The Safe Space,

Well, after a rather Merry Christmas, I think it's time to get back down to business...

Anyone that's in uni now will probably have heard of this idea of a Safe Space. The idea is usually applied within a common area and it's the idea that harassment of any kind should not exist within such a space, and that in said space, everyone is free to be themselves. 

In a way, I think that university is pretty much a Safe Space in itself, even if it doesn't mean to be. Let's face it, in university there are a lot of things which are generally more acceptable than in other parts of life. Being a student has previously been compared to submitting to a form of voluntary vagrancy. With rent prices in dedicated student accommodation buildings being more than the average student can take in loans from the SLC, many students choose to extend their debt by getting overdrafts that are offered at an interest free rate (until you graduate...it's in the fine print). Being a student makes it pretty much socially acceptable to be in debt and be living off smart price beans and bread that you cut the mould off. Yes, I have seen it done.

It's also acceptable to move home for several months of the year and sponge off of rely upon your parents' exceedingly generous hospitality, even though you're still technically paying rent on your house/flat.

The thing that convinces me the most though is that for at least the first two years, it's completely okay to have absolutely no idea with this thing you've paid out an obscene amount of money for. It's pretty much socially acceptable for the only goal to be finish this bloody degree and then figure it out from there, and I think that's because of a universally accepted truth. The world outside of the lecture halls is a scary place. 

I've been thinking recently about the things I want to do with my life and the things I will have to do to achieve what I want to achieve. A lot of it is filling in forms and jumping through hoops to impress the right people so that they hopefully give me a job where I can feel useful and contribute in my own way, but the problem is, I'm still not sure what exactly I want to do. 

I've been doing all the normal things like looking into graduate programmes and conversion courses and further study and all of that sort of thing, but it's still not narrowing it down. All the while I'm looking for different ways to keep doing the things I love, but maybe find a way of making that into a job. 

Anyway, I'm going to retreat back into my Safe Space for a little bit, and try not to think about it. At least I can comfort myself knowing that no matter how desperate to work in some kind of writing career I am, I will never work for the Daily Mail. 

Eddie,

Am I going to end up posting this? Probably. I tend to find that I write these little rambles and then post them on the internet because there are things I found a few years ago that helped me through some of the not-so-fun parts of my life. 

Some of my older friends have this label for me that I think they reckon is a bit of a joke, but to be perfectly honest, I think it's kind of completely true. I get the label of a 'sensitive soul', and I used to hate it, but now I realise that it just comes out of the fact that I invest a lot of emotion in people. 

Just over two years ago, I lost a friend I went to college with. These things are never easy, of course, but he was the last person I spoke to from my college and he kept telling me how great things were going to be when I moved to London. I loved him so much for it, because I had had a crap day and he knew it and I hated that when he needed someone, I couldn't be there for him. 

This boy This man was loved a lot more than I think even he knew. So much has been done in his memory by so many people, and it makes a lot of sense, because he deserved it. He was a really great guy, and a few weeks after I learnt what happened to him, I searched out the recordings I had made of my lessons which we were in together, but I wasn't ready for what I found. 

He quite honestly got so over excited about a sandwich that I remember thinking, it's just bread with a filling down the middle, calm down kiddo, but the words that skipped out of his mouth were "You're a lovey person, and I love ya." I heard his voice say those words, and my brain got confused, so I was crying because of missing him, but I had this beaming smile across my face, because I wasn't scared anymore.

When you lose someone so many things fly through your head, and it's very easy to let them attack your memories of that person. It's very easy to lose sight of a person, and I did that, but that voice, those few words, they brought him back to me. Those words let me have my memories back and not question them, and now I don't have to play it from my computer to hear your voice, because it's in my memory, and it's staying there.

So to you Eddy, I hope that you know, you are a lovely person, and I love you. Oh, and Happy Birthday. 

-.- (It's Our Work In Progress)

Right now I'm not sure if I want to eat my feelings or write them, but after two Christmas dinners in one weekend, I don't really think my body could deal with any more food. Besides, this is important. 

Exactly three months and eleven days ago, I was dropped off home from a date, was walked to my door and given a hug, before the male protagonist of this story went back to his car and drove 12 miles back home. The next day I was politely informed by the florist who handed me a wonderful bunch of flowers - more beautiful than I had ever seen in real life - that my cheeks had gone a wonderful shade of red. The flowers may have died, but I still have the card from that bunch and the two which followed pinned to my board in my room. 

I don't think I really realised how I was going to feel about him until the day he gave me something which made me realise that men with feelings and kindness and love do actually exist, because the story just played on the bass strings of my heart. "I found this," he told me, "On the day you emailed me back, and I want you to have it. It's a good luck charm."  It wouldn't matter really what it was, but it was something important to him, too. It's a Roman coin, and it's still sat in my room, and every time I see it, I smile. I still remember the look of shock on his face too, when I told him that I didn't care what it had been valued as, it had value to me because he chose to give it to me, and because of the reason why. 

I wake up to photographs of us every morning; they're right next to my alarm clock, and they're the last thing I see before my light goes out at night, and sometimes, when the light pollution is at it's worst outside, I can see them for all the time I'm awake between going to bed and getting out again. 

When I got tired of London, and just wanted out of here for a few hours, we went away to the countryside, where I could breathe physically and mentally, and he offered to take me out to Stone Henge, because I'd never seen it, and I really wanted to. He didn't even mind when I put the Travelling Panda on the dashboard (so she could get there first). 

He introduced me to his family, and I could see where the man he is now had come from, and I'm sure that his brief meeting with mine showed him where some of my quirks and oddments came from.

It's in the everyday things, too. I wake up every morning to a text from him, even if it's just "Morning, how did you sleep?" This feels like starting my day right, and it would feel weird attempting to sleep without first texting and saying "Goodnight" and "Sweet Dreams", but that's us. 

And here's the thing,... he's stuck by me through my illness the last few months, he's known when to deal with my tantrums and when to just let them play out, and he's known all along that I love him for each and every moment. 

We've all picked up our little nicks and scratches somehow. We've all got some insecurities and some problems, but when you find the right person, the one person you want to stick with, those things don't matter at all, and you love them more because it's a part of them. I admit to having a lot of those, and I was probably pretty odd to start with, but he's never seemed to mind, and his quirks actually seem to fit next to mine.

When you find someone that fits next to you, what's the point in looking for something else? What on Earth could measure up to something which comes in and fills your heart and your life? Honestly, there is nothing.

I've had more good moments than bad moments with him, and I've loved him throughout. This is our relationship; this is all of it. 

I know as a writer, I'm kind of responsible for pretty words and clever phrases. I am a chief of made belief, and my role in that is to make people believe what they want to believe with socially acceptable lies, but the odd thing is, when I try and apply that "skill" to my feelings, I come up blank very often on what to say, but as I said at the start, this is important. It needed to be said. 

83,

I didn't know what I wanted to call this blog post, so I've just given it the name 83 because it's the 83rd blog I'm posting on this platform. Pretty cool, huh? 

What's even cooler is that the blog has now had 2774 views in it's lifetime, which I'm pretty proud of actually, so to all of you who are reading, or have read before, thank you very much; you've made a small Charlie rather happy. 

In other news, a no longer so little project that I've been working on since the age of fourteen has now been put on hold in favour of making something different. Originally I was knitting patches of all shapes and sizes, then stitching them together to make a large patchwork blanket (it still needs a lot of the patches stitching on) but that has moved over to make way for knitting tiny Christmas stocking decorations for our tree. 

The pattern for the original socks was cute, but after a couple of variations with sizing, and pattern, I've found that I much prefer these little cutie booties:

The best part is, the size is quite literally perfect to hide a little chocolate in.

Yeah, so maybe some people think that it's a little bit sad, because knitting is a granny sport, right? WRONG. 

Crafty little bits like this can be really great to give you something to do instead of vegging out in front of the TV or something to do at the same time. Most don't require a lot of brain power - though obviously there are more complicated patterns if you want to go for that - and you're left at the end with something you can use. 

Both my female grandparents, and my mother too, really enjoy making things out of wool, and the best thing about these little stocking booties is that you barely need any wool to do it really. It's a great way to use the last bit of a ball, that you might have just thrown away otherwise...

I enjoy making them, and they've filled up our tree quite nicely. 

LONG LIVE THE CRAFTY BUGGERS! 

Not a Happy Charlie,

Maybe this is just me, but I think that as we're getting closer to Christmas , customer service becomes even more important. Let's face it, if what you're buying if for a child who believes in Santa Claus, you're going to have to be very creative in your reasoning for why the present at the top of their list is the one that Santa accidentally left in the sleigh, but is going to drop off next week. Kids are smart; that won't wash.

Yesterday, I spent some extra money on next day delivery, because that made it one business day for shipping, which to me meant that it would arrive today, or Saturday at the latest, but I got an email today telling me that it is expected to be delivered on Monday. I might as well not have bothered paying the extra. I was considering recommending the company to a friend, but that has definitely gone out of the window now. 

I'm sure that seems a little excessive, because real Christmas isn't for another week and a half, but before we all travel home to our families, my housemates and I are having a pre-Christmas meal with the boyfriends, Secret Santa presents and a reasonable amount of alcohol, and it's this Sunday, hence the deadline and Monday being completely unacceptable. 

Not a happy Charlie, at all. 

Okay, I Just Panicked,

After sorting out my list, I went ahead and actually did a couple of the things on it, which is pretty surprising because I very often make the list and then forget it... 

One essay is down, I have the books I need for the next one, I found my railcard and my keys, and I even went to my lecture today. Now that I'm trying to do my next essay things are becoming problematic again. 

It seems I only notice that my room is in dire need of tidying and a fairly decent hoovering when I have an essay to do, and I also wasted a good half an hour wading through the box of notebooks which takes up a large amount of space in my room. I HAVEN'T TOUCHED IT IN MONTHS!! Oh, and there is also investing new coats on eBay and planning a present for my friend who is having a baby...in about July. 

The only plus point I have is that I have time tomorrow, my weekend bag is half backed and I have dealt with most of my Christmas shopping already, so that's no longer a concern. Oh, and I have the basis of an introduction, although that needs a little bit of rejigging so that it's right. 

Wish me luck,.

Manning the Procrastination Station,

It's really difficult to get me to sit down and focus on any one thing at a time. 

I'm still trying to write an essay, and I have another to do for Thursday, but the time it needs to be submitted is only ten minutes after I step off a train in Manchester, so it needs to be done even before then, along with a lot of other things, which is starting to get me a little bit stressed, and my head is buzzing, which is really not helping, so I've got my cup of tea and I've just finished watching a Come Dine With Me marathon.

The other great thing for making me relax is making a list of all the things I need to do, so I can tick them off when I'm done with them. So here it is: 

Politics essay,

Change over library books,

Psychology essay,

Pack my weekend bag,

Find my railcard and my parents house keys, 

And of course, I need to make sure I get into all three of my lectures this week.

When I can't even watch television without having a notebook or knitting in my hands, it's really difficult for me to get to sit down and focus. Even when I'm writing, that happens. 

Anyway, best get back to it. 

I Want to Go Back to Sleep,

Before I came to university, I was ridiculously excited and I felt like I'd be interested in everything. I realise now that it's only true up until a point, and that's the point when you start having to do essays on it.

I'm currently studying Political Philosophy, and don't get me wrong, it's amazing, because to see the theoretical foundations which politics was built on amazes me, and it really makes you see that we've diluted the ideas in order to make a practical system, but here's the annoying thing. 

With it being a term essay, there are three set questions and that's your lot. I'm reading - and occasionally writing - about Rousseau's ideas of freedom and forcing people to be free, but whilst I'm reading that, I'm having to filter out his ideas and views on democracy - there wasn't a question on that - and while I know I can read it and hope there is a place on the exam I can write about it, I find it really difficult to skip over that part, which I find particularly enthralling, to sections about the conflicting arguments on liberty within the Social Contract. 

Such is life though, I guess. 

And yes, I am a bit of a nerd. 

I Can't Even,

I'm irritable now, which might be at least partly down to the instant coffee, but it's mostly down to this. 

At university this year, I'm studying seven modules. With procrastination being a lot easier, even if far less productive, than reading the essay and actually, I don't know, writing it!, I've been looking up a couple of the textbooks for this module and here's what I found:

Two of the books are more than twenty quid on Amazon. It's really annoying me! I get that the latest edition of the book, in perfect condition with next day shipping and everything like that is going to cost a bit more, but I'm used to being able to go to Amazon and get books for under a fiver. I like those days. I've not even finished the list of books I want for this course and the total is up to fifty quid, excluding delivery! I'm sorry Amazon, but I can't afford that. 

Okay, I need to qualify can't afford that. 

Fifty quid on books is a bit ridiculous since the university does technically have a few copies of most of them and the central library for our university probably has the rest, but it's been recommended we have our own copies of the core text books, and I understand why. What's more, I like having the copies of them.

I can afford forty quid on boots today, because a, they're burgundy and beautiful, b, I've been staring at them for weeks, c, they are really comfortable, d, I haven't had any calf length boots for years and my footsies get cold and most importantly THEY WERE 60% OFF!!!

Yeah. 

I know it ought to be simple maths, and perhaps if I had known the cost of the books before, I would have....no, I wouldn't. I can't borrow shoes from a library!! 

Anyway, I have happily found one of the expensive ones on eBay, so that shouldn't be too bad, and I can just raid the reliable charity shops when I go home and see if I can find a few of them cheaper!