Sea Foam giving me advice.....who knew?

“Love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest, bravest acts are done for love.”

Those words were spoken by the Greek goddess Aphrodite herself. Well at least she said them in Rick Riordan’s book “Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero” I must admit, even though the book is aimed at children aged between 9-11 (yes I am that immature) but it is an amazing book! It follows on from the “Percy Jackson” books (another set of amazing books) and even though they are complete fiction, they have helped out a lot over the years. They’ve killed a heck of a lot of time, plus when my friend’s talk about their old classical civilisation lessons and about Greek mythology, I can chime in a fair bit because I sort of know what I’m talking about. This makes me very happy. It also gives my brain a chance to float away to another world and allows me to become a character. You may be thinking right now “This girl is a complete nutcase” but can you honestly say you’ve never read a book and thought that you would want to be them? Unfortunately, as my imagination can get quite bad, I tend to get this with television as well. It’s extremely hard not to look at someone on TV, or read about a character in a book and go “I want to be them!” I am yet to meet a person that can prove me wrong. If I do find someone that feels that way, then I think the world will have started to become a much duller place.

Also, Greek mythology has always fascinated me. Aphrodite’s creation is one that is amazing, even if it is considered myth. Gaia and Ouranos, the gods of the Earth and Sky, gave birth to the Titans. One of these Titans was called Kronos, who famously chopped up his father Ouranos with a scythe given to him by Gaia. (how rude) A piece of Ouranos fell from the sky and landed in the ocean, creating sea foam. From this sea foam rose the goddess of love we have all come to know as Aphrodite. This makes her the last child of Ouranos. He was the god greater than any other Titan and god. It also makes Aphrodite the eldest Olympian. Fascinating isn’t it? I’ve been to Greece on holiday and been to the Athena Parthenon. I didn’t want to leave it was so beautiful.

However, back to the quote. As of the 3^rd of May, I’ve had sod all to do. So I thought to myself, why not give my brain something to do and then I was literally hit on the head with this book. (Just to say this thought came at 4:24am when I couldn’t sleep and was sorting out my shelves. Awkward) After the minor headache vanished (It’s a thick book) I settled into it, and after several late night reading sessions, I got to page 427. That’s when Aphrodite meets her demigod daughter Piper. Piper is confused about her feelings towards another demigod, and her mother tells her the above quote about love, (which makes and awful lot of sense if you think about it carefully enough) as well as another one, which goes:

“Beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit. To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself – avoid trying to be something you’re not”

I’m not going to lie; this quote stood out to me the most. Out of a 551 page hardback book, those 2 lines mean more than anything else I have ever read. And do you want to know why? If you said no, then I’m going to tell you anyway. They mean more to me than anything else I have ever read because they are the truest words written. You might say that Maths etc is also the truest words ever written. Well yes they are, but they are facts, and this isn’t. It is a piece of fiction! And that makes it so brilliant!

And then it hit me (not the book again I was holding it this time) that when I was in secondary school and college, I was perfect in myself, in that I was completely myself. I did what I wanted, wore what I wanted to wear, ate what I wanted to eat, and I didn’t care about what anyone else thought. Since I came to university, I’ve found that I have had to change so much, not necessarily for myself but so that I can stand being away from home for 9 months. I have had to take care of myself, feed myself, and send myself to bed when I wanted to. I have to change into a person I never thought I would be. But you know what? I’m ok with it. As much as I miss the old me, the one who didn’t care what her face looked like when we woke up, the one who didn’t mind if her hair was Medusa-esque. (I made that look goooooooood) I feel more confident in the person I have become, even if I have had to change to become that better person. I’m still the same at heart, the fun-loving, lazy sod that has a hell of a lot of imagination. But I’ve had to tone it down a bit. (If you saw my room you’d be saying otherwise....just saying)

If you ever feel like you don’t like anything about yourself, ask yourself if you are being yourself, or trying to be something you’re not. If you are remaining true to your inner morals, and doing what you want to do with your life, then you are beautiful and perfect, and don’t ever change. Also, if you are ever feeling down, pick up a child’s fictional book, because it will be one of the best reads you ever have. I have the entire Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Skulduggery Pleasant and The Hunger Games collections, and they are the best reads I have ever had.

Live long and prosper

H. x

Typical Girlish Rant

You know when you think you've found that one guy that gets you, that accepts you for the whole package so to speak, who really doesn't care if you're at their flat till 4am in your trackies? Well I thought I had.....

Y'know that little "miracle" that I spoke about in my last post, about finally dating someone? Well that backfired right back at me. Oh the joy of joys to be back on the "market" again. (If you couldn't see the sarcasm there then you need to get your eyes tested) I hate that expression "back on the market." Since when do women look like we needed to be sold at a market?  I know it's not a literal meaning so please don't have a go at me, I'm just a female in a bad mood. Stand clear one and all!

Now I know 3 months doesn't seem like a long time, but for a girl such as myself who hasn't been in a long enough relationship since year 13 (about 2 years ago) 3 months is a heck of a long time. I was pretty happy with everything, and we had managed to get through the 3 week easter gap with 244 miles between us, but when a guy wants to be just friends, you've kind of got to go with it. I'm content with being friends, seeming as we know each other pretty darn well, but there will always be that lingering feeling. Long distance relationships are hard to manage, especially with such a long gap, so I wasn't even sure we would get through the 4 month gap that is just coming up. But, if we had been in a relationship i'm sure it would've worked.

I'm trying to find out interesting facts about long distance relationships but Google is not exactly being helpful. All I can tell is that it doesn't make a difference if you are 1 mile or 100 miles apart, you have the same chances of staying together/breaking up just like everyone else. I always said to myself that I probably wouldn't get a boyfriend at university, so I shouldn't exactly be moaning. I've got a 4 month gap ahead of me where I will be back in Essex, so god knows what's going to happen down there (I can say that because I'm currently still in Stoke for another 17 days....don't expect a lot of blog posts as nothing interesting is planned to happen, well maybe the drama awards night....) You never know, I may end up meeting someone back home, but the chances are slim, as at university I can safely say it is the largest collection of hot men I have seen in a long time all in one place!

Speaking of 17 days stuck in Stoke, anyone have any good ideas of what to do? At the moment my days consist of: sleeping, eating, going on my laptop and that's about it. I occasionally leave my room on the rare blue moon, but that's only because everyone has gone back home. Damn long distance....I've been drawing. I know it sounds silly but it really calms me when I'm feel frustrated. What do you think?

<------ Shows how incredibly bored I get. I have too much time on my hands

Update on the exams front. I PASSED!!! Every single exam is done, dusted and passed!!!! I'm so relieved you have no idea! No more stress (well apart from my social life, but that's normal!)

                                                       

Well i'll be chatting to soon, hopefully from the comfort of my living room rather that the uncomfortableness of my desk chair at university.

H. x

If the tight suit fits, wear it!

Bonjourno!

I have a ton of things to tell you all about!! So exciting!!

Firstly, the exams I was panicing about (Law for Journalists and Shorthand) are over......AND I ACED THEM!!! I was so happy when I came out of the exam rooms! I must admit I had about a 3-day migrane after but it was worth it, because it means I get to come back next year to university! (which is all good seeming as i've already paid quite a big deposit for my house) I'm glad I did as much revision as I could because it made a massive difference. I walked into Law thinking I coud do it, and that I knew what I was talking about, and it made all the difference. I must admit I was petrified about Shorthand, considering that everytime I did a 60 words per minute paper I missed LOADS! However on this I didn't miss a single word out! A new personal best!

The next thing is really nice, and what I consider a miracle. I am dating someone! I know, un-frickin'-believeable but true nevertheless! It's been going rather well and I can't wait to see where it leads to. I know it sounds a bit harsh when I say it's a "miracle", but I have never conisdered myself attractive to the opposite sex. I have always considered myself as a rather large 5' 5 3/4" (I've grown yay!!) girl who no man would be interested in. So, and I'm not jinxing it, but I hope it goes well.

And now for the title. I bet you read that title, then looked at the first bit of my blog, then back at the title and thought "What in the blue hell has that got to do with anything??" Well, I shall respond to your pleas for an answer. I am on a Journalism course at university, and the group of friends we have (the Journos as we like to be called) decided to throw ourselves a party to celebrate the end of our two hardest exams. Now the people who were throwing this party wanted a fun theme, so they chose.....Disney Pixar. Without a doubt one of the best themes to choose outside of Pokemon. They gave us all characters and then left us to our own devices. I was given Dory from "Finding Nemo".

I don't know if you've tried looking online for a Dory costume.....it's extremely hard to find one, especially if you don't want to make one.....

Soooooooooooo I decided to follow a totally different approach. Basically I chose another character. This time I chose Violet from the film "The Incredibles." If you've never seen this film, firstly you haven't lived till you've seen that film, plus the costume is to put it accurately....tight fitting. (The title's starting to make more sense now isn't it) I thought nothing of it until I pieced together my completely homemade costume.....oh.my.goodness! I nearly considered just going in normal clothes, mainly because I thought I looked ridiculous, but also because we were heading out afterwards, and I didn't want to become a laughing stock. However I'm so glad I stuck with it because that was an amazing night! A lot of my friends asked where I had bought my costume from, they didn't believe I made it myself. And a lot of my female friends complimented me on my figure, saying they wanted my curves. You can have them, take them please!

You have no idea how empowering it is to go on a night out looking like I do in an outfit like that and get compliments from people. It felt amazing! I felt so good about myself and about the way I looked that I cried. I'm not ashamed to say it (well a little bit maybe) but hearing compliments like that were so lovely. It's hard to hear comments saying you look nice when you hardly believe it yourself. I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone last night. That means you Sarah, Katie, Gina, Alice, Tom B, Tom L, Tom K, Ross, Jake, Jon, Dan, Charlie, Lewis, Georgie, Ben and John.

This is the outfit that empowers a woman. If you ever need a costume to feel good about, try this one, it cost me £7 in total!

H. x

There's more to life than exams...but they really don't help!

If life was fair:

1) I would have passed my driving test first time
2) Chocolate would be good for you
3) Petrol would be cheaper
4) I would only take exams that I will actually need!!!

As you can probably tell by the amount of exclamation points, plus the title of this blog, I have exams pretty much immenant. I have 2 coming up: Law for Journalists and (my arch nemisis) Shorthand. I, without a shadow of a doubt, hate Shorthand with a passion! I don't even need it for my chosen career path! I wish to be either: a presenter; a camera-woman or an editor. None of these require me to write stuff down at 60/80/100 words per minute. Even my own mother commented on my notebook as "full of doodles."

Now I'll be the first to admit I didn't see my chosen career paths until I arrived at university, but I do thnk that universities need to stop piling on the presure of needless exams. I know plenty of universities that do my course that don't even examine students in their first year. They teach all the details and skills and bring up the speed in the first year, then put them in the exams in the second year......OH C'MON!!!! Why can't we do that?!? Law is not a problem for me. I'm not meaning to sound too pretentious but Law for Journalists (compared to my other subjects) is my speciality. However, give me technical stuff to do and I am there!! But unfortunately it's sod's law that I finally find out what I want to do with my life and I've missed the deadlines for the modules. They had the perfect one for me but my brain doesn't kick into gear quick enough.

I've got the revision gear needed, I just lack the pure motivation. Things have started perking up for me in my personal life, so my brain just doesn't seem to care anymore.
Housten.....we have a problem.....

Hopefully by my next blog everything will be peaceful again. I can't be dealing with damaging my future because of 1 lousy exam!

Shorthand: You will NOT get the best of me!
I WILL kick your doodled butt!!!


H. x

Jiving in a Southend car park...

Yeah you read that right. I was jiving in a Southend car park with my mate Peter....
....with my mum watching....
....and several drunk people....

This (as you are probably aware) is not a common occurance in my day-to-day life, firstly because I don't actually live in Southend, but also because I am in fact...painfully shy...(I am honestly)

HOWEVER! (pause for dramatic effect) I have a new lease of confidence, shame it's at 11:00pm when I can't do anything about it, but a new lease of confidence nonetheless! To explain why I was jiving at 10:30pm on a friday night in a car park instead of a nightclub, you must understand how I got there: I attend a dance group called "Ceroc" which specialise in jive dancing. I have been going for a year now, but the last 6 months have been a but on/off due to university. I met my friend Peter, who is now a close buddy of mine. We jived all the time at Ceroc, but because I don't go as often, I never get to dance with him anymore (sad face).

SOOOO now that I'm back in Essex I figured a good ol' fashioned meet up wouldn't go a-miss. So off to (any day but today) sunny Southend I went. To sum up the day: it was epic! We saw "The Hunger Games", I kicked his butt at Just Dance 2 about 3 times (which I heard from my buddies Katie and Sarah that I aparantly am very good at, thank you ladies) and had a general mess about. When it came to take me home, he walked me to my mother's car, where a tune was blaring....

....here comes the dancing!

After a jive to Cora Emerald, and a lovely appaulse from my mum and several nightclubbers on their way to a good night out, I headed on home. It was lovely to be appaulded on something I considered only to be a laugh. It may sound a bit stupid to say, but I've always considered myself to be quite an average person, nothing particularily special to the world, but seeing random strangers, plus my mum, clap me for something I wasn't even trying at, it made me feel proud that I could something worthy of an appaulse. I mean I do the drama performances, and they really do help with the whole confidence thing, but there is only so long you can feed off that once you've stopped.

So it may sound stupid, and if you see me please do feel free to slap me round the face, but I felt like more than an average person after dancing. Not only because I got some recognition for what I did, but because I did it outside in an open space in front of people, and I didn't crease up in embarassment like I normally do.

I think I may do more stuff like that, just maybe not so close to drunk people. As my character in "Joking Apart" says:

"They get a bit fighty on the vichey water"


H.x

Hide the Malteasers, she's at it again....

Well it's been a while!

I'm not going to lie when I say the last 2 weeks have been some of the most stressful but fun times of my life. Everytime I sit at my laptop and think 'It should write a blog post' i'm absolutely knackered so I either go to bed or stay up to ridiculous times of the morning and face-plant my laptop...

...you think i'm kidding? It hurts when your head slaps straight into your keyboard...

The reason for my time away from WKD, Chinese, Drama: A full ton of words? One word: Drama. We had our production of "Joking Apart." For those who don't know the play (so most of you then?) the play is set around 4 parties that happen over the course of many years at the same house, headed by Anthea (me) and her partner Richard. You meet the new neighbours Hugh (who proclaims his love to Anthea...awkward...) and Louise (who goes nuts!!). You then meet Brian (works for Richard, loves Anthea... again, awkward) and his many girlfriends Melody, Mandy and Mo (all played by the same person). We lastly meet Sven (Richard's business partner) and Olive (Sven's wife). Overall it was a good giggle. Here have a looksie :)

Don't we all look happy? Thank you to Naina for the lovely picture.

So yes, this is the reason I've been so delayed in a blog post. I do apologise. However, this is only a small part of my 2 weeks. I've had coursework, a social life (oddly enough) and many other bothers hitting me in the head. Everything has got better admittedly: I'm sleeping a lot better than before, my shorthand has improved and (in my opinion) i'm sailing through law. You'd think i'd be happy with this, but OH NO I am aiming higher!

I've applied for the committee for Drama Society. I figured it's had such an impact on my life I should try and help it make a bigger impact on others too. I also think I'm doing the wrong course at university. This is NEVER a good thing. I love doing Broadcast Journalism, but it's missing something. I don't know what it is, but something is lacking...maybe my enthusiasm at the moment, but that's besides the point. I've also had (what I can describe) as a complicted social life. I overthink everything! My own mother said to me only 5 days ago "you'll do better with a man in a relationship if you didn't talk as much"...

...thanks mum...

However she does have a point. I talk waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much when it comes to men. I just get so jittery y'know? If there's silence, my brain thinks something is wrong and decides "fill the air with pointless information...GO GO GO!!!" and I talk and talk and talk and talk and talk....you get my point. Also, I have the terrible nack of saying too much too soon. I honestly don't see the problem: I don't want to lead a guy on and if the only way of not leading them on in my eyes is to tell them something, then it's their own fault. However, not every man will agree with this so I tend to blow any chance of a relationship right out of the water!

I should probably just follow my mum's advice and shut up, but it never works, I just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk.....

Till next time

H.x

I've cracked open the chocolate, this should be interesting....

Well it's been a while hasn't it! For some reason I haven't had anything to write about.

Everything is finally getting back on track....oh wait! There's something to write about....

Well line learning is no longer an issue anymore I'm pretty much off script. One or two bits need a bit of work but line learning is no longer dominating my life. (phew!) I'm a lot calmer than I used to be. I used to stress out A LOT (people who know me can back me up on this) but recently i've had more "me time" where I can do what I want, when I want and hang out with who I want.

So basically, I feel awesome again!!! *does a small victory dance*

Now that I've got that out of my system, I can move on. Even though I've been having a lot of "up" days recently, it appears that the "down" days still like to make an appearance. For example, I've just had a great weekend, so my body has decided that to bring me back to planet earth it's going to make me feel like a barrel. 3-day weekend yes, but stomach cramps noooo! Also, I seem to be taking a lot more control of people's perspectives of me. That may sound weird but I shall explain. I used to be the butt of the joke, and sometimes I didn't mind if I was in the right sort of mood, but at times I was clearly not in the mood. However, now I take everything with a pinch of salt (my friends will all now say in unison "but we've been telling you that for ages!!" well I say to you I was listening, it just didn't make sense at the time)

It's not a very long blog post today I know, but when you feel like I do today, with the pain and the "I-told-you-so" moment directed at me possibly being fired in my direction soon, you get what you're given :)

Also, a mini shout-out to my friend Sarah, as she has been really helpful over the last couple of days, plus she has a very cool blog!

See ya!

H. x