If Only It Were Simpler,

Sometimes I get flustered by everything that is going on in my life, and certain things have to drop. 

I dropped this yesterday because I was spending time with someone I haven't seen in over a year and will now not see for the next few months. This weekend, like the last few weeks in general really has been pretty mad. More than anything, I need to give myself some time to sleep. 

As always, my problem is balance and it's tricky. Naturally I love spending time with friends etc, but then again I also keep reminding myself that if I don't sleep I get sick, especially in the summer, as I'm very prone to heat exhaustion. 

Trying to find the perfect balance is something very difficult. I find that when I am really involved in a novel, that can be the biggest pull of all. 

I've always been very defensive about my drafts, particularly first drafts, however letting people near passages of what I'm currently writing has been productive, so it may not be too long before I put a sample of either that, or Yours, online and see what the response is.

Though for some reason, my friends are more likely to tell me their response verbally as opposed to actually writing on here...

Anyway, I'll catch you later.

I Don't Like Trains,

Okay, that statement is not quite right. I don't mind trains. 

Back when I was in my teens, I was kind of scared of them, but they don't really bother me too much any more, I really prefer them to buses as well, because I get travel sick on buses and not on trains, but I don't like long train journeys. 

My idea of a long train journey is the trip to Manchester - which from my local station to Manchester Piccadilly is about 3 and a bit to 4 hours, because you have to go into London first, then get the tube to North London before you actually start. Bearing this in mind, the fact that I am now "looking forward to" something like 7 hours from my local station to Edinburgh is somewhat beyond a joke. I'm really not happy as well because my tickets to come back don't even have a seat reservation. I even called the train operator to as if it would be possible to make a reservation now because it seemed to be an error, but they're fully booked. Of course, they are fully booked. 

Anyway, with this is mind I've obviously been attempting to prepare myself for this journey and the only thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I'm not ready to go. My weekend bag is open on my bed, but I have literally nothing in it at the moment. I have sweets, biscuits, chocolate, cheese sticks, fruit juice, yoghurt and multitude of other nibbles, but none of that is in a bag to go either. This from the person who is generally packed at least 2-3 days early for any trips. Being ill this week has really thrown me off of my game. 

I'm doing this and so many other things to distract myself from packing because I genuinely hate doing it. This is ridiculous. 

The worst thing is, I have no idea what I'm going to want to wear tomorrow, let alone Sunday or Monday. And it's going to rain. I cannot express my distaste for rain often or strongly enough. 

I swear to God packing only got harder when I discovered make-up, too. As an indecisive person I should never have been allowed to buy more than one colour of eyeliner, but being an adult and also being a bit of a colour nut I have about four liquid ones. I don't know if I'm going to be feeling green or purple or like a flippin' rainbow whilst I'm there. 

I'm finally getting somewhere though, but my jamas are in the dryer, which isn't helping. And if it weren't for the fact that I was just contemplating putting on my heater I would have forgotten all the chargers that I need because gadget battery life sucks. I'm not stressed at all - it's fine! ** For some reason, my brain does not like telling my hands to type the word "not". I keep missing it out of texts and posts and everything. Weird**

Anyway, I think I'm pretty much packed, and I hope I have enough to do between my iPad and my Kindle and one of the novels I'm working on. If not, train window it is. Great. 

Here comes the actual celebration of my 23rd birthday...

Hello Out There,

It feels like forever since I last did this, but it's actually been less than a month and I'm pretty thankful for that. 

It's been a hell of a month with a few different things going on and in all honesty, it has been making it difficult to be able to just get through my university stuff, without thinking about anything else, but I have realised something and I hope I never forget this again. ~ No matter what is happening in my life, I can't let go of the things which are important to me, because it makes me lose my grip on reality a little bit. 

What I mean in particular is things like politics, novelling, live music events and all the things I enjoyed pre-uni. And all the people I enjoyed spending time with pre-uni. 

I am glad it is nearly over, because I want to have a life that isn't all about imposed deadlines and reading things I don't want to read and I'm not interested in. If you've been reading this blog for a while (first off, thank you and second) I can be quite a passionate person about the things that matter to me. Unfortunately I no longer feel that way about my degree. I have found that I feel that way about my job though, or some aspects of it, which is why I'm looking at staying within the same industry. 

I think it's at least in part because of the fact that it gives me time, as well as experiences with such a wide range of people and that never really hurt. I have time to figure out what I want to do, time to spend doing the things I love, time to spend with the people I love and time to live in a city that still has the power to make me fall in love with it over and over again despite me having lived here for getting close to four years. 

I want things to change after I have finished university and although I know that I will still take a while to get Yours, to the point where it can be published onto the Kindle and Kindle apps, I'm going to make a commitment to blogging every day in June, just to get myself back into the swing of sitting, thinking and writing at least once every day.

Anyway, 6 days until the exam, so I'd better get back to it...

If Only Everything Were Simple,

It almost physically irritates me reading my last blog, and thinking, oh you had time to write, did you? Whilst that was the case then, I feel like, at the moment, I only have the time to attempt to plan to get through the ever expanding to do list that has become my life, and unfortunately it seems like writing and editing and formatting and cover designing and all that lovely stuff that I actually enjoy in some sort of a vague way gets shoved even further down the list because "life" is happening first. 

Now, of course, you could naively ask me what I mean by that, and let's assume you have, because then I can pretty much give you the list :

Whilst attempting to do those amazing things which independence brings of washing, ironing, cleaning, tidying, folding stuff to avoid reironing it (hanging it in such a way that you don't really have to iron it, cooking, etc and all those fun things that you have to do to stay alive, like sleeping, eating and drinking copious amount of tea, there is also this other miscellaneous crap that comes under the definition of 'life' too, such as going to work, attending lectures, doing shopping (that was nearly an amazing typo...) looking for a new job (deciding what you fancy doing as said new job) attending interviews, filling in application forms and the most amazing one of them all FINISHING UNIVERSITY....

Now really, let's face it, that should be pretty simple, because I've had an extra year at practicing how to do all the things I need to do for university, but unfortunately that also involves stressing out at every major obstacle thrown in my direction and, believe me, there have been a considerable number already. 

I have roughly two and a half months left where I am legitimately still a university student, and in that time I have two more coursework essays, three end of year essays, an exam to sit and a dissertation to hand in. Now, it all doesn't seem like too much considering the fact that I can pretty much run my life as I want to in April, BUT there have been several hurdles, including but by no means limited to, having halted work on my dissertation at the end of January in order to wait for feedback which has still not arrived, not actually being able to find the information for essay topics on the online system, not having even the vaguest clue as to what on Earth this beast of an exam may entail...

I don't know if it's just feeling like a lot at the moment with the addition of a whole load of other crap, or if I'm genuinely coping with the most official form of growing up since I moved out at eighteen reasonably well, instead of flapping like a duck with something stuck to it's tail feathers, but I don't even really have time to sit down and assess that as a situation, because I have too much else to do!, but pretty soon, (arguably it is both too soon and not soon enough within the same breath) it will all be over and done with, and life will march on in a direction (though what direction is not immediately clear). I may even come to miss this...

So, I'm still writing periodically - mainly in brief fits and starts when I have a few moments on public transport or before I fall asleep - and avoiding editing like the plague, and hoping for that one magical day in the future where I will actually have the time AND the inclination to be able to work towards the career that I have tentatively set my heart on since and inappropriately young age, but maybe that really is me being too much of a dreamer.