Testing Limits,

I woke up this morning after fifteen hours of sleep, which has become very unusual for me. 

I wasn't asleep for fifteen-ish hours because of depression or anything like that, which is obviously very nice, but because I have been really pushing myself to do things recently and something I really wanted to do was attend a lecture series at Birkbeck this week. Part of the reason that I wanted to do this was because I wanted to remind myself that I didn't enjoy university that much really, so I don't want to go back. It didn't work...

I'm not being naïve, I know that events like Law on Trial are there to sell Birkbeck as a school and to encourage people to study. They're a fantastic marketing campaign to prospective students, and I am now looking at courses more seriously than I was previously, though I'm thinking about the 2017 intake, because with the best will in the world, I know myself pretty well these days and I know that I will not be ready to do this in September of this year. I would rather prepare myself and be ready to do this than make an absolutely unholy mess of the whole bloody thing.

It's not just the possibility of going back to university though which has had me testing my limits. I've been trying to be a lot more socialable (because I sometimes suck at talking to people I do not know) and trying to spend more time doing constructive things than in my flat. 

This week I spent most of my evenings at Birkbeck. The lecturers were there to discuss the issues surrounding the upcoming referendum and I walked in there thinking I knew how I was voting and why. Right now, I feel like I have splinters in my bottom, because I am sat on the fence, leaning either way without really being sure how to swing. I don't get like this. I am very good at making deicisions about what I believe in and what I want to vote for, but right now, I am flumoxed. 

In all of this, as you can imagine, I have been getting less sleep than I am used to, and it has pushed my body to its edges. I have been very busy in the last few weeks generally anyway, so believe me, I needed my fiftteen hour catch up sleep. I was pretty exhausted by the end of it, but I did manage to finish writing the first draft of the first volume of The Single Girls' Collective, and for once I cannot wait to get to editing it, though that was on the backburner this week for obvious reasons. 

Before this post runs to a mile long, I'm going to wrap it up by saying watch this space. Catch you later. 

What do you do with a BA in English,

Or rather Philosophy, if you're not the leading character of Avenue Q. 

I'd apologise for the silence, but I would feel like some sort of reason must be given as to what I have been doing instead of blogging, but quite frankly there has been nothing much really. Or things which have been happening have been personal and I haven't really wanted to share. The problem has been that I have struggled to know quite which way is up due to a lot of different factors, and I haven't really been dealing with myself very well, which has made me strip everything back and not quite start again, but rethink a lot of things. 

Recently I found out that I do now in fact have a degree, and not before time, too. I have finally become a graduate, though my time to walk across the stage in cap and gown is a delight that December will bring, and I can't wait for it. As much as the last four years have presented me with many traumas, I feel glad for the fact that I have finally made it through and the whole thing can have a new level of worth to me. 

Even more recently I ended an argument I had been having with myself and decided that the anxiety I get from the idea of getting behind the wheel of a car doesn't constitute a good reason not to do it, so this morning, more than four years on from my last proper driving lesson, I was driving around London, and somehow managing to not crash the car. Whilst I freely admit I am still anxious about driving and the idea of parallel (why is that word so difficult to spell!?!) parking is still something that sounds monstrous and makes me feel sick, the idea of driving in general is not something which I think of as utterly horrifying and completely beyond me. Which is quite nice, because I used to really enjoy driving..

I know it's not over yet, but this year has been a difficult one. There have been times where I have wondered whether I would finish my degree, whether I would ever live in a place where I would be comfortable and settled, whether I would be able to stay in London after my degree, and even times where I have questioned whether I would be best off just giving up on my dream of writing altogether and submitting myself to something much more manageable, but then I look at the bookcase of notebooks in the corner of my bedroom and wonder if all those ideas and characters and things can really fit back inside my head, let alone in a small box to gather memory dust and become faded. Could I really ever take myself away from something which redefined solitude to a place which was not lonely, but full of whatever I wanted? Would it really be possible for me to put down the notebooks that I have carried with me for so long and pretend that they never mattered? Because that's what giving up on this dream equates to. 

Imaginations don't have an on/off switch. Were there a way to turn them off, I'm not sure that I would turn off mine. It's true that sometimes my mind goes off on such tangents that I wonder how to get it back and all important thoughts seem to believe that they are relieved of duty and disappear into the night, but it's worth being a bit of a dingbat in order to be able to create something... 

I guess, more than anything, I've felt in a bit of a crisis as to what to do next. The last thing I want is to remain stationary and I flatly refuse to do it. It's time for me to figure out what comes next and just jump for it, but there are so many roads to choose. 

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...

Panic Stations,

Have you ever noticed that everything seems to always happen at once?

At the moment, I feel like my head is falling off a little bit, because I know that I need to get more revision done for my three exams this week, I need to clean the house before a viewing tomorrow and there is an engineer here to FINALLY attempt to fix our internet. I'm also heading back to Manchester for the weekend on Saturday morning, and on the 8th of June, I'm flying out to Greece for two weeks. 

Now, that doesn't seem like overly much, but up until Saturday, I thought that everything with the house - well, not the internet - was sorted, however after two of my new housemates-to-be dropped out, I'm back on the search for someone to live with. Oh yay. 

I think that I get stressed when I look at a list of things to do and they're all pretty close together, or I feel like they are all pretty immediate, and there are a lot of things that I would rather do instead, and in all honesty, that happens all to often. Right now, all I want to do is carry on writing something I've been working on for a few weeks, but like I said, I have three exams this week, so I can't really. 

Right now, I just can't wait for this week to be over! 

93,

It might become a common recurrence that blogs I can't think of a title for are just numbered. 

So, the tube strikes are over and London appears to have survived them reasonably well. I'm kind of wondering if they just let them happen occasionally to check that the bus system is working as well as it should do. I know that here in London, we complain about the buses quite a lot - especially when we have to use the buses to get to the tube or the train - but the fact is that we're doing a lot better than most places. With most buses running at least once every five to fifteen minutes, it's not overly long to wait, considering in some cities, the buses can be as infrequent as once an hour.

Now, what joys are there to look forward to? 

Well, for me, I'm going to Pisa on Tuesday, which is obviously exciting, then I have a birthday party on Saturday, then essays due on the Monday, Friday and following Monday. I could say that I'm excited about that, but I honestly wouldn't mean it. 

For the rest of London, there is another tube strike planned for Tuesday, and oh, my parents are coming down this weekend! I know that doesn't really impact other Londoners - guests, families, tourists and the like roll through this city so often that crowds have become a permanent fixture - but trust me, I'm excited. 

In the more distant, but still not overly far away future, I'm turning 21 on the 19th of March, and a little before that there is the anniversary of the blog - it's turning three years old. I can't decide if I think that is an achievement or not. 

And in the more hopeful but don't hold your breath section, Yours, is still somewhere in a stage of editing. With literally everything else already done to it, I really need to pull my finger out and just get a move on with it!!, but the essays apparently have to come first. (I think that the pressure of needing to do essays is the best way of getting me to do editing, which is kind of worrying...)

The overall conclusion is, I may not be posting anything for a little while, because I have no idea if there will be Wifi in our hotel, but there will be photos and a blog or two when we get back. For those of you on reading week - make the most of it!

90,

So, after reminding myself with my last blog that I need to stop procrastiKNITTING, I have since managed to finish editing roughly half of the novel - content, not formatting unfortunately - watched far too many episodes of Grand Designs, come up with yet another design for the house I would like to build one day, which of course made me wish all over again that I was studying to be an architect and also managed to finish the back, the front and almost a full sleeve of a new jumper (baby sized). 

Whilst I know that my Knitsmithy ought to take a back seat to my Wordsmithy for a little while, it's more difficult to convince yourself to go on to review what you have previously done than it is to either knit more of a cutesy little hoodie or to stitch it together, and I think the reason is this. 

When it comes to Wordsmithy, it takes a lot of time and effort, and once done, you are best advised to leave it alone. When you have finished knitting something, you can give it away as a gift or just torture stuffed animals with what you have produced, and you can do it with the TV on without knitting the characters from The Big Band Theory or doing something equally ridiculous. In the space of a couple of weeks will have managed to produce three baby jumpers, two of which are adorable, one of which was my first attempt at knitting something to a pattern and there was more than once when I threw it on the floor and complained that I wasn't playing anymore because it was too big of a pain in the ass. Yes, I am a grumpy fool.

Even with half done, it is really difficult to focus on editing Yours, at the moment on account of the lack of sleep in my life, which is being caused by the really uncomfortable mattress. As is a custom with rented accommodation, our mattresses are at the point where they are sagging as you sit, so until the arrival of the new ones which have thankfully been ordered, I am resorting to sleeping on the airbed that I keep in case we have house guests, because my back doesn't take well to springs poking it at random intervals. 

At least it's now half way there...

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. 

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!