I am DEFINITELY scared of Becky Taylor.*

Alright, so, i know i haven't blogged in a while so i thought, amidst my busy schedule of doing... well, nothing, i'd do SOMETHING.

I've been home in Bridlington for the past five weeks, working and entertaining friends and family. I managed to get those diabolical essays out of the way and everything, just in time to come home and do more work. At least the work i was doing this easter was brainless.

To be perfectly honest, i might have left this blog a lot longer, even though ive been reminding myself to write for aaaaaages - frankly, my motivation levels are akin to the braincells of a chav, i.e. next to none. But then, the most random event occured and i just had to, to process this incident in my head.

People really surprise me sometimes. The first odd thing that happened this week is my ex, talking to me. Without (i assume) an ulterior motive - very strange indeed. I'm... i wouldn't say happy because im still slightly suspicious, but id like to think its the start of something civil.

The second, and even stranger occurence is an old schoolmate getting in touch with me to tell me to write more.

I'm used to being suspicious of people. But i was woken up by a text the other morning by a girl i used to go to school with. Roxanne and i were in a few lessons together, and have a few marital family connections. At school, i assumed, as i assumed with most people that i wouldn't have much influence or really even be liked. By several people, in fact.

This text confused me (as many things do at 6.30am) and i spent a good while making sure i wasn't dreaming. (at this point that morning i was also having an argument with the water by my bed. No alcohol involved but i didnt remember getting it. CONFOOOOOJUN!) i dont think i can really get across how nice it was to have someone who i didn't think would still be interested in what im currently doing, to text me asking me to write more. For one it was nice to know that a few people in my year can actually read (hehe, only joking!) and more so, it was nice to know that i'm not just writing pointlessly, someone is getting joy from this - which is why i started it in the first place. Roxanne, your story is on it's way. I've started writing it and i'll get it to you ASAP!

On a completely random note:

- I completely fancy Barack Obama and Marco Pierre White.

- Im STILL not over my twilight saga obsession.

- Im jived to be going back to Swansea

- I worked 40 hours last week and can't wait for a lie in

- I am DEFINITELY scared of Becky Taylor. (*side note, this may only make sense to those living in the UK.)

Eye of the Storm

ARGH. I HATE essays. i've just spent the past week banging my head against a brick wall (well, not literally although im sure it wouldnt have been as painful) over this essay. Socrates, oratory, Gorgias, persuasion, conviction, blah, blah, blah.

WHAAAAAAT? i think i wrote the 2000 word essay in a trance, where in my subconscious i understood actual Greek. I could swear thats what my book was written in.

And i finished it, JUST in time to fret about the next one due Wednesday, which is to evaluate a Roman city. *cries*

i HATE ESSAYS! hate hate hate! go read Gorgias and you'll see why!

Hellspawn?

Right, having a hard time of it recently. Essay due on the 11th on a subject im not properly enrolled for (technicians wont sort it out quick enough) and i dont have an actual working computer at home.

This. Makes. Me. ANGRY.

I'm not talking the hulk, im talking complete monster sent from the depths of hell crabby. I'm properly driving Brinners and Kayleigh nuts with my arsy ways but i dont give a rats ass this week, im in full strop mode. Oh, having no money doesnt help either... =/

On the other hand, there are some things going well. To mention them precisely would be a taboo of a jinx and all, so im not going to say anything right now but i have hope.

Picking up my tarot cards again, trying to learn them a bit more. the more i learn though, the more i get confused. such contradictory meanings. Maybe its just a reflection of some wise epiphany; LIFE itself is unpredictable. It cannot BE predicted. its all 'ifs' and 'mights'.

As requested by Miss John, a word or two on the effects of alcohol. (Purely fiction of course ;])

I was first aware of my own existence that morning when i felt a dull pain in my earlobe. I stirred slightly, confused. It didn't take long for me to realise what was causing my discomfort - my best pair of earrings, pressed against my neck so that when i finally reached up to take them out i could feel the marks they'd left behind. This movement created a new problem - i was suddenly very aware of the fact that i seemed to have fallen alseep on a merry-go-round. I opened my eyes slowly to find i was staring at a ceiling. A still ceiling. Oh God, i thought, that meant i was still drunk. I tried to sit up slowly, looking around the room. My desk had moved. Not just a little bit, either - it had traveled from its place at my window, to a new place a foot away from the door. I shook my head, instantly regretting the movement when it brought a fresh wave of nausea to the surface. Clapping a hand over my mouth, i scrambled my way out of the bed, yanking the door open and flying across the hall to the toilet.

Some minutes later, eyes watering and my breath tasting like something described only in tales of terrible sea-monsters, i shuffled my way back into my room, trying to piece together the fragments of memory i could remember from the previous night. I had left the club at 3am, i knew that much. Someone had dropped me in a taxi, paid it and sent me home. With a lurch of unease, i checked my phone. Remembering horror stories about ex-texting and the likes. Although i had no ex to text in such a way, i still had family and friends that would laugh, cry or be plain horrified by the drunken stupor i must have slipped into.

5 messages. Crap. With a sigh of relief, i found that most of them had been "where are you" messages that had gotten lost, along with my signal, on the dancefloor. The last, though, confused me.
"Who was that guy? hope you got home ok, text me when you get this." My best friend, ever vigiliant, more like a mother, had text me, at 4am, making sure i was ok. But what guy did she mean?

I was scared by this point. My brain continued to try and make connections between the sparse flashbacks that flickered through my mind every so often, but nothing really fit. Somehow, i had lost a whole two hours of my evening...

Mew?

Ive just totally realised that recently, i only post a blog when im angry or upset at life, and thats generally a bit too emo. so, this week, i give you...

RAINBOWS
BUTTERFLIES
AND BUNNIES (Oh my!)

Broadcasting this message from my place of work, Woody's bar. Much ado about nothing really, its a lovely little bar with lovely little (and several tall) people. But ive spent the day cleaning and hanging with my best buds. Oh, great, i can feel it coming up like vomit, this is gonna be a dedication... Screw it, i don't mind this. I'm feeling all lovey-dovey. :D

Brinners. The very word speaks for itself. No - hehe. We have some crazy times, mainly consisting over laughing about fighting hamsters, pulling funny faces, and shes even laughing Right. Now.

Kayleigh. Shes my substitute mother, i can always count on her to put her in my place when i fall out of it. :D

Liam Stacey ACTUALLY gives love a bad name. (apparently.)

Becky "Wawiwow" (so named because of an awkward week with an inflamed tongue) is my rock buddy. we RAWK. \m/ ("Yeah we do!")

Mark, i can't leave him out. He makes life more random. Good times. TRUMPETS!

So, while this blog holds no intellctual water WHATSOEVER, its good, once in a while, just to be silly and allow your friends to sort life out for you. I'm in a GOOD mood today, and its all ok.

"One of the oldest Human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you dont come home at night."

Box Full of Razors

Imagine that, for a second. Your current affairs, are a box full of razors, and you have to keep digging your hand in.

Gross. Now i'm all cut up and bleeding everywhere.

See the thing is, things happen throughout the course of your life that piss you off, and the more you wish you could try stopping their rampage of piss-you-off-ness, they just KEEP growing until other people become involved, and you snap.

So my ex hates me. Fair enough. He communicates this idea by ignoring me.. in a way that ensures i notice. The main issue here is, we both work in the same place (a BIG mistake if ever i saw one, but we weren't working together when we got together) and we both share lots of mutual friends. Which means hes always in my face with his 'i hate you so much im ignoring you so HA' attitude. I personally would be quite happy to talk to him again and be civil. I broke up with him for all the bad qualities he flaunts around, but it doesnt mean i dont CARE any more.

Which brings me to my next point. His new girlfriend. She is.. in a word, AMAZING. I didn't talk to her so much in the beginning - mostly because i thought if my ex had his way she'd hate me too, but no. We get along rather well (much to his chagrin i expect) and this is most circumstances would be a good thing... it was until last night.

The bar i work at is a 10 minute drive from the vicinity of both my house, my ex's and his new lass. Last night it was raining heavily so i was getting a taxi, with my friend, we were gonna split the fare... yeah. My ex offers my friend a ride, but not me. Cue ugly row in which ex's lass argues with him and forces him to offer me a ride too. which he doesn't he storms off, pissed off at her, muttering over his shoulder 'Tell em to come down then' (because he can hardly bring himself to say my name) and she ends up in tears, apologising to ME.

This deserves a big ol' DOUBLE YEW TEE EFF. This pissed me off to no end. Yes, we have a large riff between us, my ex and i, regretfully. But who in the hell does he think he is, that he would rather row with his new girlfriend than be civil for a matter of minutes?! I'm thinking i cut loose at the right time, and i feel so sorry for her because shes a lovely girl, and its not her fault, and its wrong of him to get pissy at her. If he wants to get pissy at anyone, he can come to me.

If he could just swallow his pride for once... Boys will be boys though, right?

Autographs

This is, in a way, a remembrance and reminiscing post. (It's gonna be a long one so if you're tome-o-phobic, look away now.)

Your life is, in effect, an empty autograph book. You lead your life, and different people walk in and out of it, leaving their mark behind, forever and ever. No matter how small that signature is, or how eloquent, or even if tears the page it's written on. The marks remain, and they truly influence our lives.

A few years ago, when i was sitting my GCSE's, i had to walk to school, every day. In a small town, it was easy to recognise faces, especially in a half hour route to the same place at the same time, every morning. One particular guy, i never knew his name, but no matter what, he stopped to say hello. It wasn't a big thing, it was just the fact that someone had the confidence to do so. That man became a good luck charm for me, as well as a sort of inspiration. I don't know his name and we've never said another word to each other but... its something that sticks in my mind.

It is really the little things that make a difference, truly. A few of my friends and family have passed things on to me, and they may be gone but their influence on me remains. The strongest example i can think of is my love for A Perfect Circle, a band whose name was introduced to me by Lee Lassegard... sadly shes no longer around, and we never did meet, but music is a big part of my life and for her to have changed it in such a way is something very special indeed.

Thank you, Lee.

And then of course, there are the people who hurt you so deeply it leaves you scarred. To those people in MY life, i'd like to say thank you also, because you've made me who i am today, and i'd never be anything less without your help. I hope that the next person you hurt is strong enough to realise that your ilk are only fleeting scratches - and to those who have been hurt as much and more, these are the times that show you who your real friends are, the ones who's autographs you should have tattooed. I can only truly say there are two people i've ever met that i could hate, but there are far more who have disappointed me. As much as i'd like to forget i can't - and i have learnt to grow with my marred emotions. Its a shame that the book has closed on you, because i'm almost certain you would have been interesting, underneath it all. As much as i'd like to take away the page you signed, a part of me would be missing, would it not?

I am who i am, because of everyone.

Social Issues of Britain

This week has been a big one in the world of social work; and is one that could reform many inept and insufficient laws.
The whole “Baby P” case has made my blood boil. (For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Baby P is a child that died at 17 months old from negligence and abuse at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s best friend. Info can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/18/childprotection-ukcrime ).

The main body of the argument (and this is what pisses me off, other than the fact that there are some EVIL people in the world) is that the social services are to blame. Well... yes, I suppose they are, but not 100%. The police, teachers, doctors, and a wide range of academic or municipal service people are at liberty to tell the social services what they can blatantly see or hear, but they don’t. Nothing can be done if people just don’t know, right? Maybe I’m arguing the case because my dad recently became a social worker (and he’s a good man damnit) but I personally think that, even though the “Every Child Matters” document, among others, is seriously outdated and no longer protects children the way it was designed to, it’s not necessarily the fault of the people who deal with these cases every day. Think about what you would do in a similar situation; it’s easy enough to say yes, you would take that child away – but honestly, what if you were misjudging the scene? There are so many doubts you could face that you might even be fabricating all these pieces of evidence. So in the end... you tell somebody above you, and they can handle it. That way, you’re not responsible for removing the wrong child from the wrong home. Unfortunately, the pen-pushers at the top of the chain have little time and little care for these matters. “I’ll sort it later”.

This is understandable, but it’s still not solving, or saving anyone. According to the guardian, there are 69,000 known children that are being neglected or abused, and are still living in that home. Why?! I guess the cynical answer to that would, there’s no space to put them anywhere else, not enough people becoming foster parents, not enough money, etc etc. Which, in my opinion, is pretty piss poor. (Despite the lack of space for children, I’ll bet there’s still plenty of cells waiting for these people that think torture is fun... if not cells, then there’s plenty of ground left to create graves.) Another thing that I find outrageous is this; councils are reluctant to act on the claims made by teachers on behalf of neglected/abused children, because OFSTED lower the reputation of a school district if it has children on the child protection register for more than two years. Heaven forbid children showed up at school bruised and wishing someone would love them, Christ...

All these stories I’ve ever read; Victoria Climbié, Dave Peltzer, Baby P... They trigger two reactions. The first is to grab a bat, and go on a bludgeoning spree. These are the kind of people that don’t deserve to live and the only saving grace is that even the cut-throats of prison hate these kinds of people and will make their lives in prison a living hell. It makes me so angry!

The second (which is slightly more positive) is that i want to help. Initially, it makes me want to seek out these children personally and take them somewhere where they don’t have to worry about what they say or think; show them that not everyone in the world is heartless and brutal. So... who knows, maybe once I’ve finished THIS degree... I’ll follow my dad into the world of social work and change things. I for one, would rather be safe than sorry, and take a child from a home by accident where it was unnecessary. After all, you can remove a cared-for child from a loving home and return them. You can’t save a child once it’s dead.