You breathe.

Nothing. Nothing is an odd notion isn't it? Can there ever really be nothing? You can never truly do nothing. You breathe. You pulse. Your heart beats and your cells regenerate. You are someone, you are a part of something. You blink. You listen. You salivate, you swallow. You breathe. You think. You wonder. You dream. Your blood pumps round your body. You breathe. You think. You dream. You become. Your lungs turn air into carbon dioxide - you breathe. You constantly change and renew. Cell by cell by cell by cell. You breathe. You started your life with 300 bones. They fused together into the 206 you sit there with now. You breathe. You have around 86 billion neurons in your brain. They allow you to speak, plan, reason, solve problems, feel emotions, move, remember, see, hear, taste, touch, smell and balance. You breathe. You are you, nobody else can be you. You have so many different sides to you. You breathe. You are incredible and almost impossible being. You breathe. You are wonderful. You are special. You were made and grew from two tiny cells into what you are now. You breath. You are not doing nothing, you are not nothing, you are you. And that is good. You breathe. You breathe. You breathe. 

This post has no title.

We cannot pretend there is any kind of togetherness anymore. There is only whatever this is and nobody seems to know what this is. Well, SOME might, but nobody is telling me because clearly I don't deserve to be told. When you do something that is wrong, you always know it is wrong even when you're doing it. So you must know right now that what you are doing is wrong. It's not fair on anyone. Not fair on her because even though she says it won't, we all know it will. Unfair on him because he is put in an awkward position where he doesn't know what is right. Unfair on him because he's being kept in the dark about It all when they supposedly tell each other everything. And most of all, unfair on us because you are tearing this apart from the inside. We all love this and you say you do too, but it's like you're willing to sacrifice this for that when that won't even end up bring yours because you clearly want something else more. 

This sucks, it sucks so bad that you trusted her more than us. It sucks that you talk to him more than us. It especially sucks that I genuinely don't believe that this is you. 

Lots to do (also know as: Freedom from purpose)

Christmas shopping, is almost complete, I know it's super early but I want to get it all done because I know I have so many deadlines close to Christmas. My aim was to have everything bought before the 1st December. This is going well. The only person I have left to buy anything for is Joe, and that is simple, one trip into town to buy lots of American sweets (yes I know it sounds like a lame present, but he had some of his budget left and that is what he chose because he is a little man child. Hahahahaha). Well, I'm waiting for two presents to arrive from amazon, but other than those and joe's presents, everything is wrapped as well. I'm great at Christmas! I love Christmas shopping, and as soon as it's December 1st I'm putting up Christmas decorations in my room, and we have a tree and lights for the house but need baubles and tinsel and stuff so we need to buy those then we can christmas up our house! Yay! 

I'm currently planning the Christmas show at work as well. It's hard going but I know the kids will love it. I know what I'm doing with the inters, they gave me lots of ideas last week so I'm currently writing a script for them, but for the juniors - it's a different story. There's like 18 of them and I don't know what to do! I think I might do some kinda of Santa's workshop thing but I don't know HOW I want to do it. Hmmm

I'm going out tonight with the girls, because we haven't all been out together since Elisha's birthday and to be honest I need a break. I haven't been out since the end of October and I can afford it now that I'm working. So yeah, I don't need to justify it to anyone, let alone myself. I'm borrowing one of Amy's dresses.

THE POSTMAN JUST CAME AND DELIVERED ONE OF MY PACKAGES I WAS WAITING FOR, so naturally I stopped writing this post and wrapped it. So now it's only one parcel I'm waiting for for Christmas presents.

Um now I've lost my train of thought and I don't want to force it to come back. I have a headache and the washing machine is being waaaaaaaay too loud. We're going out tonight, oh I already said that, but yeah so I'm trying to get lots of work done before 5pm so I can forget about it all and know today was productive, 

I need to start my 20th century essay. Hmm. I read Blasted last night, it was a horrible play, it really made me uncomfortable, so I know I'm not gonna look forward to talking about it in class over the next couple of weeks, so I'm like 98% sure I'm not going to use it in my essay, so technically nothing is stopping me from starting my essay now. I have narrowed it down to 3 questions, but one I would be worried I would run out of things to say, another one is worded oddly so I'd be worried id misunderstand it and the third one seems like the obvious choice and the one that everyone will pick. Hmm I don't know, I'm pretty sure though I know which two plays I'm doing. Well I know one for definite, and I thought I knew the second one but I'm not so sure now that we've looked at the homecoming. Ahh I should probably ask Sue for her opinion. Mental note - email Sue. 

This is an incredibly long post in which I'm not really saying a lot. But I'm waiting for my laptop to restart from doing an update, so I kinda want to keep writing. Doing this blog is definitely therapeutic. Like it just lets me write for no reason at all and that's nice, to not have a reason, to just write and write about anything I like until I don't want to anymore. It's freedom from purpose. Yeah I like that. I'm gonna call this post that, freedom from purpose. Ha it sounds kinda philosophical. I'm not trying to be, it just came out like that. Oh well.

My laptop is back on now, so back on to script writing. Ramble over. 

Dada inspired iTunes poetry

So, I took the first ten songs from shuffle in iTunes. I then took the first line from these ten songs, jumbled them up and this is it!

This city never sleeps, that is what they all say. I'm a cloud drifting by, you said things would never change. Look who's digging their own grave, daydreamer, oh if you could see me now. Time it took us to where the water was, dripping tears from the sky, sitting on the sea. You won't be around forever girl, soaking up the sun. You cool your bed-warm hands down but sometimes they get rearranged. You gotta grab life with both hands. The birds they sang, on the broken radiator. I hear the people walk by when it's late, the break of day.

The long awaited video diary. HAHA

A day in the life of me.

Joe's alarm went off at 6am. Woke Joe and Indo (who was sleeping on the sofa in the lounge.) I peed. They chatted. They decided against whatever the hell they were planning to do that early in the morning. We went back to sleep. My alarm went off at 7:30. I snoozed twice. I got up and showered. I came downstairs and got dressed and made a cup of tea, waking Indo up on the process. I apologised and went to my room. I put on my make up and dried my hair. I packed my bag and woke Joe. I made some toast and ate it whilst Joe put my socks and shoes on for me as I was running a little late now. I locked my room, said bye to the boys and left. I put my headphones in and started my walk. I felt a tap on my shoulder when I was half way down the road. Joe had left his bag in my room and I had locked it when I left. So he ran back with my keys, got his back, locked my room and ran my keys back out to me. My wall to uni was pretty rushed as this had made me even later. I arrived at uni on time. We had making performance this morning which was fun. We went to spend some time in the Mumford and then back to rehearsals. Joe came into our production meeting after the rehearsal as he is creating an image for us for our piece. We had the meeting, took the photos and he and I went to coslette cafe for some lunch. I had BBQ mini cheddars which are my absolute favourite. I then left uni and headed into town. I went to primark, new look and the apple store. I bought a new phone case (which in hindsight I don't really like, so I will return it) from a strange guy who worked there and made me feel uncomfortable. I then had my genii so appointment at 2pm and got a new phone. I returned to uni, found Elisha and sat in the open access area doing a little bit of work. Joe messaged me to say he and Indo had finished their lecture early. We left uni and got a cheeky KFC on the way home. We walked home and talked about dogs. I'm going to get a sausage dog and call him Montague (Monty for short) when I have my own house. We reached indo's house (where Joe is staying at the moment too). We said bye and I continued my walk home. There were some strange looking men so i walked rather fast. When I arrived home I brought the bin in as it had been emptied today and noticed a Jiffy bag shoved under the porch. I removed it and saw it was for my housemate Elisha. I unlocked the door and saw a delivery note from Hermes. I was desperate for a wee so I came in to use the loo, then went back out to retrieve my parcel, which the delivery note had told me was near the garden gate. I brought it inside and opened it. It was my dad's Christmas present. I shall wrap it later. I sat down, took my shoes and coat off, plugged my phone in to my laptop to restore from my back up and wrote this post. And here we are. 

Video diaryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Again I haven't posted in a little while. All I seem to have been doing lately is uni work, job work, housework and missing home! HOWEVER, I am working on a video diary this week, so come Friday I should have some footage to upload to my blog of my thrilling life over the course of a week. 

I know you'll all be waiting for it with much excitement - haha!!

Guest lecturer - Dr Gareth Farmer

In our lecture this week, we were fortunate enough to have a guest lecturer, Dr Gareth Farmer. We looked at some different ways of generating text and it was really quite enjoyable. Below is an image of the three exercises we did with him. 

Out of sight, out of mind.

Isn't it funny how when things are out of sight, they are sometimes out of mind too. This isn't true in all cases, and I think there are varying degrees of it. But yeah, sometimes when you cannot see something you do not think about it as much. I know I miss my family because I'm such a family orientated person, so I always knew that coming away for uni would be hard, no matter how close to home uni is, I still miss my nephew and niece doing things for the first time and that is really hard for me. 

Me and my sister have always been so close, we never argued as kids because of the age gap between us, which has made us best friends as adults. When she had Jack, I was so excited to become an Auntie, it was such a special feeling. So when Millie came along, it was just as precious, maybe more because I now had a charming nephew and an adorable little niece. Because me and my sister are so close, it made me so close with Jack and Millie. Also, I'm their only Auntie so it kinda makes out relationship even more special.

Before today, I hadn't seen them in a month. A month doesn't even sound like a long time, especially when you consider the people who live really far from home, who can only see their family at Christmas, Easter and Summer, but with Jack and Mills it is different. They are children so a month to them seems like such a long time. And because they are children they change so much. When I last saw Millie, she could just about say 'Mum'. She has learnt to say so much in that month that I haven't seen her during. 

Just because I can't see them doesn't mean I don't think about them, but because I don't see them as often as I'd like means that when I do see them, it makes it harder afterwards because it reminds me just how much I miss them and how much it sucks to be away from them. 

Babbling bruised baton twirler.

I have thirteen bruises on my left arm, two on my right and one on my chest. 

I have a small bump on the right side of my head. 

My right shoulder twinges when I move it and the back of my left leg is constant agony. 

I can no longer bend down to pick something up without my whole body aching. 

I am over tired from long days of training. 

I have three loads of washing to do. 

I have a constant longing to be home on a Sunday night between six pm and half nine. 

I have an old injury to my left knee which is flaring up again. 

I have a seriously damaged left ankle from years ago which is going to start hurting more as the cold of Winter draws closer. 

I have countless medals, trophies, certificates and rosettes. 

I have another 'family' of seventeen and more who love me for who I am. 

I have eight little ones who look to me as a role model. 

I have made lifelong friends. 

I have a coach who is also one of my best friends. 

I have the joy of passing my knowledge down to the younger ones. 

I have the privilege of being part of something that covers the nation. I have made fifteen years of memories with these people. 

I have the honour of being Team Captain. 

I love my sport and wouldn't change a thing. 

Is it any wonder I get annoyed when people say baton twirling isn't a real sport?

6 days is a long time

So... I haven't posted anything in 6 days. Not sure why. Actually, it may be because I usually post about things that are troubling me, and as of late I have been back to my super organised and efficient self and life has sorted itself out again. Good. Although this week is going to be pretty crazy busy. I have like a million and twelve things to do. So, I need to start off well on my day off tomorrow by getting up early and getting on. My iPad just autocorrected 'getting' to 'ghetto' and this made me laugh waaaay more than it should. I have an itchy label in my pyjama top. My legs are cold but I need the window open as it's really stuffy in my room. I should probably pull my duvet up. That is all, for now.

Snowed under.

So this is probably the point in my life that I have ever felt most snowed under. I didn't quite realise how big the jump from first year to second year would be. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying uni still and like my modules (well... 2 outta 3 ain't bad) but I didn't anticipate how much work they would pile on us in the first couple of weeks. It probably doesn't help that I've got job interviews and family stuff to think about as well as uni and looking after our house and keeping up with twirling and worrying if I've got a scholarship or not and worrying about money and how I'm gonna be able to afford Christmas and the fact that I don't have any clothes to wear to the funeral I have to go to next week, and what should I say in my application to be in the opening ceremony of World's next year for twirling and are my new jeans going to arrive today because if they don't I can't go out in my holey ones so I'll have to brave the cold in leggings and blahhhh. My brain is too full, so my body is trying to shut down. I napped today for 2 hours because I just simply couldn't function any more. 

I had coffee and a catch up with Maria yesterday. She told me to write it all down in a list and then I'd feel better. So this post is my list I guess. Let's hope the feeling better starts soon.

Harry Potter Alphabet

So... I watched Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone recently, and I do love Harry Potter.

I was on a long walk yesterday and played that game in my head which we used to play as children like "In my rucksack I have..." And you had to list something that began with the alaphabet. 

Therefore, here is my Harry potter version of 'In my rucksack'.

In my rucksack I have Aragog, Butterbeer, Cauldren, Dress robes, Extendable ear, Felix Felicious, Goblet of fire, Hogwarts: a history, Invisibility cloak, Jelly slugs, Knut, Leech juice, Mandrake, Nosebleed nougat, Owl feed, Parchment, Quill, Rememberal, Skele-gro, Time turner, Unicorn hair, Veritiserum, Wand, Xenophillius Lovegood, Yew, Zonko's joke shop. 

That entertained me on my walk and hope it brightened your day if you are a HP fan.

The rules.

What makes you so special to think that you are exempt from the rules? You can see that everyone here is abiding by the rules, so naturally you'd think that a newcomer into a situation would as well. Clearly no. Most definitely not. I know I am a bit of a stickler for following the rules, but SERIOUSLY COME ON. You don't do what the rest of us are, then you say you will be better: that you'll follow the rules like the rest of us. I start to get my hopes up that you will. I think you might be 'turning over a new leaf' as the saying goes. BUT NO. You just go back to your old ways and for some reason, it's more annoying than it was at the start. I guess it could be that at the start people might have thought you just didn't know that you were flouting the rules and annoying everyone, but now, now because you have acknowledge that you know the rules and that you were breaking them before, it's DOWNRIGHT DISRESPECTFUL that you're doing it because you know it's against the rules. 

Shut up. Just shut up, then the rest of us will be happy and can get on with it.

Not so much sleep walking, more like sleep 'do'-ing.

So, I woke up this morning after a relatively good night's sleep, considering I have this cough. I found a photo frame from my windowsill dismanteled in bed with me. I must have gotten up in the night, picked up my photo frame, decided to get into bed with it and separate all the pieces. I wonder what on earth made me do that. I literally have no recollection of doing it, which is hilarious; that my brain told my body to do something, whilst I was asleep and I have no memory of it. Pretty sure I've never slept walked before or anything, although I guess I may have done but just ended up back in bed the next morning and have no memory of it like I do now, but I wonder what makes people sleep walk or sleep 'do' in the first place. It's very odd. 

I hope to do it again and maybe tomorrow I will wake up with more strange dismantled objects in my bed.

Cough, cough, cough.

I have a cough. A silly, little, dry, tickly kind of cough. It is so irritating to my throat, to me and to everyone else who can hear it. Whenever I cough, it doesn't achieve anything; all I feel is that I need to cough again. And the worst part is, it doesn't let me sleep well. When I don't sleep well, I get grouchy and grumpy and grizzly. Then I'm tired the next day and my cough isn't any better because I haven't slept well enough to get better. It's a vicious circle. Vicious circles suck. I want to be better.

Pass the cough syrup!

First Post

So... to keep up with the times, our lecturer has asked us to create a blog alongside our critical reflection and performance for this module. This could produce some interesting results.

Basically, what I think we have to do is write anything. Anything at all that comes into our minds about anything. Sounds pretty cool I guess, we just have the challenge to not be too self-critical. That will probably be embarrassing at first, but hey-ho, we'll just have to get over it!

Watch this space.