“You’re waking up a part of me I’ve never known.”

I am emotionally unstable. It’s nothing I can’t handle. One of my friends is inspiring me to be a little bit more artistic. He asked me to channel my thoughts, anxieties and problems into poetry. So I’m now doing a 52 week poem journal in my unused softcover Moleskine. I wrote a lot of poetry in my early teenage years, nearly every day actually. I’m a lot less prolific now, but I always find my best literary work is when I try and make it as abstract from my emotions as possible. I find it immensely difficult to do anything autobiographical. Maybe it’s got a little better with the blogging, but even when I try and write about anything I’m going through, it’s always easier if I take a slightly sarcastic tone with it. He also played piano while a sang a little bit. Since then I’ve been working a little bit on my voice, it doesn’t quite have the range that I used to, so it’s proving a struggle.

I am also getting very stressed about my studies, to the point where I just broke down on Friday afternoon into a corner and cried, with a few friends who invested their time to help me. I am scared of failure, I always have been, and I crumble and I crack. I’m trying my best to isolate myself for a little while, which really isn’t the way to go I know, but the pressure is becoming so great that there are so many things I’m willing to sacrifice. Just how far would you go to get to the place you dream of being? I’m not really thinking realistically at the moment, I’m driving myself to the point of exhaustion and I literally working as if my exams were next week (when they’re two months away). I’ve just got into the mind of “If I don’t know it all now, I never will.”

This blog is effectively just typing up everything I wrote in yesterday’s poem. “The possibilities are endless/Bullshit/I’m defined by my intelligence.” All I know is the next two months are going to be hell. I am going to become a selfish, bitter person; I’ll lose everything I loved about myself and I’m fully prepared to end up alone.

But at least I can say I motherfucking tried.

I dug up my old computer the other day, the really shitty PC I built myself aged thirteen. How did I live with 512MB memory for all those years sheesh. Anyway, there were two harddrive in it, one I used when in 2005/2006 and the second one 2007/2008. The former was saved, and I managed to salvage what was left from it, which was some ‘alternative/indie’ music I used to listen to back then (Straylight Run, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Scarling etc.) and the more recent drive is beyond saving as it was the thing that caused the computer to go kaput.

Anyway, there were a lot of things on the salvaged harddrive that I’d rather forget. I was a messed up child to say the least really, and it’s brought out a lot of negative emotions, remembering how little confidence I had then and how much of a horrible person I was. Nice.

I bought a Nikon D50 was a standard lens. I can’t use it yet, it genuinely scares me because I’m so hopeless at it. This photography thing is just silly. It came with an 18-55mm lens, which I had no idea what that meant until I googled for a while, now realising that’s some 3.6x zoom. Seriously, my compact was 7x. I tried using it at the Nick Clegg meeting today, where my friends an I perched on the bar right at the very back (classy). And yes, utter fail (although it did mean little Joanna had a completely unobscured view). So I’m gonna have to spend some £100 to get some 18-200mm lens…fan-fucking-tastic.  It’s a nice little catch-22: I’m not going to want to use the camera without a better lens, but to get a better lens I’m going to have to invest yet more money into it.

Although on The Nick Clegg Meets Bristol at Colston Hall, Clegg proves himself a great speaker: fluent, intelligent, charasmatic…but enjoys dodging questions where he could. A few times he seemed to hit nails on the head, particularly ones about tax loopholes and nuclear fission/fusion or whatever (and did honestly admit that he didn’t know much of the science but tried to answer it politically).

But after so initial apprehensions I decided to ask a really predictable yet sensible question. Didn’t think it through entirely, I wasn’t expecting to get chosen for there were lots of important people with longer arms; but I’m sure it helped that I was young, in a group of pretty females and my position at the centre of the bar made me directly in his eyeline.

I tried wording it in a way that, if he was to deliberately avoid my question it would’ve been pretty obvious. “If the next election resulted in a hung parliament, under what conditions would you form a coalition with either of the two major parties.” The man wouldn’t even let me keep a straight face, as soon as I mentioned ‘hung parliament’ he said something which I forget, and I just started laughing. Hooray. Anyway, basically he rambled on like “I can’t predict the outcome of the next election…I get flattered when people think I can predict the future” when I just wanted to shout…HYPOTHETICALLY. He probably didn’t know this, but I knew exactly why he refused to answer it.  He hinted at a possible coalition with the Tories a few months back, and Vince Cable said the Lib Dems would never back the Tories and would only consider Labour. Since then, he’s kept tight lipped about “The C-Word” no doubt to avoid ‘internal divisions’ which have damaged both major parties in the past.

Anyway, it was totally worth it to have Nick Clegg talk directly act me for five or so minutes. I struggled to keep a straight face, like I had kind of a power-crush. Oh, and it helps that he’s attractive.

As Jenny said: “You got face time with Nick Clegg, I got Douglas Alexander. I think we know who wins.”

I unfortunately did not get to complete my lifegoal of getting photograph with two Lib Dem leaders (had to shout at a security guard to get a photo with Charles Kennedy, whilst hungover, great fun). It was a good evening and I feel like a little school girl: “OMG he talked to me!”

This is why I could never do political journalism. I get power-crushes and act like a tween.

Back in college. It’s actually pretty good, surrounded by amazing people. My friends are all so different, yet we all have connections. They’re truly the best people I’ve ever met in my life. Looking back though, and the fact summer’s gone, I’m disappointed. I didn’t really have the summer I was hoping for, I first thought it would be excitement and energy and it just turned out to be…normal. I don’t really do normal. I just know that in a year’s time, I’m not really going to remember very much of it which I find quite sad. Maybe that’s why I crave drama, because at the end of the day, it’s a pinpoint of a memory. Without it, life doesn’t seem very exciting when you look back on it.

That being said, I’m thankful for what I have right now. I have a lot on my plate at the minute: uni applications, revision/reading…my friend said that college has become my hobby. She’s right. I feel like I always have one thing to focus my energy on…and now it’s college. Exciting? Fuck off.

I feel like I’m fourteen again, it’s pathetic. I don’t remember being this disconnected since then. The days I used to write pathetic poetry, cut up my old clothes, make kitsch jewellery and sing my way out of sorrow. Maybe I need to start being vain and superficial again. Stop listening to heavily produced beats of ‘artificial happiness.’

I miss having a purpose to wake up every single day, for someone I love. I miss the fact I used to believe strongly in karma and some kind of a God which inspired me to be better and that there was beauty in everybody’s soul. Somewhere in the last few years, I began chasing the life I always wanted. The girl that could turn heads of guys in the street. The girl you’d want to be for just one day. The girl who wore labels from head to toe. The girl who lived life on the edge and everybody knew it.

I’m just a bunch of simplistic statements really. What people think of me really does matter. I chase the life I love. The people who I live for are genuine, beautiful people. I don’t think could ever not be vain. I walk around knowing I’m catching stranger’s eyes. I have my values that I’d never break for anybody. I love designer labels. I do not think before I speak. I overcontemplate and overcomplicate. I act differently depending on my company. I love attention.

I wouldn’t like me if I met me.

Well, I’m about half way through my summer break from college so this seems like a good time to check in. My birthday was a week ago, got a lot of really really nice swag from my friends and generally had an epic time seeing people I’d nearly lost contact with. Pictures are on my Flickr, I really need some kind of Flickr integration somewhere because I’m actually starting to use it again. I should probably add a nice, pretty footer.

I also passed my driving theory test at 8am on Saturday morning despite being epically tired and very very stressed! I got 96% for the multiple choice (86% being the pass mark) and 79% for the Hazard Perception (58% being a pass). Considering I was aiming to scrape I am pretty pleased with that.

One thing I’ve noticed recently about myself is that, I’m getting a little more stressed then I usually do. But it’s not work-related or anything like that, in fact, I have no idea where it’s coming from. I’m losing confidence, feeling anxious/panicky and not having the drive for things like I used to. Little things are keeping me positive but on the whole it’s all a bit…blargh. On the plus side though, there’s zero zero male drama. I was going down a very bad path and I’m glad I put my head first and saw my way out of tricky situations that I ended up in out of boredom.

Right, that’s a quick summary of my life. Hopefully I’ll have my driving licence at the end of the month. Can’t afford a car or insurance so it’s all a little bit pointless, it’s for the bragging rights really. I’m also planning to make a really really lovely electronica playlist sometime, because every summer I end up listening to ridiculous amounts of electropop and it’s good shit I’m telling you.