2011

2011 has been a pretty big year. I've grown a bit, not in height but more in terms of being comfortable in who I am. Not that I've ever been that self conscious; my continuous reference to star wars in everyday conversations had never bothered me and probably never will. But more in the way I look or the way I dress, now I know what I like and I really don't care what everyone else says about it. That is what I’ve learnt this year. I've also learnt that it is not socially acceptable to wear Doc Martens to dressy parties.

A lot of things have happened this year that I couldn’t have anticipated. I've been to a mental amount of alcohol infused parties which has given me such amazing memories. I think one of my party highlights was waking up on a bed of chocolate cakes thinking it was a pillow the previous night. And with great pleasure these two words have made my year. PINEAPPLE BANTER. No questions asked.

This was also the year where I’ve started on the long road to a decent CV. In May I handed out a few pathetic ones to some local charity shops for some volunteering, I got a Saturday job which entails drinking gallons of tea and wearing glittery shoes. I like it, I think I love it? But now I have an actual reference I tried to get a paid jobs, it turns out experience doesn't matter. I'm still unemployed, but happy.

This year was also the year of GCSEs, 14 exams within a month and a half. As much as I thought that was the toughest time in my life, I now have experienced A levels and I would gladly take all 14 again. ALL OF THEM. A levels are horrible, but I’m glad I’m doing them. I'd be pretty lost otherwise. I've also met lots of lovely people, which has been nice seeing as I’ve be a social recluse for the majority of my time in secondary school. And if GCSEs have taught me anything it would be, when you have spare time take up a hobby and don't waste time watching pregnant 16 year olds on MTV.

This year has been a bit shocking too. My Nan passed in early June and I'm not really one to talk about it, but as a family we now know that we can go through something as harsh and aggressive as that and come out on the other side. I think she has made me appreciate my grandparents a lot more. I do miss them and I realise that now, at Christmas, more than ever.

I've also managed to meet and keep some of the greatest people in my life that have got me through the exams and have metaphorically carried me through all the shit that happens. I truly do love you and appreciate you for putting up with all my nonsense.

I've also had the privilege of seeing a few of bands that inspire me; Elbow, The View, Kings of Leon, The Arctic Monkeys and You Me At Six and although Blink 182 postponed and I was completely devastated, June 2012 I’m coming for you - that's if we aren't all dead by then.

My 2012 resolutions:
I'm really bad at keeping to these so I thought that if I write them down in cyberspace forevermore that I will hopefully stick to them.

1. I will 'get fit' - meh, this is pretty generic but it needs to happen, maybe with some form of diet and running thing? KILL ME NOW.
2. I will keep my room tidier
3. I will start something and finish it. -procrastinating is my forte.
4. I will hang up my clothes after I’ve worn them - currently floordrobe has spread all over my house like some form of disease. Who needs a walk in wardrobe?
5. I will get a job.
6. I will stop writing essays at 2am.
7. I will be more organised with my time - this is tying in with the one above.
8. I will start a YouTube channel.
9. I will go to more museums and go to fewer shopping centres.
10. I will grow my own bonsai tree and call him Trevor.

So there we have it 10 beautiful resolutions all ready to be broken and smashed in to shards of small broken hearts. But I’m optimistic, kind of, and I hope to at least manage 3 of them. Or is that pessimistic? Decide for yourself.

2011 is practically over, with 3 deaths of evil powerful men under it's belt and a mad amount of natural disasters, a marriage into royalty, it's all prepped for 2012 - the alleged end of the world, happy stuff. Good ol' Mayans.

So Merry Christmas and all that jazz and good luck with your resolutions, hopefully they won't be as bad as mine.

Cannibal Neighbours

It's a little bit worrying when you see your neighbour and the only thing your mum can say is, 'Colin looks nice, I think he's wearing trousers'. I don't have very exciting neighbours but the fact that one of them always - in all weathers - wears cycling shorts even when he's not on a bike is a little concerning. A little.


My neighbours do seem to be favourable to my brother too; casually inviting him in to talk about fishing and football and drink coke. How is this fair? Not that I really want to be talking about football and fishing but the offer would be nice.

I don't really talk to the people in my street. One of my across-the-street neighbours did give me and my brother sweets just before Christmas when I was about 9. I now know that she thought we were Jehovah's witnesses and thought we didn't celebrate Christmas. Great. She couldn't be more wrong, bless her heart.

But isn't it funny how we think of the people across the street from us, I hardly know anything about them. It's like in The 'burbs when they think the people across the street eat people. I'm really hoping that that isn't my street. But it is a good film. Within their first few days of moving in they did reverse straight into my best friend's car. Gold star for greatest first impression. Maybe they are cannibals? First impressions are everything after all.

They're probably lovely, just not very sociable. They'll probably move out within the next year and a half. Or have another baby. That's my prediction.

One of the two always happens. Always.

A* In Indie

In a bit of a response to see how indie I actually am, I found this post on urbandictionary.com from the user 'ruby_blue' from 2008. Wow that is a long time ago.
Here it goes...
My response is in regular writing and the original post is in the italics. just in case you get a bit confused.

Well this is how to spot/be an indie girl. First we will start with clothing: Denim and leather jackets, duffle coats or a faux fur coat.   TICK Skinny jeans in black or dark blue, denim mini skirts or denim hotpants.    CHECK Vintage dresses from the 50s/60s.    Yes. I can see this quiz going well. A* in indie. super. Band t-shirts and tops that have a lot of sequins.   Yes... Old jumpers with holes in.   I'm wearing one now. Waist belts.    Yes. Gold bangles, lots of rings and gold necklaces and beads.   Check. Scruffed up ballet pumps and old skool trainers and ankle boots.    Do doc martens count? I'm saying yes. Anything leopard print.    NO. That is a no go area for me. Hair: Scruffy and messy   Story of my life lots of layers   No curly    ...With curlers? backcombed  No need, my hair goes into dreadlocks within 5 minutes of bushing it. bangs that go all the way into your eyes    Famously. or maybe a straight bob    No. black, brown, blonde hair or bleached hair    So any hair colour? Very specific but yes by default. Make up will be fairy natural but often they will have smokey eyes and amy winehouse eyeliner.   Yes. Red lipstick for special occasions.   'special' hahahahahaaa! Nail varnish will be red or black    Glittery red. Indie girls: Know of a million bands that you don't.   Eh? Know a lot about most kinds of music not only indie.  I give it a go. Go to gigs in grotty venues and pubs.   I've been to a few. Drink vodka and coke.   They know me too well. Are arty; making music, painting, photography, making clothes.   Guilty Are intelligent and know about current affairs.    Government and Politics Alevel, I blame you. Have read lots of books.   I don't understand, my Alevels are indie. Thanks English. Love art house films and cult films. YES. Only go for indie boys and they are even better if they are in some band.   Debateable Always do well in school.   With a shit load of effort. Smoke marlboro reds or lights.   Nope. Some even roll their own but only Golden V or white drum.   No. Mostly are skinny so they dont look fat next to their indie boyfriends and can share skinny jeans.   Erm, no. Not at all. Go to the music festivals like Glasto or Reading.    I WISH. go to any klaxon, jamie t, kate nash gig and believe me there will be hundreds of indie girls!       So there we have it, test over and what do you know, B- in Indie. I made up my marks, you have a go!

Indie Conformist

On Monday I was called indie. I'm not one for stereotypes, I don't believe that you can corner someone into some sort of social outcast thing, cult, I don't know -  I couldn't find another word for stereotype off the top of my head. I've never understood how we, as society, have the ability to make a popular movement. We all strive to be different, in one way or another, it may not be in music or fashion, it may be in art or some astro-physics photography. Who knows, but we all what to be a bit different.
In no way am I telling everyone to conform, oh Jesus, that would be awful - unless the conformity was to always walk on you hands and eat ice cream as part of your 5 a day, then maybe I'd wear a badge to support it. But unfortunately it isn't like that in the world outside my own brain and conformity is uncool.

I'm not being funny, but what is 'indie' anyway?

I've never been into the regular things that a girl should. I hardly ever read magazines (aside from Q, that shit is like a music bible). I find them so mundane, every week it's exactly the same articles on 'the secret to a great body' or the true stories, 'I have a third arm growing out of my face, and my boyfriend dumped me'. The words change ever so slightly, but the underlying facts are the 'great body' that everyone seems to be after takes a lot of work and isn't a quick fix, and maybe if you have a 3rd arm sprouting out of your face you should find someone that actually likes you for who you are?

I have to admit, when I was 12 (that's 12 years old, not year 12) I scoured YouTube with my best friend to look for Justin Bieber's home videos. I reckon I lost a few hours to that. But we all go through phases of what we like, wear and listen to. My hobbies change month to month , and my ipod is almost embarrassing with the amount of Busted that is still on there, but it keep me happy and at the end of the day I have no issues with people who find that weird. Deep down the guilty pleasures that we have, make us all similar and quite frankly if you don't know all the words to at least 1 Busted song, me and you can't be friends. Me and you are not similar. Bad example.

We should be who we are, and not care what people say about it. Confidence is a virtue.

I realise I've gone a bit preachy, but I'll leave you with this fact of me:
My birthmark is between one of my toes.

Who'd have thought it right?!

Glove Issues

I love gloves, I really do. I mean they're so simple, but we'd all cry horrendously if we didn't have them. I wouldn't call them a luxury though, a woman in the shop that I work at said, 'they're quite a luxury if they've got fur inside or leather'. Well, no. They are Glove 2.0. Essentially we've just upgraded them, but they are so insignificant in our daily lives that we fail to notice the things we've 'upgraded' for longer than 10 seconds. Take itunes for example, you wait a few seconds for it to download the new glittery software and then you don't care because it all looks the same in the grand scale of Apple upgrades. I only noticed when I upgraded my old computer's itunes; it was something like 3 years old and it then took an hour to download and I was gobsmacked at how much some things change in a matter of years that we've become accustomed to. It was alien to me.

But back to gloves, the holy (hopefully not holey) hand warmers. I think that you should be able to do all the things you do without gloves on, like climb trees, ride a llama or buy your shopping or whatever fills your time, to do them with the same capability with gloves on. This is what I expect to happen. If I climb a tree, I want the same amount of grip, strength in my hands and maybe less splinters, when I wear gloves. It's only fair.

It turns out that you can't drink a litre of milkshake whilst walking and wearing gloves. I thought it was possible. I mean, it's possible with a bottle of water and gloves. Not problem at all. The *SCIENCE WORD* friction is at equilibrium for me. It's beautifully safe in my hands. But milkshake? It's staple part of my diet for strong teeth and shiny bones and stuff. Why would they deprive me of this? It kept slipping out of my hands to the point where I was walking home from my local supermarket holding it like a baby. I'm telling you now, I'm glad I didn't see anyone I knew so I didn't have to explain why I was clenching a litre of strawberry milkshake to my chest for dear life in fear it would escape the safety of my arms and spill onto the pavement.

There are some things that you'd only discover if you try some thing new, and this would be a perfect example.

Clumsy Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas and if i could be a reindeer I so would.

For me Christmas is the same every year just in a different house. Grandparents stay at my aunt's house, and then everyone comes over to over- eat and watch films on a small sofa that clearly is only suitable for elves. As much as it's a bit crowded, I love it. It's a real family affair.

But there is always things that are inevitable. You will get and ill fitting top, 9 pairs of socks with pretty pink glittery fairies on, and you will get a mug that will go at the back of the cupboard never to be seen again. Ever. Its the same in every house in the country, I guarantee it, but despite all this, in my house every Christmas my nan will never fail to spill her wine all over her roast dinner or over the place mats.

I'm starting to realize that this might be intentional...she's drowning her turkey in her wine probably to save her picking up the heavy glass (which by the way is like a 10 tonne goblet of doom) and spilling on the place mat so she can ring it out into her mouth later.

Cunning, my nan. Really cunning.

Maybe it's unintentional and she is just clumsy, or maybe she is a genius that finally cracked the life long mystery of how to avoiding wasting time drinking when eating a roast? Who knows. Maybe I'll ask her.

So this Christmas, when you begin to tuck into your golden potatoes and turkey and whatever else you have, spill a bit of wine in it, and think of my nan.

Shared Birthdays and Stallions

So December has swung round quickly hasn't it? Not literally, I think the months are the same length every year, apart from February, he's a bit of a pickle, but this has been such a quick year.

So much has happened, I can't really wrap my head around it.

I looked through the past months on the calender and it was like in the cinema when they flash back to a distant memory that has some how encoded it's self into my brain. All the parties, the holidays, the weekends away, the simple days out that I'd written on there I could instantly recall, but noticing all the empty slots where I didn't write anything on, made me sad. I will never know what happened on that day, June 10th 2011. There must have been something that was significant? Anything?

The 161st day of the year and I can't remember it. I Googled it, I found this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/2011_June_10 , I'm not going to lie, it isn't really relevant to me. But when I hear 'on this day in ....' 1984 or whatever date, it makes me realise that the world is a whole lot bigger than the mundane urban sludge that I live in.

The whole 'on this day' thing amazes me, I googled my birthday. I HAVE THE SAME FRIGGING BIRTHDAY AS JOEY TRIBBIANI, or Matt LeBlanc - whichever you'd prefer. Personally, I think I should put that on my CV. Lets be honest, if you - my potential employer - saw this girl's application form under special skills it said she shared a birthday with Matt LeBlanc of Friends fame, you'd employ her right? who wouldn't?!

So far without this beautiful fact, I seem to be lacking in the job department. It's depressing. So I will include this in my next application to Past times or Starbucks, because if they don't accept me, I will set the Freinds fan club of  67480 (they're here, I'm not making it up, http://www.fanpop.com/spots/friends/fans) on them armed with yams and riding on stallions (that's the fans not the yams - but the do rhyme)