My Life in a Nutshell

I'm going on holiday tomorrow, and am currently fascinated by eyes!

Lucy
xxx

Regina Spektor...

...makes me feel weird and overly romantic.

Finally

I'm back home for the summer! Somehow the whole process of packing and saying goodbye and travelling exhausted me so completely that I changed into a sundress and basked in the warmth on my bed almost straight away. I haven't unpacked, I just lay with my legs in the sunshine and read The Night Watch, which embodies how I aspire to write and is currently being enjoyed with a weird mix of jealousy and greed. It's very good, IMO.

Leaving Park Village for the last time was sad beyond words. To think this is the end of my first year of uni, to think it's gone that quickly! And although leaving has paved the way for a fun summer, and leaving early (missing the last Tuesday night out!) means I make Newquay fresh and super excited, I'm surely allowed a little nostalgic look back and review. Sigh! I love you, PV.

Re-reading this it seems to have a bit of a melancholy tone, which is totally unfair. I was so, so nervous for my German exam that the usual burst of relief upon leaving Mandela Hall (Ah, Sussex) was absolutely huge and has carried me up until now (and probably beyond) in a state of frenzied happiness. Now is the time to regrow my painful, short nails, relax and enjoy myself. The thing I am most, most, most looking forward to is reading what I want: books to help me sort out the shambles that is my religious/non-religious life, books where people fall in love, books in which everything is amazing by the end of the last page. Summer, finally!

Lucy
xxx

Dom's Birthday

OK so last night was one of those times you end up having a mini meltdown over what turns out to be nothing very much at all. Luckily, I woke up fresh and calm and happy, and am once again ready to face the world in a much less melodramatic manner!

However one thing I did realise is the foolishness of hiding things from people who may just know me better than I think they do. Number 1 is the fact that yes, up until maybe today, I was giving this God stuff a good go. Turns out it wasn't really that conducive to my mental health. Aside from the initial 'ooh, am I *actually* believing in something..?' excitement, it was a traumatic struggle, a severe mental test and increased my guilt by about 100% (and really, I do not need any more guilt). Honestly, I had not realised how far I'd gone, it was so gradual and quiet. Maybe this is 'discipline', maybe it's normal, maybe it's nothing to do with God at all. But to be perfectly frank, I just am not enjoying it right now. Spending a lot of your day pleading inwardly at God to start playing by the rules detracts from the enjoyment of my actual life, and all the beautiful and good things in it. We'll see what I decide to do, but I'm probably on the side of happiness ;)

Oh! Happy Birthday Dom :)

Lucy
xxx

Ugh, today has been a day of wallowing in my own self pity. I am tired, I am poor, I am more academically stressed out than I have ever been before (and jealous of everyone else, who have all finished now), I am gripped painfully by the fear of German failure, I am hormonal, I am headachey and every spare moment of my life has been stolen by annoying extras.

Shall I balance this with good things? I went to Lou's, had two free sambuca shots, got some bravery on about various dilemma things, ate nice food, bought Sims 2 University for £5, finally got Dom a present he hasn't already received, organised my granddaughterly duties, got a Father's Day card, spoke to Katy for the first time in ages and sat writing in Waterstone's cafe (CLICHE ALERT) for a satisfyingly long time.

Excited to visit Lou tomorrow! Also, just decided I'm going to go to Mass. Brap.

Watching Supersizers on BBC 2 - I have a sneaky suspicion Dom's boyfriend Ken is on...

Monday Monday, bah daa bah da bah da bah

SO, how many of these written in good spirit aims have I actually managed to keep to? Answer: very few.

Particularly unsuccessful is 'Go outside'. Note to self - go outside does not mean stand in my garden for about 30 seconds, nor is the quota fulfilled by putting out / taking in washing, nor by looking out of the window, however much this feels like it. Also a major fail is 'get back to everyone', kinda unsurprisingly. I now am a good 3 days late for phoning my nan to arrange a meet-up (I know, I know, my grandmother, my own flesh and blood. I am already excruciatingly aware of my own personal failings right now.) and still have not got into contact with about 90% of my friendship group. I find myself blaming various things for this, from The Exam of German Doom to waiting for a call from my opticians (yep, I'm contemplating contact lenses for the summer. I've finally caved, but tbh, the thought of yet another summer holiday where I'm annoyed by the sun, by the sea, by the sea spray, by everything that usually constitutes a holiday is too much to bear.), even though I seem to find ample time to play the Sims. So yeah, oops.

BUT it's not all sour. I've done my mum favours, including getting over my mind war about using the hefty new Dyson and its horrifyingly unnatural powers of suction. I've smiled, and laughed, and read / listened to lots of interesting things (even if it's *still* all revolving around the religious theme, which is becoming even more of a stressful dilemma practically by the hour) and loved, although those points were never the ones in need of growth. One aim that didn't make the final list was 'Do not be judgmental', and in a bad way I'm kinda glad about it not being there: if it was, I'd have totally ruined it by scorning next-door's new extension because it looks overwhelmingly like a giant bird house.

Lucy
xxx

Life Aims (with photos of my foolish behaviour)

Ten Things I Will Try To Do Every Day:

1. Laugh / smile









2. Expand my mind: read an article, listen to a piece of music, look at a new artwork, watch a documentary snippet











3. Say thank you








4. Get back to everyone








5. Forgive myself











6. Make something: cook, draw, paint, write, play











7. Do something enjoyable, friendly, nice, amusing or just kinda memorable








8. Love, and show it







9. Feel pretty










10. Go outside

Day of Thor

I am home, and it's comfortable and luxurious and there's food in the fridge without mould on, and the hot water doesn't run out if someone has already had a shower.

I have a job interview tomorrow morning, eep.

Dominic and I had a note-worthy conversation over our carnivorous breakfast this morning: it is interesting to see so obviously the different speeds of people's thought processes. Mine is slow, sticks to one concept and goes on on on until I've reached the 'end' of that, become the best I can be, pretty sluggish and stubborn. But people like my brother, their brain flits from one thing to the next, living life in a state of feverish excitement and enthusiasm or mild disappointment. Always searching for the next big thing. Butterfly-like.

If my laptop was a chest of drawers, this would have been stuffed down the back of one of them:

Merry Christmas, here’s your present blame,
Cryptic apology veiled, silver ribbon,
Sorry doesn’t cut it but dusts it, glitter water
Turns to wine, mulled over but it’s not my fault,
It’s yours, ours, theirs, Many Happy Returns!
Not on the card list, but his feet upon the table,
Watches his decimal children for the first time,
Last time. 2.4, eating plum pi with Mr Jones,
Comparing weight, brave face lies and hidden surprise,
A piece of pirate gold, chocolate money sold
For plastic boxes. Plastic limbs. Plastic smiles.
Argos watch and aftershave, a close one...
“They nearly guessed, those pesky kids,
They nearly found us out.”
Re-runs like Scooby Doo, past the plant and clock,
Same old differences, irreconcilable,
A white Divorce under the starry snow,
Delayed by electric candles and tinsel pine,
Forced, contrived until the Auld Lang Sine,
“They nearly guessed” she carol sang
“They very nearly guessed”

Ah teenage angst!

Lucy
xxx

And God, I'm so damn ill. Please, please clear up even a little for my presentation tomorrow. I can't cough until I gag in front of my entire seminar group :(

Anger.

I am so not impressed.

How can nearly 100 times more people vote for the BNP than the Peace Party. How, in a modern world, can this happen? How can the party No2EU (who seemed to get naming advice from a mid-90s teen magazine) get 140,000 more votes than their direct opposite Yes 2 Europe (who at least learnt how to use the space bar)? I'm sorry, but to wake up -feeling extremely rubbish anyway - and see NICK GRIFFIN flaunting his little racist face on my computer screen is not what I want to happen on a Monday morning. I am honestly horrified. I am horrified at every one of the 121,967 people in the West Midlands who voted for the BNP. For the *British National Party*. For a party without the intelligence to grow out of generalising groups of people under huge umbrella terms, like 'immigrants'. For a party who won't let black people join. For a party basing their politics on skin pigments and accents.

And so, you people who voted. Try and tell me they're not racist. Come out with the usual spiel: 'They have Britain's best interests at heart' (not true. If they actually did one tiny iota of real research they'd know that legal and fair immigration, particularly within EU countries, helps Britain immensely. After all, if that many of us are capable of voting BNP we need all the help we can get.)

'They're not racist' (Erm they are. End of. Any party that targets children with videos ending 'and she was white' is racistracistracist. I'm sure everyone who is currently extolling the virtues of the BNP hilariously sung songs about Hitler having only one ball about 10 years ago. Well, sorry. I know it's a stretch and yeah we're not currently committing mass genocide BUT just attend one Year 7 History lesson and use some actual brain power for something other than browsing the pages of FHM and see the parallels.)

'They support the working-class' (You have betrayed me, working-class voters. Not only am I thoroughly digusted at the low turnout I experienced, I am heartbroken that the BNP are fast becoming the darlings of the working-class. So I say this to every one of you: I have your background. I have experienced lack of money, loss of job, broken homes, being on benefits, everything like that. I am not a upper middle-class dinner partier. But it is NOT 'the immigrants', that apparent seething mass of people who are probably crawling around in the foundations of your house right now so that can pull it down and live on the land, it is not their fault. It is often your fault. It is often nobody's fault. It may even, occasionally, be the fault of someone who happened to not be born down the road from you. But every, little, tiny thing that goes wrong with you, even your own ignorance [take 'Ugh my doctor is from India, I can't understand him, moan moan moan' as a good example], is not there to be another piece of evidence in the war against immigration. Britain is not 'full'. Britain is not 'for the British', unless you want a WEAK, POOR, STARVING and ultimately BORING land. 'The Immigrants' TM have not 'taken all your jobs'. You often don't want to lower yourself to working in a rubbish job for a while until you can move onto better things, and because you have NO CONCEPT of poverty and suffering, you can't see why an immigrant to this country finds the motivation to work 2, 3 or 4 jobs at a time. I have worked with 'immigrants', and they are some of the most enthusiastic, dilligent and hard-working people I have ever, EVER met in my entire life, and deserve that job infinitely more than someone who can't find the decency to give them that credit.)

'The British are the minority' (So tell me, you wise and enlightened bunch of self-proclaimed realists. Who is British? What is 'British'? Because, sorry to break it to you, but British doesn't exist. Yes, I can hear the gasps, but it doesn't. You BNP voters take a little look at your family tree and I will bet anything a few generations earlier and you'll find something you might not expect. Your family may have come from Germany just before the war [which you are INSULTING the name of], or be gypsies, like mine, or from eastern Europe, or Asia, or India in colonial times, or Africa, or South America. Just because it doesn't show in your skin any more doesn't mean it's not there. And what if you prove me wrong, and trace your lineage all the way back to Anglo-Saxon times. Ooops, sorry! The name 'Anglo-Saxon' itself directly shows a mingling of two cultures - isn't that what you hate most of all? So, even if we decide on a definition of British - impossible - it is still nowhere near appropriate to say we're the victims of racism, oppressed, or in the minority. I wish with all my heart I could take you out of your comfortable, lenient, tolerant and affluent society [even if it is just relative to other countries] and put you somewhere were you will *really feel* like a victimised minority. How about apartheid South Africa? Or become a Jew in Nazi Germany? A native American, an Aborigine or a tribe in Africa that we decided wasn't good enough. And oppression? How about living under Stalin, or being stoned to death in the middle east for being homosexual, or killed by a Christian crusader for your religion. You know nothing of being in a minority, and know nothing of victimisation. Why? Because you're the one oppressing the victims.)

OK, so I'm annoyed and probably sound young and naive and as if I think I know the world hohohum. Well, sorry. It's disgusting that our country is being betrayed so deeply that it is now being represented, even in part, by horrible people with horrible views. And if you still aren't happy with the 'state of Great Britain!', then do what you keep threatening on doing: go and inflict yourself on some sunny beach in Spain or Greece, become an immigrant who won't integrate themselves in the culture, won't learn the language and won't get a proper job. Enjoy becoming what you hate.

LOL

Ugh

OK so I'm ill. And not just sniffle ill, like full-blown, can't-breathe, burning-throat, hot-and-cold, aching-limbs, exhausted-just-walking-to-the-shop ill. Not really impressed with it to be honest, 'cause it made me miss going to see The Magnets, and I had to let down my presentation group loads already (once due to hangover - the shame), but now I have the excuse of 'oh perhaps I might not be able to meet up because I am like a breathing disease.' I'm kinda lucky though in that my exam isn't until June 22nd (sorry :P) and my presentation is pretty much written, so I can take this weekend out to wallow in my own self pity in bed, reading stuff and mustering up the energy to go buy some juice from the Co-op.
I love how getting slightly ill has detracted my life entirely from thinking about the election results. My heart = shipwreck.

Montag, with beans

OK, so that big, intellectual church journey thing I was so excited about a post or two ago? Ultimate fail. This week I came to the conclusion that all the aversion I was feeling, the fear and the embarrassment and the lack of organisation was because I knew nothing. I thought this was a petty reason for not going until I realised that it really was not as stupid as it seemed: I had jumped ahead of myself by about 50 steps and was basically just impatient to get all of the answers within a couple of weeks. Well, over a simmering saucepan of baked beans this evening, I realised I'd need to be a bit more introspective about my reasons for being so set on going before I flew around on a whistle-stop tour of the denominations of Great Britain. So, more reading it is, more research and blogging and ultimately more thinking. And more time spent getting over this feeling that I'm frantically back-pedalling down a really steep hill.

In other news, I am pretty happy with the current pre-tan I am cultivating for the Summer of Love Mark 2. I've spent the last two days at the beach, eating chips and/or nachos, drinking cocktails and avoiding both the quickly approaching waves (I do not like water.) and the stones thrown by enthusiastic children with poor aim (although, I must say, better aim than mine). I love Brighton! And now I'm off to eat the aforementioned beans flecked with the bits off the bottom of my pan, worry myself about my presentation and my exam and relax in the warmth of the Saaf.

Love, Lucy
xxx