I am going to try and keep a diary of how I am feeling, because apparently it might stop me wanting to kill myself too.

Patricia says I’m unhappy because I want to do so many things that I end up doing nothing…maybe that’s true. I am trying to do so many things so I can some time trying to figure who I am, outside of friends, boyfriends, parents, basically, outside of people.

I have always wanted to be so many things that I couldn’t, like an actress, a writer, basically, a lot of things that I wanted to do, that I was told there was no point, because there was no money in them. And I am blaming how uncertain and unhappy I am on my dad, because that’s easier than taking the blame myself. I blame him, because then I don’t have to look at the fact that it was my fault that I spent so long trying to please him, and when that wouldn’t come, I would then re-assess another way to do it. In other words, I have spent the better part of my life trying to please someone, instead of pleasing myself.

After all, it will be me that’s left when he’s no longer around, and it’s going to be left when my friend’s won’t be here. And what will be left with me, is the memories of things done, things said and things accomplished. All of which I am responsible for.

This is a revelation I’ve had while writing this, which is why it’s very good for me to keep a diary at all.

The Secret says that if you are to keep other people happy, it’s about keeping yourself happy first, because that’s when you’re in a positive place.

I have felt that certain people really weren’t there for me in the last few months and I told them so, it’s good to have them back now. I really want to learn to be able to be on my own and I have found it very difficult to cope with this pain, this grief that only I seem to be feeling. Perhaps the problem is I have high expectations of people, and when theyr’re not bing fulfilled, I also feel this sense of loss, that the world I created around me also isn’t the same as what I thought it was. In short, I am questioning and assessing everything, to see where I am in the world. I think travelling is going to be massively hard, but I do think it’s the best way to just set me free from doing things for the sake of them in a desparate attempt to define myself and have an identity.

Luc, my house mate said that when he went travelling, you meet lots of people and none of them have presumptions about who you are, or your talents, or anything, because all they have to go off is you. That sounds like a really healthy thing to do.

He ran after me, he ran after me but he was too late. My train pulled off and I was never to know, and would never have known unless he had told me.

I had walked away from him, with my head turned backwards, despite dragging myself forwards and onwards. I never saw him follow me, and I had so desperately wanted him to. Trains do not wait and I cannot wait for him, as I have been doing for too long a time.

It goes to show that sometimes you cannot wait to tell someone something and that sometimes ‘too late’ is the thing that really is the best thing for everyone.

He said it was an omen that he had missed me. I don’t know if I believe in omens, but I believe in train timetables and trains do not wait.

Recently, which probably means the last few days, weeks or whatever of my life has been quite stressful? I am quickly discovering that I am incredibly obsessive about the future and because of this, every day is becoming one where my poor teeth are suffering more and more.

It’s so many things that I worry about, like jobs, housing, relationships and family. Every aspect of my life is affected at the moment, and not in major ways, but more like in little ways. But those little ways all mount up, and it quickly becomes this BIG MAJOR thing and feels like a little too much to cope with.

Basically, it’s because a lot of things are changing for me. I have been in education for 19 years now, and that’s quite a long time for anybody really. And I guess, the problem is, that as of this September, yeah I AM BEING THROWN INTO THE REAL WORLD. That scares me, more than a little to be honest. I have previously discussed on here, all the issues I was having with my course. The fact that I didn’t really think I could cope with journalism, as it is such a boring job. Instead of, I wanted to go into television. I guess that’s not changed really, I mean I still really want to be a presenter. I have instead decided to open my options.

Going into television on any level is pretty difficult, because so many people want to do it. You also have start from the bottom, which means working for about 10,000 pounds a year and I should be on double that with all the bloody education I have. But if you do want to do something, then I guess you have to start at the bottom. I just wish there were a way to be able to go into television, and not be entirely poor you know?

I have been applying for jobs recently, and work experience. So far, I have a week with my local radio station coming up in July, and perhaps, a week with Sky News further down the line in summer. The jobs I have been applying for are as a TV researcher for a chat show called ‘The Trisha Show’ and as a travel writer for a magazine called ‘Group Travel Organiser’.

I figure, the type of journalism I would be happy with (and this is while I can still be picky and have the luxury of not needing to desperately need to apply for anything to get money,) would be travel and music journalism. I am not that interested really in fashion journalism any more, or celebrities. I love to read about them, I just don’t want to write about them really. I realise that I am being very idealistic really, but I can be for a month or so more. I don’t wish to burst my bubble just yet.

The next jobs I will be looking for, will be more researcher jobs and radio presenting as well. The thing that worries is me, is that these jobs will be move me away from London and Jack. Then that makes me worry about the relationship, which makes me wonder if he would come with me. Do I want him to? (Yes) But we have more or less said we’re not moving in together, because it is too soon, so does that mean it’s still possible to carry on a relationship if you’re miles away? Then what do you put first, the job or the relationship?

Perhaps I am worrying too much, there are too many what if’s right now. That’s mainly because I try to consider every last option, so that nothing can shock or upset me in the future when it does happen. A defence, if you will. Until the time comes, of course I know that there is no way of stopping the future, and I don’t want to control it, but I seem to be living more in the future than the present. Don’t want to mess one up because I am living in the other.

I am supposed to be in class right now, except it is really not class, not really. It is a website. It’s a news website for our university that we are doing for class, and it tells the students and staff what is going on around our university. We each have jobs on this website; I was a features writer, now I am a sub editor.

Right now I am supposed to be in the debriefing for it, from our tutor Chris. He goes through what have been good and bad about what we have done over the last week in terms of the website.

Except, I don’t like going to these debriefings, last time I went, he really put my article down. I don’t mind criticism, really I don’t, but he SLATED me in a very unprofessional manner in front of my class. Sometimes I wonder what I am even doing here, doing journalism. I really don’t care about it you know? But then, I wonder what else I would be doing? What else right now would be happening in my life, if I hadn’t of undertaken this course.

I have discovered, that yes, I do want to do TV or radio presenting, but even to do that I have to be in London, really. It is the main place in terms of media that you should be if you want has all the opportunities presented to you. I just sometimes wished I could live somewhere prettier, like Edinburgh, but I know the same opportunities aren’t there. It’s like balancing my head and my heart and seeing which wins.

Head says:- Stay in London, get a media job in which you know you can do, if you just gave it a little more time.

Heart says: Get out of London! Move to somewhere you know is prettier, where you can respond to your surroundings, instead of just accepting them.

But surely, a place is what you make of it right? They say that London is one of the best places in the world, so why oh why do I think about leaving? I do not think it is because I am unhappy per se in this place. Only that I am frustrated with my course, frustrated with the way my lecturer talks to us, and frustrated that I DID NOT DO TELEVISION AND RADIO AS MY COURSE.

But what if even if I did do it, I was unhappy? Perhaps I will always look for more. Perhaps the grass is always greener, and if so how do I make my grass just as bright? Is it about accepting your losses?

I think personally that I am always going to be a person who will want more than what they have got. Perhaps this is some thing inside me that is always yearning for more, because maybe they never want to be content where they are. Perhaps I grew comfortable in being uncomfortable.

I am seeing a counsellor at the moment, and we are talking about these things. I have come to the conclusion that everybody needs a counsellor and it is doing me the world of good. Having someone to talk to is amazing, someone that doesn’t judge you and all.

I don’t feel like being judged at the moment, which is why I am avoiding the mornings debriefing. Because, just for now, I do want to hide and be a little weak while I mull things over in my head without the distraction of negativity coming from anybody else.

Has anyone else seen the film ‘Children of Men’? I have just seen the late showing of it, which might not be the best thing to in this circumstance anyway. It being just before you go to bed, where your imagination is most prone to seeing the worst things known to man (that night). Anyway, so the film is amazing for lack of a better word.

The film is about the human population in a complete state of disarray and decline after about twenty years of infertility (which holds a mystery within the film, there is never any reason given for it). The main character (played by Colin Firth) is then involuntarily involved with a gang and their ploys involving a young woman. As the plot unfolds (none of which I will be divulging here) you really go through more emotions than you would if your watched your cat getting shot whilst simultaneously bearing witness to your grandma having sex. Yes that’s right. The horror of the film is something you don’t easily get to grips with.


But it is really intense, and really pulls on your emotions. There were times when I almost cried for Gods sakes ( Nearly, let's not push it now). The whole film as whole though really makes you question where the world is going to head in a few years time; it’s terrifying to think of the prospect of a world without children. I think the film just, I don’t know made me go ‘woah’. After watching the video of all the journalists dying in my lecture yesterday, I am so traumatised after watching people being killed in similar situations. It puts you in such a deep mood, but not one in which you can easily sleep. It’s 2:39 am here for example. AGH. Why one earth am I even still writing this? I better go now, have to go and look at flats for the boyfriend tomorrow and then going to Camden Market WOOHOO.

Over and out.

So I am at Westminster University now in London, studying Journalism. It’s the orientation week this week, so I have been getting used to it all. It’s a mind warp that is for sure. I have moved onto campus which is something that I have never experienced before either. There are a lot of people here, and you are completely surrounded in fact it can become a bit claustrophobic really. We have been having inductions with our course tutor Chris Horrie, he is really cool. The best thing about this course is the fact that our tutors are actually working in journalism right now. Like Chris works for the BBC and many others, it’s a great way to make contacts.

Anyway so the induction today was a mindfuck, it turns out we have 30 hours of classes a week which is HELL of a lot. I mean in comparison to my other course, which was only like 5 hours each week, this is going to be a lot harder. I think it is all about preparation of the mind though. Chris told us we are going to have a lot on between now and Christmas and so it’s best not to think about even doing work experience right now. I have to learn law for journalism and shorthand. Eventually I want to be able to write about 100 words a minute. This apparently is a much needed skill in the industry at the moment and not enough people are able to do shorthand. It also hasn’t struck me that I am at this course to learn to do something, like I am learning a craft and once all the partying and daydreaming of orientation week is over I will be accustomed to this. I think I would prefer going into fashion and music journalism though. Like culture is much more up my street than heavy politics. There’s often too much spin and lying in newspapers for my liking. We have to start applying for work experience pretty soon too. I was going to apply to Vogue, which would be the obvious choice, but it was also pointed out today that Vogue wouldn’t give you much to do (as they have more use for photographic journalism) for features journalists. I think it is better to start regionally and work your way up, I think they would also be friendlier with you and give you more to do. Anyway, that’s it for now. (I’ll let you know more when I start classes and kickboxing next week, ha-ha as well as joining the drama society!)

What is the feeling when you're driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.””

This quote accumulates my entire thoughts about the way that everyone lives; you’re always driving away from someone. Always going to somewhere else, some unknown destination if even recognised by the name it, it is a void in your mind, a stranger that is present but whose face you cannot quite make out. It scares me, and it is also what I will be doing in a week. Moving to a new life in London with an underground system I cannot comprehend and people who wilfully ignore you on public transport. Would it kill one of them to acknowledge another of their kind? Everyone has a form of distraction on the tube, be it a newspaper, an Ipod and I, well I stand there and smile at people, try and talk to them. Each person on there has a story and no one will ever know it, they just pass each other in the fleeting seconds of a journey shared, and yet remain isolated from one another. I find it to be a very strange occurrence. You don’t know which of them could be a potential friend, which of them has many shared interests with you, human beings by nature are not solitary creatures but if an alien came to investigate the humanoids, and bore witness to what happens on the tube, he would not reach this conclusion, He would think us all inanimate, lifeless beings who’s lack of eye contact (if he understood the significance of) was incredible. Perhaps the tube dehumanises us, turns into the very likeness of the figurative alien investigating us.

I am listening to Jeff Buckley singing about a last goodbye and it reminds me of a past I can’t quite remember. It’s so strange that I will be saying goodbye to everything to around here, and in a way this song is quite fitting. I have found myself writing blogs a lot more than I have for ages. I am never quite sure if I am going to put them on private or not. It depends how carried away with it I guess. I do like that I am leaving with someone else, that there is someone who is going to share the same excitement as me about a journey. It’s always nice to share these things; I don’t think Jack has to start quite as soon as me though. That means I will have to brave London on my own for a week or so, which should be quite a nice introduction to it, it means I will not directly rely on J to support me for the first week or so. Everything is going to be so big and so new, so unlike anything I will be used to. I think culture shock will be an understatement. I think I am either going to love it or hate it to begin with. These things are always extreme in either circumstance.

Seriously, how fucking beautiful is Jeff Buckley’s voice? I want to listen to the cd when he sings live, I bet it’s gorgeous. J has it, but he’s so damn funny about his CD’s and me being careful with them that it would annoy me to even go to the effort to borrow it in the first place. I mean, does one need a warning to be careful with another person’s stuff?! I hate things like that; s’like a person is saying, and ‘well actually I don’t think you’re responsible enough to know that you’re supposed to be careful with this, so I have to remind you.’ Or you know, he could just care a lot about his CD.

Now Jeff is singing about feeling unready. It’s uncanny, he sings my heart. Association with songs is the best form of vanity; one can make anything about oneself  Which is dandy with me, I make most things about myself. Harry Potter is 26, how weird is that??

When people finish university, they generally just don’t know in what direction they want to go. It’s almost as if going to uni in the first place was a way of putting off life. I think for myself it was, but seriously is this institution of education not just a farce if it is being used to prolong getting a job? I realise a lot of people work very hard at university and they get great marks and even better jobs, that’s brilliant because it’s using education as a positive thing. But there are so many people who just go to live on borrowed money and go out and get drunk every day for three years. There are people who travel half way round the world to go to university and I think that’s amazing, much braver than what I ever would be. Hell I thought I was brave just thinking about moving to London, but seriously a whole new country is not just taking in a new way of life in terms of education but just a whole new way of life full stop. It makes me feel as though I have not done so much with my life so far when you hear about things like that, but I have, I have just done it differently. What annoys me is that there are so many options available after uni, that you are literally spoilt with choice. I feel like that there has been a huge pressure to make up my mind very quickly and people give you that look, you know the one that says ‘So Waster, what are you going now you’ve skived off a job for three years?’ It feels like there’s a lot of proving myself to people who I really should not prove myself to going on. I guess everyone has to do that throughout their lives, you’re just much more aware of it when you’re younger perhaps because there are more insecurities about yourself and the world. Then again, I don’t know if those insecurities ever leave you. Perhaps leaving university and being unsure of the world is just an early confirmation that you’re never going to be entirely sure of anything. If you were, it would not be as fun.

this summer so far has been a blur of lust and guitar strumming. i am so bewildered and lost by everything. i am might be moving to the black dragon city of london and it will eat me with all of it's building shaped teeth. i am so dizzy and the world is moving so fast, i don't know why we don't all just fall off the face of it and float off, creating our worlds within ourselves.maybe planets are just people who got lost. lost, lost. we're all lost. but maybe not, i think it is too easy of a presumtion, too easy to say. a lot of things are too easy to say, just words that you vomit from your mouth. but it never stops the sickness. words are the cliches of movies and trashy novels. i am a cliche, i have wrote in the same damn style for years, it never changes and now i am just writing as i go. i haven't wrote anything for ages and maybe this is why. london baby.

1. It seems the only things we have in common anymore are old fights and friends that left us behind. While I feel like I am stuck in transit here, you are there every Friday and the same names float up like bubbles from the alcohol that might possibly be the third thing we have in common. It’s like there’s a space that might be only just a touch smaller than the Grand Canyon, and I’ve never been able to cross over to your side. We’re left staring at one another and I can see the figurative years rolling by like milky thunder clouds in your eyes. You never give anything away.

2. Your smile is the most endearing thing I have ever seen. You smile like you’ve fallen in love every time. I listened to your CD today, and it makes me think of lying next to a lake in perfect high summer, when the only thing you can see is a patchwork sky and honeyed sunlight dripping through the leaves. You might be the gentlest person I know, like a butterfly cupped in my hands, you’re the first beautiful thing that I don’t want to hurt.

Your skin is like the
Lotus petal, unfolding
Cold, white and perfect.

Things are passing me by and everyone is going to take their individual steps to claim a future that is theirs. I have to admit that I am little bit scared or a lotta bit. I know no one knows what they are supposed to do in the world, and finding a role in life is probably one of the most challanging and rewarding things that there is. I know I am not going anywhere just yet, you need money to get there. But I really want to do some exploring, both of the world and myself. I just don't really feel I know all there is to know about me and I would quite like to. I also want to get some life experience for my writing to add different elements to it. University is a bubble and it's almost popped. I want to go to extremes and leave everything and everyone I know behind. I rely far too heavilly on people and I want to know what I am capable of in situtations where there is no one to help me, like my parents or my boyfriend. That is the bit I am looking forward to. And making my own money, not having to rely on my parents any more will be one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

Money is a funny concept between my parents and I, well I still need it, I still need them. Of course I love them and need them for other stuff, but I think that money is the last hold they have on me. I just can't wait for that sense of responsblity and freedom.

you come and go in my life as though it were your own. you hold my heart in your fist, and only allow it to beat when you squeeze and relax your grip. my body has charcoal foot prints upon it. my eyes have drowned in their floods.

and i would build me an ark. but there are no promises of rainbows from here on in.

These last few weeks that have inevitably led into months since I last wrote in here have been filled up with my dissertation. It is weird that I have had this 10, 000 word essay to do since last September. Procrastination is no beautiful thing and I am reaping the ‘benefits’ of it now. It took me a long time to choose what I actually wanted to write about. I can never make my mind up about anything. So I chose to write about a subject that has always been close to my heart, and that subject was that of King Arthur. The thing is, I decided that like before Christmas last year. I have put off doing anything on this, because truth be told there was just so much King Arthur. I had no focus whatsoever. I was putting off writing about it because there was too much to write.

I started doing research on Arthur, and found that I was much more interested in Merlin. He just seems to have more of a character. So my angle started shifting towards Merlin’s side of things, but I still had no idea where to go with it at all. It was only when my deadline of May 8th started dawning upon me that I realised I had to get my ass in gear. I chose to write about a book I had read when I was about 15 called The Once and Future King by T H White. I love this book, it’s taught me so much.

See through my three years of doing this degree, I never really tried with it. I put off work, did things at the last minute and only ever attained mediocre grades. I am intelligent, but I am not academic. So when I actually do work, I learn a lot. White has taught me what an anachronism is for example and a lot about Thomas Malory’s Morte de Arthur. I love learning but I have had enough of deadlines, and my love of learning was encouraged through this quote that Merlyn (spelt differently in TOAFK) says to Arthur:

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing, which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, and never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn."

Spot on I say.

It’s been a funny few days, and it’s not like much has happened but I have had time to think about things in generally. The first thing I realised was the importance of a diary, this realisation came through helping Aditi make all her posts ‘friends only’. Some of the posts that I saw through the last few years that she has made really made me think how people grow over the years. I’m sure it’s the same with the posts I’ve made, but it wasn’t mine that I was reading. I don’t think that I post nearly enough and really enough for myself, just so that when I do look back at this in a few years ago I can remember what I was thinking all those days/months/years ago. It really is remarkable how the days can sink into one another, and unless they’re recorded in this way then they are just lost to time and space. That though scares me a lot.

On the thought of diaries, on Friday I was upset about something I won’t mention here and recorded it on my paper diary. This is something I do when I feel it is too personal to mention here. I found out on Sunday that when I had left said diary in my room, my housemate decided to not only read that diary but show it to our friend. I am only just beginning to feel mad about this. See now, I don’t have a right to shout at her because before I was okay with it. But I always have this problem; I have a delayed reaction with things. I feel really invaded and as much as it wasn’t right of her to do so, what I wrote was about her so she escalated the problem when it needn’t have been escalated. I don’t have much privacy with this girl, I tell her a lot. I just expected to have this little bit of privacy to myself, but am not even allowed that it seems. She is away till Saturday at the moment, and as the days creep by I am getting angrier. Does anyone have any advice with how I should handle this? I don’t know if to approach her now, or to just leave it seeing as I told her it was fine at the time. Stupid delayed reactions.

Valentines Day is nothing but a Hallmark holiday and is used for nothing better than capitalist benefit. It is the one day of the year that tells you if you’re not in love, your life sucks. It is the one day of the year that if you do not get a card or anything else then your life sucks. It does nothing for our egos. Valentines Day promotes both the cynics and the optimist’s viewpoints. The more intelligent of us ignore it, it has been nothing but another day in February for them. Yet when every single person I have spent time with today has received not only a card, but roses and DIAMOND RINGS, I cannot help but feel the littlest bit crap at the thought that all I got off my boyfriend was some lousy sms. I realise that his love is not valued on how many things he sends me through the post. Yet, despite what anyone says about how shallow any of it is, damn it I still felt bad. It just seemed to be rubbed more and more in my face as the day progressed and you know what? I did care. I haven’t told him any of this of course; I mean it’s my own problem so I will deal. I’m annoyed that I’m annoyed. I’m still waiting for my delivery of roses. But I think I may just go buy myself some tomorrow instead.

I’m not the type of girl that can tell you anything factual, like I hardly know any of the countries capitals in the world. I am absolutely terrible with grammar, hell I could hardly spell the word. I look at everything cynically and I am the most naïve person on this earth. I can’t follow dance routines, and I always sulk during rehearsals when everyone else gets it straight away. I feel like I have to have a career path to have a purpose and I don’t feel whole without a purpose. I have to plan something’s so meticulously that it borders on ridiculous, but then lock myself out of my house. I want a name that has an oldworld feel to it. I have to know the time ALL of the time. I always feel the lack of my friends says something bad about me, but it’s the few that I have that speak volumes about my heart. Music, books and fashion are my love. I always always think that S is better than me, and I have to prove myself to be on a par with him. I am the most dramatic person you know. I also make huge assumptions. I really want people to like my writing. I want to like it first.

Everyone is moving on or away, I don't suppose there's much difference really . As the years melt together in memory, people's faces are lost in a stroke of midsummer evening sunbeams that haunt my thoughts and transpire people into memories and from memories into ghosts.
I hear children's laughter as background noise to my own childhood and I find it easy to forget things. These familial connections that you make outside of blood are severed as years rip away the hands that once clasped
one another so desperately. It's their eyes and their smiles that I remember the most, the people that melted away, it's my way of holding onto any recognition of them. I can forget a person's face in a day, watch in my minds eye as their features all dissolve into one another and they resemble a petal, beautiful but empty.
Lullaby summer nights are a thing of childhood now, and I can forget the midnight tainted grass and sandy beaches. I can forget waiting for the shooting stars to part the crowds of lights in the sky, I could forget a lot of things. But it's attaching the nostalgia to them that makes me cup my memories in my hands. And for every person that you forget, there are those that did not fade away, whose eyes and smiles are almost a daily occurence. They make memories of yesterday, and ask 'What of tomorrow?'

Memories in my hands, tomorrow in my heart.