think you should go read about. It's good, interesting biology;
http://hometown.aol.com/darwinpage/equid2t.gif Evolution of the horse (pretty picture!)
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/whales/whales-graph.jpg Evolution of the whale (pretty picture!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark Go read about sharks 'yo.
http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/2.html#vissamp Ever wondered what the world looks like to colourblind people? Also on 'other' click the 'animal' link. Very interesting reading.
There I feel I may have enriched some people's knowledge.
I have more
I've always loved 'biology' - I put this in inverted commas because it's sort of a loose term. Let me explain.
I often get from people 'how can you like biology? it's so boring' which yes, I can understand perfectly well - you don't blow things up in biology, nor do you seem to ever have to explain something so abstract and complex that your head drops off thinking about it. I'll admit that there hasn't been a lesson in which I myself have been sitting there thinking 'god this is so boring' - I'd say that perhaps 5 out of 4 lessons of biology are boring.
The most fun other people seem to glean from the subject is 'cutting animals and stuff up' aka 'dissection'. I wouldn't say I dislike dissection, I do, but I never really learnt much from it save from that you get to see what organs and stuff feel like, and look like. You can't tell how they work from hacking it to pieces. Anyway, I was explaining what appealed to me...
The fact is, they never teach you the interesting parts of biology, or... they never go into enough detail about the few snippets that catch my attention in lessons. When learning about the nervous system for example, we did a measly five minutes on animal behavior - I'm sure people would have found that far more interesting than synapses and reflexes etc (retold in exactly the same amount of detail we had at GCSE). We did photosynthesis to death five times over amen jesus christ, but we haven't once touched upon the evolution of a pentadactyl limb. If I wrote the syllabus, everyone would take this subject :D
That's another thing, that I mentioned before - this subject is such a joke. I don't feel I'm learning anything new (perhaps it's due to the fact I read too much), we did it all at GCSE. I could probably go into detail about how the kidney works even though we haven't covered it yet in class, and I'll bet it's exactly what we need to know. *le sigh* Every other subject does new and exciting things - why doesn't Biology?
Anyway, for your interest and amusement, here are some things I think you should go read about. It's good, interesting biology;
http://hometown.aol.com/darwinpage/equid2t.gif Evolution of the horse (pretty picture!)
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/whales/whales-graph.jpg Evolution of the whale (pretty picture!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark Go read about sharks 'yo.
http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/2.html#vissamp Ever wondered what the world looks like to colourblind people? Also on 'other' click the 'animal' link. Very interesting reading.
There I feel I may have enriched some people's knowledge.
I have more
Sunday, March 25, 2007
When I thought it just couldn't get any worse
Well, we all know how bad it was when the leak started.
When we got home, mum was there to see that we were ok, but she started talking about plasterers and fair enough blahdeblah we had to know what was going on. Then she left, and she obviously wanted to tell us something else but she was being really annoying by saying 'oh you'll find out sooner or later'.
Half an hour later, Craig and mum come back, and we were subjected to being manhandled by that awful man who I have been informed 'cares about us', but I don't really give a damn. My patience wears thin when I am forced to kiss and cuddle him like I'm his own daughter. His breath smells like vomit and he has this constant long stubble that bloody well hurts. Moreso he asks me things five times over and no matter how enthusiastically I answer, I will be asked the same question again. And again. And again. It's infuriating. Because mother as usual was making no sense whatsoever, I got a glare and was dragged into the lounge for a little 'talk' (which involved me having to sit down, with Craig... well. Pulled into a 'hug' more like) The conversation went something like this, complete with Craigspeak:
(yes I completely nicked dad's way of portraying conversation - sorry ^^)
"Ya mum's 'ad it completely up t'ere with all this sh-i-te that's been goin' on in this house"
(really? what all the shit that happens when she's not here? Gosh it must be so terrible for her, having to cope with this while she's in that pub, drinking the night away and being social... terrible, how does she ever cope?)
"So a think it's time y' started 'elping 'er a bit, 'cos av been gettin' it in the neck all weekend..."
"Yeah ok. Sure."
"Yeah a think y' should start 'elping 'her a bit - will yer start 'elping 'er?"
"Yes."
"If y'ever need t talk about anythin' y can talk t' me."
"Thanks."
"If y'ever need t talk about anythin' y can talk t' me."
"Thankyou."
"Right."
This pissed me off. I'd been the one who had been coping with that leak all weekend. Oh noes, she's had to call the workers in and she's going to have to buy a new carpet. How extremely taxing on her poor little self. How could I have helped with that anyway? Did she expect me to do it for her? And how would 'emptying the dishwasher, taking the dog out, making dinner and cleaning my own clothes' have helped the leaking ceiling? I did those anyway btw :) but... all I have done to help already didn't seem to do anything, so... what did she expect me to do? Obviously I got it wrong. Again. Lol!
Anyway, I found out she'd got Craig to ask us to clean up after the plasterers. I'm guessing that this is because she can't summon up the energy to do it herself because she's 'too tired'. Oh diddums is tired? Oh dear - spent all night in the pub and didn't get to sleep until whenever? so yes, poor mother will be fucking tired.
Don't get me wrong, I would have gladly helped if she'd just asked me herself. Nicely, without having to
1) do it through someone else
2) talk about be behind my back (this is another story for another time)
I guess since Dad already knows how bad it is here, and that he already wants us to go live there, it doesn't matter that I actually recount some of the stuff that goes on. This is just once incident that really hacked me off.
When we got home, mum was there to see that we were ok, but she started talking about plasterers and fair enough blahdeblah we had to know what was going on. Then she left, and she obviously wanted to tell us something else but she was being really annoying by saying 'oh you'll find out sooner or later'.
Half an hour later, Craig and mum come back, and we were subjected to being manhandled by that awful man who I have been informed 'cares about us', but I don't really give a damn. My patience wears thin when I am forced to kiss and cuddle him like I'm his own daughter. His breath smells like vomit and he has this constant long stubble that bloody well hurts. Moreso he asks me things five times over and no matter how enthusiastically I answer, I will be asked the same question again. And again. And again. It's infuriating. Because mother as usual was making no sense whatsoever, I got a glare and was dragged into the lounge for a little 'talk' (which involved me having to sit down, with Craig... well. Pulled into a 'hug' more like) The conversation went something like this, complete with Craigspeak:
(yes I completely nicked dad's way of portraying conversation - sorry ^^)
"Ya mum's 'ad it completely up t'ere with all this sh-i-te that's been goin' on in this house"
(really? what all the shit that happens when she's not here? Gosh it must be so terrible for her, having to cope with this while she's in that pub, drinking the night away and being social... terrible, how does she ever cope?)
"So a think it's time y' started 'elping 'er a bit, 'cos av been gettin' it in the neck all weekend..."
"Yeah ok. Sure."
"Yeah a think y' should start 'elping 'her a bit - will yer start 'elping 'er?"
"Yes."
"If y'ever need t talk about anythin' y can talk t' me."
"Thanks."
"If y'ever need t talk about anythin' y can talk t' me."
"Thankyou."
"Right."
This pissed me off. I'd been the one who had been coping with that leak all weekend. Oh noes, she's had to call the workers in and she's going to have to buy a new carpet. How extremely taxing on her poor little self. How could I have helped with that anyway? Did she expect me to do it for her? And how would 'emptying the dishwasher, taking the dog out, making dinner and cleaning my own clothes' have helped the leaking ceiling? I did those anyway btw :) but... all I have done to help already didn't seem to do anything, so... what did she expect me to do? Obviously I got it wrong. Again. Lol!
Anyway, I found out she'd got Craig to ask us to clean up after the plasterers. I'm guessing that this is because she can't summon up the energy to do it herself because she's 'too tired'. Oh diddums is tired? Oh dear - spent all night in the pub and didn't get to sleep until whenever? so yes, poor mother will be fucking tired.
Don't get me wrong, I would have gladly helped if she'd just asked me herself. Nicely, without having to
1) do it through someone else
2) talk about be behind my back (this is another story for another time)
I guess since Dad already knows how bad it is here, and that he already wants us to go live there, it doesn't matter that I actually recount some of the stuff that goes on. This is just once incident that really hacked me off.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
A little look inside my head.
So, if you'd rather not know, don't read it. (yes this is a warning that I'm going to actually write some of the things I've been subjected to) But I guess this is sort of an explanation for things. I can't really say this out loud to anyone, and typing is the easiest medium for me to share my feelings. This is going to be a lot of writing. And it's not exactly happy either.
I've realised (not very recently either) that I really need someone to talk to, I mean, to share my problems with. I guess a certain person (or people) reading this might think 'hey! you're welcome to talk to me any time you want - I'll listen! I'm an excellent listener! Why can't you let me be your listener person? Am I not good enough? I'm offended...' etc. Please don't be offended by this, I mean seriously don't. I hadn't finished what I was going to say :) here comes the other side to the problem.
I also realised I can't stop this immense guilt preventing me from telling people what bothers me. When someone listens to problems I have, afterwards I don't feel any better, I usually just feel worse. This is for two reasons:
1) I hate burdening people with my problems, everyone has problems. Who would possibly want more? One side to my guilt is that I wouldn't want anyone to worry about my problems in addition to their own, I couldn't bear to make someone unhappy because they are worried about me.
2) If the problem concerns said person, I could never tell them, unless it got so that it was driving me insane from being constantly on my mind, i.e. if I was on the brink of tears because problem x was troubling me so much. This is because I would feel like telling someone that some part of what they do upset me in some way would in turn upset them, and I can't make anyone feel bad about something. Again with the guilt.
I know what has led me to get into this state. It's been a combination of factors. For years I have been everyone else's agony aunt, and perhaps it should have been the other way around. I know for a fact that some relationships were purely on the basis of 'I offload all my crap onto you Natalie, I feel better for it. It's a win win situation' i.e. in retrospect I have been completely taken advantage of and used, until my use has worn out and I have been simply discarded. This is not an understatement. I can name at least 2 cases where I cannot justify being on amiable terms with someone for any other reason than for the one I just stated.
I can understand that with my family, things have been difficult, least of all for my Mum who yes, looked after us. I can't expect to have been shielded from all the troubles that were going on 'behind the scenes' - I was growing up, I had to get used to the fact that life was not some jolly trip. Perhaps she has serious problems that should have been looked at or something, and I know it's a good thing that parents and children talk through problems.
Talking to her way into the night I have to admit, at the time made me feel closer to her, and made the whole situation feel a little less lonely. I felt good in myself for helping her cope with what she was having to deal with, but after a time when I was the one having to sort out all her problems it got a little wearying. (Think about it - I was only 13) I was the one having to listen to every horrible thing that went wrong in our lives and having to sort it out... at least in the emotional sense. You have no idea the number of sleepless nights I had as a young teenager, worrying about what was going to happen to all of us, if we were going to be alright. When mum insisted she wanted a night out, away from the house I was yelled and screamed at for simply wanting a little bit of security - asking her to stay so that I felt a little safer was out of the question. So instead I used to lie awake, unable to sleep until I heard her come home. Everyone had to be in the house before I could sleep, and until they were I used to lie awake thinking of all the possible, terrible things that could have happened to my mum to make her not be home yet. Most of them involved her drinking too much and... y'know crashing the car. Imagining your parent in that state is enough to keep any young girl awake.
So alright, I listened to her problems and we talked about things. She went out on occasion and that made me worry something bad was going to happen. Doesn't sound too bad does it? But the thing was, if I had a problem, every time I'd try to tell her about it I'd get completely ignored. Rebuffed; none of my problems were as near the scale and magnitude of hers. If I had a problem, she have five, larger ones that she'd immediately go on to tell me about in detail, six times over. I don't exaggerate - I'd be kept up until the wee hours listening and talking through her problems, when all that could have started this might have been 'mum, I didn't have such a good day at school today' - talking about my problems only doomed me to a late night of sorting out hers.
Even when it got too much for me to cope with, and I eventually came to her in floods of tears, desperately needing to talk, or simply to cuddle, I'd get told to 'go to your room and cry it away - you'll see that it's not so big a deal Natalie'.
So if I couldn't go talk to my mum about my problems, why didn't I just go and talk to my friends I hear you say? That's a laugh, I didn't have any friends. I was just that girl who had been set upon by her entire form because her 'best friend' decided to spread some rumour around about her (I never found out what it was, but many others came from it, I'll assure you). When I say that everyone hated me, I wouldn't have been lying. My first year of highschool was perhaps the worst time of my life - I'm sure we have all been in the situation, once or twice where, when asked to form a group in class, you were the one left with nobody to go with. The teacher eventually takes pity and places you with someone, but they won't include you. Imagine that but for an entire year, for every situation. P.E, lunchtimes, breaktimes, on the bus... you name it. I was isolated. I tried to make friends, but once that idea of me had been printed into the whole forms head, I was poison.
I couldn't talk about it to my younger sister because I felt that this time was probably the hardest for her, and being guilt tripped into not sharing my problems with those older or equal in age to myself, I couldn't do that to Blythe.
So, all in all, I had an unhappy time and I had nobody to share it with, and even if there had been a listening ear out there, I wasn't able to share things with them. During Highschool once we weren't setted for classes in forms and more mixed up I made different groups of friends, but, so glad to have people who liked me, I'd do anything for them. I'd help them with anything, listen to all their problems. I couldn't stand up for myself, it might have lost me the precious companionship I had been deprived of.
It was sort of around this time I began getting it into my head that
1) everyone had problems
2) everyone else's problems were greater than my own
But helping people talk through their problems instead of them listening to mine was sort of my anti-drug. It made me put my own problems into perspective, made them seem less terrible and also made me forget about them - bury them somewhere deep to never be spoken of. If I could help people solve their own problems it made my problems go away. I guess Highschool taught me a lot of good lessons in how to make a person feel valued, how to actually listen to someone (there is a proper way to listen to someone), how to talk to someone, and how to value friendships and look after people in general. Those are skills I know I still hold today.
I found this thing a few years ago and it said that there are 5 important things you do in conversation that classifies you as a 'good listener':
1) You use the person's name while speaking to them, it lets someone know that you know who they are and it makes them feel more important and special
2) When someone has said something, ask questions on the subject. It lets the person know you have listened and taken in what they have said. Asking someone to clarify what they have just said is a big yes, because to understand a topic or problem people will do this subconsiously to understand the goal together
3) Look at the person when they are speaking to you, but look away when you yourself are speaking
4) Remembering to ask someone about the problem later on in the day, or the next day makes them feel well... remembered.
5) Repeating what someone has just said in your own words, as a verification also lets them know you were listening.
While I was learning this myself, I also became aware of how few other people actually listened. People are selfish, they only like talking about themselves, and you'll find that conversation does not work if someone only ever talks about themselves. Even if they are the type who 'oh no I can't tell you what's wrong' - most of the time it's attention seeking. They will tell you eventually. You can tell a bad listener by the fact that they will -
1) Use the word 'I' a lot.
2) Cut across what you are saying with something that happened to them, or something irrelivant to the conversation, and anecdote about themselves
3) While you are speaking, if they are not listening they will simply go 'mm.... yes...' in the same tone of voice.
I got that a lot while I was talking to people, so in the end, coupled with everything else I simply stopped sharing my feelings, as I realised there was nobody who truly wanted to know how I felt. These days if someone asks me, I will give them a short answer, even if deep inside I'm bursting to tell them how terrible I feel. 'I'm fine' usually indicates I'm happy, whereas 'yeah, I'm ok I guess' probably means I'm not ok and could you please help me talk about my problems. Though I probably wouldn't be able to because sharing my problems with other people, as I said before, makes me feel guilty.
These days however, I seemed to have reached exhaustion point. Not sharing my problems over so long means I'm finding it really difficult to listen to others - if someone simply starts offloading onto me I'll tune off. I've been taken advantage of too many times now and I feel I just can't do it anymore, I seem to be alright if I know I'm going to get something back when I really need it, or if I'm feeling particually happy I can listen to people. But I feel all my good advice and helpfulness just ... not there anymore. As though it's all been sucked dry.
I guess a good analogy of this came from a book I read a while ago that says that women have a sort of psycological 'caring meter'. It's their capacity to be able to help other people. Basically this it how it works
- People doing things to help said woman fill the meter up. The amount the meter is filled up by is exactly the same no matter how big the help was, so it is better to do lots of little good things than do one big good thing. I.e. opening the door for the woman = 1 point, remembering to say thankyou = 1 point. But also buying the woman a house = 1 point. (you get the idea, I've exaggerated here)
- The woman will always help and care for people to the best of her ability, regardless of how full the meter is. Even if the meter goes into 'negative' - she will still continue to use the (now non-existant) points from the meter. However, if the meter is in negative, the woman will begin to become angry and upset at the people who still ask for her help when they are doing nothing to help her back (in extreme cases she will begin to hate these people) but she will never stop helping them.
But I guess I feel so underappreciated I find it hard to help people at all, I mean I will still do, but I find it very hard to. Comes from being taken for granted too much in the past.
I guess this is just turning into ramble now, but basically the point of this post was to clear up a few of the things that go through my head. So all in all I really, really need someone to understand how important it is to me when I feel appreciated, even just a simple thankyou from people makes me so happy. I also need to feel secure and feel that people aren't going to leave me or get cross with me, or but in, or make me feel guilty because I need to share my feelings and problems. Sharing problems is a hard thing for me to do - it does not come easily like it does to so many other people I notice.
So as you thought perhaps at the beginning ''hey! you're welcome to talk to me any time you want - I'll listen! I'm an excellent listener! Why can't you let me be your listener person?" You can, but just understand it's going to take time and probably a hell of a lot of patience. Though the (person) people who read(s) this (is) are wonderful (<3) (yay for non subtle subtext) and I hope I haven't scared them away by all this rubbish, it's taken me a lot of courage and tissues and time to write this all down at stupid o'clock in the morning. So I hope it's helpful, or at the very least, insightful.
I'm going to go to bed now.
I've realised (not very recently either) that I really need someone to talk to, I mean, to share my problems with. I guess a certain person (or people) reading this might think 'hey! you're welcome to talk to me any time you want - I'll listen! I'm an excellent listener! Why can't you let me be your listener person? Am I not good enough? I'm offended...' etc. Please don't be offended by this, I mean seriously don't. I hadn't finished what I was going to say :) here comes the other side to the problem.
I also realised I can't stop this immense guilt preventing me from telling people what bothers me. When someone listens to problems I have, afterwards I don't feel any better, I usually just feel worse. This is for two reasons:
1) I hate burdening people with my problems, everyone has problems. Who would possibly want more? One side to my guilt is that I wouldn't want anyone to worry about my problems in addition to their own, I couldn't bear to make someone unhappy because they are worried about me.
2) If the problem concerns said person, I could never tell them, unless it got so that it was driving me insane from being constantly on my mind, i.e. if I was on the brink of tears because problem x was troubling me so much. This is because I would feel like telling someone that some part of what they do upset me in some way would in turn upset them, and I can't make anyone feel bad about something. Again with the guilt.
I know what has led me to get into this state. It's been a combination of factors. For years I have been everyone else's agony aunt, and perhaps it should have been the other way around. I know for a fact that some relationships were purely on the basis of 'I offload all my crap onto you Natalie, I feel better for it. It's a win win situation' i.e. in retrospect I have been completely taken advantage of and used, until my use has worn out and I have been simply discarded. This is not an understatement. I can name at least 2 cases where I cannot justify being on amiable terms with someone for any other reason than for the one I just stated.
I can understand that with my family, things have been difficult, least of all for my Mum who yes, looked after us. I can't expect to have been shielded from all the troubles that were going on 'behind the scenes' - I was growing up, I had to get used to the fact that life was not some jolly trip. Perhaps she has serious problems that should have been looked at or something, and I know it's a good thing that parents and children talk through problems.
Talking to her way into the night I have to admit, at the time made me feel closer to her, and made the whole situation feel a little less lonely. I felt good in myself for helping her cope with what she was having to deal with, but after a time when I was the one having to sort out all her problems it got a little wearying. (Think about it - I was only 13) I was the one having to listen to every horrible thing that went wrong in our lives and having to sort it out... at least in the emotional sense. You have no idea the number of sleepless nights I had as a young teenager, worrying about what was going to happen to all of us, if we were going to be alright. When mum insisted she wanted a night out, away from the house I was yelled and screamed at for simply wanting a little bit of security - asking her to stay so that I felt a little safer was out of the question. So instead I used to lie awake, unable to sleep until I heard her come home. Everyone had to be in the house before I could sleep, and until they were I used to lie awake thinking of all the possible, terrible things that could have happened to my mum to make her not be home yet. Most of them involved her drinking too much and... y'know crashing the car. Imagining your parent in that state is enough to keep any young girl awake.
So alright, I listened to her problems and we talked about things. She went out on occasion and that made me worry something bad was going to happen. Doesn't sound too bad does it? But the thing was, if I had a problem, every time I'd try to tell her about it I'd get completely ignored. Rebuffed; none of my problems were as near the scale and magnitude of hers. If I had a problem, she have five, larger ones that she'd immediately go on to tell me about in detail, six times over. I don't exaggerate - I'd be kept up until the wee hours listening and talking through her problems, when all that could have started this might have been 'mum, I didn't have such a good day at school today' - talking about my problems only doomed me to a late night of sorting out hers.
Even when it got too much for me to cope with, and I eventually came to her in floods of tears, desperately needing to talk, or simply to cuddle, I'd get told to 'go to your room and cry it away - you'll see that it's not so big a deal Natalie'.
So if I couldn't go talk to my mum about my problems, why didn't I just go and talk to my friends I hear you say? That's a laugh, I didn't have any friends. I was just that girl who had been set upon by her entire form because her 'best friend' decided to spread some rumour around about her (I never found out what it was, but many others came from it, I'll assure you). When I say that everyone hated me, I wouldn't have been lying. My first year of highschool was perhaps the worst time of my life - I'm sure we have all been in the situation, once or twice where, when asked to form a group in class, you were the one left with nobody to go with. The teacher eventually takes pity and places you with someone, but they won't include you. Imagine that but for an entire year, for every situation. P.E, lunchtimes, breaktimes, on the bus... you name it. I was isolated. I tried to make friends, but once that idea of me had been printed into the whole forms head, I was poison.
I couldn't talk about it to my younger sister because I felt that this time was probably the hardest for her, and being guilt tripped into not sharing my problems with those older or equal in age to myself, I couldn't do that to Blythe.
So, all in all, I had an unhappy time and I had nobody to share it with, and even if there had been a listening ear out there, I wasn't able to share things with them. During Highschool once we weren't setted for classes in forms and more mixed up I made different groups of friends, but, so glad to have people who liked me, I'd do anything for them. I'd help them with anything, listen to all their problems. I couldn't stand up for myself, it might have lost me the precious companionship I had been deprived of.
It was sort of around this time I began getting it into my head that
1) everyone had problems
2) everyone else's problems were greater than my own
But helping people talk through their problems instead of them listening to mine was sort of my anti-drug. It made me put my own problems into perspective, made them seem less terrible and also made me forget about them - bury them somewhere deep to never be spoken of. If I could help people solve their own problems it made my problems go away. I guess Highschool taught me a lot of good lessons in how to make a person feel valued, how to actually listen to someone (there is a proper way to listen to someone), how to talk to someone, and how to value friendships and look after people in general. Those are skills I know I still hold today.
I found this thing a few years ago and it said that there are 5 important things you do in conversation that classifies you as a 'good listener':
1) You use the person's name while speaking to them, it lets someone know that you know who they are and it makes them feel more important and special
2) When someone has said something, ask questions on the subject. It lets the person know you have listened and taken in what they have said. Asking someone to clarify what they have just said is a big yes, because to understand a topic or problem people will do this subconsiously to understand the goal together
3) Look at the person when they are speaking to you, but look away when you yourself are speaking
4) Remembering to ask someone about the problem later on in the day, or the next day makes them feel well... remembered.
5) Repeating what someone has just said in your own words, as a verification also lets them know you were listening.
While I was learning this myself, I also became aware of how few other people actually listened. People are selfish, they only like talking about themselves, and you'll find that conversation does not work if someone only ever talks about themselves. Even if they are the type who 'oh no I can't tell you what's wrong' - most of the time it's attention seeking. They will tell you eventually. You can tell a bad listener by the fact that they will -
1) Use the word 'I' a lot.
2) Cut across what you are saying with something that happened to them, or something irrelivant to the conversation, and anecdote about themselves
3) While you are speaking, if they are not listening they will simply go 'mm.... yes...' in the same tone of voice.
I got that a lot while I was talking to people, so in the end, coupled with everything else I simply stopped sharing my feelings, as I realised there was nobody who truly wanted to know how I felt. These days if someone asks me, I will give them a short answer, even if deep inside I'm bursting to tell them how terrible I feel. 'I'm fine' usually indicates I'm happy, whereas 'yeah, I'm ok I guess' probably means I'm not ok and could you please help me talk about my problems. Though I probably wouldn't be able to because sharing my problems with other people, as I said before, makes me feel guilty.
These days however, I seemed to have reached exhaustion point. Not sharing my problems over so long means I'm finding it really difficult to listen to others - if someone simply starts offloading onto me I'll tune off. I've been taken advantage of too many times now and I feel I just can't do it anymore, I seem to be alright if I know I'm going to get something back when I really need it, or if I'm feeling particually happy I can listen to people. But I feel all my good advice and helpfulness just ... not there anymore. As though it's all been sucked dry.
I guess a good analogy of this came from a book I read a while ago that says that women have a sort of psycological 'caring meter'. It's their capacity to be able to help other people. Basically this it how it works
- People doing things to help said woman fill the meter up. The amount the meter is filled up by is exactly the same no matter how big the help was, so it is better to do lots of little good things than do one big good thing. I.e. opening the door for the woman = 1 point, remembering to say thankyou = 1 point. But also buying the woman a house = 1 point. (you get the idea, I've exaggerated here)
- The woman will always help and care for people to the best of her ability, regardless of how full the meter is. Even if the meter goes into 'negative' - she will still continue to use the (now non-existant) points from the meter. However, if the meter is in negative, the woman will begin to become angry and upset at the people who still ask for her help when they are doing nothing to help her back (in extreme cases she will begin to hate these people) but she will never stop helping them.
But I guess I feel so underappreciated I find it hard to help people at all, I mean I will still do, but I find it very hard to. Comes from being taken for granted too much in the past.
I guess this is just turning into ramble now, but basically the point of this post was to clear up a few of the things that go through my head. So all in all I really, really need someone to understand how important it is to me when I feel appreciated, even just a simple thankyou from people makes me so happy. I also need to feel secure and feel that people aren't going to leave me or get cross with me, or but in, or make me feel guilty because I need to share my feelings and problems. Sharing problems is a hard thing for me to do - it does not come easily like it does to so many other people I notice.
So as you thought perhaps at the beginning ''hey! you're welcome to talk to me any time you want - I'll listen! I'm an excellent listener! Why can't you let me be your listener person?" You can, but just understand it's going to take time and probably a hell of a lot of patience. Though the (person) people who read(s) this (is) are wonderful (<3) (yay for non subtle subtext) and I hope I haven't scared them away by all this rubbish, it's taken me a lot of courage and tissues and time to write this all down at stupid o'clock in the morning. So I hope it's helpful, or at the very least, insightful.
I'm going to go to bed now.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Leaks
I actually got the inspiration for today's post while I was travelling to college on the bus. I think about quite a lot on my bus jouney too and from college everyday, possibly why it's one of the few times I'm considered to be 'quiet' - especially in the mornings it irritates me a little bit if someone I know comes and sits next to me and starts regailing all their problems. I consider my journey in the morning to still be 'me' time, and afterwards I feel bad for not being conversational, one because I find it hard to make conversation when I'm still waking up, and two because I feel I really should have made the effort even if I didn't feel like it. Anyway, this isn't what this post was about.
On Friday night as I sat watching Top Gear of the pops (comic relief) in the lounge, stretched out on the sofa. After about ten minutes however, I felt this 'ticking' sensation, but thought nothing of it - it felt as though it was just the leather of the sofa moving about as it does, so I ignored it. Until it became such that I couldn't. So me being me, I looked behind me, the irrational fear popping into my head of 'what if it's a spider struggling to free itself from where I've crushed it?' alright, laugh, but these sorts of stupid thoughts often pop into my head.
But no, I discover as I move, that my back feels cold... and very wet. My only reaction to this is to look upwards, only to receive a large, slightly warm drop smack bang between the eyes. Yuck.
So the ceiling is leaking, and I have no idea where it's coming from. Then my brain begins to work and I puzzle it through something like this...
The water was warm
The bathroom and my bedroom are above the lounge
I remember when Blythe left the sink tap running and it dripping through into the lounge
It's the hot water tank.
So, moving the sofa out of the way of the dripping (a mighty task for a small lass like myself) and retrieving the mop bucket from the kitchen to catch the drops, I run upstairs to investigate. Lo and behold I also discover the reason for that 'damp, hot varnished wood' aroma that I had been smelling as I walked to and from the office all evening. I remember experiencing it once before when the roof leaked all those years ago, and it was slightly worrying, but I hadn't thought anything of it until now. Anyway, inspecting the water tank, I saw that the neutraliser had completely filled to the brim with rusty, manky water, and that the towels we store in there to keep them warm were completely soaked.
By now I was starting to panic. How long had this been going on for? How bad was it? And most importantly How the hell was I supposed to fix it?
As usual, mum was out, so I tried to get hold of her. This made me merely angry at the time, and apologies to all who were on the receiving end of my panic, because when I look back at it now I didn't react well to the fact that even after ringing her mobile no less than five times, and Craig's house number at least four, I realised I wasn't going to get through. Typical - this is after I had been reassured 'if you ever need me, I'm just a phonecall away'. Which as I discovered, is not true. Alright, fair enough I accept that at Craig's house there might be no mobile signal, but to not answer a house phone on the basis that 'it doesn't ring' is just plain pathetic. So there's me, stuck in this house with what has now grown to a steady stream of water running from a crack in the ceiling, my younger sister and nobody else to help me.
I figured there wasn't much else I could do but to protect the room from the wrath of the leak, so scouting out some dry towels, I packed them around the bottom of the tank, draped them over the back of the sofa (to stop the drips from splashing onto it) and around on the carpet. And that was about it. My plan sort of worked because after about twenty minutes, the leak slowed to a steady drip again, but by morning mum had come home and as far as I was concerned it was her problem now.
So Saturday passed uneventfully, she called a 'man' in for sometime this week, while turning the heating up and draining the hot water tank. After a while when the leak stopped, she turned the hot water back on and everything seemed a-ok, or at least I thought it did.
This morning, I wandered bleary eyed downstairs to be greeted by a strange, sloppy splashing noise. Uttering some sort of expletive I peered cautiously into the lounge to discover that the bucket had overflowed. Ok, bad, but not very much so as I wandered in to empty it. Yuck - as I took one step into the room my socks were instantly soaked, and looking around I could see that half the room was a mess of wet carpet, the back of the sofa had 'splash stains' and that the foot rest had left a nice brown skid where the wood colour had leaked into the lovely cream carpet, which had now become a fetching shade of grey. Emptying the bucket, defeated, I did the usual towels trick and told Blythe to phone mum and tell her what happened. I then promptly caught the bus.
I think the moral of the story is that you should never neglect anything. It'll hold for so long, but there's only so much anything, or indeed anyone can take. Read what you will into this.
On Friday night as I sat watching Top Gear of the pops (comic relief) in the lounge, stretched out on the sofa. After about ten minutes however, I felt this 'ticking' sensation, but thought nothing of it - it felt as though it was just the leather of the sofa moving about as it does, so I ignored it. Until it became such that I couldn't. So me being me, I looked behind me, the irrational fear popping into my head of 'what if it's a spider struggling to free itself from where I've crushed it?' alright, laugh, but these sorts of stupid thoughts often pop into my head.
But no, I discover as I move, that my back feels cold... and very wet. My only reaction to this is to look upwards, only to receive a large, slightly warm drop smack bang between the eyes. Yuck.
So the ceiling is leaking, and I have no idea where it's coming from. Then my brain begins to work and I puzzle it through something like this...
The water was warm
The bathroom and my bedroom are above the lounge
I remember when Blythe left the sink tap running and it dripping through into the lounge
It's the hot water tank.
So, moving the sofa out of the way of the dripping (a mighty task for a small lass like myself) and retrieving the mop bucket from the kitchen to catch the drops, I run upstairs to investigate. Lo and behold I also discover the reason for that 'damp, hot varnished wood' aroma that I had been smelling as I walked to and from the office all evening. I remember experiencing it once before when the roof leaked all those years ago, and it was slightly worrying, but I hadn't thought anything of it until now. Anyway, inspecting the water tank, I saw that the neutraliser had completely filled to the brim with rusty, manky water, and that the towels we store in there to keep them warm were completely soaked.
By now I was starting to panic. How long had this been going on for? How bad was it? And most importantly How the hell was I supposed to fix it?
As usual, mum was out, so I tried to get hold of her. This made me merely angry at the time, and apologies to all who were on the receiving end of my panic, because when I look back at it now I didn't react well to the fact that even after ringing her mobile no less than five times, and Craig's house number at least four, I realised I wasn't going to get through. Typical - this is after I had been reassured 'if you ever need me, I'm just a phonecall away'. Which as I discovered, is not true. Alright, fair enough I accept that at Craig's house there might be no mobile signal, but to not answer a house phone on the basis that 'it doesn't ring' is just plain pathetic. So there's me, stuck in this house with what has now grown to a steady stream of water running from a crack in the ceiling, my younger sister and nobody else to help me.
I figured there wasn't much else I could do but to protect the room from the wrath of the leak, so scouting out some dry towels, I packed them around the bottom of the tank, draped them over the back of the sofa (to stop the drips from splashing onto it) and around on the carpet. And that was about it. My plan sort of worked because after about twenty minutes, the leak slowed to a steady drip again, but by morning mum had come home and as far as I was concerned it was her problem now.
So Saturday passed uneventfully, she called a 'man' in for sometime this week, while turning the heating up and draining the hot water tank. After a while when the leak stopped, she turned the hot water back on and everything seemed a-ok, or at least I thought it did.
This morning, I wandered bleary eyed downstairs to be greeted by a strange, sloppy splashing noise. Uttering some sort of expletive I peered cautiously into the lounge to discover that the bucket had overflowed. Ok, bad, but not very much so as I wandered in to empty it. Yuck - as I took one step into the room my socks were instantly soaked, and looking around I could see that half the room was a mess of wet carpet, the back of the sofa had 'splash stains' and that the foot rest had left a nice brown skid where the wood colour had leaked into the lovely cream carpet, which had now become a fetching shade of grey. Emptying the bucket, defeated, I did the usual towels trick and told Blythe to phone mum and tell her what happened. I then promptly caught the bus.
I think the moral of the story is that you should never neglect anything. It'll hold for so long, but there's only so much anything, or indeed anyone can take. Read what you will into this.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Music
Don't you think it's strange how your music tastes change? I do, I mean, when I started becoming properly interested in 'music' (well, what most people call music) I almost exclusively listened to the Chillis. But then as my music tastes broadened, and I began discovering new and brilliant bands/artists, I seemed to grow increasingly bored of the music I used to listen to (well, I found I couldn't listen to the Chillis at all basically)
Anyway, the point of this all is, I was a little taken aback to find myself loading up WMP the other day and not changing track when 'on Mercury' came on. I thought 'hey, I remembered how I loved this song... and I still do.' I guess I've come full circle or something - weird huh?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally converted back yet, I still can't stand 'Tear' (the whole song makes me feel ill) and well, quite a few on that whole album still. (Don't get me started on the others) but perhaps I can find my fandomness in them again. *shrug*
On another, slightly different track, I also forgot how much I love the Scissor Sisters. =D Perhaps it's time I started listening to the more cheery side of my music collection. (ok, songs about crystal meth aren't exactly cheery, but they're still upbeat nonetheless)
Take Your Mama ftw <3
Anyway, the point of this all is, I was a little taken aback to find myself loading up WMP the other day and not changing track when 'on Mercury' came on. I thought 'hey, I remembered how I loved this song... and I still do.' I guess I've come full circle or something - weird huh?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally converted back yet, I still can't stand 'Tear' (the whole song makes me feel ill) and well, quite a few on that whole album still. (Don't get me started on the others) but perhaps I can find my fandomness in them again. *shrug*
On another, slightly different track, I also forgot how much I love the Scissor Sisters. =D Perhaps it's time I started listening to the more cheery side of my music collection. (ok, songs about crystal meth aren't exactly cheery, but they're still upbeat nonetheless)
Take Your Mama ftw <3
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Crufts
Well, it was a hectic weekend anyway, but retrospectively, I did enjoy actually doing something for once even though I was constantly on the move.Friday night I caught the train(s) down to Malvern to stay with my friend Megan at her dad's house. By the time we got there it was so late we just decided to get chip shop chips and have done (We were really desperate just to eat something!) but they were still tasty.
We also stayed up quite late just talking about stuff, the trip down etc, Megan catching up with the news with her dad. For some reason the rest of the family were out of the house, so I didn't get to meet them, but from Megan's advice I gathered this was a good thing; she doesn't get on too well with her step mum and their kids.Saturday morning we walked their weird little Cavalier thing round a field, and my god, even at 9am it was like a hot July day in Yorkshire. 'Down South' truly is another world, everyone's too civilised, the weather's too nice, the grass is actually green... weird.
Then after that we decided to catch another two trains to get to the NEC and go to crufts. Crufts in itself was a really good day out. What I didn't like was the congestion, the lack of decent eating facilities (You're also not able to get your own food), and the fact that we never got to see the main events in the arena due to the queue's being too long. You'd have thought that with having tickets you could have had some sort of fast track into the place, but for everything you had to queue, and in most places it was very crowded. The whole place was also very poorly signposted. Other than that there was never a shortage of things to do.
We got to watch the showing of Miniature short and long haired daschunds, Irish wolfhounds, Salukis, Afghan hounds and Smooth Fox Terrier groups. And we trailed round stalls, watched demonstrations, saw every breed of dog there is... most people were really nice too and let you take pictures of their dogs. So I have quite a lot of good pictures :)
We also stayed up quite late just talking about stuff, the trip down etc, Megan catching up with the news with her dad. For some reason the rest of the family were out of the house, so I didn't get to meet them, but from Megan's advice I gathered this was a good thing; she doesn't get on too well with her step mum and their kids.Saturday morning we walked their weird little Cavalier thing round a field, and my god, even at 9am it was like a hot July day in Yorkshire. 'Down South' truly is another world, everyone's too civilised, the weather's too nice, the grass is actually green... weird.
Then after that we decided to catch another two trains to get to the NEC and go to crufts. Crufts in itself was a really good day out. What I didn't like was the congestion, the lack of decent eating facilities (You're also not able to get your own food), and the fact that we never got to see the main events in the arena due to the queue's being too long. You'd have thought that with having tickets you could have had some sort of fast track into the place, but for everything you had to queue, and in most places it was very crowded. The whole place was also very poorly signposted. Other than that there was never a shortage of things to do.
We got to watch the showing of Miniature short and long haired daschunds, Irish wolfhounds, Salukis, Afghan hounds and Smooth Fox Terrier groups. And we trailed round stalls, watched demonstrations, saw every breed of dog there is... most people were really nice too and let you take pictures of their dogs. So I have quite a lot of good pictures :)
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Results day
The results from our January Exams came today, so for most people that included some AS resits aswell as module 4/5 of their A level subjects, for me, I had three resits, one in chemistry in a hope to get 4 extra marks to boost me to an A and two in physics because well... I was hoping to get better than a C at least. And then I also had Biology, Chemistry and Physics exams, aswell as General Studies, which nobody really cares about (:D)
I didn't really want to be involved in the whole 'so what did you get?' because after the huge downer in the summer, I didn't think I could bear to live through it again (yes, I did not have high expectations of myself)So, for the benefit of everyone here, here are my origional results.
Biology - A
unit 1 - a
unit 2 - a
unit 3 - a
Chemistry - B
unit 1 - b
unit 2 - a
unit 3 - a
Physics - C
unit 1 - c
unit 2 - c
unit 3 - b
Maths - C (and I dropped this one)
so you can kinda guess which ones I resat. :) and these are my results I got this time, including the module 4/5 mark
Biology
module 5 - A
Chemistry
module 1 - a
module 4 - b (bit dissapointed with this one, but I think I just missed the A mark AGAIN)
Physics
module 1 - c (gained a whopping.... 2 marks)
module 2 - A (OMG -HOW- DID I MANAGE AN A?!!3)
module 4 - c ( : I revised so hard for this too. I was 1 mark off a B)
And for General Studies? I got a C. Lol :D
So on some respects, I'm really happy, but on others, not so. The A I got in Biology was a truly terrible A aswell, literally only just scraped (considering I got 95/100 etc last year, 79/90 isn't all that great S: ) but nvm. Physics just... urgh. But I got other really good marks in other things, so if someone asked me how I did, I can honestly say, I really -don't know- : I'm still happy though ^^
I didn't really want to be involved in the whole 'so what did you get?' because after the huge downer in the summer, I didn't think I could bear to live through it again (yes, I did not have high expectations of myself)So, for the benefit of everyone here, here are my origional results.
Biology - A
unit 1 - a
unit 2 - a
unit 3 - a
Chemistry - B
unit 1 - b
unit 2 - a
unit 3 - a
Physics - C
unit 1 - c
unit 2 - c
unit 3 - b
Maths - C (and I dropped this one)
so you can kinda guess which ones I resat. :) and these are my results I got this time, including the module 4/5 mark
Biology
module 5 - A
Chemistry
module 1 - a
module 4 - b (bit dissapointed with this one, but I think I just missed the A mark AGAIN)
Physics
module 1 - c (gained a whopping.... 2 marks)
module 2 - A (OMG -HOW- DID I MANAGE AN A?!!3)
module 4 - c ( : I revised so hard for this too. I was 1 mark off a B)
And for General Studies? I got a C. Lol :D
So on some respects, I'm really happy, but on others, not so. The A I got in Biology was a truly terrible A aswell, literally only just scraped (considering I got 95/100 etc last year, 79/90 isn't all that great S: ) but nvm. Physics just... urgh. But I got other really good marks in other things, so if someone asked me how I did, I can honestly say, I really -don't know- : I'm still happy though ^^
Friday, March 02, 2007
Sick
Yup, I've finally got that awful head cold that's been going round college.
When Finn got it I thought 'yup, I'm next' - but hey. (: I woke up at 3am this morning unable to sleep, so I began doing a few jobs and stuff, and then took the last of the painkillers and tried to get some more sleep. What really touched me was the fact that the people at college actually seemed concerned, even when I told them I was ok. Like they actually give a damn about me, it was nice ^^
Though of course you can guess who the person I gave most brownie points to was. Someone does a terribly good job of looking after me when I'm not 100%, and he was still suffering himself! Finn is such a star <3
He's coming round on Sunday too, I'm really looking forward to it, 'cos he's promised that we're going to watch some Stargate :D. I haven't a clue what my reaction's going to be, but since everyone goes on about it so much I guessed it must be something worth watching. And I get to spend some time with him, which always makes any week.
When Finn got it I thought 'yup, I'm next' - but hey. (: I woke up at 3am this morning unable to sleep, so I began doing a few jobs and stuff, and then took the last of the painkillers and tried to get some more sleep. What really touched me was the fact that the people at college actually seemed concerned, even when I told them I was ok. Like they actually give a damn about me, it was nice ^^
Though of course you can guess who the person I gave most brownie points to was. Someone does a terribly good job of looking after me when I'm not 100%, and he was still suffering himself! Finn is such a star <3
He's coming round on Sunday too, I'm really looking forward to it, 'cos he's promised that we're going to watch some Stargate :D. I haven't a clue what my reaction's going to be, but since everyone goes on about it so much I guessed it must be something worth watching. And I get to spend some time with him, which always makes any week.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Coursework, and crufts
Yup, it's that time of year again when I'm drowned in work assignments from my subject teachers.
What annoys me is that they have to all set coursework round about the same time, so that I have three lots going on the trot, or one week it's physics the next it's biology and so on. So for this term every week I have some coursework or other to do.I've never really been fond of coursework in all fairness, it's like a huge piece of homework that actually matters if you hand it in or not (not that I ever don't hand in homework you understand, but still). But anyway. It became a life saver last year, otherwise I probably wouldn't have got the grades that I did in some subjects, really a mark booster when your exams didn't go so hot. So I'm busy busy, trying to get it all done and at the same time not being able to bring myself to do it. It's always there at the back of your mind, nagging. Urgh.
--
On other notes, the first week back at college is going ok. I got my final letter from UCAS the other week, saying that I'd gotten all my offers through, so I popped along to the tracking system and firmly accepted my offer from Manchester (Leeds is my backup incase I don't get the grades or whatever). Whoot ^^ - it's nice to get everything sorted on that front, when other people are still waiting to hear, and for once I'm not the one in that position. I can say 'well, I know where I'm going...' next up will probably be the accomodation form, which I don't have any idea but oh well. :D
I don't mind going to do zoology. I can see it leading to a career on it's own, but that isn't really the point, I didn't get into veterinary, but I know I'm still going to love zoology because hey, it's like my forte ;) and perhaps I'll actually learn something new rather than being asked all the time to tell the whole class about metamorphosis or whatever. Funny, but embarassing since my Biology teacher has finally twigged that I'm the swotty/knowitall in the Biology class. Damn ...
On a different subject, I shall be going to Crufts! ^^ A good friend of mine got two tickets for her birthday, and for some reason she thought of asking me along with her (perhaps because we're both such big animal enthusiasts) so yes, we're going on the hounds and terriers day because that's the one she wanted to go too (not so keen on the terriers, but I will get to see LOTS and LOTS of daxies <3) I'm going to try and get her to take a picture of me with a daxie :3 *cuted out* This is on the 10th, and I'm going to have to go back on the 10th too because I have a guitar competition on the Sunday (music for youth I /think/)So that means I'm going to have to sort out next weekend aswell S: I can imagine Blythe still going to Dad's house, but no Dad visiting for me this time, it's not physically possible o_O.
over and out
What annoys me is that they have to all set coursework round about the same time, so that I have three lots going on the trot, or one week it's physics the next it's biology and so on. So for this term every week I have some coursework or other to do.I've never really been fond of coursework in all fairness, it's like a huge piece of homework that actually matters if you hand it in or not (not that I ever don't hand in homework you understand, but still). But anyway. It became a life saver last year, otherwise I probably wouldn't have got the grades that I did in some subjects, really a mark booster when your exams didn't go so hot. So I'm busy busy, trying to get it all done and at the same time not being able to bring myself to do it. It's always there at the back of your mind, nagging. Urgh.
--
On other notes, the first week back at college is going ok. I got my final letter from UCAS the other week, saying that I'd gotten all my offers through, so I popped along to the tracking system and firmly accepted my offer from Manchester (Leeds is my backup incase I don't get the grades or whatever). Whoot ^^ - it's nice to get everything sorted on that front, when other people are still waiting to hear, and for once I'm not the one in that position. I can say 'well, I know where I'm going...' next up will probably be the accomodation form, which I don't have any idea but oh well. :D
I don't mind going to do zoology. I can see it leading to a career on it's own, but that isn't really the point, I didn't get into veterinary, but I know I'm still going to love zoology because hey, it's like my forte ;) and perhaps I'll actually learn something new rather than being asked all the time to tell the whole class about metamorphosis or whatever. Funny, but embarassing since my Biology teacher has finally twigged that I'm the swotty/knowitall in the Biology class. Damn ...
On a different subject, I shall be going to Crufts! ^^ A good friend of mine got two tickets for her birthday, and for some reason she thought of asking me along with her (perhaps because we're both such big animal enthusiasts) so yes, we're going on the hounds and terriers day because that's the one she wanted to go too (not so keen on the terriers, but I will get to see LOTS and LOTS of daxies <3) I'm going to try and get her to take a picture of me with a daxie :3 *cuted out* This is on the 10th, and I'm going to have to go back on the 10th too because I have a guitar competition on the Sunday (music for youth I /think/)So that means I'm going to have to sort out next weekend aswell S: I can imagine Blythe still going to Dad's house, but no Dad visiting for me this time, it's not physically possible o_O.
over and out
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Sad story
This week I got talking to Alison, she's from Georgia and I've known her nearly 4 years now (she's 15) but yeah, she's one of the 'americans' who form the group of us that lived in and loved the site X_HogwartsSchool_X, a Harry Potter forum.
It was probably our obsession for about 2 years straight, we all stayed up all night when the new books came out, we had regular msn mass conversation with much craziness and things like that. We all had nicknames based on characters from the books, so hehe, I was Remmy (Remus) and we had Hermy (hermione), Siri (guess that one), Sevvie (snape) etc... anyway, after I hit my GCSE's I got busier, and after that I couldn't talk so much. I'd still post on the forum but I could feel it getting quieter. One day Sev told us all she was leaving for a few months, She lived in India and her dad moved about a lot. But we didn't hear from her until a year later, and when she signed into msn it was her mother.
The last time I heard from her personally was on her deviantart account, but all the same it was a long long time ago. In the meanwhile, fights broke out among us, some of the less regular members to the place decided to make their own forum, and of course, our admin Hermy, being the posessive type, didn't like this one bit. The group ended up splitting into two factions, Hermy and her followers, and the 'rebels' - these groups were subject to change at any time depending on who she favoured (apparently) but nobody knew what was going on, nobody knew who's side they were on or who was on which side and it was all very confusing. This all happened behind my back - I had fallen out of contact with them all over this time, occasionally talking to Alison. She told me every time things were /bad/ and after telling me exactly why, I proceeded to ignore it because I thought, well. Things will sort themselves out. We're all good friends here aren't we?Wrong.Last week I messaged Alison again to check upon how things are doing and discovered that Hermy no longer messages or speaks to anyone, not ever via email. If and when she does, she's very rude and very short with them. I'd noticed things on the actual forum were pretty dire but I hadn't imagined things could ever get this bad. I guess after being left to fester it had just grown and grown.
Siri never contacted anyone, she was getting on with 'real life' (wants to get into the ivies, very clever girl indeed). Alison didn't really know what to do about it all, so after making sure she was ok I proceeded to message Siri. Thankfully I got a reply, and we got talking. After a while she came to the conclusion (and I very much agreed with this) that we were going to drift apart no matter what happened, because the only thing we'd ever had in common was Harry Potter, and after we'd all grown out of it, what was left to hold us together? Jack all - we didn't even know each other's proper names. Well, I did vaguely remember after the first introductions, but you get names wrong after 4 years don't you? After being so close it felt like it had all never happened, we were just a group of strangers scattered across opposite sides of the Atlantic.
And we were growing up - next year would be final finals for two members, and I'd be shipping off to university. Still, I'm going to stay in touch as long as I can with Alison and 'Siri' (can't remember her name anymore) - they're still good friends and we do have things to talk about. It's like meeting people for the first time though, and I think this has to be my strangest, most difficult friendship ever.
It was probably our obsession for about 2 years straight, we all stayed up all night when the new books came out, we had regular msn mass conversation with much craziness and things like that. We all had nicknames based on characters from the books, so hehe, I was Remmy (Remus) and we had Hermy (hermione), Siri (guess that one), Sevvie (snape) etc... anyway, after I hit my GCSE's I got busier, and after that I couldn't talk so much. I'd still post on the forum but I could feel it getting quieter. One day Sev told us all she was leaving for a few months, She lived in India and her dad moved about a lot. But we didn't hear from her until a year later, and when she signed into msn it was her mother.
The last time I heard from her personally was on her deviantart account, but all the same it was a long long time ago. In the meanwhile, fights broke out among us, some of the less regular members to the place decided to make their own forum, and of course, our admin Hermy, being the posessive type, didn't like this one bit. The group ended up splitting into two factions, Hermy and her followers, and the 'rebels' - these groups were subject to change at any time depending on who she favoured (apparently) but nobody knew what was going on, nobody knew who's side they were on or who was on which side and it was all very confusing. This all happened behind my back - I had fallen out of contact with them all over this time, occasionally talking to Alison. She told me every time things were /bad/ and after telling me exactly why, I proceeded to ignore it because I thought, well. Things will sort themselves out. We're all good friends here aren't we?Wrong.Last week I messaged Alison again to check upon how things are doing and discovered that Hermy no longer messages or speaks to anyone, not ever via email. If and when she does, she's very rude and very short with them. I'd noticed things on the actual forum were pretty dire but I hadn't imagined things could ever get this bad. I guess after being left to fester it had just grown and grown.
Siri never contacted anyone, she was getting on with 'real life' (wants to get into the ivies, very clever girl indeed). Alison didn't really know what to do about it all, so after making sure she was ok I proceeded to message Siri. Thankfully I got a reply, and we got talking. After a while she came to the conclusion (and I very much agreed with this) that we were going to drift apart no matter what happened, because the only thing we'd ever had in common was Harry Potter, and after we'd all grown out of it, what was left to hold us together? Jack all - we didn't even know each other's proper names. Well, I did vaguely remember after the first introductions, but you get names wrong after 4 years don't you? After being so close it felt like it had all never happened, we were just a group of strangers scattered across opposite sides of the Atlantic.
And we were growing up - next year would be final finals for two members, and I'd be shipping off to university. Still, I'm going to stay in touch as long as I can with Alison and 'Siri' (can't remember her name anymore) - they're still good friends and we do have things to talk about. It's like meeting people for the first time though, and I think this has to be my strangest, most difficult friendship ever.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Dreams
I had the wierdest dream last night.
I remember it first me and this group of say... three other people walking down this road in a deserted street to this building up a flight of metal stairs, at the top was a door. When we got there this young woman answered, but she was very scared and wary. But she invited us in anyway to see these people who had all become paralized from this unknown cause. But they weren't paralized in the sense that they were awake, they were comatose and kept on twitching and moaning. It was sort of like The Tribe in the sense that we were living in a post-apocalypic world and that these people were going to die if we didn't find out the cause of their illness, and a cure soon.
So we left there and headed out into the countryside where these people had come from, we got told they had all said they'd come from this one house where they had been squatting until the 'danger' had passed. It was late at night when we finally reached his huge manor house, and finding it unlocked we all went in and started searching around for anything like rats or... any clues really. When I was looking around I got attacked my this man who held me hostage and started asking me questions about what was going on and why we were here. After a while I was rescued by one of my friends who looked very grim. Her and the man started talking like they had a history, and she said she was responsible for one of the illnesses, and that the other three were something different. One of the sick people was this man's wife who she'd had an affair with and transmitted an infection to him, which he'd passed to her.
For some reason she'd shown symptoms and he'd been ok, but he was going to die faster than her because she'd got the symptoms and that meant you had a better chance to live. That meant that we had to try to save the other three, and the woman told me that she'd been researching into the disease before the apocalypse and found a compound in apples that helped. So I went back alone to the first place, and when I got there instead of the woman carer there was this old old man sitting at a table in a conservatory type thing, with a pile of apples on the table, he was incoherant and I tried to ask him if he'd given the ill people any of the apples. He'd obviously been eating them himself becase he had a half eaten on in one hand, and he had chunks of it in his mouth as he told me he couldn't get them to eat anything, not even if he mashed it up. Two of the ill people had already died and he'd contracted the illness - I had to get out of there quickly if I still wanted some chance of living so I ran out of the building. It was then I felt this sharp pain in my ankle and reaching down I found I'd been bitten my a spider - this was the cause of the paralysis and it wasn't a disease at all. Apples for some reason were the way to fight the toxin in it's bite, but since I'd run so far from the building I couldn't get back and I blacked out. and then I woke up.
It was such a strange dream. :D
I remember it first me and this group of say... three other people walking down this road in a deserted street to this building up a flight of metal stairs, at the top was a door. When we got there this young woman answered, but she was very scared and wary. But she invited us in anyway to see these people who had all become paralized from this unknown cause. But they weren't paralized in the sense that they were awake, they were comatose and kept on twitching and moaning. It was sort of like The Tribe in the sense that we were living in a post-apocalypic world and that these people were going to die if we didn't find out the cause of their illness, and a cure soon.
So we left there and headed out into the countryside where these people had come from, we got told they had all said they'd come from this one house where they had been squatting until the 'danger' had passed. It was late at night when we finally reached his huge manor house, and finding it unlocked we all went in and started searching around for anything like rats or... any clues really. When I was looking around I got attacked my this man who held me hostage and started asking me questions about what was going on and why we were here. After a while I was rescued by one of my friends who looked very grim. Her and the man started talking like they had a history, and she said she was responsible for one of the illnesses, and that the other three were something different. One of the sick people was this man's wife who she'd had an affair with and transmitted an infection to him, which he'd passed to her.
For some reason she'd shown symptoms and he'd been ok, but he was going to die faster than her because she'd got the symptoms and that meant you had a better chance to live. That meant that we had to try to save the other three, and the woman told me that she'd been researching into the disease before the apocalypse and found a compound in apples that helped. So I went back alone to the first place, and when I got there instead of the woman carer there was this old old man sitting at a table in a conservatory type thing, with a pile of apples on the table, he was incoherant and I tried to ask him if he'd given the ill people any of the apples. He'd obviously been eating them himself becase he had a half eaten on in one hand, and he had chunks of it in his mouth as he told me he couldn't get them to eat anything, not even if he mashed it up. Two of the ill people had already died and he'd contracted the illness - I had to get out of there quickly if I still wanted some chance of living so I ran out of the building. It was then I felt this sharp pain in my ankle and reaching down I found I'd been bitten my a spider - this was the cause of the paralysis and it wasn't a disease at all. Apples for some reason were the way to fight the toxin in it's bite, but since I'd run so far from the building I couldn't get back and I blacked out. and then I woke up.
It was such a strange dream. :D
Hair cut hair cut hair cut hair cut... and novel writing.
I got my hair cut on Friday, finally! There was quite a bit hacked off so S: I hope I don't look too strange when I get back after 1/2 term. It's all layered now, like I wanted it. So it sort of looks like my hair when I was about 12 - 13 and growing my layers out. Haha. I should have done before and after pictures but by the time I'd remembered, it was all too late.
I've also finally been able to get a hold of my novel document, so that means more writing. There's a lot of random chapters written, and there's a lot of contradictions I need to get rid of, so it's fairly messy. For those of you who don't know the plots basically like this:-
Two twin brothers have inherited a large fortune their father left them. But even their father never found out where the fortune was hidden inside the large family home, it becoming his life's work to find it. So the story is about them trying to work together to find it, but both wanting it all for themselves, and both teaming up against their Father's 'coworker' as they're not entirely sure of his motives after he turns up at the house soon after the funeral. I dunno how interesting people are going to find it, there's quite a lot of supernatural stuff mixed into it (hey, it's me we're talking about here!) but it's fun to write.
On other news, after all the gripes I've had over 1/2 term I guess I'm ok /really/. Yes it has been lonely and I have been pretty low for most of it, but I've found myself again. I know what 'me' is like, which I didn't sort of have these last few months, and helping other unhappy people out over msn or IRL has given me my purpose back (: so I've sort of found my personality again. So I guess I'm ready to tackle life again ^^ *corny* I can't wait to talk to Finn, but he said he's very tired so he'd better get some sleep before he talks to me. I have another story about X_HS_X, but that's for another time. Perhaps later on today. Its dinner time now C:
I've also finally been able to get a hold of my novel document, so that means more writing. There's a lot of random chapters written, and there's a lot of contradictions I need to get rid of, so it's fairly messy. For those of you who don't know the plots basically like this:-
Two twin brothers have inherited a large fortune their father left them. But even their father never found out where the fortune was hidden inside the large family home, it becoming his life's work to find it. So the story is about them trying to work together to find it, but both wanting it all for themselves, and both teaming up against their Father's 'coworker' as they're not entirely sure of his motives after he turns up at the house soon after the funeral. I dunno how interesting people are going to find it, there's quite a lot of supernatural stuff mixed into it (hey, it's me we're talking about here!) but it's fun to write.
On other news, after all the gripes I've had over 1/2 term I guess I'm ok /really/. Yes it has been lonely and I have been pretty low for most of it, but I've found myself again. I know what 'me' is like, which I didn't sort of have these last few months, and helping other unhappy people out over msn or IRL has given me my purpose back (: so I've sort of found my personality again. So I guess I'm ready to tackle life again ^^ *corny* I can't wait to talk to Finn, but he said he's very tired so he'd better get some sleep before he talks to me. I have another story about X_HS_X, but that's for another time. Perhaps later on today. Its dinner time now C:
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
I don't mean to be an Emo kid, but...
I'm so lonely. There is nothing to do, and nobody to talk to. I've done something different every day this holiday and it hasn't taken my mind off the fact I live in the middle of nowhere, and not even the glorious internet can take my mind off the fact that I have absolutely no social contact whatsoever. I think I'm beginning to lose my mind over how bored I am.
At least my driving lesson went ok, I got to drive home since it was a 2 hour one, so that was fun because I knew the roads, so the gears and stuff just sort of came naturally, and of course I bombed up the hill. lol. Finn keeps on texting me from Austria, which is nice. I can tell he's enjoying himself because they're so disjointed and interspersed with random words, it only serves two purposes
1) lets me know that he's ok, and that he's happy. which is always a good thing
2) reminds me of my currently crap situation. I wouldn't want him to not text, but every day they seem to get more and more random, and it reminds me of the people in highschool who were like 'look at me, I'm being random!' which I don't know... I won't say anything.
I'm thankful and glad he texts me. End of story. I think I feel so lonely because I can imagine him in the middle of a crowd of loads of people, being really funny and great and everything and everyone laughing and there's me, stuck here, forgotten. Which sucks.
I don't want to talk anymore
At least my driving lesson went ok, I got to drive home since it was a 2 hour one, so that was fun because I knew the roads, so the gears and stuff just sort of came naturally, and of course I bombed up the hill. lol. Finn keeps on texting me from Austria, which is nice. I can tell he's enjoying himself because they're so disjointed and interspersed with random words, it only serves two purposes
1) lets me know that he's ok, and that he's happy. which is always a good thing
2) reminds me of my currently crap situation. I wouldn't want him to not text, but every day they seem to get more and more random, and it reminds me of the people in highschool who were like 'look at me, I'm being random!' which I don't know... I won't say anything.
I'm thankful and glad he texts me. End of story. I think I feel so lonely because I can imagine him in the middle of a crowd of loads of people, being really funny and great and everything and everyone laughing and there's me, stuck here, forgotten. Which sucks.
I don't want to talk anymore
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Four legged duck
apparently, there's been a four legged duck been hatched down south; he can walk, and he uses his other two legs as stabiliers. That picture's just what I could find from googling 'four legged duck' but how odd =D.
Nature never ceases to amaze me.
Nature never ceases to amaze me.
Sad start to the holidays
One of our cats, Mellors died on Wednesday. I'm thinking he just got too old and went in his sleep - when I found him he certainly looked quite peaceful. I'm ok about it, because we were all expecting it would happen soon; he lost a lot of weight very rapidly and just began doing that old 'senile' cat thing where when you left him he just stared into space and didn't move. He was asleep most of the time, but it was still a bit of a surprise when it happened - he looked okish at tea time. Now we only have 3 cats left. And a stinky dog, and a parrot.
Finn's also gone away from the whole holidays on the Ski Trip with college, which they've been planning for like... forever. Though I've been promised lots of post cards and text messages, and I'm looking forward to getting them, it still doesn't stop me from missing him. Some of my other friends have gone too; Phoebe to name just one, and I talk to her quite a bit. Apart from that, I had a friend round for dinner last night and we had quite a good time, she wanted to watch anime so I leant her Howl's moving castle after we didn't quite finish it (from the spirited away maker, based on a novel which I've also read) and we watched Vampire Hunter D, which she loved. I'll be doing a few things over the holiday, mainly going to leeds with Nathalie on Sunday to shop for hippy clothes for August and then on Friday I'm having my hair cut. Not rivetingly interesting (yes I made that word up), but I guess atm not much is happening. =)
Finn's also gone away from the whole holidays on the Ski Trip with college, which they've been planning for like... forever. Though I've been promised lots of post cards and text messages, and I'm looking forward to getting them, it still doesn't stop me from missing him. Some of my other friends have gone too; Phoebe to name just one, and I talk to her quite a bit. Apart from that, I had a friend round for dinner last night and we had quite a good time, she wanted to watch anime so I leant her Howl's moving castle after we didn't quite finish it (from the spirited away maker, based on a novel which I've also read) and we watched Vampire Hunter D, which she loved. I'll be doing a few things over the holiday, mainly going to leeds with Nathalie on Sunday to shop for hippy clothes for August and then on Friday I'm having my hair cut. Not rivetingly interesting (yes I made that word up), but I guess atm not much is happening. =)
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Snowed in and valentines day
Wow, I guess I'm only just getting round to posting this now. But what a weekend. On Friday, Finn had been invited to a friend's 18th - and since he had previously turned down an invite, he felt he couldn't really turn Alex down a second time. Though Finn didn't really fancy going on his own, so I offered to come with. I had also been invited but well, it wasn't really my thing ^^ (so really, I was just going so that Finn wouldn't be stuck there on his own)
So we went, and it was really snowy. The buses were having trouble getting up the hill to Holme at 5:30, so I doubted I was going to be able to get up there at 11 o'clock at night. But anyway, I got a free lift down into town, and I was allowed to crash at Finn's for a while until we could get a bus into town. We stayed at the party for an hour or so. It was what Alex had described as a 'posh bar' - and it was ok I guess, the highlight of the evening was when Amelia set her hair on fire. There were tea-lights set on the back of the setee, and she happened to lean back and... well - I imagine you can guess the rest. But we left quite early, and even then all but one taxi firm had stopped running, and many of the buses were only running direct to places. I realised that the Holme bus hadn't a chance in hell to get back, so we caught the next to last (parkhead) bus.
And I ended up staying the night at Finn's. ^^
--
On another note - happy valentines day everyone ^^
Lots of people today had Roses, even my friend Liz in Physics, her boyfriend had got her a bag full of stuff. And if you're thinking this is headed down the 'well I didn't get anything route' - you'd be wrong =)I didn't want a present, and I don't like roses. I'd told Finn I didn't want anything for Valentines day, just that I wanted to spend some time with him ^^ so after college (we left at lunchtime 'cos it's a Wednesday and wohoo Scrabble club was cancelled!) we walked down to Sainsburies and bought some Gu. After that we sat on a bench and ate it while watching the pidgeons and talking about mutations and random things like that. Ok so not your typical Valentines day, but I preferred what we did to going out for a meal etc. (I like origional activities) and ok, the mother laughed at me because yes she got the boring old 12 roses and she was all traditional and things. But I don't care =D I had a great time. (We went home after that and played Guild Wars for the rest of the evening. Best Valentines day Ever.)
So we went, and it was really snowy. The buses were having trouble getting up the hill to Holme at 5:30, so I doubted I was going to be able to get up there at 11 o'clock at night. But anyway, I got a free lift down into town, and I was allowed to crash at Finn's for a while until we could get a bus into town. We stayed at the party for an hour or so. It was what Alex had described as a 'posh bar' - and it was ok I guess, the highlight of the evening was when Amelia set her hair on fire. There were tea-lights set on the back of the setee, and she happened to lean back and... well - I imagine you can guess the rest. But we left quite early, and even then all but one taxi firm had stopped running, and many of the buses were only running direct to places. I realised that the Holme bus hadn't a chance in hell to get back, so we caught the next to last (parkhead) bus.
And I ended up staying the night at Finn's. ^^
--
On another note - happy valentines day everyone ^^
Lots of people today had Roses, even my friend Liz in Physics, her boyfriend had got her a bag full of stuff. And if you're thinking this is headed down the 'well I didn't get anything route' - you'd be wrong =)I didn't want a present, and I don't like roses. I'd told Finn I didn't want anything for Valentines day, just that I wanted to spend some time with him ^^ so after college (we left at lunchtime 'cos it's a Wednesday and wohoo Scrabble club was cancelled!) we walked down to Sainsburies and bought some Gu. After that we sat on a bench and ate it while watching the pidgeons and talking about mutations and random things like that. Ok so not your typical Valentines day, but I preferred what we did to going out for a meal etc. (I like origional activities) and ok, the mother laughed at me because yes she got the boring old 12 roses and she was all traditional and things. But I don't care =D I had a great time. (We went home after that and played Guild Wars for the rest of the evening. Best Valentines day Ever.)
Friday, February 09, 2007
Poker
This week went so slowly, and because I was doing my Physics coursework, and playing on GW, I haven't really had anything exciting to write about in my journal. Today was interesting though, as on Fridays a few of us get together to play poker.
As usual I was hanging in by a thread for most of the game, sometimes James would get a little too cocky and raise by loads when actually, I had better cards than he did (It's funny to see his face when he realises I've beaten him - mwahahah!). Then at the end I won about three times then decided enough was enough and withdrew.
I was a little dissapointed with it all this week because of several things;
1) it was a little rowdier and people seemed to be messing about more than usual. Which to be fair, I do too, but it was far worse this week, it wasn't really 'fun'.
2) people seemed more ruthless. Ok, I know poker is a ruthless game, but up until now it was how Finn had told me it would be; fun. This week everyone seemed hellbent on winning, and deploying really twisted strategies - clearly a few of the more avid fans of the game wanted to get ahead of everyone else, which perhaps spoilt it a little for me.
3) The people who come in later than everyone else really don't stand a chance; by then the blinds have gone up more than they can afford - and people are getting more picky about when you can leave and things, which isn't really fair because we all work to different schedules.
Still, if it's better next week I'll keep playing. If it's the same perhaps I will consider dropping out. I like poker a lot, but not when all the fun gets sucked out of it ^^
(I won my last hand - high straight incase anyone wonders)
As usual I was hanging in by a thread for most of the game, sometimes James would get a little too cocky and raise by loads when actually, I had better cards than he did (It's funny to see his face when he realises I've beaten him - mwahahah!). Then at the end I won about three times then decided enough was enough and withdrew.
I was a little dissapointed with it all this week because of several things;
1) it was a little rowdier and people seemed to be messing about more than usual. Which to be fair, I do too, but it was far worse this week, it wasn't really 'fun'.
2) people seemed more ruthless. Ok, I know poker is a ruthless game, but up until now it was how Finn had told me it would be; fun. This week everyone seemed hellbent on winning, and deploying really twisted strategies - clearly a few of the more avid fans of the game wanted to get ahead of everyone else, which perhaps spoilt it a little for me.
3) The people who come in later than everyone else really don't stand a chance; by then the blinds have gone up more than they can afford - and people are getting more picky about when you can leave and things, which isn't really fair because we all work to different schedules.
Still, if it's better next week I'll keep playing. If it's the same perhaps I will consider dropping out. I like poker a lot, but not when all the fun gets sucked out of it ^^
(I won my last hand - high straight incase anyone wonders)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)