My burning hate for all things sub-zero.

For the second time in what seems like far too short a period of time, Britain has dissolved into snow-induced chaos. And this affects the student population far more significantly, because of some households' absolute insistence to not use their heating unless 'absolutely necessary'. The fact that temperatures got down to -4 in Devon last night does indicate to me the need for warmth.

For the past couple of days, for instance, I have been extremely ill. I have a running nose, a sore throat, chest pains, ear ache, hacking cough and an aching body. Every few minutes I get a surge of light-headedness: all the ingredients needed to make a convincing Lemsip commercial. Most would assume this affliction to be something along the lines of a winter cold. But naturally, because it is me, and because I despise being ill with a passion so intense you could set it on fire, it wasn't a winter bug at all, but something equivalent to leprosy. In fact, what I've had has actually been bird flu of the leprosy variety, with a light dusting of hyperglycaemia. Had I actually bothered to go to the GP, I would have had my own assertion confirmed: that I was the illest person in the world who wasn't actually dead.

To make matters worse, a cruel Siberian wind has been plaguing this merry isle for the best part of two weeks now. Whilst this was entertaining for about, oh, five minutes, travelling 'up north' to Wales was quite a shock to my life support system. The temperature reading "-17 degrees Celsius" just didn't really register accordingly with my brain, although I was happy to have my feet encased in Ugg boot all weekend. However, I maintain that the Ugg boot turns into the most treacherous footwear available, when confronted with the icy, ungritted streets of Cardiff. They basically act as shortened skis, only about five times more slippery. It resulted in several near misses involving my bottom and icy pavement only too many times.

Naturally, the media-induced panic surrounding the weather and its natural inclination to turn cold at this time of year, has everyone behaving like lemmings. Police are advising motorists to stay at home unless their journey was absolutely necessary. Well, my journey into town today was very necessary, because I needed Weetabix. It also only involved sliding down the stairs outside my apartment block - very ungracefully might I add - complete with the thermal equivalent of a neck brace around my neck.

And as I sit here now, admittedly on the road to recovery, but still shivering and tense with a slight headache and cough, my woefully ignorant of all things medical-self can't help wondering why there is still no cure for something as simple as the common cold.

So low is my faith in the prospect of those scientists ever finding a cure, I am beginning to wonder if the sort of researchers who might have been engaged in defeating the cold are now being swallowed up by the far more exciting and glamorous green movement. Imagine, the very men who might have developed a cure for millions of peoples' seasonal sufferings are, as I write, sitting on an ice floe off the coast of Canada spying on bloody polar bears and logging fish egg production.

Or perhaps he was thinking about taking up medical research, but thought rather than spend his life in a chilly lab in Cardiff with nothing but a pot of viruses for company, he'd be better paid and happier if he went instead to Soho to be an ad-man for Lemsip.

Whatever has happened, the illness only seems to creep up upon us all once the temperatures plummet. I was sat on a bench by Exeter Cathedral in mid-October, in something akin  to a summer dress. Within a matter of weeks, I'm holed up in my (mercifully) well-insulted flat, enraged by the fact that it takes me an extra five minutes to leave the house each day: five minutes dedicated entirely to layering up, against both the cold and alternate means of viral infection, that are yet to be cured. Marvellous.

My North

Having spent my entire life so far in the rolling green, sheep-frolicking county of Devon, I consider London as 'the North'. Absurd as it may sound to you scoffing 'real' Northerners, this is because London is four hours away from Plymouth. To me, this is a sufficient amount of time to constitute 'a long way'. I am also used to the casual London arrogance that I seem to encounter in so many of my peers at the place of learning I call university. It is not intentional, and I am in no way accusing them of anything, it is just something apparently inherent that just comes out naturally in conversation. Indeed, to illustrate my point, here is a brief conversational encounter I had with a Londoner at a party this summer:
"Where are you from then?"
"Plymouth."
"Ah, great. So you've just come up for the evening then?"
Yes, if it were possible to take a four hour train journey home at three in the morning, I would be up for the evening. With said brief exchange, several observations can be made. Aside from an uncomfortably insular outlook, I'd like to think that this particular gentleman's geographical ignorance was an isolated incident, however alas, no. I had similar responses from several other fellow party-goers over the course of the evening, to the point where I ended up laughing along with appalling 'inbred' Devonian jokes just for a change in facial expression. Dead-pan does not suit anyone. 


It brings back memories of visiting London when I was younger, as we did every year, once or twice. The main highlight for my nine-year-old self usually involved the grandiose surroundings of the hotel more than anything else. My father said I was perhaps one of very few nine year olds to look entirely at home, lolling about on the sofa in the lobby of a five-star establishment. 


Despite the widely held oh-so-hilarious (sigh) belief that Plymouth is rural backwater, the most cosmopolitan Devon can ever hope to get, trips to the capital when I was younger weren't much of a culture shock. Yes, it was big, but the food was just as lousy, the service was just as hopeless and the pavements just as dirty. 
Back in the late 90s (possibly one of the most depressing sentences I have ever written to date), Plymouth was still a (declining) naval town with a busy dockyard and a surprisingly industrial feel for somewhere down south. Of course, Plymouthians earned nowhere near as much as the people who ran banks in Tunbridge Wells, but the difference between slow-paced rural backwater and centre of the universe London-town.


The difference is horribly apparent now. I've spent months of my summer in my home town with enough infrequent visits to London to make an unfortunate observation and that is this: nobody over the age of 40 in Plymouth seemed to have teeth, just the occasional lava-black stump. Worse, those under the age of 15 seemed not to have the faintest idea how to spell 'Plymouth Hoe'. I am aware I am painting an incredibly cynical, one-sided view of my beloved city, but now I unfortunately do begin to see the source and justification of the Londoner's crowing remarks: "You're from Devon! Oh, what's THAT like?" Fabulous.


My cynical side is coming out to play perhaps too much now, but I cannot resist it. If a child from Plymouth were to visit London today, he'd probably start having palpitations. He'd notice that everybody would have their teeth, own sparkling new Range Rovers, untarnished by smears of Dartmoor slime. He'd also notice that people could spell. He'd peer into the low-voltage world of the capital's restaurants and wonder what on earth people were putting in their mouths. And what, pray, would he make of a Marc Jacobs handbag? Heaven forbid. 


And before people murder me for my blatant snobbery, prejudices, brand my writing as the mere rantings of a spoilt southern literature-student poof, I must remind all that I merely exaggerate for effect. At least Plymouth has breathing space in the shape of the sea. London, for all its gleaming sophistication, addictive glamour and panic-inducing pavements, remains to me a vacuous, intimidating hole of humanity in which no one cares about you. I know I'm a home gal at heart: I get visibly agitated if I don't see the sea for a while, and feel that sense of space and openness, of being able to breathe. That probably explains my sporadic writing habits to some degree... or, perhaps not. 

Writers' Block

I've been suffering from an unfortunate and perhaps incurable condition: writers' block. Current romantic interest asked me last night - "Just why is it that you keep a blog online?" and my only response could be that it is the last possible outlet of creativity that can possibly keep the pile of mush that is my brain ticking over. It is not that I don't want to write - I do! - I'm just constantly barraged by soul-sucking thoughts of self-doubt, followed by the thought "I have nothing to write about!". It's the mental version of constipation.

Maddening as it is, I am sat in bed, again, writing late at night, as is becoming increasingly habitual, just so that I can write about nothing. Marvellous. My three readers (they're almost infamous now - though I still cannot articulate exactly who they are) must have begun to think my prose had dried up entirely, so long it has been since my last long, self-obsessed ramble. Alas, no, I am breaking my silence in order to write about absolutely bugger all, because in my view, it is impossible for me to write anything without it sounding completely Holden Caulfield-phoney. I simply do not have enough life experience to provide a valid judgment on any aspect of anything - especially if it involves underwear choice or being optimistic. 

It is the most infuriating thing, as I have been completely unable to write anything fictional since I was about 16 years old. Maybe creativity evaporated along with my youthful innocence, drowned in a heady mix of sex, and self discovery. How ridiculous that sounds - I can barely fumble my way in the dark with someone in bed now, and I am still no closer to even beginning the tentative steps towards my first novella. 

I also cannot bear to be serious in my writing. The world is full of too much that is miserable and hard to bear without me adding to it with my hideous piles of drivel that apparently constitutes my 'creative output'. And yet I don't mean to be 'funny' in the sense of the crude, but rather to write with the kind of bone-dry humour I use to approach life, the kind that stops me from punching the world’s many, many morons in the back of the head in a sudden fit of irrational rage. I suppose it is confidence: I am not funny enough, mature enough, authoritative enough as a writer to produce anything worthy of note, which is why I have turned to occasional diatribes online, to bemuse people with my awkward, muddled paragraphing. 

Shockingly, I've just thought of some real subject matter for a blog post. 

Haircuts

I have become addicted to getting my hair cut off. I was idly flicking through Facebook pictures earlier, vaguely with the notion of selecting another inaccurate, flattering profile picture. And I noticed my hair changes at least every five or so pictures. Am I really that bored and dissatisfied with myself that I feel the need to change my hair every month? Or is hair change the natural solution for those in on-going emotional turmoil. Either way, it has allowed me to develop a complex: that my current style is positively lesbian. And this gives me concern, as I am very, very straight. The new 'do has the unfortunate side-effect of coating my palms in sticky, gummy styling wax every morning in an effort to make my hair look 'effortless'. Was there ever a more pointless waste of time? What a ridiculous notion, to the point where it gives me actual physical anger. Especially considering my use of said sticky, gummy styling wax happens to coincide around half an hour before my 9am (three times a week, I would shoot whoever is responsible if I could). Gluing viscose product to my hair in an effort to look more appealing? Dear God, getting my hairbrush stuck in my longer hair seems far more preferable. 

In other news, new year, new term, new timetable, old/new friends, new ideas, new dashing around like a crazed lemming. Third year, I understood to be considerably more serious in terms of work. The pressure is on, now that we are all made feel guilty for being at university 'on the cheap'. Government tuition fee rises, wonderful. It has upset my plans for Canada, in fact. One tutor pointed out a Masters in two years might set me back as much as £15,000 - hardly an ideal sum. However, I do not deem the whole situation to be important enough to get on the coach to London for the protests. I would rather go shopping on the King's Road than stand there like an ant amongst thousands, shouting abuse at David Cameron and his fellow gimps up in their ivory tower. I will join the ranks of the unemployed English graduates soon enough..perhaps I'll spurn out dreadful poetry and read it out in seedy bars around the country in an effort to express myself. I'll become a 'creative type', bohemian in outlook until I have kids. Then it'll be my turn to worry about astronomical university fees - £10,000 a year by that point of course, and all because I didn't protest in London all those years ago, and chose to go shopping instead. Shame on me!!

Or maybe I should become unhealthily obsessed with Cold War literature and dedicate the next ten years of my life to English academia, and slowly lose touch with reality. At least if I worked in TV, I wouldn't have quite so much time available to spend with my own thoughts. Perhaps I'll start sleeping properly again once I'm in regular employment. The shock of the conventional 9-5 will just batter my body and mind into slumbering submission. In fact I have actually forgotten what it is not to wake up at 5am naturally, after falling asleep at 2am. Perhaps it explains my increasingly erratic behaviour, such as believing it is entirely normal to eat cereal with water instead of milk, and to wander about in my dressing gown at 5pm on a Friday evening, when I should be 'letting my hair down' at Mosaic or something. But wait, I have no hair to shake down, because it has ALL GONE, of my own accord.  

Perhaps by the time Cameron sees the foolishness of this university fee lark, my hair would have grown back, I would have gotten to the bottom of the enormous pile of shite that constitutes my reading, and I would have regained an appreciation for sleep and sanity.

Gym freak

After three years of being "In a relationship" (Facebook speak), I emerge in the frightening and alien environment of the Bright Young Single Things. Several things strike me - or frighten me: a) their apparent confidence b) their aptitude at small talk and c) the variety and quality of their matching bra and pant sets, none of which I have. And yes, being single will be the object of this latest post - so boring, I know. Yet so topical.

Its not so bad, I think. My cheek muscles have been given a real work out recently - that is, of smiling like a crazed idiot at people I barely know, in various social situations. Recent party in London for instance - my face felt like it had been stretched apart by two tiny little men pulling on fish hooks embedded in my cheeks. The real advantage, however, besides deepening my future laughter lines, is that I no longer feel guilty about having a casual flirtation with someone, even if they are completely unbearable/repulsive.

Despite new advantages in the social circus of life, privately I am already well on my way to cementing my reputation as an old woman, with the mental age of a 90 year old. My friend was genuinely concerned, and forced me out into the Young Whippersnapper World last night. The amount of gin I ingested was quite a shock to the system. But I cannot help fearing that I might suddenly find myself at the point where I will end up leaving messages on the answer phone for my flat mate. Messages such as "Emmy, your good friend Sarah Buckle has just taken a piece of cake out of the rubbish bin. You will probably need this piece of information for when you check her into the crazy clinic."

I also fear I will turn into that most mysterious of all female-stereotypes: The Gym Freak. Once a week with the promise of a sauna at the end will turn into every single goddamn day, voluntarily. I usually sidle up to the crosstrainer like its a faint acquaintance I give a cursory nod to every now and then. In my single state, unable to deal with having so much time on my hands for myself for the first time in three years, the cross-trainer will become an old friend you see each day for lunch. Except this burns away the calories, painfully and with much unladylike grunting and sweating. 'Ladies glow' my arse - I'll happily admit to sweating like a mule.

Then again, my father still retains the opinion that "Sarah has a great aversion to anything that constitutes exercise; she has never felt any inclination either." Now this might've been true when I was a surly and tempestuous 14 year old with hormone surges and bad skin. Books are non-judgemental and preferable to the scathing eyes of teenage males. I also had a rapid and effortless metabolism. I could eat a block of cheese a day and see no scrap of it on upon my skinny frame in the coming weeks. Now however, the metabolism has slowed down, preparing itself for true adulthood, and child-rearing. Depressing and self-whiney as it is, my body now sees fit to give up in areas where that really is not appreciated. Cellulite is the devil's word. I rarely wear short skirts, and its all about the toning.

Be assured that I am aware I am far from what can be called 'fat'. However, I do remind all my scoffing female readers (yes, my imaginary readers) that I am still a woman, enslaved to the expectation of female beauty as much as the next person. However much I scoff at Grazia and the perfect specimens within ("Superficial drivel, tsch"), I hold onto the niggling thought: "THIGHS. THIGHS. THIGHS."

And so, this term I will doubtlessly find myself in the gym, secretly eyeing the latest twig to enter the arena. She sits primly upon her spinning bike, in her Nike tracksuit and Reebok tone trainers, hair pulled into a tight ponytail, whilst I sweat and groan over the treadmill, ready to die. A brief thought in my brain tells me to give up - cellulite is hereditary, you haven't shaved your legs for a month and a half. Its all downhill from here. Another part ignites however, and whilst eyeing her twiglets for legs, I am filled with an overwhelming urge to tie her down and force-feed her lard, washed down with a glass of Crisp n'Dry.

True, I don't think I ever really entered the 'phase' of typical self-pitying, sobbing sofa-bound female. I haven't felt the need to dress in unflattering, volumnous pyjamas and a tea-stained old dressing gown for a good few weeks - this is partly because it was already part of my daily routine anyway, my flatmate will tell you. Instead, I've developed a taste for straight gin. Perfectly healthy.

Either way, I'm quite happy on my own for a while now. It means I can make jokes about the whole thing, and write more appalling, rambling blogposts on similar subjects for my loyal three readers. As for the gym, apparently everyone is skeletal/perfection in Canada, the place I plan to go next year. I am unphased however: the aim is get down to a size 8 by 2030..no pressure.

Health and Safety and the death of the world.

In my opinion, Steven Slater is a wonderful man: a shining beacon of sanity in the dark and murky world of Health and Safety. And the following explains, albeit in a very long-winded fashion, just why.


Slater launched himself down an escape slide from the side of an aeroplane, beer in hand, after finally losing his cool with an abusive passenger. "Marvellous, he must've thought to himself, yes. I'm fed up of these complete morons, and there's no way I can win. The airline is sued if I don't tell the bastard to sit down, the airline is sued if I do." - bound by red tape niceties, you could say.


 This entire incident only seems to demonstrate to me the sheer stupidity of some members of the general public. When did they become so aggressive, so disrespectful, so lacking in common sense? It is a known fact that cabin crew's word is law in an aircraft -  there is more to their job than presenting you with unpleasant, damp tuna sandwiches and in-flight complimentary drinks: they are there to ensure your safety. If they tell you to sit down, you damn well sit down. 


It would appear this passenger obviously thought herself exempt from aircraft safety procedures, by attempting to remove her luggage from an overhead compartment whilst the plane was still moving. Such utter moronic behaviour and arrogance boggles the mind. And indeed, it hit poor Slater on the head. And yet, as police descend upon his home, desperate to find something 'foreign' and 'suspect' about his character (as everyone is a potential terrorist) the passenger, who instigated the entire proceedings, is not reprimanded in any way. Indeed, the police and media are more concerned with highlighting the "potential hazards Mr. Slater posed to the ground-staff by releasing the emergency exit". 


They are more concerned about what might be, rather than what actually happened. That is exactly it - Slater's dramatic exit from his career as a flight attendant only seems to be 'the tip of the iceberg' as it were (how I despise using such idioms). It only acts a pointer towards a society - our society- that is so wrapped up in red tape and permission forms, health and safety lunacy.. There are so many managers at my local hospital, they outnumber the actual professionals, the doctors, the people qualified to do the job in the first place. Why, I ask, is it necessary, to have people to manage people to manage people to manage people to manage the department to manage the consultants, to manage the staff, to manage the patients..need I go on?


Oh but I shall.
Let us consider: in today's health and safety conscious society, a single health and safety man can inflict more damage on business and industry than an army of Gordon Browns. My father has had to put foam coverings on the corner of windowsills in his practise waiting room, on account of them being 'a potential hazard' to unruly children. What the hell is wrong with instructing your unruly child to sit down like a good boy? Rather than letting him run amok around the room, showing no respect to the furniture, fittings, staff, or other peoples' eardrums? And when the said unruly child knocks his head on a pointy windowsill, what does the mother do? Instead of saying 'I told you so', she files a complaint. I could almost pull my own hair out at the idiocy.


Welcome, my friends, to the mad and dangerous world of the Health and Safety executive. They do an  important job, they say, of preventing nuclear power stations from blowing up, or stopping schools burning down. And naturally, I don't deny the Health and Safety gods prevent children from climbing up chimneys, and banning baby walkers as there is a risk of the toddler toppling into a fire.  And then there's the need for preventing the 'incalculable human cost' of a person falling over every three minutes in this country. The human cost of the Holocaust was incalculable, whereas I slipped on my kitchen floor only this afternoon and it cost nobody nothing. 


Health and Safety, they say, is "the corner stone of a civilised society." - and it would be, if everyone and everything in the world were wrapped in fifteen layers of bubble wrap. But I disagree - they appear to have missed the point. Our society is gradually reaching a point where being 'safe' is more important than being happy. 


I'd rather go through life taking a few risks - slipping in the shower, abseiling down a cliff without filling in a risk assessment, taking a picture of my children in a play without being accused of paedophilia. I'd rather follow Slater's slide down the emergency exit slide of life than spending each day working to stay upright whilst filling in a form. 

Bed-wear.

Here is a comparatively short nugget of thought, product of my insomniac brain. I am sleeping less and less nowadays, and in my furious panicked attempts at slumber, odd things occur to me, usually inspired by the background mumblings of the BBC World Service. Ah, yes the World Service. The station for fishermen, farmers and insomniacs. It is preferable to my other attempts at getting to sleep.

Indeed, it is blissfully painless compared to my attempt the other night: I decided it would be a truly excellent idea to do leg-crippling lunges around my room in a circle to Al Green, at half past two in the morning. Whilst it succeeded in giving my legs a strangely dull ache, sleep did not come quickly. Now, two days on, I am partially crippled. I am unable to walk downstairs without gripping to the banister for support, and unable to sit down in a chair without crying out in pain. And dancing, I found out last night, is a whole new world of pain. Bobbing like a lemming is definitely the new dance trend, according to me. It is also the least painful, when your thighs scream in protest at the prospect of stairs and burn as if on fire every time you attempt to sit down.

But I digress, once again. I am sat here twiddling my thumbs at half past one in the morning, and a memory has sprung to mind. This memory was of going to bed with a hat on, inside a house. A place of apparent shelter. I have only done it once, and I never intend to do it again, unless I happen to be camping (contrived poverty) on the side of Ben Nevis in mid-winter.

And what occurred to me as I lay there, attempting to devise a means of stopping the wind ripping through the rotting window frame. It was solely this:


Let's see. Coat, jumper, dressing gown, jumper, jumper, hat. I'm practically naked. 

Massage my bottom, please.

I spent three days at a health spa this past week. They're so popular because secretly everyone wants to revert back to a baby-like state, of throwing off life's responsibilities. The biggest worry constituted the slippers they had given me were in fact made for an elf. Or for people with no toes.

It is interesting to note that those who first arrive, fresh from the madness and and frenzied pace of London life rush about in a restless agitation, desperate to get somewhere, to do something. By my second day, I was wandering from the pool to the silent relax area as if I had ingested Valium, my head slightly lolling to one side, with the heady scent of lavender pillow mist still ever-present in my nostrils. It was exactly like being a baby, or at least how I imagine it is to be a baby, 20 years since being one. I spent 75% of my time immersed in some type of liquid, whether it was massage oil, body scrub, or thalassotherapy waters. My fingertips were permanently shrivelled for the duration of my stay.

Reflecting upon my experience, the spa environment is truly unique. Indeed, I was happy to spend an afternoon having jets fired at my bottom, in an attempt to 'expel toxins' and 'tackle cellulite' (which I do not believe is possible - it does not matter how much exercise I do, I will still never ever bare my bottom to the world.. obviously). I even tolerated a woman I had never met before to massage my décolleté, without raising an eyebrow. I allowed another woman I had never met before to massage a freezing ice-gel into my thighs  in another far-fetched attempt to dispel all the flab and terrible toxins modern living had instilled in my body. The cursory shake of the hand with your therapist - "Hi, I'm Michelle, I'll be your therapist today" followed by "I will now massage your breasts" does not compute, or should not at least. But in spa world, formality clashes with platonic physical intimacy in almost laughable ways. And I did laugh, silently, when the woman started rubbing my calves - I've now discovered that area is unbearably ticklish.

 

After emerging from the little bubble of bliss, I found myself rather startled by normal life. I found the wearing of normal clothes - adult clothes - profoundly uncomfortable, as it was no longer socially acceptable to wear a towelling robe amongst members of the public, for the sake of my own dignity. And - what fresh hell! - shoes?! What madness. Everyone, in my opinion, should wear slippers all day long, never mind practicalities. The world would be a far happier place if people had comfortable footwear, such as slippers. Pottering about in slippers immediately relaxes you. For instance, I no longer had to worry if my new Kurt Geiger pumps would tear my feet to shreds by the end of the day, nor suffer that terrible sensation of sweaty feet sliding around in unforgiving, rigid new shoes. To not be irritated by pinched toes, aching heels, torn Achilles tendons! People would become infinitely more patient and accommodating.

I have just re-read my psycho-babble. Good grief, that spa place has truly infected my brain. Some people stay there for two weeks. If I have trouble grasping the modes of behaviour of normal society after three days, then Christ knows what I'd be like after fourteen. Probably immobile on the floor - all productiveness would have been kneaded out of my muscles, no doubt. Fabulous! Guilt-free, low fat cake! Over-active digestive system resulting from an overload of pulses, beans, seeds, fruit, salad! Meeting Frank Bruno in the swimming pool! Turning into a prune in the jacuzzi! Fan-bloody-tastic. And not possible in any way, in the outside world. For shame.

Insignificance.

I've been thinking about the future a lot lately. I have realised that suddenly lots of the celebrities that are around are in fact quite close in age to myself. I do sometimes find it depressing that luck strikes with the strangest people - why must Emma Watson be the face of Burberry, champion fair-trade, study at Brown, gain first class results at school, maintain a skeletal thinness and balance being an actress with seemingly flawless grace. 


Or Kristen Stewart who claims not to see the point in going back to school or college, or whatever it is. And why should she? She's the same age as me and a multi-millionaire...billionaire probably, given the fact she's the face of Twilight. And this is all coupled, if rumours are to be believed, by having perfection of manhood as a boyfriend - Robert Pattinson - who, at the age of 24, has worked hard to attain his status as a global heart -throb. And yet he still finds fame 'baffling' (fair enough) and is desperately attempting to be ecognised as a "serious actor". I don't think that'll ever be possible since he's signed up to the Twilight franchise. He will be forever known as Edward Cullen. 


Yet, what is so galling about K-Stew, as she is known, is the fact she manages to look so miserable and gormless with her lot in life - even when picking up awards. She compares being plagued by paparazzi, to being raped. I can only assume she is not speaking from experience.  I am probably determinedly reading her apparent ungratefulness entirely wrong - but her attempts at self-effacing modesty only seem to irritate me more than anything else.


On the more superficial level, it sounds like I am speaking from pure jealousy, which partly I am. Indeed, it is only natural. They are effectively my peers - loaded, successful in careers, and most importantly, doing what they love with ease. And in the process they are set up for life, with no financial burdens to worry them for the rest of their existence. To me, the very idea of stepping out into the world of work is a notion that is as terrifying as it is laughable to me. I am not content with going into a graduate job in some faceless office somewhere. I want, like so many others, to pursue what I really love whilst being paid for it. I suspect I command none of the acting finesse of Watson or Stewart (ha!) and they can at least be safe in the knowledge that they have the power to pursue whatever avenue of life they choose. They are hardly constrained by paltry financial pressures, or parental expectation - as far as I know anyway. 


The news today was that there are, on average, 69 applicants for every graduate job in the UK - a very depressing statistic for someone who is still in the ripe stages of developing assertiveness and confidence in the dog-eat-dog world of job hunting. I am finding it difficult enough to place a summer job, though I suppose I only have myself to blame. And I can hardly earn money from my writing! Its hardly thought-provoking material..and I am still shamelessly picky - I'd rather eat my own eyes than work in Poundland (oh shoot me for my snobbery!)


Just as well I am considering Canada for a year - another year to sort myself out, to sort my life out even. Yet by then, I suspect K-Stew and Hermione will, aside for having a few million more in their pockets, still have a pretty certain future career wise at least. Oh, how I envy them. 

Twenteen.

Ah, yes. My day of birth is drawing to a close, and it really is true that birthdays are considerably less exciting the older you grow. I remember my 10th birthday, driving Emma to distraction through my constant repetition of 'THE BIG ONE OOO' and the promise of a new bike. 

Now entering my twenties, I'm perfectly happy with a bottle of Cava and a glutinous spate of over-eating. It has also frightened me, as it has now actually occurred to me that this time next year, I will need to be ready to assume my role as a valuable contributor to society - a notion that scares me to my wits' end. Indeed, I realised I took one small step towards the role of true 'adult' by organising, cooking and hosting my own dinner party. The fact it was a great success, with no dramas involving burnt lamb or undercooked brownies, was more of a shock to my mother than to myself. And why I chose to host my own dinner party, and all the stress that goes with it, instead of booking a restaurant and letting them take the reigns, is beyond me. I guess its because it is my way of showing my deep affection for my friends, and my brain has chosen to express this by listening to the overriding urge to over-feed them all. As far as I know, no one has died, yet. 

And even though my dinner party was a great success, the rest of my life, and my future for that matter, still hang precariously in the balance of my indecision. In another twenty years, I might just be hosting another dinner party, of a very different nature..more to do with impressing colleagues than celebrating life with carefree abandon with my dear friends..dear God!

Sverige etcetera

It has actually been a shockingly long time in the world of blogging since my last gem of a post, which perhaps suggests it is possible to blog and not feel the need to post every hour of the day my whereabouts. My whereabouts indeed, have taken me over to unexplored territory for a member of the Buckle clan, despite my grandmother telling me on every available occasion "I almost went on a cruise up there around Norway and all that...but not in the end, couldn't stand the idea of all that fish."

Ah yes, all that fish - a stereotype held by many, it would seem. Upon my imminent departure and arrival, I received many a comment along the lines of "not turned into a salmon yet, then?" or "had enough caviar on toast" or one particular spark of witty genius from father Martin: "I think we should have herring for tea.. I'll bet you're missing them.." 

And it is true, Swedes, I know for sure, do certainly ingest a lot more of our fishy friends than their English neighbours, and are generally more accepting and less squeamish about eating various crustacean delicacies or fish of the pickled, vinegared, and raw variety. Indeed, my dear friend's family gave me a soft and gentle introduction to Swedish cuisine that went beyond the usual Swedish meatballs  and gravy: a sumptuous feast consisting of a slab of Norweigan smoked salmon, ready for home-slicing, and a strange concoction of fish roe, prawns, tuna, mayonnaise, dill, crème fraiche and salmon into one bowl of creamy paste. I have sadly forgotten the name, but the experience of eating it will never leave me.. And of course don't forget our easily recognised vinegared herring in that striking purple marinade. It is hard to adjust to the idea that Swedish food incorporates the sweet factor into many ordinarily savoury foods. The idea of eating cheese (complete with ingenious cheese slicing tool) and ham for breakfast for me is beyond what I can conceivably see as revolting, yet I was delighted to be acquainted with the cereal staple "Start", which is not unlike eating flapjack. 

Yet my fishy dinner was tame in comparison to another Swedish delicacy; something Emmy's parents thought they would "spare you the pain of". It is, essentially...apparently...fermented, rotting fish in a can. The odour is apparently so strong and pungent that it requires opening at the bottom of the garden. This is to prevent the stench from permeating the house for the next month. 

So far I am making my perceptions of Sweden sound as if all I absorbed was their preference for fish, yet much of what I experienced goes beyond my maritime culinary experiences. Emmy's house in Gustavsberg (I do apologise for the probable incorrect spelling) is situated a half hour from the busy centre of Stockholm, and is surrounded by the Baltic sea, bountiful lakes, beaches, and plentiful forest. 

Emmy spoke of how the pace of life is almost unbearably slow - people see nothing wrong with taking half the day having coffee, there is no need to rush anywhere or do anything immediately. Any sense of urgency is replaced with an understated relaxed approach to life. With such long days in the summer months, I can understand such an approach - so much daylight, the days must seem to stretch on forever and ever. It was only after three or four days that I finally began to adjust to the Swedish pace of life - everything seems so easy, even taking a bus to town. The Swedish sense of style, especially within Stockholm, seemed equally effortless and relaxed - the "I don't care" look so artfully pulled together. Converse and leather jackets are the uniform of the capital's inhabitants, complete with thick-rimmed glasses and an air of unreserved nonchalance. Stockholm, the 'capital' of understated 'cool' seemed comparatively empty and quiet, contrasting starkly to London's manic, heaving mass of humanity, and the general need to be 'doing' something all the time, to always be impressing someone. Of course, no one in Sweden can ever be better than anyone else - that is the ultimate faux pas - so says the ultra-socialist government.

One of my fondest memories will be of sitting on the veranda over the local beach, enjoying some Swedish pastries and taking in the early afternoon sun sat low (as ever in Scandinavia) over the calm and still waters of the Baltic sea. The fact that forest runs immediately into sea has a magical quality to it. Sitting by the flat calm of the Baltic sea finally instilled something of a calm in me. 

I suppose after a good two weeks to ponder my Scandinavian adventures, my taster trip to Sweden can be summed up in a few words: sweet herrings, warm hospitality, and calm - pure underrated, welcome calm.

Desire and Power.

I have spent a large portion of my time considering the above title over the past few days. Rather than being something provocative and thought-provoking, Exeter University's English department has made it one of the driest subject areas available for study. If I had properly consulted the booklist, and found that the Edmund Spenser's Fairie Queene is a Jacobean-style exercise in brain torture, then I might have reconsidered. However, as much as I rail and complain, it does not stop the fact I have four exams to get through before the 19th of May. Come the 19th of May I will probably kiss my clean kitchen floor at home with true, heartfelt relief - I'll have survived! The tortellini diet will be no more!!!

Moving on to less literary and more topical subjects of desire and power, unless you have been living in technophobic isolation, one can't have missed the making of political history this week. Britain has been entirely consumed in the shifting sands of political allegiances: Cameron, Clegg. Brown, Clegg. Never have I watched BBC news more. I must add that their coverage of the whole affair has been excellent in every respect; they've pulled out all the stops, including a studio especially constructed outside the Palace of Westminster, for round-the-clock political commentary! Except they did seem to go a little overboard whilst charting Cameron's visit to the Queen: "Cameron is now just leaving Buckingham Palace, Cameron is now in the car, Cameron is now making his way down the Mall...". It all got a bit overwhelming, like I was watching a very restrained version of Big Brother, but with cars and politicians instead of hair extensions and hot tubs.

So overwhelming that it provoked some pretty heated debates across the kitchen table at home. My brother claimed we were in danger of being overrun by fascists - a completely laughable notion if you just look at the BNP's performance in the election. Countering that, my mother mentioned on more than one occasion the idea of driving up to London and waging protest outside Number 10 until the then-primeminster Gordon Brown did the democratic and noble thing, and resigned his post. I suppose she was just driven mad by the thought of five more years of Gordon's bumbling media performances and international embarrassment. In fact, I believe the tweeting of Jemima Khan sums up best the reasoning behind mum's protestations:

"Didn't vote for the party which invaded a foreign country for no reason, lied about it, made us an international pariah, then bankrupted us."

I, personally, have never been so delighted to see the slimy, supercilious, manipulative little snake that is Lord Peter Mandelson leaving Downing Street. He just seems to miss the point of a General Election entirely, flatly refusing to admit that Labour would not be able to democratically form some kind of government for the next five years. In his usual, slippery way, he was conducting secret meetings with the Lib Dems in the small hours, desperately attempting to maintain his hold on his position of Secretary of State; I expected nothing less from an unelected MP. A very brazen, but hardly surprising move for a man who is widely known as Lord Voldermort, and is credited with having some kind of a political hit list. He is perhaps the penultimate example of a man driven by the desire for power - who ever said English degrees weren't useful?

To lay aside all selfish human pursuits for the end of this post, I found a wonderful poem by W. H Auden , whilst in the depths of my revision. I felt I should post it, even though many will recognise it as 'that poem' from the funeral scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral:

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

It seemed to transcend all the political mayhem.

Election Vomcano.

Oh glad tidings to all of my three readers. It has been a while, but unfortunately I have been tied up with things outside the realm of cyber-space (what a 90's term - my spell checker doesn't even recognise it).
I wish I could say I was tied up with something terribly exciting, like being stranded on the far side of the world because of the inconsiderate behaviour of Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano no one had heard of until last Thursday. But alas, I have no exciting tale to tell. I am one those people exempt from the chaos and madness taking place at every known station/airport/ferry port in Northern Europe. I am one who happens to be stranded on this fair and sunny isle for another reason: revision.

I can recall from the depths of my fuzzy and increasingly poor memory, a time when April and May were times of plentiful fun and frolics. To my seven year old self, April was the month of excessive amounts of chocolate. It also signified a change in school uniform; from dour, itchy forest-green pinafores, to light and airy summer dresses. Now it is overshadowed by the prospect of exams. I am hardly one to complain; I am an English student. The stereotype goes that we never do any work, our degrees are basically three years of working our way through a library at a leisurely pace.. and we all know it is just impossible to revise for English exams.

How I wish. I have spent the past week and a half slowly transforming myself into a wandering zombie, a living quote bank. I have developed chronic neck pain from hunching over the table for three hours plus a day, attempting to force information into the vacuous space that is my brain. What has made it even more galling is the weather: blinding sunlight, Facebook statuses full of 'BEAACH' talk, chavs walking around with no t-shirts on. Yes, summer is arriving in the eyes of the British public. And all I can sample of it is to take whiffs of fresh air a couple of times a day. Or even occasionally standing on the back-garden patio absorbing natural daylight and fresh air. Soon, I know, I will become allergic to sunlight. And all because I want to prove this year has not been a total write-off, and I can in fact perform under pressure.

Which leads me to another topical issue, away from my selfish ramblings. The country is supposedly 'alive' with 'election fever' as the tabloids are calling it. But we all know that the British idea of 'election fever' is sticking a placard in your bedroom window. Indeed, the most I've seen on a personal level is the rise of people joining various Facebook groups to alert their peers to their sudden political consciousness.

Yet the election has proved a welcome distraction from the toils of Henry IV Part I, I have to say. The leaders debate last week was so cringe-worthy and painful I had to turn it off after ten minutes: I was almost hypnotised by Gordon Brown's jowel movements, let alone that bizarre habit he has of sticking his tongue behind his teeth. And David missed his opportunity, as has been duly noted by now. But what was even more infuriating was the fact that people seem to like Nick Clegg all of a sudden - because he exuded an easy charisma, because he didn't take too well to Gordon attempting to cosy up to him with lines such as "I agree with Nick on this one..". Is this how shallow politics have become? So much is based on good PR and the appearance of a leader in the first ever UK TV debate? Of course, the debate was important in bringing life back into politics, after a pretty horrendous few years under tired old Labour, let's be honest. I think the MP's scandal alone was enough for people to decide "I needn't waste my time in voting for a bunch of frauds who are all the same".


What is clear is that Britain needs a change in government as badly as I need my fresh air and sunlight - indeed, perhaps even as badly as the airlines need an ash-free atmosphere..

Wheelie bins.

The above picture is entitled "Sinkhole shithole".

It is one of the many perks of living in the student house.

In other news, there appears to be a certain trend developing in this house. It is the trend of items that are usually reserved for outdoor use, finding their way into the house. I came out of my room one morning to be greeted by the sight of a green, stinking, wheelie bin sitting in the landing. Not only did it block my path to the delightful shower room downstairs, it also was covered in the crap that can only accumulate from a life spent outside in the elements.

But the wheelie-bin was not the only outdoor item to take up residence in our landing. This was only the latest in a series of moronic appearances. Included were a sandbag. The sandbag stayed there for over three weeks, gradually seeping into the cheap carpet. It would have eventually probably dissolved into the floor, leaving nothing but dirty sacking behind. The traffic cone was an unoriginal addition; every student house in the land has probably played host to various pieces of roadwork equipment.

All these little offerings seem paltry in comparison to what happened to my great uncle in his time at Hull university, in the sixties, when it was a real achievement to actually go to university, let alone manage a degree.

He came back drunk one night, fell asleep in bed, in a blissful state of alcohol-induced ignorance. He woke up the next morning in bed, in the street, next to a bus stop. A line of waiting bus users were his wake-up call.

But even this seemed a poor effort, compared to the time he and his friends fell asleep in a cabin on a building site at the dockyard. His friend almost fell to his death as he opened the door to the cabin, expecting to find solid ground beneath them. In fact, their supervisors, to 'teach them a lesson', had attached the cabin to a crane. They were 20 feet above ground.

It makes the sandbag, the wheelie-bin, and the traffic cone seem beyond pathetic and lacking in imagination, in comparison.

"I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy".

The above picture is a pretty good summary of my life right now. Once banned, often excoriated still dauntingly difficult, Ulysses has become the canonical twentieth-century novel. Or so I keep being told, again and again. Ulysses is the obvious choice for a module based upon modernist literature of the 20th century. Yet I am not more than 200 pages in, and I join the ranks of its many readers, all of whom state how Joyce can almost bring them to tears with confusion; to read Ulysses is to be constantly frustrated, exhilarated, nettled and perplexed, on many varying levels. The complexity weaved into the novel is something that Joyce revelled in: "I've thrown in enough hidden meanings to keep all the critics going for hundreds of years". In the episode entitled 'Nausicaa', I can honestly say that the fact the protagonist Leopold Bloom is masturbating over a crippled girl did not leap to my attention at all. I only found this out after consulting a guide, and it still required me to read the passage several times to actual discern the true 'meaning'.

Whatever crafty intentions Joyce might have had, I wager he never considered how it would make the most inane activities, such as shredding napkins in Starbucks, suddenly seem fantastically interesting in comparison. Just working out what is going on, let alone who is speaking, is enough to cause a brain haemorrhage. I am hardly being original in stating this opinion. Yet I think we are doing little justice to Joyce's work (and the department showing little consideration for our social lives) by expecting my fellow literary peers and I to read and digest Ulysses in one week only.

Olympic Fever

Is it bad that I actually look forward to 5pm every evening? For it is when the Winter Olympic coverage (courtesy of BBC Sport) begins, and I can settle into an evening spent laughing at foreign names (Andreas Wank being one of my favourites) and craptastic commentary.

It is true that commentators seem to thrive on the misfortune and dashed hopes of the competing athletes. Excitement reached fever pitch the other day as Swede Anja Paerson suffered a truly ugly crash at the end of her treacherous Olympic downhill, and with good reason too. Crashes are almost eye-watering to watch, especially as the coverage seems to include replaying the same stricken fall over and over and over again, in order for the commentators to waste precious air time, analysing which part of the body the skier may have broken. More often than not, the competitor can get up and stumble off the course, in which case I am sure I seem to detect a hint of disappointment in the voices of the commentators: "Oh, he's up and walking off the course... but that was a severe crash, it looked like he had torn a ligament at the very least..!"

But for all the excitement of the fast-paced Super-G, downhill, luge, and the many other death-defying acts, one thing just not make sense: curling. I cannot help feeling that even if I sit down to watch even five minutes of this "sport", I feel like it is five minutes of my life I have wasted (I will not take my hours spent on Facebook into account on this occasion).

It makes me wonder if the teams actually have to train at all, for the most strenuous activity they seem to partake in is the act of sweeping the ice. Who knows; I am woefully and admittedly ignorant of the intricacies of curling. I am probably bypassing, in my former statement, whole months of dedicated training and team-work on the part of the Olympic teams. Infact I have just done a quick perusal of Google, and it would seem that the Canadian team have to follow a programme of intensive "Muscle Endurance" exercises, which I can only imagine would serve to strengthen the ability to release the stone - extreme lunges are obviously required.. Yet I would guess that more preparation goes into the mental strategies of the game then perhaps the physical side. Indeed, I could see curling as an excellent example of the adage "easy to learn, difficult to master".

It does not, however, stop the sport from being unbelievably dull to watch; I think it is one of the few activities (apart from darts, and possibly snooker) where it is possible to enter a state of zombie-like boredom. Indeed, it seems to provide a convenient time-filler when a skier crashes out of the latest freestyle-race, or a ski-jumper entirely misjudges their landing, to disastrous and delaying effect. And sadly (yet inevitably) now that Team GB are out of the running for the curling medals, the commentators make no secret of the fact they are 'let down', and all coverage and interest seems to diminish. But such is the nature of today's media in general, I suppose. It is fickle and precarious, a profitable nightmare for PR agents or respective celebrities. It gives pond-life like Katie Price the chance to make money on the back of her own name and behavoir (at the expense of her children) and seemingly wrecks havoc upon the private lives of the rich and famous - with too many examples to name.

This leads me onto another observation I made today, following my casual browsing of the morning's news. I saw splashed across the screen "Robert Pattinson FINALLY admits he's dating Kristen Stewart", which comes to me as no great surprise. But following his apparent comment at the BAFTAS that "We can't arrive at the same time because of the fans. It goes crazy. This was supposed to be a public appearance as a couple but it's impossible", it left me feeling rather sorry for the pair of them. The fact that Monsieur Pattinson apparently related this to the delightful tabloid, The Sun, makes the whole issue even more a product of the media's tricky representation of the people we are supposed to be so interested in. I, for one, resent the fact that my brain contains the piece of information that Katie Price puts fake eyelashes on her daughter, or even that Heidi Montag's face is basically a shrine to the achievements of plastic surgery. I really am not interested in the lives of people I will never meet; I prefer to extend my cares to the people around me in my own life. That is not to say that I do not appreciate the hard work of many talented individuals who truly deserve their fame.

Yet it is impossible not to be infected by the celebrity culture that has become an off-shoot of 21st century modern life, even in the Winter Olympics, when each new crash, or even Lindsay Vonn's use of make-up is raised on the same pedestal as the jaw-dropping achievements and atheletic finesse of the Olympic competitors themselves.

Yeats

Surprise, surprise I've never held much patience for poetry. I'd rather say what I mean through plain prose rather than being restricted by rhythm, rhyme and meter. Yet my seminar tutor claimed that English is the only language that falls naturally into iambic pentameter. It is not possible to fit any other language in the world, whether it be French, Greek, Spanish, German , into the tight constraint of Shakespeare's favoured meter. But leaving all that in an imaginary corner, I found a poem I really like, by W.B Yeats of all people:

Broken Dreams

There is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake - that all heart's ache have known,
And given to others all heart's ache,
From meagre girlhood's putting on
Burdensome beauty - for your sole sake
Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that peace you make
By merely walking in a room.
Your beauty can but leave among us
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men are done talking
Will say to an old man, "Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his passion sang us
When age might well have chilled his blood.'
Vague memories, nothing but memories,
But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.
The certainty that I shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or walking
In the first loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering like a fool.
You are more beautiful than any one,
And yet your body had a flaw:
Your small hands were not beautiful,
And I am afraid that you will run
And paddle to the wrist
In that mysterious, always brimming lake
Where those What have obeyed the holy law
paddle and are perfect. Leave unchanged
The hands that I have kissed,
For old sake's sake.
The last stroke of midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have
ranged
In rambling talk with an image of air:
Vague memories, nothing but memories.

I don't think I'll ruin it with over-analysis.. or rather my very poor analytical skills when it comes to poetry.

In other news, my love of the pub has grown over the past week. The Rusty Bike in Exeter is the only pub I've come across where it is entirely acceptable to play Cluedo and drink lemonade. As welcoming and warm Firehouse might be, it is refreshing to go somewhere where lethal £5 white wine is not a requirement of the night.

I have just observed Emmy's Pennsylvania Road attire: pyjama bottoms tucked into oversized socks, worn with flip-flops. As sad as it may sound, this is a very practical choice of clothing in the current environment; the height of student house couture, dare I say. She could do with another ten jumpers or so though. And possibly some long-johns. After all, the spirit of student housing is apparently to adopt so-called outdoor items for indoor use. I.e - flip flops are to be worn in the shower, not for the beach. Perfectly sane.

Lingo.

Honestly, what does set one apart as 'posh'? I could laugh in the face of anyone who said such about me; the sad thing is I am aware that people have. This has been made even more apparent by spending my first year in the confines of Holland Hall, the infamous dumping ground for ex public school-goers. The fact I was considered 'stuck up' by some is one of the most hilarious notions I have ever heard - one night in Holland Hall would be enough to expose that assumption as a complete mockery. Many people opposed to the 'posh' clan at Exeter have often described the female version of said clan (rah) as mindless bottle-blonde clones of one another, each sporting the latest in lacrosse wear and fighting a subconscious battle over who has the messiest hair/highest top-knot. Complete with the drawling sound: "Oh yaaaaaaaaah." I will never forget hearing one said girl appearing genuinely upset when she discovered she had only a wincy £400 to last her for the weekend.

Setting aside the ridiculous New Labour claim that Britain is and aims to be a 'classless society', I would say that I am the perfect example of Britain's middle-class, through and through. I'm the daughter of a dentist - one can't get any more bourgeois than that. I did ballet, horse riding, piano and clarinet. I attended Brownies and Guides, and was put through the rigours of an all-girls grammar school. I would say I've turned out pretty well as a result; the idea of having a child my age makes me physically shudder, and I seem to have inherited my mother's standard of cleanliness and order. Although I am aware I do not need to worry about money at this stage, I still know how to budget and am quickly becoming a lover of the cocktail bar rather than scrum-pit nightclubs.

This all occurred to me the other day when discussing accents. I would say that my accent is fairly neutral, despite being born and raised in the West Country, land of the farmers and inbred (stereotype, stereotype). Perhaps there is the odd twang about certain words. For instance, my mother is unable to say the words 'girl' or 'thirteen' without exposing just a little of her Plymouthian upbringing. Yet it is rather tragic that we all make assumptions based on peoples' accents. I know it sounds awful, but as soon as I hear a Scouse accent, it makes me cringe internally. Welsh accents I can now only attribute to various X-Factor nobodies, and London accents make country-bumpkins like me down in little old Devonshire feel positively Medieval in terms of lifestyle and fashion habits. Indeed, such assumptions need not be so relevant any more. My friends and I reguarly greet each other with the word 'Yo' and definately using terms such as 'crazy times' and 'so gay' far more than is necessary. But that's just youthful lingo, not excluding the obligatory hyperbolic statements of 'OH MY GOD' and 'Kill me now'.

But whatever, I'll continue to use my neutral, unremarkable middle-class English accent, and continue my suitably middle-class pursuit of gaining my degree. But in the short term, bed time for me.

Night night, sleep tight. Don't let the bed-bugs bite.

Emo-ness

With recent events, year 2 at uni has hardly been easy. It's meant that I have spent more time in my dear Plymouth than I ever thought possible during term time. Yet it has raised in me a deep sense of appreciation for my home and family that I would not have been made aware of otherwise. Being diagnosed with depression was something that didn't exactly come as a shock - I did think it a little odd that I would burst into tears over my pen running out, for instance. I knew at once that was not me.. But the sense of realisation only came when I was sat in my tutor's office, being told it would go on my student record and be taken into consideration for the rest of my academic career at Exeter.

That aside, the most poisonous thing about the condition is how my faith in humankind has been drastically reduced. The side-effect of depression is the feeling of loneliness and isolation that often leads people who are unaware of my inner turmoil to suppose I am being deliberately aloof and anti-social. I am painfully aware that I sound like an absolute emo in saying something like that, but truth of the matter is that for once in my life I have to be selfish and stop feeling responsible for everyone and everything. This means keeping myself happy so that the rest of my life can follow suit in a reasonable fashion. In a sense, I can realise something positive - it has strengthened and deepened both friendships, my relationship, and my bonds with my family. I find the best way to deal with hardships is to make them funny, although often that humour is disconcertingly dark in content.

The above witterings have reminded me of something I saw the other day, the Vampire Diaries, fresh from America. Like most of our TV now. It is, honest to God, one of the worst and deeply comical TV shows I have EVER seen. Admittedly, I have not read any of the books the TV series is based on. As A result, I view the show as sacrilege in comparison to Twilight. Or perhaps that's my obsession with Robert Pattinson. Emmy and I were left rolling around with laughter at the predictability of the plot and the cheesiness of the lines. A lot of it was damn unrealistic, such as the young, handsome history teacher, seemingly the only member of staff at the school, shouting at Aunt Jenna for being a terrible parent figure, laying into her with such venom that it entirely destroys its credibility. I detect a faint whiff of fantasy somewhere here, on part of the writers. The girl (the Bella Swan equivalent) spends her time writing the same sort of sorrowful lines "today I will smile and it will all be OK" over and over again. One emphasis is enough, not repeating the same sentence every episode.

I am being cynical and overly-critical yet again, I suppose. I should just accept the Vampire Diaries for what it is: another off-shoot of the vampire craze currently sweeping the States. But I really do hope my blog is not as wet and unconvincing as the script writing of this show.

Zodiac bullshit.

Never have I sampled such a pile of sanctimonious drivel as there is to be found in these zodiac compatibility theories. Emmy and I are just the height of cool in ditching the delights of Arena the nightclub and alcohol abuse, and substituting it for an evening of Ferrero Rocher chocolate and Spotify (absolute genius of an invention that I refuse to pay £9.99 a month for - absolute daylight robbery - music should be free to all the world). But to be honest, in my present state of mind, staying in is all I seem to want to do. Gladly, I will extend my sociable abilities to the odd evening out in Firehouse (the best pub in Exeter) with a few close, well-chosen friends. Yet I cannot help feeing a sense of alienation that comes naturally, when you are at university. And a by-word for university now seems to be the necessity to be inebriated regularly. So the majority would probably find it a little odd that I'd rather not go out at all, and instead spend my time laughing at Michael Jackson videos on YouTube (private joke that really takes too much typing effort to explain).

But to return to the theme of horoscopes, being atheist, I really have a very hard time finding believing that celestial goings-on really affect our puny little human lives. Qualities attached to certain starsigns (eg Cancer is very sensitive, and takes after the crab the the protective 'shell' they draw around themselves) are in my opinion purely coincidental. Horoscopes don't seem to allow for people who fall inbetween. For instance, take the following sentence, the product of general Googling of my star sign Cancer: "Cancer hugs are world class and Cancer's snuggles are second to none"... I think this is something I am fairly competent all human beings are capable of, regardless of their birth date...infact this subject is so entirely ridiculous to me that I do not wish to even waste any further typing space. Kapeesh.

And now to return to the mundane existence of student house life: picking my way through the product of human laziness with well-honed tunnel vision. I find it almost comical that I willingly signed for a house that has a washing machine and dryer situated in what was once probably the outhouse. This involves battling my way across the "garden" (a patch of gravel, decorated with various beer boxes, interspersed with the odd weed) for the sole purpose of washing my clothes. Delightful. And primitive by today's standards of modern living. I could go on for hours..I'll reserve that for another day.

Vanilla latte.

Fantabulous, my own blog. What larks. I now join the ranks of millions all over the world in posting my musings out into the world of the wide-wide-web. This might yet prove to be a grand mistake, however it has been advised that I find some sort of creative outlet for the goings-on and happenings in my life. I couldn't help but think of this as a terribly self indulgent thing to do - absolutely nothing of note happens in my life, therefore this could be impossibly boring for any poor soul to stumble across this. I thought, however, it was time to move beyond the sundry bounds of Facebook 'notes'.

It would be quite a fair judgement to say that my student life in the grand city of Exeter now centres mostly around my next Starbucks-tall-skinny-vanilla-latte-no-cream. I am not quite sure whether it is a tragic or heartening fact that the man in the local Exeter High Street branch knows my order off by heart. This might have something to with the fact my darling friend and confidante Emmy spend hours and hours in said branch. Our addiction to the frothy steamed goodness is a mere contributing factor for this glorified wasting of time. Starbucks also happens to be warm, with an excellent background hum of conversation and also boasts several of Exeter's finest Strange People to act as unwitting subjects of my scrutiny. Oddly enough, it also allows my mind to focus on whatever mindless drivel I've been set to read for the week. I can honestly say that it will take a lot of lattes to get through the up-coming Ulysses. I almost started having palpitations when I saw it in all its 732-page glory.

This is hardly an inspiring statement from a 2nd year English student. But it is not without reason; my degree is slowly but surely sucking away my enthusiasm and enjoyment of reading. This is because I am subjected to (in my wizened opinion) god-awful books, and poetry for that matter. I have absolutely no patience, for instance, for the pages and pages of prose entirely lacking in punctuation. This is perfectly constituted within Gertrude Stein's An Autobiography of Alice B. Tolkas which only left me with an intense desire to go through the entire book again, adding appropriate commas, semi-colons and sentence-rearrangements. Kim by Rudyard Kipling might have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, yet it does not prevent it from being mind-numbingly boring, especially to the female reader. The entire novel concerns nothing but a big boy's game.

Amongst other works, I have had to force my eyes to read some truly devastatingly boring prose recently. Heralded as an apparent cultural classic, the prize of American Literature, Moby Dick caused physical brain pain for the majority of my English peers. It was torture for the eyes; despite being made aware of the incredible and unending riches to be found within Melville's masterpiece, it did not stop it from being just horrendously, mind-numbingly dull.

Do forgive my cynicism; there is a lot more of it to come. This first attempt at a post details the facts I am a 2nd year English student at Exeter University, and I hate most of what I have to read - how encouraging and thrilling. Do be assured, dear reader, that I do have something of an essence of the good in my life. I have the most wonderful friends who share my love for good food, quick humour, hard work and of course, love of the latte. I am also indebted to my boyfriend for keeping me sane, and the works of Graham Greene and Shakespeare to keep my faith in literature (believe it or not). And Emmy-Lou to stop me from kicking holes in the wall and wearing away the skin on my hands with fruitless cleaning efforts. And I am absolutely prepared for the fact that I will undoubtedly end up the female equivalent of Victor Meldrew by the age of 30.

Look at that, I wrote a blog post instead of reading Henry IV. Damn.