December 16th: Three years

I was just looking through my ridiculously full email inbox that I never clean out and I stumbled across some emails from three years ago. Three years almost exactly, actually - October, November, December - and, as I've said many times before, everytime I find stuff from then it startles me. I was a completely different person then. I looked different, I acted differently... but up until a couple of months ago I didn't feel that different.

In October, November, December 2008 I was fifteen. I was a child. I was the age my little brother is now, and god knows he seems young to me - or perhaps I should say 'seemed', because I'm pretty sure the months since I moved out have caused us both to grow up more quickly than we ever have before in such a short space of time. Being at uni has really made me think about my life - maybe it's the whole leaving-everything-familiar-a-bloody-long-way-away-and-buggering-off-up-North thing, but it's made me remember all these random long-forgotten moments, all these elements of my childhood and my life to date.

On my train journey home I pass a power station fairly soon after leaving York, and it reminds me of all the years I spent alongside another power station - Didcot, of course, a landmark with which everybody from that area will be familiar. It was one of the first things my grandparents ever heard me say; driving that sunny road to Wallingford, sitting in the back of the car, laughing with my family, eating bits of French bread and sipping that apple juice my dad always bought from Waitrose, and Didcot power station was happily puffing away outside the window. I remember picking asparagus with Nana and Grandad that day they came to the school fete - oh, the school fete itself! I remember Becky's bright orange inflatable rucksack and all the games we used to play... I remember the very first day I met Zoe, sitting next to her on the bus on the Langtree taster day... and more recently, sitting in our various corridors eating lunch and laughing. I remember all these moments of the life I used to lead, and every time I look back, there aren't many memories which aren't bathed in sunlight. I look back on my young years and I remember them as brightly lit, happy - they are remembered in yellow, many happy hours playing in the garden, or Christmases at our house or Auntie Ruth's... families intertwined, as they should be, and how I want that lifestyle for myself!

When I look back on these old emails and I notice the date and remember what I was doing on that day this year, it always makes me think about how three years ago I had no idea what I'd be doing three years in the future, and that in turn makes me wonder what I'll be doing and where I'll be exactly three years from now. If my fifteen-year-old self had looked into the near future she would have seen herself seeing the first Twilight movie with Zoe and Christina; meeting Cora in person for the first time; leaving Langtree, going to prom, joining Henley... that girl, that version of me, had never been to Denmark, never really looked into learning the Danish language... she didn't know Lauren... she'd never even heard of linguistics. There are so many people and elements in my life now that weren't there then, and looking back now that seems very, very strange. How is it possible to become someone completely different in only three years? It's not that long, is it?

Three years ago all I knew about my eighteenth year is that I would have moved out of home. Probably to university, but that wasn't definite (to be honest that wasn't definite until August this year). I just can't help wondering where I'm going to end up, but I guess - to quote a cheesy phrase which isn't mine - it's not about the destination, it's about the journey, and that's part of the fun.

And now I have to go, because I'm off to meet Fran and Louise for lunch to celebrate the end of the first semester of uni... wonder who I'll be meeting for lunch in three years' time.

Molly x

November 30th: Two years later

It's the first of December tomorrow.

Imagine that. One month until the end of 2011 and I'm still here.

Anyway. I'm Molly. I'm eighteen and a half years old and I'm in my first year at York St John University, York, UK, and loving it, where I'm studying English Language and Linguistics. I write, I read, I sing (got grade 6 in the summer), I create spoofs, I'm a complete grammar freak, I love music and musicals--

I'm going to go all Edward Cullen on yo' ass right now (yeah, okay, I can't pull that off) and tell you that I know what you're thinking.

"I know! I already know all this! Why is she telling me again?"

Or maybe,

"Did I go to the wrong page? Is this the first update rather than the latest?"

Well, dear bloglings... yes and no. Two years ago today I started this blog with those exact words (well, with a difference of thirteen, to be precise) and I just thought it would be an interesting experiment to go back and see exactly how much of my life has actually changed.

Oh, my life has changed since then. If you're a regular reader of this blog then you will already know how drastically it's changed - no need to go there again. But how many of the little things are different - the things that actually make me me?

I write. Check.
I read. Check.
I sing. Check.
I create spoofs, I love music, I'm a complete grammar freak... check, check, absolute freaking check.

How do often do we really change? The things that make us fundamentally us? According to Grey's Anatomy, every cell in our bodies regenerates every seven years (quite a cool idea, that; it's very Doctor Who); but we don't notice, which means that everything that is not physical, everything that's in our minds, stays the same. We know the same people, we like the same things, we keep the same personality. So how frequently do we grow in and out of interests?

I think it's different from person to person. Throughout my life I've always had little (or rather large) 'obsessions' - which were basically just exaggerated interests in things like TV shows (Doctor Who), musicals (Wicked) or people (David Tennant) - but they were always one at a time. Becky, on the other hand, tends to go through her 'obsessions' much faster than I do. I discovered Wicked four years ago and I've seen it five times now, but I'm not as obsessed with it as I used to be. Similarly, when I started writing this blog in 2009, I  had literally only just discovered English Language at college - I had no idea that linguistics even existed, let alone what it was, and though I've been a grammar freak all my life, I've only become more pedantic as the years have passed - which I now find is a bad thing for linguists to be! Oh, will my grammar obsessiveness ever be accepted?

Maybe we don't change. I like to think it's possible that we can, but maybe we don't unless we're forced to. Maybe being who you are is a bit like having someone in your life that you really love; just as people come and go, that one person - or people - is always there, and there are personality traits that we possess from the day we're born to the day we die. These traits grow stronger as we grow older, and maybe these are the things that define us; our likes and dislikes, our interests. Maybe these are the things we need to tell people when they ask about us - these can tell people so much more about you than where you're from or what you do for a living.

I firmly believe that the people you meet throughout your life make you into the person you become, and I would be very different if it weren't for the people in mine. We are who we are because of a series of coincidences - I mean, if my parents had never met and had each ended up with someone else, I wouldn't be me. I'd be one half of two other people. Isn't that weird?

We could consider all the things that make us who we are coincidence, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's destiny.

Molly x

P.S. I ended my first post by saying "I find it incredibly annoying that one can't indent these paragraphs whilst writing them."

Some things definitely never change.

November 26th: A post about happiness from the queen of depressing stuff

Deary me, back again! You lot are going to start missing updates if I keep posting this frequently... but of course I won't keep it up, because you know me and my highly unreliable posting 'schedule'. Basically I post when I feel like it and only occasionally when I don't, and it's so obvious which ones are the ones where people have asked me to write when I'm uninspired and I've just dredged any old crap up from the depths of my subconscious.

Just because it will annoy me: despite the fact that it says somewhere up there ^ that this was posted on November 27th, and despite the fact that that is technically true, as I haven't gone to bed yet it's still Saturday as far as I'm concerned. This is update number two of Saturday November 26th 2011. Suck it up.

Before you start reading past this point: right click on this link - right click! If you don't, you'll be directed away from the post, and I just want you to listen to the song while you read because I was listening while I was writing. Hopefully it'll set the mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HieNpwB3Eac

I was saying earlier today (yeah, that's right, today) about how you can't write some feelings down, but I think I was wrong. You can write feelings down - for me at least - as long as they're negative. I'm the queen of writing depressing stuff. I've got a million sad songs and poems and stories - and, as you know, blog posts (though they're censored a lot) - but only a handful of happy ones. I wonder why that is... my guess is it's because happiness is one of those things you can attempt to describe only if you feel it in every cell of your body, and even then it's difficult. Maybe it's because most of us have been sad more often than we've been truly happy - and that in itself is a sad concept.

I'm not saying everybody in the world is sad - not at all. There are many stages between happy and sad (in linguistics we call this gradable antonymy (or 'Grey's Anatomy' as I read it when I was writing an essay on it at half past two (2:30, to avoid confusion for my European readers) in the morning) and most people sit around the levels of contentment or satisfaction (not that kind of satisfaction. Get your mind out of the gutter). That's why you'd get a bit freaked out if you saw someone grinning inanely at you as they passed you in the street.

However, as creepy as a grin can be, a smile from a stranger can put you in a good mood for the rest of the day. While I was in town today, I literally bumped into a hell of a lot of people (it was very busy; I'm not just spectacularly uncoordinated) and only one of them apologized to me. I don't know, maybe they weren't British or something... some of you will be familiar with the concept of 'British politeness' (one of Britain's defining characteristics) in which we apologize pretty much whenever we can and most of the time when we don't need to. Excessive apologizing is certainly a habit of mine and I've lost count of the times I said sorry today, so it surprised me that only one person said it to me. People are rude, I was beginning to think; how can they think it acceptable to just barge past me and not say a word?

And then someone barged past me, turned round to look at me, said "Sorry!" and smiled at me, and I realised that however many rude people there are in the world, there are also so, so many nice people. For all the times we say "there are only two types of people in the world", we're basically talking rubbish. There must be millions of different types of people in the world.

I've made friends here in York, but I have no doubt that I'd have made friends wherever I'd chosen to attend university. I could go anywhere in the world and make new friends - as can everybody else. That means that wherever you go, there are people you consider 'nice'; people you'd want to spend time with; people like you. And there are also people you wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but they have friends too, right? Most of them, anyway. Consider how many different types of cliques there were in your school and then multiply that by whatever ridiculous amount of people currently live in the world and how many types of people does that mean there are? Way too many to comprehend. But imagine - if we could meet everybody in the world, imagine how many friends we'd have!

Everybody seems to be full of stories about how the world is full of evil - and yes, maybe it is, if you look in the wrong places. I once heard someone say that you find dodgy people in dodgy places and though he was joking, I think there's a certain truth to it. Just as there are people with whom you find yourself congregating, there are places where you and your you-alikes congregate. Similar people seem to like similar places, to a certain extent. So maybe the world has its evils, but it's not full of it. You can find magic too, wherever you look.

I'm lucky, because I have found so much more magic than evil throughout my life to date. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, but that's only because the evil things have a way of sticking around, of being the most memorable things when really they don't deserve any more of your time or mental capacity than they demanded of you when they were happening. Somehow evil manages to push magic out of your head. But don't let it! Remind yourself of everything wonderful you've ever been lucky enough to experience; remember every person who's ever loved you; reflect on every random smile that's ever brightened up your day. Sometimes magic is huge and it hits you right between the eyes, and sometimes it's small, and you don't even notice it there until you have nothing else to notice. But it's always there. And the people who love you... so are they.

And just in case you were curious to see where my 'on-the-go' post was written this afternoon, I was sitting right there on the bench (the little brown bit near the left hand side of the photo).

I have a thing about ruins of buildings, especially ones like this. It's just the fact that stone is something that seems unbreakable, so solid and strong, and yet the weather, something everyday, something to which nobody really gives any thought most of the time, has done the impossible and broken it. Kind of makes you feel small, doesn't it?

That's why that's one of my favourite places in my beautiful, historical city. You jealous?

Molly x

November 26th: A perfect November day

I'm currently sitting in York's museum gardens, directly inside what would once have been a church. On one side of me the walls are mostly intact, crumbling a little, and on the other there's nothing there but the remains of the stone foundations in the ground. It's raining lightly and sporadically and the wind is rustling my hair as I sit here - in other words, it's a perfect November day, and it's exactly the kind of weather that inspires me most.


I've been stuck in my flat for the past couple of days doing work, and despite the fact that none of my friends are free today, I'd have gone insane stuck in there for another day. I'm taking the opportunity to have a wander around York on my own, as I've been intending to ever since I moved in. I can't describe how glad I am that I did it. York is ridiculously busy today; Christmas markets here and there, Christmas shoppers everywhere, but as I walk through its beautiful, historical streets, I can feel myself falling in love with it all over again. York is incredible. It's like being plunged into the past and yet staying right here in the present; it's a city and yet it's nothing like other cities I've been to (in this country at least). It's so easy to imagine the Vikings and the Romans and all the other invaders making their home here the way it's now becoming mine. I truly love it here.


I went to one of the markets I stumbled across and acquired a stack of plastic cups for a pound and three books for 60p... can't beat that! I'm tempted to go back for one of the cakes as well. Nom.


I can't help but think of Zoe as I sit here because this place is swarming with photographers... I even whipped out my camera and I wouldn't call myself a photographer under any circumstances. There are so many things here to take pictures of!


I don't really know why I'm writing this post. I just felt an inexplicable need to express the way I feel right now - it seems York gets under your skin - but I can't. As seems to happen to me a lot, words have given up on me just as I need them most.


Sometimes you can't write your feelings down. Sometimes you just have to feel them instead. I can't think of a more frustrating concept than that, but for me at least, it's often the way. The things that mean the most are the hardest things to describe, and whether you're writing or speaking isn't going to change that. Maybe that's why they're called feelings - because you don't describe them. You feel them, and that's all you can do.


Molly x


(Sorry about the gaps between posts; Blogger's clearly having a bad software day!)

November 25th: Language vandals

I realise it's unusual for me to post twice on the same day, but I have recently been stumbling across quite a few articles on language - which is, admittedly, not a particularly surprising occurrence for me. However, the articles in question have been getting on my nerves somewhat.

Whilst writing an essay for my e-communication class the other week (I know, another post inspired by that blasted class; I swear it's all I ever do) I found an article from the Mail Online, in which John Humphrys describes users of text messaging as "destroying [our language]: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped."

And who, I hear you cry, are the users in question? Who are these "vandals" who are doing to our language now "what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago"? It's young people, of course - young, impressionable children whose minds aren't developed enough to know the difference between what formality of language is acceptable in which situation. Is that really what you think of us now - that the future of your country lies in the hands of a bunch of imbeciles who can't decide when to add the letters "yo" to "u"?

Well, if that's the case, no wonder you're terrified. No wonder you accuse us of "sloppy habits" and call us "vandals". But to suggest that the responsibility of our language's grammatical collapse falls entirely on the shoulders of the younger generations is completely preposterous. Consider that we do not teach ourselves how to punctuate a sentence or spell a word. Consider that these are your children you're talking about - are you then holding yourself responsible for your child's inability to construct a grammatically correct sentence? Are you accusing your child's teachers of being inadequate? I don't think you are, are you? You think a piece of technology has the power to be completely detrimental to one's language skills. We're not born typing; we learn to speak before we learn to text and according to various surveys, most of us don't even get our first phone until we're ten or older, so do you honestly believe that a mobile can reach into a person's brain and undo all the good work? Can technology really rewire one's language?

To that question I am inclined to respond with a big fat "pfffft". It's bollocks. Abbreviations have been around for hundreds of years - believe it or not, they were around long before fingers could press keys to create them. Admittedly there are ones that are slightly over the top, but most of the abbreviations used in texts are simple and, funnily enough, more widely used by adults than teenagers. This is probably due to the fact that a lot of adults find phone keypads difficult to use - or, in the case of particularly technologically challenged individuals, still think that you're charged by the character rather than the text.

Yes, I can be pedantic about grammar. I do accept that language must change - of course it must, or it could never progress - but I will never approve of misplaced apostrophes or unnecessary capitalisation (Never Do This Or I Shall Kill You. Also, ORDINARY NOUNS DO NOT NEED CAPITALISING. ONLY PROPER NOUNS SHOULD BE CAPITALISED. REMEMBER THIS). Some errors are just so simple I wonder how much of an idiot you'd have to be to get it wrong. And yes, people frequently make grammar errors - but 'text speak' finding its way into real life situations is the least of our worries. Most people know which formality of language is appropriate for which situation and can adapt accordingly. How do you think we're achieving higher exam results than ever? Oh, excuse me, I'd forgotten - exams are getting easier, aren't they?

If you want some really horrifying examples of grammar, try these:

Funny - I don't know any teenagers who know how to "loose" a car. Do you? 

I also don't know anybody my age who would insinuate that J.K. Rowling's storylines are less than satisfactory.

It would seem that even the church isn't exempt from their share of (rather alarming, in this case) phrasing mishaps. Don't let worries kill you - let the church help? I may not be religious, but even I know that killing off your congregation isn't likely to get you to heaven. Typical; must be all those teenage vicars. Sort it out!

I am a teenager. I have always had an instinct for grammar. When I was younger I went through a stage of using 'text speak' but grew out of it (as so many do) and now I - and a great deal of my peers - ALWAYS, without fail, punctuate everything I write fully, no matter whether I'm writing an email or an essay, a text or a tweet, or, perhaps most surprisingly, a Facebook update. I have never used even the smallest example of 'text speak' in an essay. 

(Well actually, that's a lie, but I had to; I was writing about text messages! And examples were all they were. Blame e-communication.)

I suppose I'm lucky, because I am good at grammar; I don't ever really remember being taught it, so perhaps people whose talents lie in other areas find it more difficult. All I'm really trying to say here is that yes, we have a problem with grammar, but it is not purely down to the 'youth of today'. I am not particularly prescriptivist in my outlook, but if in the future I have to enter a shop to buy "cake's" and then follow it up with a trip next door to acquire "CD's, DVD's" and - worse still - "BOOK's", then you might as well make like that infamous panda who walks into a cafe, eats a sandwich, then whips out his gun and shoot me now.

You can read the offending article here. Notice how comments are no longer accepted on this article; clearly I was not the only one who was inspired to defend the "vandalism" of my peers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-483511/I-h8-txt-msgs-How-texting-wrecking-language.html

Molly, who is deliberately including an imitation of prosodic features in the form of "x" to show that even fully literate university students are at liberty to use whichever bloody form of language we please. Suck on that, Mr Humphrys. X

P.S. Found this when I searched Google for some of the horrifying errors above and thought it was worth sharing with you. Guess those poor seals aren't the only ones with issues.

November 25th: Free lemons

Well, this is probably going to be a very disjointed and not particularly interesting post because I don't really have much to say today, but Charlotte requested a blog post a few days ago and as I love it when people show an interest in my blog, I'm going to do my best to oblige.

First of all (since this blog was set up to record my "school" years... technically college and university but let's not get fussy) I should mention that I got the results back from that test I wrote about a couple of posts ago and totally got a first! This makes up for never getting an A in English at A Level because it totally shows that I'm kicking some arse. Long may it continue!

Last week was reading week and I went back to the... er, glorious area from which I... am. Does that make sense? Probably not... anyway, I went home. It was really nice to see my family again (and really nice to eat something other than pasta; I mean, much as I love it, I'm getting to the stage where I never want to see another piece again as long as I live). I also saw my friends for the first time since we all started uni; Becky, Zoe and I went to see Breaking Dawn Part 1... and before I get a deluge of abuse for being a Twilight fan I must point out that we only watch them because they're so bad that they're amusing. Also, having read all the books and seen all the films to date, it's just sort of a given that we'd see it.

Charlotte and Lauren, not being Twilight fans, joined us for a sleepover at my house, which was great. I was worried that being at university would have a negative affect on my old friendships, but I think I was wrong. We're doing a pretty good job of staying in touch so far, and when I saw them on Saturday it was like we'd never been apart, though I could see the difference in them already. It was like we've all grown up, even though we've literally only been at uni for two months... but it was the first time that we've been apart, living our separate lives, and then come back together. We had our own separate stories to tell, rather than knowing all the day-to-day details of each other's lives, and to me we seemed older.

We stayed up pretty much all night talking (except Zoe, who got back from Prague that morning and fell asleep on my bed about ten o'clock... adorable), and though we've been friends for years, it's really the first time we have ever talked like that, together, about those things. I don't know what made us feel like we could; maybe it's the fact that we're around different people everyday, around people we maybe couldn't tell those things to... that can really make you miss the people you can talk to. But we all have 'deep' stuff, and they say that you don't really know someone until you can see their depth, and if that's true then the bond between my friends and I just got a whole lot deeper. It's very easy to drift apart when you're not together everyday, but I think that as long as we keep making the effort, uni will be the making, not the death, of our friendships.

And Becky (and hopefully Charlotte too) is coming to visit me in two weeks... yay! And then the week after is the start of the Christmas holidays, so I'll be home again in three weeks' time and that's the end of the first semester. Blimey. That was quick. It's scary how fast it's going... it feels like I've been here practically all my life and yet no time at all. I only moved in nine weeks ago on Sunday! Ridiculous!

In other news, we started our grammar class (yay!) on Monday and I've already marked myself out as the nerd... what can I say? I just love grammar. Strangely there aren't too many other grammar geeks in my classes - I would have thought there'd be more, considering we're all language nerds - but then again, there's a lot more to linguistics than grammar. Besides, I kind of like my obsessive-grammar-Nazi status. My ability to spot a misplaced apostrophe from a mile off is pretty much my unique... was going to say 'appeal' then, but I doubt many people find it particularly appealing. It's my incredibly annoying but extremely satisfying talent.

Hmm. A tip for grammar geeks everywhere who are just itching to correct someone who won't mind: find some foreign friends. I've found that some of them actually appreciate it. Imagine that!

I found out this morning that Old Orleans, the restaurant in Reading that my friends and I frequently attend, is closing in early December. I'm going to miss it greatly... it was the place we went for Becky's seventeenth birthday and our end of exams celebration - twice; where I went when I passed my theory test; where we had our fancy dress meal the last time we all saw each other before we all left for uni! It's been quite a big part of our time at college and it feels to me like the end of yet another era. Eras are ending all around us these days! I guess that's the thing about growing up... when I look back on my life when I was little, it was nothing like the way it is today. The clothes I wore, the places I went, the people I knew, the programmes I watched on TV... everything was different then, and now everything is changing again, and I can barely remember the specifics of my day-to-day life nine or ten years ago. I don't mind that, because that's normal, but I don't want to forget about my life before I came here. It was pretty good, as life goes.

Change is normal. Change is good. Change happens so frequently that sometimes we don't even notice it, and I guess it's only when we do that it becomes the scary thing that people try so hard to avoid. Good things bring new experiences, and new experiences are things you've never done before, and things you've never done before are scary... but you only have to do it once, and then it's not so scary anymore - and you get some pretty kickass moments out of it too.

In the wise words of a Facebook group: when life gives you lemons, keep them, because hey - free lemons.

Molly x

November 10th: A portal from your world to mine

Right now I'm researching a project I'm doing for my e-communication class on interactive advertising, and I stumbled across a video on YouTube which started me thinking. The video starts with these words:

"Once there was a time when we knew where people would be and how to reach them - with messages that would be heard and signals that would be seen.

We'd broadcast what we had to say, secure in the knowledge that somebody, somewhere, was listening."

Well, isn't that exactly what I'm doing here with my blog? Putting my message out there so that people can read it?

I didn't start this blog so people could get inside my head. I started it so I could get out of it. I needed somewhere to express myself and I can't do that here anymore - isn't observer's paradox a bitch?

But in some way, am I not glad that I'm not making all this effort for nobody to bother reading it? Am I secretly looking for an attentive audience?

The video then continues, "We took what we had to say and we said it in the most public way. We took our messages into people's homes at a time that we knew they'd be most receptive."

These days, time both is and isn't an issue. People are always talking about the increased pace of modern life being confusing and frustrating and the way that being constantly reachable feels like you're trapped - but is it? Let's envisage a scenario. You own a smartphone. You are used to having everything you could possibly want at your fingertips all the time - all your emails, all your work, your friends, your family - and you go out for the day, and you forget your phone. You could think of this as an opportunity to relax, create a bit of space between you and the rest of the world... but do you?

Maybe you do. If that's how you choose to see a day without your superior communications device, congratulations. You're a stronger person than I am. Because, despite once being one of those people who thought being glued to your phone was pathetic, that version of me disappeared almost the minute I got a BlackBerry. I feel naked without my phone, unable to stand the frustration of not being able to know everything now. I might be missing something really important!

I realize now that I'm in this culture that people aren't addicted to their phones; they're addicted to the ease with which they can access their entire lives from wherever they happen to be; they're addicted to the freedom - not captivity - that their phone brings; they're addicted to the people they're talking to. We can know whatever we want whenever we want - anything, anywhere, anytime. With the fast-paced nature of modern life, mobile everything-devices are timesavers, not timewasters. What's wrong with that?

And to say that using a mobile phone is anti-social is ridiculous - mobile phones are the very antithesis of anti-social behaviour. Isn't that why they call them social networks?

I received my first anonymous comment here on the blog last week and though I eventually found out who it was, for a while my brain went into overdrive. An anonymous comment? Who is this person? Why do they like my blog? What are they doing poking their nose into my life?

You see, I hardly ever give any thought to the fact that everything I write to this blank, white screen is out there for everyone to read - and who owns it then? When you upload a photo to Facebook, Facebook owns it; same with YouTube and video ownership. But surely writing is different? Writing is individual. Writing - and speech; the way we play with words - is the way we as people construct our identities. Nobody can place words or construct sentences in exactly the same way I can, and nobody will derive exactly the same meaning from these words as you will, so how can Blogger possibly own something as personal as my - MY - writing? Wait, so the internet owns my identity now?

The YouTube video "An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube" describes vlogging as "somebody watching where nobody is". Same with blogging. I've got people from all over the world reading everything I'm thinking and I don't have a clue who any of you are, and that is the most brilliant yet terrifying thing I've ever really thought about.

People are also saying that the skill of multitasking is a huge benefit of all the modern technology we have access to these days, but - again - is it? Can we really complete more than one task at once or are we just spreading our minds too thin, resulting in an inability to really get into detail in any one topic? From experience I can say that I almost never sit down to write a blog post and finish it however much time later having done nothing else. My brain is all over the place, flitting from one topic to the next, starting new paragraphs in the middle of old sentences, especially when I'm inspired-- and coincidentally, as this was exactly the point I was about to make, my phone has just started flashing and my brain is screaming, "No! Not now! You're on a roll, don't answer it! Don't answer it!"

But of course I will, because who can resist the pull of modern technology these days? Who can ignore the red flash of a BlackBerry, the call of the social group - the disappointment when it's only a spam email or a text from your service provider. And, of course, if I'm checking my phone, I might as well have a peek at Facebook as well. And I can't ignore Twitter, can I? And ooh - what if I'm missing a really important email?

I'm not a sociologist, but this is an area of sociology that I do find interesting (which is lucky, because this particular topic is almost exactly the same as most of the second year of my media studies A Level). The internet seems to be one big circle which we can never truly find our way out of - because (like sex, or so I've heard) even the lack of it complicates things. We are travelling through a million different portals every day, in and out of the lives of strangers without them even knowing you were there. The internet is a scary place, but god, it's so brilliant too. 

You may find it interesting to know that I was in the middle of the aforementioned project when I became inspired to start this blog post. What project's that then? You can't remember, can you? And is that because you stopped reading this post to do something else and then came back, or are you just thinking about too many things to remember what you read five minutes ago?

Molly x

(Now I'm going to go and see to my Facebook notifications and my ever-vibrating phone. Because yes, I ignored them. Your applause is appreciated.)

Videos referenced in this post:

"Nokia Interactive Advertising"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkmi_AXACw

"An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

And, because my e-communication lecturer referenced this as 'essential reading' for our 'create your own LOLcat' assignment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8VTeDHjcM

October 23rd: Good mood gurglings

Greetings, bloglings. I come in peace and am, as the (rather ominous) title suggests, feeling strangely happy today - but then I've just got my first big uni test over with, my brother's coming up to see me at the weekend and my oldest friend, the gorgeous Becky, just booked tickets to come and visit in December. So life's good!

...And I shouldn't have started this post that way because now I have no news with which to fill the rest of this update. Oh well, I'm sure I'll manage. If I really get stuck for content, I could just go all pretentious writer on yo' ass and inflict upon you all those up-myself ramblings to do with subjects I really know nothing about.

Alas!

I'm currently listening to Cee Lo Green's Forget You, which I now associate with Becky and Charlotte because of many a Skype or text conversation spent ping-ponging the lyrics back and forth through our respective internet and phone networks. Hearing this song always makes me happy because, though it wasn't a particular 'thing' of ours before we left college, it reminds me of all the other little in-jokes we've shared throughout the last few years, the ones that made the time I spent with them so pleasant; the ones that made me feel like I was part of something. Mornings and lunchtimes laughing in the language corridor; reading the Metro and revising for exams together; sunbathing or Starbucks-ing when we should have been working; complaining our way up to Rotherfield; Picnic Wednesdays and deep conversations; even doing coursework together in the Student Learning Centre.

There was many a time when it felt like our days at college would go on forever, and yet here we are. The exams came and went and the summer did the same, and now I sit here in my room at university wondering where the last three years went. My little brother is in year eleven now, and for me the first few months of year eleven really sucked, and him being the same age is really making me think about just how fast the time has gone. Then, I would have done anything for a completely new start, but college changed that, and somehow I became happy with the life I had before I left for uni. I have spent my whole life wishing I could change things, and to not want things to change was an alien concept for me, but things have to change. I have changed so much from the person I was three years ago and if someone had shown fifteen-year-old me my three-years-hence self, I don't think I would ever have seen this me coming.

But here I am. And I did think about it, a lot; the future, the way I would turn out - which leads me to wonder if that's the reason I found it so hard to settle in to York when I first moved here. Yes, I had over a year of preparation time, but we can never predict the future, can we? No matter how hard we try to foresee what's coming, or how well we think we know what to expect, life still has a way of shoving unexpected situations into your face.

As I write this I'm listening to the instrumental of Wicked's Defying Gravity, which I think is an extremely appropriate song to reinforce this post. Having been severely lacking inspiration for a month, I can now feel my writer's instincts taking over; here I finally find myself again. Because I have been feeling lost. Moving to university is a huge deal and I have been feeling it very deeply, kind of drifting along in my new routine without properly engaging no matter how hard I tried. But I'm finding my way now, and I'm finding new friends, new family to surround myself with, and though those people I left behind will always be the ones with whom I grew up, they have to do the same. That's how life is. And alongside it all my constant companion is linguistics. I was right about it being my future... I suppose, to quote One Tree Hill, it is my first love, and you don't forget your first love.

The thing is, no matter how drastically everything changes, somehow you always manage to get back on your feet. I know a couple of people who have come from overseas to live here in England, and I used to think that leaving home was leaving home no matter how far you go, but now I realize that's not the case; if I get homesick, I can't just pop home for the weekend (mainly because of the price of the trains... blimey, they're expensive) and if it's difficult for me to leave everything familiar five hours South of here, I can't imagine how it must be for my foreign friends to have so far to go back home.

But if all the faces of your life are far away, after a while the new faces become familiar too. You find routes and short cuts across your new city; you find favourite places to be; you learn the balance between work and play and you realize that now it's up to you. Your life. And now our lives really are ours to live as we wish, and hope that one day we really can follow our dreams.

So if you care to find me, look to the North East of England. I've cut and retied my strings - and if I'm flying solo at least I'm flying free. It's time to try defying gravity and one of these days, someday soon, I will find my way, and I will match them in renown. I will be the best I can be.

We don't have to choose anything right now. We're young and we have our whole lives ahead of us, and here we are - unlimited.

Molly x

October 20th: Not dead

Well, I must admit that I've never shirked my blogging responsibilities quite as drastically as this before... tomorrow it will be a month since I last posted here. That's ridiculous! Admittedly I have had no internet for the past three weeks and posting long updates from my phone gets on my nerves, but nonetheless it is very rude of me not to have written even the tiniest of hellos.

Still, I'm here now. I wonder if this will be one of the rare posts that actually makes it out into the blogosphere... i.e. one of the posts I can actually be bothered to finish. Somehow I doubt it (though I was obviously wrong if you're reading this). I mean, we've already established that I can be something of a lazy poo when it comes to writing here and how am I possibly meant to condense the happenings of the last month into a blog post that is short enough to avoid boring you all to death?

So, since I last wrote... well... blimey, that was halfway through the very first week. I have got a lot of catching up to do. Okay, well... I started proper lectures (obviously); I fell in love with phonetics (I discovered that I have an aptitude for phonetics and people keep asking me to 'model' my voice in the class because I have a Southern standard English accent and you need that for transcribing things into the phonetic alphabet); I met a Danish girl on my course who lives on the floor above me (so awesome, to have a real live Dane in the immediate area); I've made quite a few more friends (as you would expect after living here for almost five weeks); I went home for five days to take and fail my driving test (but I'll ace it next time)... and so much more!

I don't really have anything more than that to say right now and I have a phonetics test (yay!) on Monday so I'd better do some work, but I shall leave you with this semantic joke:

There are 10 types of people in the world...

Those who understand binary and those who don't!

Molly x

September 21st: Adjusting

Well... blimey! I thought it was time I updated you 'orrible lot about what's occurring in my new life, but where to start?

Well, it's busy. Good but busy. And confusing, and overwhelming, and brilliant, and a little bit lonely in the moments when I'm not busy - but the more friends I make, the less I get that feeling. But it's crazy! I mean, besides the obvious stuff about doing a degree, there's the cooking, the cleaning, all the stuff to which I gave no thought before... like how long after the best before date can you keep bread, or whether you can convince your flatmates to move the toaster because it says in the manual you can't put it under cabinets or next to heat sources (and ours is under a cabinet next to the oven)... or remembering to lock your flat when you leave (admittedly of my three flatmates and myself, I'm the only one who hasn't broken or forgotten my keys yet. We'll see how long that'll last.)

But it's occurred to me that I've been here for three days now, and I haven't starved to death yet. Before coming here I hadn't really fed myself for more than one day at a time, and now here I am, "cooking" (cough cough) or at least surviving fairly well. My room is still tidy (three days is practically a record for me), our kitchen is spotless, I've done the washing up more times than I care to think about because we're all still getting to know each other and none of us want to leave it to build up in case the others think we're not doing our bit, so we're all washing up after every meal (actually I tend to leave mine for two meals otherwise it's such a waste of water). I hardly see my flatmates though really except the one who lives next door, because we've all got stuff at different times so we don't eat together - but we're living here for the next academic year so we've got plenty of time to mess the place up. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that we're adapting pretty well (though our oven doesn't work and apparently the people upstairs burned something yesterday sticking it under the grill because theirs doesn't work either). But hey.

One of the things that is nice, though, is that I can basically do what I want. After my lectures yesterday I went home with a friend and then I brought her back to mine and there was nobody to ask, no permission to gain... I could come home at three in the morning if I so wish (though I might regret it when my alarm goes off at seven the next day). It's also a bit of a novelty for me being able to walk everywhere - I can leave the flat and be in the centre of town in ten minutes! Incredible, considering I come from the middle of nowhere and am used to relying on either irritating infrequent buses or the good old parents.

It would be highly irresponsible of me to post pictures of my room on the internet where any old person could see them, so I'll show you some pictures of possibly the most historical town I've ever been in instead. York's been populated by every invader England has ever hosted - and of course our own indigenous people as well - and apparently they're all buried under the city itself, so you're basically walking on thousands of years' worth of dead people. There is also apparently an ancient law which has never been changed, which states that it is perfectly legal to shoot a Scotsman inside the city walls (I know - a walled city. Could this place be any more awesome?) on condition that it's not a Sunday or after dark and it has to be with a bow and arrow. And they do actually have a shop that sells bows and arrows so... Scotsmen, watch your backs!

No, I'm not actually a creepy weirdo interested in all this death stuff. However I did attend a "Ghost Walk" last night, during which we walked through the city listening to York's ghost stories and watching our guide (this guy - he was on stilts and in costume) -->
pointing out all of York's haunted areas. Apparently my new home is the most haunted city in the world, and with the enchanting and grand Minster right in the centre of the city walls, that's easy to believe.

(I'm quite proud of this picture. I was an idiot and forgot my camera last night but my BlackBerry did itself proud on this one... though no picture can ever capture the incredible building that is the Minster and certainly not the size of it. If ever you come to York, just go and look at it; it's truly awesome.)







At the moment York city centre is covered in marquees and stalls because the York Food and Drink Festival's on, and whilst walking back from the Ghost Walk last night, my flatmate and I stumbled upon a free charity acoustic concert, so we went in and had a nose. It's fantastic to actually live in such a beautiful city with so much going on!

On a random note: I was also pleased to discover that my Student Union bar sells my favourite cider:

but unfortunately not my favourite flavour. Oh well, can't have everything! It's exciting nonetheless.

OH and there's a very short street, literally one or two shops, one with the fabulous name of "1 1/2 Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate". I'll try to get a picture. Brilliant!

In a minute I'm off to the Freshers' Fair, and I'm going to chew a stick of that "mouth watering berry" gum that I got in my freebies when I moved in... just because I can.

Molly x

P.S. Sorry again for the gaps! It seems Blogger dislikes posts with pictures in them. Oh well, it'll just have to suck it up.

September 17th: Reasons why I shouldn't write in the night

The house is dark because everyone's in bed, and, as appears to be the norm around here of late, I am the only one awake. I realize that it's slightly strange to update one's blog to pass the hours when sleep is being an evasive bastard, but alas, here I am. If, that is, I can remember the correct email address to send this post to.

Tomorrow I'm leaving. Leaving the familiar comfort of the South, leaving the area where I grew up and the faces that punctuated my daily existence. These places have been the setting for my story so far - they've been home to every turn my life has ever taken and every development it's ever put me through - but stories have to move on, and so does life... and so do I. So to the North with me! To York! Let me fly the nest and land on my very first voyage five hours upwards from here.

I must be crazy. Five whole hours? That's such a long way! That's 300ish miles. What if I don't like it? What if I want to come home? - These are the responses I've had from people upon learning where I've chosen to attend university, but as far as I'm concerned, being away from home is being away from home. There's still the effort of going to the station, buying a ticket, sitting on a train for a while; does it really make a difference whether it's one hour or five?

Not to me. So I thought, at least. But I haven't even left yet and I'm lying here unable to sleep, which has to say something about my emotional goings-on at this particular moment in time. I never thought it would feel like this. I never thought it would hit me this hard. I've always been the girl who doesn't show emotion; the girl who doesn't cry - but trust me, I feel it, and now, while I don't feel sad exactly, I feel overwhelmed by it all. I feel like there's something pressing down on me. There's been such a huge lead up to this that you'd think I'd have had a chance to get my head around it by now - and so I thought I had - but apparently, no matter how ever-present it is in your thoughts or how much preparation you do, you can never really leave your childhood behind without it hitting you right between the eyes. Oh, we're growing up all right, but that skin of childhood we're shedding wants to make its presence felt while it still can. That's why we doubt ourselves and our choices. Because the future is always right around the corner, and we are constantly being told that those who don't give it 100% probably aren't going to succeed.

Well, maybe that's true. But if you really love something, you give it 100% without even trying. You give it your everything because that's what you feel it deserves. The future is never secure, but I do believe we end up where we're meant to be - and all I have to do is think about the feeling I got when I stepped out of York train station back in April; the feeling I got when I saw it for the first time; the feeling of rightness, of 'yes, this is where I belong'. I think about how that feeling grew, about how York and its university offered no pins with which to puncture it - unlike the other four unis on my list. I think about how much trouble I had deciding on a uni in the first place and then how easy it was once I'd chosen York St John; how wonderful it will be to have fallen in love with a place and actually get to live there; and most of all, I think about that day in September 2009 when I sat in an English Language lesson and somewhere inside me, something seemed to click into place.

I don't doubt my choices, because all I have to do is think about all of that and I know everything is going to be okay. What I'm feeling is a combination of nerves, excitement, tiredness and irritation at not being able to sleep - and it's normal to feel all of that. Especially the nerves and excitement stuff.

This is a prime example of why I should not write in the night! I'm always that little bit more unhinged when it's dark and it feels like I am the only being on the planet. It's dangerous for me to have a phone with an internet connection really... who knows what could happen if any of my less-controlled moments got into the hands of the interweb?

Seriously though. And just because it's now twenty past one in the morning and there's a new, creepily accurate horoscope awaiting me courtesy of my DailyHoroscope app, I'm going to insert it here to finish this post, because it is... well, creepily accurate. Not that I believe in that stuff. It's just my guilty pleasure. Only when it's good though.

"When a woman becomes pregnant, she has nine months to get used to the idea. She can take that time to think about the kind of parent she wants to be. She can look into nutrition and other aspects of care. She can prepare a nursery. She can arrange for babysitters and pick out clothing and find a pediatrician. And yet, despite having that time to get ready, she will still make mistakes. Just because you're about to enter a new adventure with little warning does not mean you will make more mistakes than someone who's better prepared. Go forward with enthusiasm and a happy attitude, and you'll do much better than if you enter your journey with fear and apprehension."

Molly x

September 12th: News, booze and kangaroos

Actually that's a lie. This post has absolutely nothing to do with kangaroos and not an awful lot to do with booze either (though it always helps), but I just fancied a rhyming title. Don't think I've ever indulged in a rhyming title before.

Well, since it's ten to four in the morning and I'm still awake, I thought I might as well use the time wisely, so here I am... bed-blogging. I warn you though - though I can't sleep I am exhausted, so this may not make an awful lot of sense. 

So, Scotland. It was cold and full of daddy long legs flapping about but I didn't go there for the weather and certainly not the lack of insects: I can't believe I made it back without a midge bite or two. I also made it back without kissing anyone, which is more than can be said for the other places I've jetted off to this summer. But that's another story. I went to Scotland for music purposes and developments have indeed been made! Here goes:

On Saturday I had an absolutely hilarious evening at Hannah's (the girl who plays the guitar) and with the help of two glasses of wine and the hindrance of two very overexcited dogs, we composed a new song! Hannah came up with some new guitar music and then we fit most of the lyrics to it. It's faster and catchier than our first one. Unfortunately we didn't record it this time as Hannah was working when we went to Steve's (the guy with the recording studio), so we'll leave it for next time. It's got a lot of potential though, so we're both excited about it.

We went to Steve's on Monday and At Last is now finished - at last! It certainly has taken its time. We did four recordings of it and then chose the best bits of each one, and then Steve edited it and sent it to us that evening, ready for when Hannah came over and we worked on our new song some more. I really hope that one day we'll get to record it properly, but at the moment I'm still in "Oh my God, I recorded a song! I'm doing another one! An actual live collab like I always wanted!" mode. It's such an amazing experience and I really can't believe I actually got to do it. It's crazy!

I got home from Scotland on Tuesday and on Saturday, my friends and I went out for our 'last

 supper' - a visit to Old Orleans, the restaurant that has marked several celebrations for us, such as the end of exams both last year and this - in fancy dress. Fancy dress, no less, in the theme of various countries' national dress codes. When I was in Fuerteventura last month I acquired a Flamenco outfit, so I wore that. Lauren was Hawaiian, Zoe was French (complete with moustache), and Becky and Charlotte totally ignored the dress code (but still made an effort) by pitching up in Hogwarts uniforms. We made an interesting sight, wandering through Reading dressed like that. It was a brilliant evening though, full of laughs - though we didn't actually get round to the whole goodbye bit, so we're having a last last... er, Starbucks on Thursday for that purpose. 

And perhaps the biggest news I have to impart is that time is drifting on and I will find myself, in six days' time, filling one of the many rooms in York St John's accommodation with a selection of the crap that has been accumulating throughout my life. (I went uni shopping on Friday and the spare room is now stacked with assorted bits and pieces that people have decided I need for my new life. I even have a rather fabulous spatula. And who'd have thought there'd be so many different kinds of frying pan?)


I have less than a week left here in my room in the oh-so-familiar, oh-so-endearingly-equally-filled-with-poshness-and-chavs South of England, where I have spent my entire life to date. I've never left it for more than two weeks at a time, I've never left my family for more than eight days, and it's only just dawning on me that it's really happening now. It's time. I'm really leaving. I'll have new people to meet, a new city to explore - I'll be living in a city! You can only truly understand the thrill that gives me if you, like me, have spent your entire life in the middle of bloody nowhere.


You know shit's getting real when you change your location on Facebook.

Seriously though. I'm leaving my family and I'm leaving my friends, and as Becky pointed out on Saturday night when we had a deep conversation in the stimulating comfort of First Great Western's Oxford-bound train, it will be the first time that either she or I have gone somewhere new without knowing anybody, as we've had each other everytime we've changed schools so far. I'll miss having people there who know me, and who are there for me, and who will listen even when things are hard to say. Who'll be there to recognise private jokes when they come up in conversation, or to spend ten minutes laughing so hard we can't breathe, or to reminisce about the past with? And who's going to be there to do five-way-"safe"s with? 



I wasn't nervous about going to university until a couple of days ago, but the closer it gets and the more people tell me it'll be the best years of my life, the more terrified I become. There are some things I find really hard to talk about and some times I really don't want to be alone, and the prospect of going somewhere where I will be alone scares me - because at least now I have people around me who know everything about me, and the things that are hard to say aren't so hard when people know. I don't cry often, but I have tears in my eyes now thinking about leaving my friends. I can't help wondering what life will do to us and whether our friendships will survive the next three years and beyond, no matter how hard we try. Life always has a habit of getting in the way, and the thing about old friends is that they've seen you grow up. The past is what makes you who you are, and my friends and I have seen each other become the people we are today. That's irreplaceable. So, Becky, Zoe, Charlotte and Lauren, whatever may happen throughout the next few years, you have been my childhood friends. We have shared so many firsts, discussed so many fears and had so many laughs and nothing will ever replace that. Thank you. 


Molly x


P.S. If you want to hear At Last, you can find it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHjr0wId-TE

P.P.S The gaps in this post are SO ANNOYING.

September 3rd: On the move

Since I created this blog, it's been a personal bugbear of mine that there isn't a Blogger app for BlackBerry, so I'm absolutely thrilled to say that I have finally worked out how to post to Blogger in the rare event that my arse isn't firmly fixed before my laptop.
 
Email blogging! Brilliant! I always knew it was possible to text-blog but my phone never capitulated, so this is the absolute shiz. Now I can spam my dear bloglings from wherever I happen to be! Aren't you just so pleased?
 
Well really. There's no need to make that face. At least now I'm less likely to leave you post-less for weeks on end.
 
Well, I have nothing new to tell you yet, so this is just a quick test to see if it actually works.
 
See you soon, bloglings!
 
Molly x

September 2nd: Posting from elsewhere again

Hello bloglings - I'm in Scotland!

I know, I've barely been back in England a week and already I've buggered off somewhere else. Right now I'm sitting in my grandparents' shop (it's closed, I haven't just invaded) and since I have the use of a computer (my BlackBerry doesn't work here; the highlands of Scotland are ridiculously signal deprived but so awesome it makes up for it) I thought I'd update you all on what's occurring in my once-boring-but-all-of-a-sudden-quite-busy life. I thought I'd have quite a calm two weeks before I leave for York, but it seems that things are getting more and more hectic as the days pass. There's just so much to do; getting all the finance stuff sorted, packing, buying all my kitchen equipment - and of course practicing for my driving test - so it's quite a funny time to come to Scotland but I've been trying to make time ever since I went last year and in the end I just figured it would never happen if I didn't force it to. So here I am!

Any new bloglings won't know this, but my grandparents have a friend called Steve, who owns a recording studio, and last year I recorded a song there which I didn't quite finish (but only in my eyes, it seems), so now I'm here to perfect it. Apparently I'm going to Steve's on Monday morning and hopefully I'll get it up to the standard I want it before I return to England on Tuesday. I'm SO excited! The whole recording experience is amazing (anyone who hasn't read July 21st's post from last year should refer to it now - it's ridiculously long but it's got all the information about this particular subject in there). I don't really have much to tell you yet but just you wait...

Just a quick update really, so I'll inflict the rest of my life on you next week.

Molly x

August 30th: When the past and the future collide

I spent today with two of my oldest friends, Becky and Zoe - one of the last days we'll spend together in the final two or three weeks before we all leave for uni - and it was one of those days where you can really feel yourself teetering somewhere between the future and the past. The three of us have spent the last seven years together (I've known Becky for eighteen years now, but Zoe only joined us when we were eleven) - and so we've all watched each other grow and change and fail and succeed many, many times.

We spent today lost in the past, submerged in memories and moments from our childhood, and yet we managed also to construct our ideal lives for at least the next ten years. We covered everything from our first days at school to having children of our own and the thing that made us able to do so is that, to date, we have gone through everything together. Now, that's starting to change. This is the biggest and most life-altering thing we've faced yet and really, the only one we've ever faced alone. It's easy to say that everyone's in the same boat, and that may be true, but at least before when we've all been in the same boat, we've all been sailing towards the same shoreline. Now my travelling companions and I head towards different islands, different parts of the country, and though we'll eventually reach land and find new people with whom to fill our boats, it won't be the same.

We are all going through this together, but ultimately, it's up to us to make it what we will, on our own. We have to take every opportunity we stumble across; make the most of the days which everyone insists are the best of our lives. Nearly two years ago I founded this blog for that exact purpose - so that I could record everything, good and bad, that came my way... so that I wouldn't let any little grains of sand slip through my fingers. Life has a habit of snatching away things that were once important and I am unwilling to let it. I don't want to forget these days, because if I ever forget how I grew into the person I am today and what was important to me, I can refer back to this. This blog is my own personal time capsule. The creation of myself.

In my opinion there are two types of people in the world: there are speakers, and then there are writers. I am a writer. Everything I think, everything I feel, pretty much everything I need to say but can't bring myself to admit aloud, I write down. I write when I'm sad because if I don't I can't describe why I'm sad; I write when I'm happy because if I try to talk all I can do is squeal; I write when I'm scared, or isolated, or embarrassed, or angry... when I am too weak to express my emotions to another human being I inflict them on my pen or my keyboard instead. Maybe that's why I'm saying all this over and over again on here, because right now I am terrified. I'm excited and happy and impatient and scared and nervous and a little bit lonely all at the same time but I'm riding on a high, and I'm just waiting for the moment on the 18th of September when I watch my parents drive away and I sit down in my new bedroom and look at all the students walking by outside and see my possessions in their alien surroundings and think, 'Now what?'.

What words of comfort can anybody offer when they feel the exact same way? Our boats are adrift at the moment and soon enough we'll run aground, but we're on tenterhooks trying not to crash. It's hard to say what will become of the plans we make and the friends we've always had, but it's impossible to predict the options we'll have and the people we'll meet in the future. It's easy to long for the security of the past but you can't live like that; imagine what you'd miss out on!

Maybe these boats of ours will get lost at sea but I highly doubt it; after all, we're built not to sink.

Molly x

August 18th: Developments in one sentence...

I got in!

August 17th: Pre-results ramblings...

It's half past five in the afternoon, and at the moment I'm lying in twenty-eight degree heat on the balcony of my hotel room under a cloudless sky in Fuerteventura, listening to the sea crashing onto the sand just a little further down the volcano I'm currently halfway up. I've been here for a week now and, as does tend to happen on holiday, I feel very detached from the real world. After all it is, quite literally, miles away, and it feels it.

And no, I didn't just start this post like that to make you all jealous. At least, that wasn't the main reason. (Those of you who don't already live in countries with similar climates, that is). It's just that being here makes it rather hard to believe that in less than twenty-four hours my life will have changed for good; no matter what happens, tomorrow is going to bring about a permanent change in my life and that of all seventeen and eighteen year olds in Britain (even if they're not currently in Britain). A Level results day is finally upon us...

Bollocks.

I know I'm not the only one who has, up until today, managed to successfully block the thought of results day from my mind. I mean, if there were a fly in the suncream, results day has to be a pretty big contender. It's very strange to think that come tomorrow, after all this time, all this preparation, exams, applications to this and that, and all the waiting for the last two months, I will finally know where I'm going in September. Will I get the grades? Will I be going to the uni I chose? Or will I - god forbid - fail miserably and be forced to use Clearing or postpone my life until I can reapply next year?

I ask these questions now relatively calmly - they're nothing new. They're questions I - and everybody else - have been asking of ourselves for months so there's no point in panicking now. The worst thing about it is that the exams finished two months ago, and instead of getting the results immediately, we have to endure two months of nothing-we-can-do-about-it-now worry - hence the earlier point about having oh-so-deliberately forgotten about it. In a way, it's actually a relief that it's finally here. At least we can get it out of the way. So, next time I write here, I'll know whether or not I'm going to university this year. Now that's a scary thought if I ever heard one.

I think it's safe to say I won't be getting any sleep tonight.

Besides, I'm sharing a room with my brother and he snores.

Molly x

August 9th: A very quick hello-goodbye

Well, bloglings, this is yet another post that I begin with no idea of what I'm going to say - so I'll warn you straight away not to expect too much. Tomorrow I'm off to Fuerteventura for two weeks, so not only will there not be any posts forthcoming during that time, there also may be an extremely long update upon my return (depending on whether or not I can be bothered. Those long posts - here I'm referring to July 21st 2010; go and look if you don't believe me - take FOREVER).

Still, I'm very much looking forward to the heat and the lazing around... not that I'm currently doing anything other than lazing around here at home, but there's so much more fun in lazing around when you've got a pool to laze beside and thirty degree heat to laze under. The only problem is that in nine days I will know whether or not I can live the future I've been planning for the last year or so; yes... results day looms. Annoying that I'll be on holiday when the results come out, but I'm hoping I won't need Clearing (the UCAS service for those who don't get the results they were expecting and need to apply elsewhere) or I'll be screwed. Still. Positive thinking!

Anyway, just a very quick update to let you all know why it's going to be a bit quiet here for the next couple of weeks - though to be honest you're probably used to my erratic posting schedule by now. I frequently leave it for weeks without any excuses. Whoops. Hope you all have a brilliant two weeks and I'll see you when I get back!

Molly x

August 2nd: August firsts

Firstly, I can not believe it's August already! Where does this year think it's going? Methinks it's getting a bit too cocky. We'll have to have a word with it, running orf like that.

I named this post 'August firsts' because it's only the second day and already I've done something I've never done before: taken my driving theory test. And not only that, but I passed it! First time, baby. Oh yes. Be jealous.

I don't really make a habit of getting the result I want first time around, so it's something of a novelty for me. HELL YES! I DID IT! WOOOOOP!

...And with that bit of smugness aside, I shall continue. I got a random comment asking me to do this and since I don't really use my Tumblr account, I thought I might as well do it here on the blog so those of my bloglings whom I don't know in real life can stalk me a little more. Don't say I never do anything for you.

I'd like to say I'm being as honest as possible... but we'll see.


Height: 
     Umm... about 165ish cm, I think. I haven't measured myself in ages and I've got no idea in feet so don't even go there.

Shoe size:
      6

Sexual orientation:
      Straight

Do you smoke?
      Nooooooooooo. Disgusting habit.

Do you drink?
      I do like to indulge in the odd alcoholic beverage from time to time.

Do you take drugs? 
      Yeah, loads. Cocaine, that type of thing.
       LOL JK I'm really quite boring... do painkillers count?

Age you get mistaken for: 
      Fifteen, normally. I apparently have a young-looking face and an old-sounding voice, so I can be a confusing little beastie. However, the age I was most recently mistaken for was twenty (but then again we were in a bar, it was dark, and he was a bit drunk).

Got any tattoos?
      Ew. No.

Want any tattoos?
      See above answer.

Got any piercings?
      One standard ear piercing on each ear.


Want any piercings?
      No more than that. I find them slightly chavvy if I'm perfectly honest.


Best friend:
      Cora, obviously, but also my lovely knobs Zoe, Becky, Charlotte and Lauren.


Relationship status:
      Single... always single... and (should I do a Becky?) ready to mingle!


Biggest turn ons:
      Ooooh. As I recently discovered, a guy who knows how to massage. (I also love it when people stroke my hair, etc - but not in a turn on way. Just in a kind of comforting way). I'm a bit limited when it comes to boy experience so I think this is all you're getting out of me for this question...


Biggest turn offs:
      Smoking. Tattoos. A lot of piercings. Tracksuits. Chavs, basically. Also aloof, couldn't care less, treat 'em mean kind of guys. If you treat me mean I will not stay keen, I will think you don't like me, lose my nerve and back off. I like it when people are open about how they feel and what they're thinking (which is a bit rich coming from me, but oh well).


Favourite movie:
      Argh! What a question! Erm... Twilight always makes me laugh simply because it's so bad - Vampires Suck takes the piss out of Twilight so that always amuses me too. Enchanted simply because it's full of private jokes between Zoe and I; Leap Year for the same reason but with Becky; Rent because it's awesome and about a million other films because seriously, how is it possible to answer a question like this?


I’ll love you if: 
     You're nice to me. I'm a friendly person so all you have to do is smile at me or talk to me and it's as simple as that. Or give me chocolate. Never fails.


Someone I miss: 
      Cora, of course.


Most traumatic experience:
      Not particularly traumatic in the scheme of things but there have been many of the type of experiences throughout my life to which adults refer as 'character building'.... which is all very well but less than fun when you're actually going through it. However, as regular readers of this blog will know, said experiences have built my character and widened my mind and, though I sometimes wish I could erase them, I can't help wondering what sort of person I would be had I never gone through them.


A fact about my personality:
     A fact about my personality? Here's one: I can't come up with a good fact about my personality which doesn't make me sound all depressed, so though I'm actually quite happy right now: I'm better at acting than I thought. I'm subtle. And I make a lot of cryptic comments, so unless you know me really well, it's not easy to see what I'm thinking.


What I hate most about myself:
    I'm a facilitator. I put my friends first. If they don't want to do something or they can't make something, I'll change for them, no problem. I don't mind doing this but at times I wonder whether, if I didn't change for them, they would ever bother to do the same for me.


What I love most about myself:
    I can find a way out of most situations.


What I want to be when I get older:
   I'm pretty sure you guys know this by now! If you've been reading this blog for a while and you still don't know... you have some serious attention span issues.


My relationship with my sibling(s):
    Freddie? He annoys the hell out of me sometimes but he's sweet and I do love him. I'll miss him a lot when I go to uni.


My relationship with my parents:
    I like to think our relationship is good. Like Freddie, they can annoy me, but I'm sure they find me equally annoying and we have some pretty good times too.


My idea of a perfect date:
    Something that shows me he knows me, so it doesn't have to be our first date. Something original that shows me he's really thought about it and wants me to know that he cares about me.


My biggest pet peeves:
    Grammar errors! No exception, guys! Learn how to write in your mother tongue please, before I come along and force it down your actual tongue.
    Also when people refuse to be at all open minded about things - people who just assume they're right because they can't be bothered to take other opinions into account.

A description of the girl/boy I like:
    Yeah... that watering hole is dry. (Not actually a metaphor; there's just a severe shortage of fanciable specimens in the immediate vicinity).


A description of the person I dislike the most:
    Don't really dislike anyone right now, so... nah.


A reason I’ve lied to a friend:
   Ah. An easy one. I've lied to a friend because I'm afraid of appearing weak or like I can't cope. A pretty human reaction, I think.


What I hate the most about school:
    School? The hierarchical clique system and the way you get 'punished' if being who you are means you don't conform to social expectations or 'norms'.
   College? Hmm... nothing, really.


What my last text message says:
    (To my driving instructor): "Passed it! :)"


Which words upset me the most:
    Words that refer to my own personal insecurities or shortcomings; words that imply I'm not trying hard enough, or that I'm making certain things up to get attention - which I would never do. I'm not the type.


Which words make me the best about myself:
    I'm not quite sure what this question means, but I've never been happier with myself than I am now. I think one reaches a stage where one has to accept that everyone is different, and everyone has talents and abilities of their own, and trying to emulate a talent that you don't share is only going to be depressing. Just focus on what you're good at, and you'll be happy.


A wish that I’ve made repeatedly at 11:11:
    I don't really do that. I wish on birthday cake candles and eyelashes and stars... and I don't wish for objects. Nice try though! If I tell you what I wish for, it won't come true.


What I find attractive in boys:
    I'm a sucker for dark, floppy hair but I find only a few guys can really pull it off. Dark eyes also. Darkness in general. (And no The Darkness jokes please... that's floppy hair a step too far).
    I like musicians. Every guy I've... ever, actually... been involved with or kissed or even just fancied has played a musical instrument of some kind. Usually the guitar, but that's just chance. I like a guy who can play something because I have a little dream that he and I can sing together.


Where I would like to live:
    Denmark. More specifically, Odense. I have never been anywhere more beautiful or fallen in love with anywhere so hard in my life.


One of my insecurities:
    That I'm not good enough for the life I want to live, or that I'll give up before I reach it. I have a tendency to give up.


My childhood career choice:
   Blanket maker (when I was four); professional Concorde flyer (not pilot, just someone who sat on it - I even had a 'Concorde fund' with the grand sum of about two quid in it. That one bit the dust long before Concorde did but now I'll never even get to fly on it); rollercoaster designer (chucked that one out when I realised how much maths was involved. Numbers never were my strong point).


My favorite ice cream:
    I am partial to a bit of chocolate, but I like toffee, mint and honeycomb too. Of course, no ice cream is complete without guf... shame I don't live in Denmark, really.


Who I wish I could be:
   Oliver Tompsett. Seriously. I'd go male if I could be him. Amazing voice, amazing looks... mmmm. If we're talking about admiring people, though, then (sad as it sounds) my fabulous English teacher Hannah. I genuinely admire her and if I could have even half her awesomeness, I'd be happy.


Where I want to be right now:
    Duh? Denmark. Obviously. Though I'm kind of boiling alive right now, so... in the sea in Denmark would be nice.


The last thing I ate:
    A Ferrero Rocher.


Sexiest person that comes to my mind immediately:
   Oli Tompsett.

Right?!

A random fact about anything:
     I'm currently listening to 'Too Little, Too Late' by JoJo, which reminds me of many happy hours in my room or Zoe's, dancing and singing, inventing harmonies, recording videos, having deep, philosophical conversations, talking about boys and generally living out the seven years we've known each other.

Also, I corrected the grammar of most of these questions.

Molly x