Post-hoc poetry.

I had an idea for a new sub-anthology, details will follow if it actually gets anywhere. It's 13 poems, all based (loosely) around certain things that have happened at uni. I don't want to give too much away in case I decide I hate them all after they're written and they never see the light of day (although the first two that I wrote have been shown to one of my best friends).

Problem is, the idea came afterwards. I'm writing poetry post-hoc and it's causing some problems with dating and ordering the poems in the anthology.

I've tried to order them chronologically based on when the original events happened. This has taken some time and pouring over my diary trying to figure out what nights out happened when and when certain information become public and it's not been easy trying to put events with times.

But I think I've managed it, the last date just fell into place; remembering being filled in about the details of a weekend when I wasn't at uni.

I date my poetry. I've said this before in my post that was purely about poetry, and the date I include is usually the date that the poem is written in first draft form. But these poems are different.

The question I have is: Do I date the poems based on their first draft completion, or do I give them the date from when the event they're based on happened?

I could just include both, but that seems like a cop out. If you have any thoughts, please let me know.

Are you happy with where you are in life right now? Take 2

I missed my re-evaluation deadline. I don't tend to miss deadlines but those three months turned into almost 4, but here we are. (If you don't know what I'm talking about go here: http://dft.ba/-5things).

In short: 5 things I wish I could change about my life at this very moment.

1. Not speaking to my family as much as I used to.

This is a big thing for me. Last term we used to speak almost daily and now we hardly speak at all. It's partly down to me being busy at times when they're free and them being busy at times when I'm free. It's not all that difficult to make the extra effort, but these things happen and things slip through the cracks.

2. My pool ability.

And I was doing so well. I'm not really a quitter, but I imagine Sarah hates me for the amount of times I've been threatening to quit the pool team over the last 7 days. They say practice makes perfect but the more I've been practising recently the more I've been losing by huge margins (and by that I mean three 7-balls in the last week - Chris, Joanna and Dani) and then my confidence takes a knock and I don't want to play anymore. I don't want to give up because I have dreams of playing for Roses in my third year; but when you're playing as bad as I have been it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The worst part is knowing what you're doing wrong and knowing how to fix it and trying the best you possibly can to fix it and failing; because that's the point that you feel completely useless.

Although we did discover the secret to my success on Wednesday after our match. It turns out that all I need is a bottle of Lucozade two hours before playing and half a cider just before I play and I can beat Joanna 3-1.

3. Susceptibility to illness.

So recently I've had a cold, a stomach bug and now some nasty cold/flu-like symptoms including headache, sore throat, nausea and fever. I know it could be due to the stress I keep putting myself under by spending too much of my time playing pool, but it's starting to get annoying. I'm hoping on a period of good health to set me up for my week 10 deadline; fingers crossed.

4. Inability to respond to stress until very serious.

I'm not a night-before kind of person. I very rarely write an essay the day before it's due in and my last three assignments before week 8 were all handed in just under 24 hours before deadline. However, Psych 102 for Monday and Psych 101 for Friday were finished at 5am on Monday and Friday respectively. It's still not last-minute per say, they were both ready a good few hours before the deadline and there was even time for sleep while I asked my mum to proofread them before handing in, but it's still not like anything I've ever done before. I used to know a deadline was looming and start writing a week beforehand and keep going at a steady pace until it was done. Both assignments were started early enough but then ignored for too long a period of time until the night before work was necessary and I had to scramble to make up to my word limits while just wanting to go to bed. This kind of thing can't carry on happening and I imagine it can't could have contributed to the scratchiness in my throat and the mild pounding in my head.

5. Relationship status.

And here's the one that makes me look shallow. Of course I'm looking for love, I'm an 18 year old Fresher for God's sake; now is the time if there ever was one. I've pulled twice in clubs this term, but both straight girls, so not really an option for a relationship there. I've never been one for peer pressure, but it seems like everyone else at uni is getting some and I'm not. Maybe I'm a little bit jealous - so shoot me, at least I'll admit to it.

Re: Tattoos

I haven't blogged in over a month, so I decided to do a quick one to fill you in on the flash of inspiration I just had.

As you'll see below, I got a tattoo last month. It's almost totally healed and now I want another one. I was warned this would happen; everyone who has a tattoo says how addictive they are and I have to say I understand what they mean.

I sort of made a decision. I'm slightly sleep deprived so I'm writing it down so I don't forget but also to ask your opinions (even if I don't end up paying attention to them). I think I decided what to get next.

I wrote a poem (I do that: http://dft.ba/-postaboutpoetry) a while ago. Writing is a process that takes me a long time. I write and then I edit and re-write and sometimes I throw everything out and start again. It's torturous. I date my poems so I can remember what stage of my life I was at, but the date included is the date they were first written. If I kept datestamps of revisions I'd have more words in the footer than in the body of the poem.

The only thing that is free of this process in terms of my creativity is this blog. It's written and posted often before I have the chance to subject it to any kind of editing process. I rarely read back a blog post and if I do I tend to change things, which isn't really what I want to do. My blog is supposed to be a raw experience of me and my search for myself - not an edited version of what I think reflects me best.

My Lonely Little Girl carries the datestamp of 24/11/2007. It's almost finished. Or rather it's almost to the point where I would be happy to publish it. Publishing is something that both excites and terrifies me - to share my creativity with the world is always something that I would like to do but at the same time once it's out there in print then no further editing can take place. It's stuck like that. People have already read it as it is and if you change it they'll just get annoyed with you.

If you've read the poem you may have noticed the changes in different versions if I kept you up to date - or notice differences between the version you read and the final version if I didn't. There is a pretty strict rhyme structure which I've agonised over trying to keep while also maintaining good grammar but I think it's almost there.

As you can see from the title, the poem is about a 'lonely little girl', which is all I'm telling you about the poem - you'll have to wait and read it. The idea I had was when I decide that it is finished and have a final version which I will look to get published, I would get a tattoo. Because I'm addicted and because I just had the idea.

A silhouetted figure of a little girl.

A little skirt, pigtails, maybe holding a balloon; I haven't decided on the specifics, I only had the inspiration half an hour ago. I just fell in love with it as an idea. As for the placement, well I haven't decided that yet either. I want to steer clear of my spine for the time being till I'm a little more brave so that puts the original idea of the back of my neck between my shoulders out and I was planning on some angel wings for my shoulders and a song lyric down my spine once I get really addicted.

Specifics and placement need a lot of work, but I just fell in love with the idea.

Let me know what you think if you like. My mum says that when you think about getting a tattoo you should have a reason for getting it. After all they're permanent, and you'd hate to end up regretting it. I've met people who hate to hear the sob story behind a tattoo and find it cheesy, but if it means something to you then you won't regret it. My rosebud is a symbol of me blooming into a new person as I started my new life at uni and my little girl will tie in with my poem, and the first one I have published (fingers crossed).

Then there's the angel wings so I can fly and be whatever I want to be, the lyric 'time will be the judge of all here' which is a message I try to live by and the fully opened rose above the rosebud that's already there to signal the end of my stay at uni - although those three are in the future.

I already catalogue my life with my poetry, but there's no reason not to have two records of the same thing.

Sickness and Health

I got a tattoo. I said I would and I did it.It's a rosebud, in orange, on my lower calf/upper ankle. It was really pretty when it was first done and it'll be really pretty when it's healed.

However, it isn't pretty now.

It appears to be leaking orange ink. I have asked a few people who also said that their ink started to leak for the first few days and my dad said something about them putting in too much colour to cover against things like this happening.

I've never had a tattoo be

fore, I don't know if this is something to worry about. My mum has one but her's is on her shoulder so she wouldn't have noticed so much and my dad has two but had them so long ago he doesn't remember. I'm not entirely sure what to do.

I had a similar issue when I had a nasty cold at uni. I've had colds before, but I've never been sick on my own before. I've always had my mum to stroke my hair and give me medicine and fetch me water, but most of all to tell me when I need to worry about something.

I had an issue with my throat (I won't give you details because it's kind of gross), and I rang her up before my lecture to check that it was a normal thing that you have during a cold. Perfectly normal, perfectly reasonable reason, and perfectly helpful advice to go to the doctors if it didn't go away.

I got better. It was fine. I have since got sick again, but that's not the point.

Anyway, the tattoo doesn't hurt anymore and seems to have stopped leaking ink. However, it has started itching, which is both good and bad.

Good because apparently this means it's healing, but bad because it's really freaking itchy.

Ho Ho Happy Holidays.

(I sound like I'm trying not be offensive by not using the word Christmas. This is not the case, I just liked the alliteration. I'm not Christian and I'm not offended, so please get over yourself).

Christmas happened. It tends to do that, roughly the same time every year in fact. And we all seem to have roughly the same thing to do every year.

Most families have some sort of tradition. My best friend has Christmas dinner on boxing day and I've known people who celebrate on Christmas Eve before now (which I know is what a lot of Scandinavians do).

We do it on Christmas Day, as I know most people do. We get up a little too early after not quite enough sleep and open presents in our 4 piece family. There are thank yous and hugs, the occasional happy tear (usually my mum) and there is always a mess of wrapping paper; no matter how hard you try to clear it up. Then at a more reasonable time we head over to my grandparents' house for more presents and a delicious Christmas roast cooked by my nan and then home for Doctor Who.

We always say God help my mother when she has to cook a Christmas dinner, because she went straight from dinner with her family to dinner with my Dad's family. She can make a cracking roast, so it probably won't be much of a problem, but she hasn't ever done it on Christmas Day before.

Now it's New Year 2011 and I suppose I'll let you in on my new years' resolutions. Truth be told I've never been one to keep new years' resolutions so most of the time I don't bother making them - except the one year I made the paradoxical resolution to break my new years' resolution. I just don't see the point in putting all these restraints on yourself in January that will be long gone by February. The whole idea of new years' resolutions is that people pledge to do things that they probably won't be able to do and then they don't feel bad when they break them because everyone else breaks theirs as well. The system is set up to fail.

Which is why I did 365 days in 30 ways. I pledged in October to do 30 things that involve changing aspects of my life within a year. So far I'm doing okay with it.

My mum posted a blog post on http://faerieimportantstuff.blogspot.com/ where she talks about disliking new years' resolutions and you should all go and read that. I had the same idea as her at the same time as her and she just got there first. If I wasn't setting this to post exactly as the new year rolls in I could fiddle with the timestamps to make it look like I did it first, but that would be a little bit mean wouldn't it?

However, I do have a new years' resolution. I am stopping drinking little and often and starting drinking a lot in one go every now and then.

All the best for 2011 for you all, and we shall continue the search for Mini into the new year and beyond.

Humanity

So, many of you will know I'm home for the holidays. A few of you will know that I don't like my hometown because of a lot of the people in it. But yesterday I was in McDonalds and I heard something that was a little bit heartwarming.

I will admit, I'm the kind of person who doesn't always clean up after themselves in fast food restaurants. I do it most of the time, especially if I know the people working there, but if I've had bad service or I don't like the person who is working I will leave it for them.

Most of the time I will do it myself because there are plenty of people who don't do it and I have had to clear up after other people in order to be able to sit at a table before now. It isn't pleasant and the people who work there aren't employed to clean up after you because you're too lazy to do it yourself.

Yesterday I saw some chavs eating Happy Meals; not uncommon considering where I live. Including one I went to school with, accompanying who I can only assume was his younger brother. Upon finishing his brother put the boxes on the tray and went to pick it up. His younger brother said, in the snottiest voice I've heard out of an under 10 'But aren't they here to clean up after us?'

To which the elder brother snapped back 'No. It's nice if you do it yourself.' Well, I could have cried. This isn't something that you hear in Skem, that's not how Skem works.

Genuinely amazing moment.

Maybe it's a little sad how heartwarming I find this. Maybe I've just got such low expectations of Skem that this is absolutely amazing when it happens. But it happened, and it made me happy.

MINI NEWS: I am getting a tattoo on the 8th January. It's booked, I've designed it, and now I've told everyone I'll feel like a tit if I back out. So excited. Pictures to follow, watch this space.

Guided tour of Mini will be resuming normal service from this moment. I have my own 14mpx camera and took some photos on my mothers camera before I left uni, so let's explore the wall shall we?

This is a picture drawn of me by the lovely Danielle at the start of LVI. My skin is blue because I'm cold, my hair is red because it was back them and the boobs were only put in afterwards when I took my jumper off and stopped swamping my figure.

The text reads: To Mini. Happy Jew Day. Love Danielle.

I'm not sure if that is racist.

The unicorn covering the speech bubble was drawn by the wonderful Sammy Holden, who will be a famous artist someday and I have three Sammy Holden originals, all of which will get featured together in a different post.

As for the contents of the speech bubble... I'm not saying :)

Twitter vs. Facebook

I got an @ reply from my uncle on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. I didn't even know he was following me; I was understandably confused. After this he preceded to spam me until I got sick of it and blocked him.

Yesterday I got a friend request from a random person named Mohammed on Facebook. We had one mutual friend - a girl who always accepts friend requests from people she doesn't know.

Two forms of social networking, they can't be that different, right?

I tend to know the people I add or accept on Facebook. I tend not to know the people I follow or that follow me on Twitter. I find it works better this way.

I tend to use Facebook to stay in touch with people. Even if they're people I'm likely to see on a daily basis - my flatmates or my Fylde bar sports family. Facebook chat is cheape

r than a series of text messages, writing on people's walls is a fun way to leave a message to make someone smile and poke wars are often fun; even if they can be annoying. I tend to clear out the people I don't speak to from my friends list at regular intervals - or whenever I feel I need a change.

I tend to use Twitter to stalk celebrities. There's no other way to put it, that's what Twitter is for. That and spam. I've spoken to three of my favourite authors (@realjohngreen, @Caroline_S and @maureenjohnson) and if it wasn't for Twitter I'd have never read the books of the first two. I've had creative discussions with YouTubers who I find inspiring (@hexachordal, @blade376 and @eddplant) and even football discussions with a local radio DJ (@paulsaltysalt). I also follow Stephen Fry, but so does everyone else on twitter. I get excited when I get retweets or @ replies from people with lots of followers and I like keeping an eye on trending topics.

Thing is, when people who I usually speak to on Facebook go onto Twitter and talk to me there, it sort of freaks me out. And if someone who follows me on Twitter tried to add me on Facebook I'd likely decline their request. The two worlds shouldn't really meet.

Of course there are exceptions, but its a general rule.

There is also a huge difference in the content that I post on both. Facebook is often censored, stuff I don't mind people I am likely to encounter daily asking me about. Twitter is the o

pposite. I tweet moany crap and passive aggressive statements to nobody in particular.

The main difference in content probably comes from the fact that my parents, my flatmates and most of the guys that I find remotely attractive on Facebook aren't on Twitter. Or if they are, they're not following me. And that's the way it should stay.

Guided Tour of Mini:

You can't read it very well but it says 'All the bestest lasses are called Caroline!' I recieved it from the lovely @Caroline_S, who I mentioned earlier, when I won a competition for a signed copy of her book. It's a recent addition to the wall but it has pride of place right at the top.

P.S. This is not an invitation for people who do know me to start following me on Twitter. Please don't.

On the train home...

I hate trains.

I mean we all have some sort of disdain for public transport, a lot of the time you would rather be driving than having to share your locomotive with a bunch of strangers who would be weirdoes and there always seems to be at least one that is. But I actually hate trains.

I'm currently typing on the train. This isn't all that weird but there are people who are looking at me funny with my widescreen laptop (I get the same look in lectures, but it's the most beautiful thing I own so it doesn't bother me) perched on my knee typing away like my life depends on it. The train to Preston was hell, delayed for half an hour and nowhere to sit; worried I was running over peoples toes with my suitcase and almost not able to get off. It wouldn't have been a disaster to not be able to get off, I could have just gone straight to Wigan but I didn't pay to Wigan so I may have got in some trouble there.

I don't know what makes trains any more scary than buses. I got 4 buses a day almost every weekday for 2 years and although the thought of leaving the house to start my 1 hour commute to college filled me with dread almost every morning – it wasn't the bus part of the experience that was the negative part. Buses and trains are not that much different. Trains are actually more reliable and if they are going to be delayed you know about it in advance and usually know approximately by how much as well, something you don't get with buses. At some point I've had to run for both. They both follow pretty strict routes and trains are faster. Train drivers can't just choose to change their route and not take you where they are supposed to take you because of snow or traffic (I'm talking to you Number 3 bus driver who decided not to go to New Look and dropped us at the side of the road instead). All in all you'd think that trains would be the preferred mode of public transport.

And yet I hate them.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that 95% of the train journeys I have made have been carrying a significant amount of luggage. I did nearly run over several pairs of feet on the train from Lancaster to Preston and trying to carry a laptop in its bag along with a suitcase and a bag of stuff that wouldn't fit in the suitcase is not the easiest thing for a 5"2' woman to achieve. But I carried the same luggage from my room to the bus to get to town centre, and this wasn't as stressful. It was still stressful mind, just not as stressful. So that doesn't seem to be it either.

I was thinking about this, and all of my previous experiences with trains. If you look at my family you'd expect me to have a fear of buses rather than a fear of trains – my mother can't stand buses. But I couldn't think what it could be that induced this emotional response when it came to the thought of having to get a train on my own. In fact the first time I ever did get a train on my own I broke down crying because I didn't want to do it.

And then I remembered. I can't remember how old I was at the time, but my mum was really into cross stitch and she would go to a cross stitch and craft fair with her friend every year. And I had gotten really into cross stitch as well so I was going to the same fair. On the train. But, because I was so young I had been stupid enough not to go to the loo before we left. Needless to say, we were on the train and I was really desperate for a wee. The train toilet was out of order. We were stopping at another station before we got to Manchester but there wouldn't be enough time to get me off and into the loo. So my mum did what you could do back then with young children, took me to the train doors so I could have a wee on the platform while the train was stopped (obviously this gives you a clue as to how young I really was). The train doors closed (on my Godmother's arm if I remember rightly, because she had tried to stop them) and we were still on the platform. Our tickets, my mum's bag, all of the other stuff we had brought with us were on the train with my mum's friend. Naturally, being a young child I started to cry, I had no idea what it was that we were going to do. I was young, I didn't understand trains; I didn’t know what to do. It worked out fine; we just got on the next train and were lucky enough that nobody asked us for our tickets.

Maybe this one event has had an effect on me for the rest of my life. I do manage to get trains; I'm on one now. In fact this is my 6th in the last 6 days. But I still get a sinking feeling when I know that I have to leave the house to go and get a train somewhere. Maybe next time I get the train I'll try going somewhere where I don't need any luggage and we'll see how stressful that is. But maybe I will just be scared of trains for a while to come, but often my life is about facing fears (such as leaving my room and walking around a very slippy campus to a lecture).

Anyway, I'll be home by 5, which is when this will probably be posted because you're not actually here with me at this point. My dad is picking me up from the station but will be a bit late because he has to work, but a lift greatly reduces the stress of the journey overall because buses in Skem are much more stressful than their counterparts anywhere else I will tell you that now.

Another thing that really annoyed me was when I was on my train from Lancaster to Preston it rushed past campus. An hour after I left campus. Seems like such a waste of time and energy to be doubling back on myself, but that's just the way the world is built!

Advent calendar dilemma

When do you eat your advent calendar chocolate?

I feel like a big kid still having an advent calendar at the age of 18, but I’ve done it for the last 17 Christmases in a row so why would I stop now? I think the most childish part of it is that my mother bought me my advent calendar again.

For anybody interested, it’s a Mars one, which means it isn’t quite as good as the Cadbury one I had last year, but it is still pretty good. The window for Christmas Eve is really big as well so that’ll probably be a fun-size Mars bar I imagine.

But there is a dilemma which I face every morning when it comes to eating my advent calendar chocolate. Obviously you have to brush your teeth before you leave the house (although this doesn’t seem to be obvious to some people in my lectures, but so is life) but this will have an effect on your enjoyment of the chocolate.

The basic problem I have is: do you eat your advent calendar chocolate before or after you brush your teeth?

If you eat it before, then the taste of the chocolate gets washed away when you brush your teeth. However, if you eat it afterwards, the chocolate will taste funny. So, what do you do?

The bestest says she brushes her teeth, eats breakfast and then eats her chocolate, which seems to make sense as a logical sequence for when it comes to eating chocolate. But, I don’t eat breakfast. And I brush my teeth after breakfast if I ever get it because food gets stuck in my brace.

I still don’t know what to do in relation to eating my advent calendar chocolate and brushing my teeth. If anyone fancies giving me a solution that still allows me to have my daily December fix of chocolate in the morning before I have to go and do something else but allows me to have the most enjoyable chocolate experience that will last me the whole day.

Am I overthinking this? I should probably just eat my damn chocolate and get on with it.

365 days in 30 ways update: I received a parcel in the middle of last week, which contained a signed book by my lovely name twin Caroline Smailes. It also had a post-it-note which says ‘All the bestest lasses are called Caroline’ which now has pride of place at the top of my wall, which I will be able to resume showing you in January.

Number 24, checked off.

Songs

I'm crying and homesick so I thought I'd blog before I go to bed. I was watching BlogTV and Tom Milsom (http://www.youtube.com/hexachordal) and Eddplant (http://www.youtube.com/eddplant) were singing beautifully but they ended on three songs which made me blub like a little girl. Three songs that remind me of my family. They would have only needed to whack out a bit of Eminem and Rihanna to get the big 4 and send me into a spiral.

1. Time of Your Life - Green Day

I don't know why this reminds me of my mum, but it does. Its most likely the memories of us listening to it after I left high school and what a happy time in my life it was.

2. Book of Love - Peter Gabriel

I know this song from Scrubs - JD's last episode. And I always used to watch Scrubs with my dad on my free afternoons in college before he went back to work. So naturally my brain makes the link between this and my dad. Plus I blubbed like a baby at the last episode of Scrubs, so you know, classical conditioning.

3. Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's

I thought I was going to explode when I saw someone suggest this in the comments. This one reminds me of my brother. When I was doing my GCSE music in high school I sang this song for my practice performance exam in the December of my final year. My brother was supposed to play the guitar for it but he left because of serious bullying. This one made me cry the most. It always reminds me of Chris and of home and of a bad time in my life so I pretty much started crying the second the first two notes were played on the guitar.

This isn't particularly articulate. Its almost half 2 and I promised myself an early night for Tash coming up tomorrow. But this is something that happened tonight, and I wanted to remember this moment - after all, that's why I started doing this.

People in the chat said they were recording the BlogTV as well. I really hope I can find Tom and Edd's versions of these songs tomorrow morning on YouTube.