Raymond Carver, I think I love you!!!!!!

So I've spent most of today either crying or eating.
Very productive, no?
Happiness and diet ruined in a matter of a few hours.

I have one story left to draft for my portfolio. It's called Baker Street and is obviously set in and around the station.
I've been streaming it in first person point of view and it's just gotten me nowhere (hence the tears).

I gave up earlier and decided to read some of my favourite short stories. I dug out a book I'd studied for lit during my first uni year and lost myself in the very first story.
It's now hit me that I've written my story in the wrong bloody perspective!!!!!! I'm lousy with first person...I'm switching to third now. I don't care how crap it all comes out, I just need something written around the 2500 word mark and I can edit tomorrow along with my other two stories which just need tweaks. Monday morning is going to be used for more tweaking and monday afternoon is for my critical reflection essay.

The tears are still coming, but at least a glimmer of hope is back.

Summer holiday is looming like a big looming thing...

My second year of uni is very nearly over.
I'm really happy about it but a bit scared at the same time. I'll be a 3rd year student in September and that thought alone is fucking freaky. It doesn't feel like I've been at that place 5 minutes and I'm already picking my modules for my very last year there.
I'm looking forward to a nice long rest though...really really looking forward to it.
The last two semesters have been a bit hellish (not the classes in themselves - appart from lit - but life outside of them).

I have a portfolio and critical reflection essay to hand in on Tuesday. I've got a story and a half written so far, so that means I have a story and a half left to go. After that I have to write up a critical reflection essay about my work. My literature essay was handed in last Thursday.
It's incredibly stressy, but I like to think that I can do it...even if I don't pass with a very good grade, the least I can do is say I tried.
After my hand-in, it's off to Wagamamas with the uni crew - provided I'm not too shattered to go - then Wednesday will mark the start of exam revision.

It's an evil exam.

Basically it's an unseen paper. That means that there will be extracts from texts studied on the course but we can't know what they are before we actually open the paper. The evil bit is that, unlike most exams with extracts, we're not told what the text is or who wrote it. We have to guess.
I've failed that one before I've even started it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What I really miss is sleep. I don't get to do that much because I'm either up doing work or up stressing about it.
Roll on the 8th May...everything ends at half 11!!!!

Rambles.

I believe.

- I believe that overly happy people are always hiding something.
- I believe that a sneeze is strangely satisfying.
- I believe that sanity doesn't actually exist.
- I believe that a kiss is the most intimate thing you can share with a person.
- I believe that people considered "stupid" may simply be geniuses out of their own time.
- I believe children up to the age of 7 have a sixth sense.
- I believe advances in technology will eventually destroy us all.
- I believe that life is more interesting when you've not got a plan.
- I believe an official and documented education means sod all in the long run.
- I believe that first loves never die.
- I believe that everyone is bisexual to some extent.
- I believe that it's fun to sqeeze blackheads.
- I believe that I'll never be completely accepted for being the hairy beast of a woman that I am.
- I believe feminism still has a place in this world.
- I believe that how good your day goes depends on how nice your first cup of tea/coffee tastes in the morning.
- I believe that make-up can ruin the way you look.
- I believe that I am destined for something other than a shop assistant or a suicide statistc.

A piece of my madness...

The Cone.

The love of my life would stop me from ever getting anywhere in politics. Bright orange and clothed in a little reflective top, it stands proud and literally stops traffic: my darling, my cone.
The fact that I lead a clean life just wouldn’t be enough to save me. I may not lie, cheat, steal, take drugs or commit acts of sexual deviancy, but because I show a fondness for an inanimate object I know people just wouldn’t accept me. There’s just no room in this world for a woman and her beloved traffic cone. I’ve just about gotten my boyfriend to understand why its bright colour lifts my spirits, that the smoothness of the plastic sends shivers down my spine and why I feel warm inside every time I see my face reflected upon its shiny surface in the right kind of light.
I could hide my secret quite well if I really needed too, under usual circumstances that is. I could have a special closet in my room in which to keep my cone, only go to specialist clubs at weekends wearing a paper bag over my head and I’d have no problem keeping my partner hushed because the shame alone keeps him silent. Unfortunately it’s just not that simple now.
During a drunken night out with some friends, I spotted a lonely cone out in the cold. It was abandoned at the side of the road, toppled over and covered in grit with a piece of that red and white tape tied around the top. My heart ached and my stomach lurched. I just couldn’t leave it there. Drunkenly I stumbled over and picked it up, taking it in my arms, hugging it tightly to my chest and dancing in circles back over to my slightly bewildered buddies. It stayed with us for the rest of our outing, each of us taking it in turns to clutch it and dance along, or argue with club bouncers about why we should be allowed to take it in with us. One friend even put it on his head, although I must admit that this act disgusted me slightly…I mean he didn’t even ask the poor thing first!
I don’t remember much else about that night, but I do remember waking up in a strange room with my head throbbing and a large orange blur clamped around my arms and staring me in the face. Next thing I know, a flash has gone off and I could hear someone cackling evilly.
I’m not sure who it was, but they have some very incriminating evidence. The moment I try to go into anything to do with politics that photograph would surface and my secret would be out.

Life...and the fact that I only have one shot at it...

So I'm currently chomping my way through endless packets of parma violets whilst contemplating my future (the room is purple, the bed I'm sitting on is comfy beyond belief, The Ramones are blaring through my stereo and I think my boyfriend just sent me a text).

I had my first of two course briefings today. This one was for the creative writing part of my degree and I've another on thursday concerning english literature.
To be honest I'm a little confused about everything at the moment (what else is new on planet Shell?). See, thing is, I've never been sure of what I've wanted to do with my life and it's just dawned on me that, in the space of three years, I've made a bunch of decisions without really thinking about them.
This is more with the second year than the first, because second year gave a bit more freedom, but I went in a picked a bunch of modules to put me on a pathway to something I actually didn't even want to do. Thing is, family and friends always used to go on about how they know I'd be published one day and that they'd be out to buy my novels. I've had three partners tell me how great they think my novels would be...my mum can't wait read one either. Novel novel novel...fact is that I have never had that in my head. I've never pictured me having a 30 chapter book about the ups and downs of some kind of person who does this and that...8 point story arch etc...It got put into my head a few years back and, since then, that's what I pushed myself toward. The modules I've picked have all been for that one final outcome and it's not even the outcome I actually want.
Found this out during my briefing today whilst looking at the modules I can't take because I lack the prerequisite number of credits in the subject to do so. I can kiss nonfiction modules goodbye, because I only have 10 credits in it and not 20 like they want, even though I'm really interested in them.
I just can't seem to escape Developing the Novel now and I'm almost 100% sure that it's not what I want. I like working on a smaller scale, so I'm thinking of taking Fiction and innovative form, but with my stupid limited options I'll still have to take at least 30 credits of the novel thing anyway.
It's something I'm going to go and see my personal tutor about. I feel ever so slightly trapped.
As for english lit...I'm going to take Women Writers with either Subversive Children's Literature or C20th Dystopian Fiction (even if it does mean having to put up with Martain Priestman again).
I can't believe how much of my life I've managed to decide over such a short period of time. We spend every minute of every hour of every day trying to figure ourselves out, yet here a bunch of us are deciding our fate and paying for the pain of it. Because of the pathway I've stupidly choisen, I'm now to be a novelist or a short fiction writer...what the fuck happened to freedom? I'll say it again, I'm trapped and it's my passion for writing and reading that as done it.

Chewing helps you concentrate. I'm now off of the violets and on to the gum.
The room is still purple, my back aches from leaning against the wall, my CD finsihed and that text was my boyfriend just saying goodnight.
It'll be a lot more gum, many more CDs and possibly many snappy texts to my daring before I'll be able to get my head straight about all this.
I'm actually wishing I could go back to being about 13...when none of this shit mattered and I was more concerned about my jeans and what to munch from the fridge rather than how to earn the money to pay for jeans and stuff in the fridge once I was a grown up.



What was the point in giving you weird details about what's going on in my room?
There was no point. Was just capturing the moment.

Urgh, stop the world...I wanna get off...

Ok, so I'm now feeling even more crap than usual.
My deadlines are coming up but I'm stuck on what the hell to write for my portfolio, I have an exam coming up that I'm probably going to flop due to the fact that my lecturer is an idiot and I just generally feel like I want to hurl myself off of the nearest bridge.

I spend my free time either sleeping or crying rather doing my work or spending more time with my friends/boyfriend like I should be doing.
When I do eventually sit down to write, no ideas come out for me to play with and I end up writing or typing something along the lines of "Why why why why why why why" or "Bollocks bollocks bollocks bollocks" etc repeatedly. You know, some kind of random word or expletive.
I know it's technically stream of conciousness type writing, but it's just not good enough anymore.

Aside from the university stress I just generally feel a lot more low than I usually do. Life in itself isn't too bad but my disorder is starting to creap back up on me again and it's making me feel stupidly depressed. I don't want to go back to councelling, but I think that may be my only option once again. Arrgghhh more clipboards and mutterings of "Hmmm..."
I've not been "normal" since last summer. Something really isn't right.

I feel like disappearing for a few days. Just to be totally on my own in order to work and think.
So if I don't turn up online or text back then it's just me having some quiet time.