An invite for an interview, in March. I want to be excited but for now, I am panicking. There's so much to think about, and I don't know where to start. What do I prioritise; buying an interview outfit, or practising questions? Or even more trivial things, like what day I should call the University. Do I call them now, or wait until I've potentially heard from other universities? I don't want to go for the interview if I have an offer from a more-preferred choice that doesn't require an interview.

I've done all I can for now, I've got my cousin [a trained interviewer] to give me a little mock interview next Monday, asked my friends to interview me, and I've emailed my careers tutor for [yet again] another mock interview. Am I going a bit over-the-top?

Moving on.

As I am female, I've been multi-tasking. While typing this, I've also been creating a general idea of an outfit I think would be appropriate to wear for the interview. I didn't want to go too smart, like I am attending work, but I also didn't want to go so casual that I look like I've just strolled in from a trip to a well-known supermarket. I'll need to find some nice accessories too, and maybe a good bag. First, I think I need to save up. If I was to buy this exact outfit [w/o accessories, w/ coat], it'd cost me just over £400, which on my measly student budget, is like 10 months of no spending at all. Ten months of no food might possibly just kill me, so this outfit is out of the question, but I'm sure I could find a similar bunch of clothes on the high street, for a fraction of the price.

However, as much as I talk about it, my clothes are of negligible importance. What's more important is the process. What do interviewees get asked? Especially at university? I don't know the style of question I'm going to be asked, and every website I've looked at so far says something different. What's more, my course seems so niche that no interview information, course reviews or anything remotely useful to me has been written about it. Anywhere. I could try winging it, but I don't want to mess something up and them decide I'm actually an escaped patient from some institute or another. I could run the risk of over-preparing, though. Having textbook answers to any question they could potentially ask me sounds like a nice idea, but it means there'd be nothing that separates me from the next Jack Larry. I'd like to think I have an ounce of personality that could show through when talking to someone I've never met before under scrutinizing conditions, but who knows?

Ho hum, c'est la vie.

After stuffing myself to the point of undisguisable food pregnancy, it was decided the best place for everyone to go was in a dark room, where we wouldn't be the centre of attention. We called this place a 'Cinema', and watched some relatively unknown film called 'New Moon'.

I mean, pfft, who's even heard of that?

I've been thinking about religion a lot, lately. Personally, I am not a religious person, although when I was younger I did follow Christianity up until the age of my Holy Communion. I'll admit that I never strongly believed in it, but when I was being told I needed to do this or God wouldn't like me [and not having any real conception of the entity of God], I did it. I don't remember any of it, nor what it meant or entailed, but what does this mean for me?


I'm now 18 and I have no religious inclinations. I've been to two openly-religious Roman Catholic schools, and two that have been disguised. I don't mean that once they proved to have a grounding of religion, I felt 'betrayed', but that for a school that doesn't have religion as one of its features, it uses a lot of its practices. We attend Church, sing hymns, pray and have in-school services.

That's it.

That is the full extent of my dabble in religiosity. I don't feel as if I have to do anymore, it s a personal choice that I would rather not get involved in. Maybe I am cynical, or I am scared. I don't want to be committing myself to any religion before I have had definitive proof that one is true. I cannot accept the Bible, Qur'an, or even the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster until I know that it's 100% factual.

Does this mean I'm going to Hell?

Seeing as I have the spare time finally, I might as well do an extra bit of writing to pass the time. It’s been a while, and a considerable amount has happened in my life. For one, I’ve turned the big one-eight. So, in the eyes of the world, I am officially an adult. Now, I am sure the majority of people, in the UK at least, can’t wait to be 18. It means the freedom to buy what you want, go where you want and generally do anything that you feel like doing, when you feel like doing it. However, for me, that signals the end of my youth. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to finally get to university and learn something I love, see what student life really brings with it, but it’s after that, with the student loans, buying a house, a car, securing a job that I want, and the general quandaries that life brings with it.

Dame Alice Harpur School is going to merge with Bedford High School in the relatively near future, to become Bedford Girls’ School. Although I will be upset at seeing the Dame Alice name becoming only a page in history, I’m glad that it is our site that they will be using. DAHS girls benefit from a lot more of the nearby facilities than BHS girls do, and also it means I can come back in x amount of years and still recognise the environment, although the name will have changed. I think that I’ll be visiting before the schools merge though, just so I can see the same teachers one last time. Things like the school uniform don’t bother me a great deal, though if a lime green pinafore is chosen, then I think I should do all I can to prevent that from happening. Apart from that, the decision barely affects me at all, and so I shouldn’t let it bother me.

Right now, we're living in a time that is obsessed with looks, and this so-called 'beauty'. Good looks are the be all and end all of life for the majority of people in the modern world, and it's not right. I am a "victim" of this culture and so are people considerably younger than I am and, frankly, I find it sickening. I can understand that those in the media -need- stories that people will be interested in; those that people want to see or hear about. However, criticizing something so personal as someone's body is wrong. If it's a concern for people who genuinely believe someone is damaging their health by being considerably over or underweight, then I can't complain if it benefits the well-being of the person, even though I still don't fully agree with the method undertaken. What I find hard to understand is when people are criticized unnecessarily. When did it become alright to criticize people for being a size 12, or moreover, a size 10? I maybe will never fully understand this, but why? Why, when someone is potentially at their healthiest, must people create this "Anything other than size 0 is bad and ugly" frenzy? Being so emaciated is NOT beautiful, nor is it healthy. We take for granted how our bodies work, and what they need to do keep working. Consciously, and intentionally starving yourself to the point of malnourishment is too much of a common occurrence. Highly influenced females are being bombarded with images of these twigs-with-heads, and are brainwashed into thinking that those images are desirable, or 'ideal'. And the truth is, they aren't.

They then see a picture of a celebrity who isn't as thin as the aforementioned twig, and so they are labelled "Fat". The response? Rapid weight loss. Despite that, they are then seen as too thin, and people start to ask questions. It's a vicious circle, and it isn't showing any signs of change. I am never the one to be on the side of Jessica Simpson, but this must be said. Over the last five years, her size has changed drastically, from being a svelte UK size 6-8, to a curvy UK size 14 of more recent times. Yet people found it necessary to ridicule her for being too thin, so she did something about it, and now people ridicule her for being a "whale". She says herself, "Curves are better. I don't get the whole rail thing. It's not good for your heart, it's not good for your mind; it's emotionally destructive, it really is.". I couldn't agree with that more. Why can't we be happy about curves? They're natural, they're beautiful, and you know what? They're never going away.

How can I even describe the Zirnis?

She is the chacarron in my frustrum.
She is the jalf half of my giraffe.
She is the rape in grape.

She is the shol.
She can say "Jun" 6.3 times per second.
She illustrates for the StickManGacktFiles.
And she beat the grandma-washing dragon.

She proposed in maths.
Trousers. Ass.
 

'Nuff said.

I feel obliged to share:
 

"25 minutes to 4, and I am part-way through a maths test. So why am I writing if I should be doing maths? Because it calls for it. I don't know how other minds work, but when a class is silent and the ticking of the clock is growing louder, driving you to wits end, I want to go to another place, where I am not confined by another's will and subjected to a seconds tick. Somewhere I have my own freedom to express whatever it may be without so much as a second thought to what I am saying or who might come across it.

I try not to alienate people.

As to where this is going, I have no idea.

I keep glancing over to the maths paper, debating whether I want to attempt another question or not.
...Who am I kidding? I've well and truly given up. But no matter; Sometimes mistakes can help you to learn. I've made this mistake before but I think doing it again has reinforced its effect. 

I am too stupid to get away with not revising. End of discussion.

What will I do once I get home? I guess I must assume the role of both the conscientious mother and the rebellious teenager. A paradox, however entertaining.
My mother decided she would go away for a week, and tell me and my father the day before she left, i.e., today. Granted, she only decided yesterday morning, I am still quite miffed at her timing. This test is the second one I have had, in a vast line of tests planned for the future. This weekend, I was planning on redeeming my self-belief by going through all the work I have done up to the present day of my A-levels, and rewrite my notes in a more concise and mind-numbing 'Revision Folder', comprising of blood, sweat, more blood, and an ocean of tears."
 

Sometimes, it's nice to know your life isn't the only one that's messed up.

Prior to Friday morning, I was under the impression my family and my life couldn't be more abnormal, and we were the only ones. Even the relatively simple, straightforward concepts in life were hard to grasp. But now I know that's far from the truth.

The people you thought you knew are the ones with the hidden past. You realise you share more in common with them than anyone would've ever thought possible. I wonder, is this a good thing? I couldn't say for sure.

Over time, the abnormalities just become normalities. It still affects you in the exact same way as it always has done, and always will. Just now, you expect it. It becomes part of your daily, weekly, or monthly routine. It merges with the rest of your life and is accepted for what it is.

You observe others, albeit subconsciously, and see they don't have that 'thread'. On the outside, nobody else does. You don't bring it up just in case of the reaction you may cause but really, you just want to know.

Whether it's something minor, or even something major, everybody has that one hidden thing. Nobody can say they don't; Nobody has a perfect life, no matter how much you seem to believe so.

It started with "So, do you have any secrets?"

I wouldn't call them secrets, they were just my hidden truths: Facts about my life that were -and are- unnecessary for public knowledge.

An exchange of intricate details, two hours and a heartfelt hug later, and everything's changed.

People are viewed in a different light. A better light.

It brings you closer. But now, your threads are bare.

Do you take that risk to reap the reward, or do you continue as life is, not acknowledging the half of it but knowing what to expect, and the security that comes with that?

It's too early to give a definitive answer, but a weight has been lifted.
 

Well. Writing this entry has been a long project. Since whenever the last entry I wrote was, too much has happened.

Way too much.

Some were good things, some not-so-good.

The not-so-good things first, I think. Get the morbid, sinister, possibly cynical and maybe just plain mean things out of the way, no?

The latest 'bad' thing to have gone on in my life is the death of one of my cousins.

Charles Junior Hendricks, or CJ. The 24th teenage murder victim in London. I know that things like this happen every day, and not just in London, but it really hits home when it's someone you know. Like the world just got that little bit smaller. You want to be able to do something, but you can't on your own. The government show concern, but it never lasts. Nearly all of the teenagers who have been murdered on the streets of London, including CJ, have been innocent. This makes no difference to the way the crime is treated, I understand that. But if they were innocent; why? What was the point? He was killed in cold blood, along with 23 others. I can't forget that, nor ever forgive it.

And so, the good news to follow that?
There's plenty of good news. Starting with the earliest, I'm glad to say those loathed GCSE's are well and truly out of the way,  I was surprised [pleasantly (Y)] by my results and now I'm in 6th Form. Lovely. But this is good news, so the good news is I'm enjoying it! Everything's changed, and generally, it just makes life easier.

That, coupled with a very special guy [<3], has kept me at the happiest I've been in quite some time :]

To go back even earlier than the start of 6th form; Results day. 21st August 2008. Gah, the horrors of that morning. Looking a state, not being able to breathe, then finally getting to school, being swarmed by teachers congratulating you before you've even been handed your envelope, and then having the Head's husband take pictures of you in 'natural poses'. *Cough* Abby and Anna.

Speaking of which, those two made the aftermath of results inexplicably fun. Oh, Arj, Jit and Zirn...

Who knew McDonalds could provide so many hours of fun?

Spying on people, eating food [ORLY?], raping the 55-Year old farmer, and drawing genitalia on a cow.

Nervous Breakdown.

Yes

It's a shame the scanner isn't big enough, otherwise I think the cow would've been a great way to add a touch of "Ooh" to a quite simple page.

I wonder...