The "Sorrows" of Young Werther

So it's my first proper week back at uni, and one of the modules we are doing is called "Romanticism". Basically, it was a movement late 1700s-1800s whereby writers focused on nature, the country folk, and sensibility, aka an awareness of personal feelings.
So we studied this book called "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by this famous German writer called Goethe. The gist of the book is there is a man named Werther, who meets a girl called Lotte and falls in "love". Lotte is already engaged and doesn't want Werther, so Werther goes all creepy stalker on her, tries to be as involved in her life as possible, becoming her fiance's BFF, and being super weird with her little brothers and sisters, making the youngest cry and then acting like it's the best thing that ever happened to him. Lotte then talks real to him, rejects him flat out and tells him to back off. Werther responds by shooting himself in the head, kind of fails and spends 12 hours bleeding out, dying slowly and painfully in front of Lotte and her family. The novel ends with Lotte stricken with grief and guilt, and considering taking her own life.
Now, those who know me closely enough know that I am no stranger to attempted suicide, and there are a few things with this novel that kind of bug me. Supposedly, Goethe was struggling with rejection-caused depression when he wrote the novel, but clearly he did not suffer in the same way I did. It was a long time ago, and I'm not looking for any attention by writing about it, but I felt it's enough of an issue for me to write about it.
Let's face it - the majority of people have someone in their lives that they care deeply for and would never want to hurt. Parents, friends, spouses, siblings, there is almost always someone. For me, it was Alex, and for Werther, it was Lotte.
When considering suicide, I felt guilty. I knew it would hurt Alex, but at the same time I truly believed he would be better off without me. This meant that I spent weeks planning what I believed would have the least impact on him. So I decided to take a whole bunch of pills whilst in the shower, and then go to bed. The plan was that I would just never wake up.
I planned the whole thing around my care for Alex. I would never have wanted to hurt him by him finding me in a pool of blood, or seeing me after having hanged myself. I knew that would destroy him. I wrote a note explaining that it was not his fault at all, and that it was my own feelings I couldn't cope with.
Werther writes in his suicide note that he wants Lotte to tell her younger siblings why he has killed himself. This means he essentially wants her to tell them that she is to blame for his death, after all he says himself that the reason he is doing it is because she doesn't want to be with him. I feel as though, if Werther really loved Lotte, he would not want her to go through the trauma of A) finding him lying in a pool of his own blood, and watching him die and B) of believing that she was the person solely responsible for his death. There is a total lack of empathy there, and I believe that the whole "it's your fault I killed myself" attitude is not associated with depression, but with a different form of mental illness. It's another way to get her attention, and a way for people to go "poor Werther, what a tragic hero". But that belief is a complicated one.
Why is it complicated? Well, there are two things that you absolutely cannot say about a person with depression/who has attempted suicide.
Number one: Selfish. You absolutely cannot say they are selfish. The belief in depression is that you are doing everyone a favour by essentially disappearing. You believe that you are a burden on your loved ones, and on society, and you feel that the best thing for everyone would be your demise. On the other hand, Werther did not believe that, and thought that through killing himself, he could have Lotte's heart, by forcing her into grief. While depression is not selfish, Werther's motives were.
Number Two: Attention-seeking. This one is my personal, absolute bugbear. People really think that by trying to kill yourself, you're going "look at me, look at me!" No. The point is, you want to disappear completely, and for people to move on and forget about you. There is a "cry for help", which is STILL not attention-seeking, and should still be treated in the same manner as a suicide attempt.
When giving evidence in Court several months ago, against a man who sexually assaulted me, the defence lawyer attempted to use my history of depression against me. He tried to claim to the magistrates that, because Alex had been absent at the time, I had fabricated the story of sexual assault in order to get his attention. He used my history of self-harm and depression as a means of justification, claiming that I was a compulsive attention-seeker. I explained that I stayed in a public place as I did not want to be alone, for fear of hurting myself, and the lawyer claimed it was really because I wanted the attention of my assailant, and enjoyed it. Naturally, as in so many cases, the man was found not guilty due to insufficient evidence, and I was left reeling from the awful experience, and was offered no support afterwards. How, in this day and age, it is still okay to use things like that as a defence to a crime committed, I am not sure, but there was nothing to be done other than to move on with my life and try to get over it.
Suicide is not about attention seeking, however, in Werther's case, it does appear to be. He wants a way to immortalise his "love" (otherwise known as unhealthy obsession) for Lotte, and a way to ensure he has her attention, and she never moves on from him. And it upsets me to believe that someone would commit suicide for selfish and attention-seeking reasons, but then again, I don't believe Werther suffered from depression at all.
I see it as more likely that Werther suffered from some kind of delusion, and that he had a God-complex. He believes Lotte should be with him because he's more like her, he deserves her more. His frequent mention of The Odyssey and Ossian shows that he has an obsession with Gods. He is also incredibly vain, and believes himself to be awfully intelligent; in other words, he has a huge ego. He wallows in self-pity, and believes that inanimate objects contain a part of a person. He acts like a child, and his attraction to Lotte is related to her mothering nature. No, Werther is not a mentally stable character. But he doesn't have depression.
Immediately, when someone commits suicide, we immediately think that they are depressed. However, I've watched enough Criminal Minds to know that this isn't the case, and that suicide can be just as much about ego (think suicide by cop). Werther certainly had a huge ego, and by rejecting him, essentially Lotte stamped on it. From a Criminal Minds perspective, it was going to go one of two ways. Werther was either going to become a serial killer, killing women as substitutes for Lotte, or killing himself, as a sadistic way to torture Lotte for the rest of her life. It also meant he went out with a bang, so to speak (apologies for the crude analogy). People would remember him as a tragic hero, rather than that nutter who stalked the bailiff's daughter.
Depression is clearly a big part of romanticism, and of literature in general. The wallowing, the tragic hero, the never ending misery that seems to compel us as readers more than a happy ending. But I don't believe that "The Sorrows of Young Werther" is really about his sorrows at all. I see it as more a story of sadistic behaviour, and a deeply disturbed individual.
Yes, I know it's a fictional novel, and I know that people display illness in different ways. However, I can't understand how anything that Werther does reflects depression at all. Blaming someone for your suicide, making them live with the guilt, making yourself a martyr in the process is not something an individual with depression would do.
As an ending to my own story, my plan didn't work out how I intended. Rather than put me to sleep, the medication I had taken instead meant that I was wide awake, yet not consciously. I began moving objects around the bedroom, genuinely believing I was serving people cappuccinos at work. Alex naturally realised what had happened, and I was taken to hospital, ripped around 3 cannulas out of my vein from fighting the staff. I believed Alex was my best friend Trish, and I thought that my step-dad was around the corner as I believed the hospital was the swimming pool I volunteered at. Essentially, I was as high as a fucking kite. I was put on a drip, the staff wished that they could have tied me to the bed, and though I was seriously poorly, I recovered, and got the help I needed, and was encouraged to remove the toxic influences from my life. I don't remember anything at all from a 3 day period, and I am at the point where it was so long ago that Alex and I can talk about it openly, as something that we both went through, and a stage of my life that is over. I encourage anyone out there who suffers from the kind of feelings I have discussed to seek help, because while it may not seem possible, help is out there, and it's possible to get better. It may seem hopeless now, but I promise, it's never hopeless.

A Big Fat Vent

So maybe I've gone completely mad.

I'm sat here with everything I've ever wanted with my life but I literally cannot - and I mean CANNOT - sleep, like whatsoever.

It also seems that my first blog post in, hmmmm, forever, is going to be pretty much a huge vent.

I'm pretty sure venting was the reason I created this thing in the first place. I never really intended for anyone to read it. And if I'm honest, I'm sort of hoping no one does. This is all for me.

So, this time last year I was kind of skinny. Well...really really skinny. And I've put on weight this year. I'm guessing that there's less stress now than before, and I've got over the starvation as a means of self-harm (I didn't even realise I did that until I stopped?) So naturally my thighs have got a bit bigger, so have my boobs. But I keep looking back on photos of myself and missing the way I looked back then.

It's dumb, I know. I played jump rope with the 18.9 and the 19.1 on the BMI scale. But damn, I looked good in shorts.

Don't get me wrong, the relationship I currently have with food is great. I love it. I love cooking it, and I eat all of it. I never used to do that.

And thank God I have boobs. Looking at those photos, I just didn't have any at all. And my collarbone looks less sharp. That's pretty nice as well.

Another thing that's been bugging me is my guitar.

It's been sat in the cupboard since we moved here. And I don't think it will ever come out.

I had an accident just after we moved, and I severed 3 tendons in my fingers on my left hand. GREAT, because I'm right handed. Not so great, because that was my fretting hand.

I had an emergency operation to fix it, put under general anaesthetic. Missed my first module at university. Alex had to stop going to college to look after me as I kept getting frustrated. My whole arm was out of use for months.

And then, when I was told it was all great, turns out I have something called tendon adhesion and I can't move my middle finger properly. And it constantly hurts. They'll have to operate again, but I want some time first.

So if this doesn't get better, I might never use that guitar again. All because I cut my finger. Which just sounds like a joke. Which is what I thought it was when they told me I needed an operation. A big fat joke.

So I'm lying here, next to my sleeping husband who has no idea that I haven't been sleeping. I don't think he'd wake up if I threw some sort of party in here. He probably wouldn't even if the building collapsed.

I get my new laptop from the university people on Tuesday, so I don't have to type anymore. Because of my fucked hand, as well as dislocating wrists. Not sure how I'd feel saying this stuff out loud. I'll probably still type it.

But it's exciting, I'm getting my first ever brand new boxed laptop. And it's a modern one and a really good one. And lightweight. Can you tell I'm excited??

I'm going to try and sleep now, more because my headphones are running out than anything.

Girl with Five Colours in Her Hair

On my sixth form leavers day, this was the title of the award that I won.

Interesting, isn't it? That someone can win am award for having colourful hair. But you may be thinking, what is it that makes her hair so colourful...?

Good question! Now let me explain....

I really enjoy dying my hair interesting colours. This all started around 18 months ago when I dyed the middle layer of my hair turquoise. It was amazingly pretty and I stuck with this for a good few months.

Between you and me, the main reason I did it was to piss my mother off...but I loved it all the same.

In the summer, I bleached it all and dyed it all blue. It didn't quite work out, so I tried the whole silver hair thing and that worked pretty well. I kept it for a couple of months.

And then I went ginger. And it actually suited.

So again, I kept the ginger hair for like 6 months and a few months ago I dyed it brown with blonde ombre and then started dying the ends crazy colours.

First was pink, then red, then purple and blue, then turquoise, then violet and then blue.

So you can see where the award was generated from.

I've got quite good at dying hair now, I feel quite proud of it. I've just dyed it all over red and it's quite shocking but I think I like it.

I even managed to convince Alex to let me dye his hair a couple of times. But he sort of ended up looking like Sonic the Hedgehog and I wasn't popular for a good few days.

It's probably not healthy to dye hair so many times, but most the time I avoid chemical dyes so never really does any harm (:

The new L'Oreal colorista range is pretty good, in case anyone out there wants to experiment for a bit. And for something a lot more permanent, Directions is literally a blessing.

I've got university in a few months and I'm determined to kind of reinvent myself a bit before September. Alex is fully supportive of this, he's helping me pay for a motorcycle and a license (as I literally suck so bad at driving a car). This will mean I don't have to be a bus wanker anymore!

I've tried my driving test twice now and messed it up both times by being far too nervous. There's no way of fixing nerves. I'd just have to try again and again and again until it was sorted and frankly, it's gonna be expensive. With a bike, at least they have to pass me at some point. So that's a bonus.

He's also helping me pay for a tattoo to cover my scars. To be honest, it kinda terrifies me but I figure a pretty tattoo is a lot more explainable than a whole bunch of ugly marks all up my arm. Loads of people have them. Just because I know my parents wouldn't approve, why should I be afraid to get one too?

So yeah, two years later and I'm back to trying to reinvent myself xD will I ever change? The only thing I'm ever really certain about is that I love writing, and so that's what I'm doing at university.

Finally, I can start on something I can enjoy and find myself, and my freedom.

The Leap of Faith

So in recent months it has come to my attention that I have made the leap from being a child to being a fully-fledged adult.

When I say leap, I more mean a kind of dramatic fall, landing in an awkward position and breaking at least 6 bones on the way down.

But hey. I'm 18 now, I can legally go out drinking.

My first ever attempt at heavy drinking did not at all go well. Age 17 (just!), school trip in Rome, legal drinking age 16, cheap vodka...oh no.

As I was in the room of a group of my friends rather than my own room, I was hidden in the closet while teachers instructed lights out. Upon returning to my own room, with a head that was spinning as though I was in a washing machine, I needed to throw up. I didn't want to trip over on the way to the bathroom and wake everyone up....so I vomited out of the window.

I know, I know. Classy, right?

But that's not a patch on Alex's 21st birthday.

I'm not really a big drinker, I tend to prefer staying sober and even if I do drink a lot, I still tend to stay sober.

Alex on the other hand....while he denys it like crazy, is sort of a lightweight. We were at the pub, he was drinking beer and was already pretty out of it when his alleged "mates" started calling shots.
Being the sensible one, I tried to point out this was not the best idea.

Naturally, I was completely ignored.

Fifteen minutes before the bus home, I went to pick up Alex's birthday cards from his parents. That's when it all went tits up.

Apparently, Alex's "mate" James started mouthing off about how controlling I am (for recommending he not do shots...hmmm), which led to Alex getting pretty wound up and throwing his kebab at a phone box before chasing him down the road. Being early November, the pavements were slippery with wet leaves. Alex went down like a sack of potatoes, bounced his head on the concrete and was out cold for a good 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, 200 metres down the road I realised that Alex wasn't on the bus, didn't get on it myself and started panicking. A few minutes later, James sprints down the road at an alarming pace and refuses to slow down or stop to tell me where Alex was.

A few minutes later, two girls who had been down the pub came running down the road and informed me Alex had been in an accident, whacked his head and gone AWOL. This marked the start of a wild goose chase, with Alex running away and being aggressive, his mate Tristan punching him in the head to get him to stop, Alex losing half an hours worth of memories and believing that his injuries were a result of being punched.

Eventually, a paramedic came as we were worried Alex had done some serious damage with the way he was rambling on and obviously had lost a few brain cells on the way down. But in the end, he was okay, just had to have a CAT scan.

I can't say the parties I've been to have ended fantastically. One ended up with someone being bottled, another someone mixed two things that ought not be mixed and started having fits, during another someone punched a hole in a fence.

Exciting, right? But with uni coming up in just a few months I expect this will become the norm.

A Summer Adventure

So a year's gone by since my sad and sorry realisation that sixth form isn't exactly what I'd expected, and after a tiring, demanding and physically draining year, I was fit and ready for the summer holidays.

Lucky for me, having a boyfriend who has an apartment slap bang in the centre of a seaside town, I was able to spend it with my number one favourite person in a beautiful sunny place.

Six weeks of total freedom. How awesome does that sound?

So naturally there were a number of adventures Alex and I got up to, from days at the beach, where he'd pick me up to throw me in the water only for a wave to wash over his trainers in an act of karma, to day trips to London, waking up at 4 in the morning just to maximise our time there, powered by several cans of Monster and a bag of pick 'n' mix.

My favourite has to be our trip to the boot fair.

Don't ask me why I found that so fascinating, it was just such a nice day. Despite my complaining, waking up early made the day last so much longer, and cycling 8 miles at 7am, despite being hot and sweaty, really gave me a sense of achievement.

I mean, it's about the most exercise I've done in months!

But when we got there, I was amazed at all the things on offer, from microwaves and vacuum cleaners to books and jewellery and electrical devices. Alex's greatest find was a guitar hero kit for the Wii in its original packaging.

Mine was a DS Lite, same as I had as a kid, with an R4 card which meant after downloading ROMS online for free, I could play any game I liked. I found that pretty awesome. It's great, being able to relive my childhood by playing all my favourite games.

I also got a couple of nice dresses, and a really neat green coat.

It was a good day out, and call me sad but it was interesting seeing all these people with things they no longer needed, selling them to people who would find better use.

Another of my favourite days was Alex's work barbecue.

It ended up being less of a barbecue and more of a hog roast, and while we mostly kept ourselves to ourselves rather than socialising, we had a great time.

What we learned is that no matter how good he is at it on the Wii, I slaughter Alex at basketball. He managed to embarrass himself, the 6 foot plus tall guy, pretty well built, getting bested by his 5ft5, dress -wearing girlfriend.

Thankfully, he did redeem himself by battering me to near oblivion on the inflatable "It's a Knockout", whacking me wherever he could: my ear, my eye, my stomach, my legs. Anyway, he won fair and square, his masculinity was restored and his boss got to watch him beat the shit out of his girlfriend with an inflatable cylinder. Everyone wins.

Naturally, living with your s/o isn't all fun and games. There are constantly chores to be negotiated, and we never really got the hang of negotiating. Washing up was something in particular that always resulted in a disagreement. However, cooking quickly became my job, not only because I love doing it, but because Alex's choice of "warm beans, or cold beans" didn't always sound too mouthwatering. Though to his credit, he did once cook me a lovely dinner which I ruined because my train was cancelled and I got home an hour late. I felt pretty bad about that.

Another reason cooking became my thing was because of Alex's ability to forget. He put a pie in the oven, and as the instructions said, he went to leave it for 55 minutes.

After 10 minutes he began to notice a smell. I don't really pick up on smells, which he knows, but he decided to wait it out. Fast forward another ten minutes, pandemonium. The fire alarm is going off, I'm bricking it, and a very much burnt pie was pulled from the oven. After a bit of scraping it was perfectly edible but how the both of us managed to sit there, with the room going blue with smoke, and not bat an eyelid, is something I'll wonder for many years to come.

So all in all, a successful summer. I was able to relax for once, excluding the trauma I was put through to every time Alex got impatient and dashed across a busy road. It was great being able to cuddle up on the sofa and watch movies, and I have lots of memories to cherish.

Sadly, I'm in year 13 now, and probably won't even have the time to think about them.

Help.

Nostalgia, Pot Noodle and the Issues of Multilingualism

It's occurred to me that in a matter of weeks I'll have been writing this blog for a whole year....

What?!!

A WHOLE YEAR?!?!

That's right.

In a way, I feel like this thing is kind of like a diary for me. I look back on some on my earlier entries and I have a bit of a nostalgic giggle.

Even then, I was naive. I read the very anti-alcohol one and remember the time around 6 weeks ago I drank too much cheap vodka and threw up out of a window.

I know, I know, Classy, right?

It's a shame, I used to keep written diaries and realised this afternoon they accidentally got thrown away. It feels like 5 years of my life just got thrown away.

My favourite memory in them is the year my nan sent me 3 birthday cards because, thanks to her dementia, she'd forgotten she'd already sent one. I'd put all the cards in my diary.

My dad says that as long as I keep my memories locked up in my head, it doesn't matter that the diaries are gone. But reading words written when my biggest issue was whether I was going to be able to go to the cinema to see Harry Potter or not that weekend is sort of relaxing and made me smile.

So here's to many years to come on this blog, with years worth of memories to cherish, all here, on my own little website,

This will be something to one day show the next generations of mini-me's :)

Anyway, today I discovered something absolutely horrifying at school.

After weeks of near-starvation due to a combination of my poorness and my refusal to bring sandwiches to school, I decided to bring a pot noodle to school and get it filled up at the common room cafe.

This was only to discover that the school is by law, not allowed to fill up a pot noodle.

Naturally, I was fuming...not allowed to fill up a pot noodle?? What is this rule???

Apparently, it's a Government policy, so that students can't sue schools.

So the first thing I did was bring up the contact line for David Cameron and start angrily writing an email before i figured out a loophole....

I decided to buy a mug of hot water for 20p and then just poured it into my pot noodle,

Winner.

Dad's found me a mini flask for hot water for tomorrow, but the dilemma is actually whether I want to bring water, or mocha.

I hated coffee a week ago and now I'm hooked on mixing coffee with hot chocolate. It's actually so nice, to the point I smell coffee and start craving it badly.

It's a downhill spiral from here, I'm sure.

Talking of downhill, my German speaking AS exam is fast approaching and I am bricking it.

It's such an angry, yet adorable language at the same time.

Like the word for glove is a "Handschuh". A hand shoe. Isn't that just the cutest?

But then science.

French: Science
Spanish: Ciencia
Italian: Scienza
German: NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN!!!

Or... NATURWISS for short.

So while for the others I generally get somewhere with guessing...German...naaaaaaah.

What generally happens is I'm speaking and then I'm like "damn, what's the word for 'something'".

And I'll be sat there and suddenly "QUELQUE CHOSE" pops in to my head.

But, shit. That's French,

So I'm sat there and all that's going through my head is "quelque chose quelque chose quelque chose quelque chose"

And I'm sat there with my mouth hanging open, catching flies while the teacher is desperately trying to coax me to talk again.

"What word are you stuck on, Robyn?"

And by that point I can't even remember the English word any more, all I've got is "quelque chose"

And so I just have to say the French word and hope the teacher catches on.

You think I'm kidding but this is an experience I had during a mock speaking back in like October or something.

Turns out the word I wanted was "etwas".

So yup. If that happens in my AS I am pretty much screwed.

So wish me luck!

It's got to the wonderful point again where I'm going to be cheeky and ask for a bit of feedback. I've even added a poll to the bottom of this blog page so yeah, just click on what you think...

Make my day, or crush my hopes and dreams. It's entirely up to you.

But yeah, any comments, votes on my poll or +1s would be greatly appreciated

Thanks guys! Hope you enjoyed!

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The late-night adventures of Robyn and Alex

So, Tuesday night was probably the most eventful night of my entire life.

Not in a sexual way, before you even try and interpret that. You dirty, dirty little pervert. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I mean in an all-night adventure which started with me waking up next to my boyfriend in literal agony.

And there I am writhing around, crying and screaming that I want to die, Alex is pinning me down and trying to get me to take my medication and it's all a huge, scary mess.

So I force co-codamol down my throat and lie there hoping to die. But the pain doesn't stop and I can't stop twisting and turning and crying and Alex is getting irritated as he doesn't know what to do, he's trying to hug me to calm me down but I keep moving and pulling away.

So I decide to phone 111, the NHS helpline to see what they say.

I'm explaining my issue through floods of tears and the guy on the other end says "do you think you could get up and make yourself a cup of tea?"

I reply "but I don't like tea."

Apparently it was a figurative question, I wasn't meant to take it seriously. 10/10 to me.

Then we're standing on the pavement outside the house waiting for the ambulance the 111 guy called, Alex wrapped up in the duvet and me constantly moving and hyperventilating.

He's trying to grab me, wrap me in the duvet with him and comfort me but I'm just wriggling out, sitting on the pavement, leaning against the car, trying to shake it off like some kind of spastic but it just won't go away.

The ambulance shows up and it's this little car. The lady asks if we can go inside. We say no because everyone is asleep and we don't want to wake them. She seems kind of pissed off about that one. But then it is like 3am, I'd be pissed off too if I had to work at that time.

I have all these things measured, my oxygen levels and heart rate, blood pressure, my blood sugar level (which is very low) and my temperature (which is very high).

So it gets decided that I need to go to the hospital. As I've had a recent urinary tract infection, it's discussed that it may have spread to my kidneys and caused the amount of pain I'm in.

The blood sugar is due to me having had a bottle of cider. Good God, the party animal in me is beginning to destroy my health.

The only issue with going to hospital is there's only one seat in the car. And there's no chance in hell I'm going anywhere without Alex.

There's also the issue of emergency equipment needed. So a big ambulance gets called.

When it arrives some 15 minutes later, I get taken inside the ambulance and sit on a chair, my problems are told to the new paramedics. One's a bloke and one's a lady who seems quite cheerful and funny.

Then I'm given a breathing thingy, which I'm told is laughing gas, and it won't have a lasting effect.

Alex gets sooooo jealous at that. Look how the tables have turned - now I'm the badass.

I'm then handed a little bottle of sickly sweet gel and told to eat it. It's for blood sugar. It's meant to be forest fruits flavour but just tastes of sugar.

As I'm under 18, we have to go to Margate, to QEQM. To the paediatric ward.

Fml.

Blood sugar back up again and we arrive in Margate, I'm helped out of the ambulance, donned in pyjama bottoms, Alex's sweatshirt and a denim jacket, with my tatty pink blanket wrapped over my shoulders.

Alex is stood near me, wearing his classic hoodie, and a pair of baggy blue trackies, wearing trainers with no socks. His hair's all ruffled and he's got his sleepy face on.

We're shown to the waiting room, where we buy coffee, Coke and watch the BBC news about female circumcision. By this point, the painkillers have kicked in and I'm feeling slightly better.

There's a couple in there, a man and a woman. The woman declares loudly that she likes my hair as soon as we walk in the room. I'm quite taken aback but manage to have a discussion about hair dye.

While I'm in the toilet, Alex has a chat with the bloke. Apparently they'd met that night and were planning on eloping together as soon as they'd left the hospital.

All I find out is that they'd been escorted here by the police.

Well you meet some interesting folk in Marga... I mean, the hospital.

After ages, I'm called into the consultation room. Nothing gets said much, I'm just given a tube to fill with my pee.

Back in the waiting room and Alex and I curl up together and try to sleep on the many chairs we have at our disposal. We also buy some food to eat out of the vending machine.

An age later, we're called by a doctor, who sits us down and takes away my pee. Good riddance. We're quickly moved to the paediatric ward, which only has one light on as I'm the only child in the hospital.

I lie on the bed, get poked and prodded a bit and am told that I have still a mild UTI. Then I'm given hardcore painkillers and antibiotics and sent on my merry way.

We ask the chap how far the train station is.

He replies "Oooh, is far. Is very very far."

Greaaaaaat.

So we walk to Westwood Cross at 6am, as one does, still dressed in pyjamas, Alex with my blanket tightly wrapped around him. He pretends to be irritated in the fact I dragged him to hospital at 3am but he later admits he'd never ever leave me in a situation where I needed him.

We make it to McDonalds at 6:20am. We explain to the guy at the till that we've been in hospital. I must look fucking rough because the guy offers me a free drink and hash brown.

We manage to get 2 buses and a train home, and 8am just crash.

So basically, I got fobbed off with more painkillers and no real solution to the problem.

Alex wants us to go back to hospital to actually find out why I'm hurting so bad but I just wanna sleep. So much.

But anyway, it was definitely an adventure!

Such exciting things happen to ones like me.

Broken Fences and Cartwheeling Trampolines

I haven’t written in in a while… Sorry about that.

Don't get me wrong. I love writing this blog. But there's just so much for me to do.

Like studying and eating and studying and breathing and studying and sleeping and studying and showering and studying. The list is just goddamn endless.

And what doesn't help is that life has literally grabbed me with both its grubby mitts, thrown me down its ugly pie-hole, chewed me for a while before spitting my mangled, saliva-clad corpse back on to the pavement to ferment.

Though I doubt it would ferment in this type of weather. Maybe freeze so all my toes fall off and I end up an ugly purple mess.

So yes. I'm an ugly, purple, over-worked, stressed out, cold-ridden, nervous mess.

So I apologise profusely for not having written in.

In regards to the topic of this entry, which I am yet to decide... Let me just decide a topic quickly.

I have just started learning to drive.

Crazy to think of 5"5 little bespectacled me driving around in a little white Skoda Fabia and wreaking havoc on the Kentish roads.

But then it's also crazy to think that it's an act of treason, punishable by death, to place a postage stamp upside down on an envelope.

Yes. In 2016 that's punishable by death.

Anyway, back to maniac Marchant over here, just driving around the abandoned area of a local town called Deal (no stalkers plz). For those who know, opposite to Fowlmead.

So I had the liberty of a roundabout, a small car park, and a stretch of road.

And a car.

I stalled the damn thing like 15 times because I'm badass.

But the most interesting situation was me trying to turn the car around in this pathetic little excuse of a car park.

My dad starts shouting next to me "Slow down! Slow DOWN! SLOW DOWN!"

The obvious course of action in this circumstance would have been to slow down.

But, see, I'm not that intelligent.

Ohhhh no.

Instead, I decided to floor the accelerator in a blind panic and crash in to a wooden fence.

Smart, I know

My intelligence never fails to amaze me. Just this afternoon I was asked to hold a tent down to stop the 40mph winds grabbing hold of it and pulling it off to Timbuktoo.

So naturally, I let go.

Up, up and up the tent went, and soared over the six foot garden fence and to the gardens beyond.

Needless to say, Alex was not impressed. He went on a bit of a rant about women and how I’m completely incompetent at times.

Someone needs to remind him who’s the only one who can put the tent down again.

HINT: It’s me.

We ended up knocking for next door to try and get it, but no answer.

So we’re both standing on the kids’ trampoline trying to see where the tent went and then Alex ends up letting the duvet fly over the goddamn fence as well.

Hypocritical much?

We ended up managing to retrieve both tent and duvet and weighting it down with paving slabs.

Hoorah to us!

So we decided all the hard work had earned us some chicken nuggets.

Walking down the road in the dark and blustery conditions, we see a 12 foot trampoline escaping a garden over a massive hedge.

And that’s when we realised, even the worst situations could, theoretically, be so much worse.

It was also quite funny.

Christmas and the States

As pretty much the worst excuse for a blogger, I apologise. Things have been pretty hectic, and as I write I'm living the high life in the mighty US of A.

Family holidays to Florida tend to be pretty jam-packed and as for school...

SCHOOL...

It has this habit of lulling you in to this wonderful sense of security that you're on top of all your work and you can start to relax.

NEVER TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY EVER IT IS ALL A LIE

The second you leave your work for a little while because you've got a while and not much else to do, you watch a few films, go on social media, spend some time with your boyfriend, the second you decide that that's a good idea, the worst thing possible happens....

You're in your bubble of security and then you get to school one day only to be given 36 essays and 42 pieces of homework in for next Tuesday.

And the second that happens.... Well, basically... You're fucked.

I've made this mistake 5 or 6 times now and am still waiting to have learnt my lesson. I'll probably make it at least another 13 times. Just, ya know. Just to be sure.

And then it hits December 1st and all you can remember are the lyrics to Slade and Mariah Carey and you couldn't give a flying fuck why the American Civil War started, or the techniques used by Shakespeare to compare the Renaissance and the Medieval. You want to sit by the fireplace drinking hot chocolate in your pyjamas listening to the Christmas classics with a mince pie.

Then you hear on the news it's meant to snow. You think "yay, no school on Friday! I'll leave my homework!".

And then it doesn't snow. And you do have school on Friday. And then once again, you are royally fucked.

Anyway, iit's still the holidays, I need to stop fretting about school before I depress myself.

The last thing that I remember from school in 2015 was an Italian lesson in which my friends all appeared at the window brandishing a bra and shouting "WE HAVE A BRA FOR YOU!!!".

I didn't even bother explaining to the teacher what the circumstances were, but I can assure you it's a other more innocent than you're probably thinking.

Think my friend lent me a strapless bra for holiday so I could wear halternecks as we're the same size.

We girlies like to share more than just gossip.

But Florida.

Something I've noticed here is the fact that everyone is so much friendlier than back at home.

You'll be ambling down a street when someone waves at you and asks how your day is going.

Naturally,  I do the very British thing of looking over my shoulder, believing the stranger us addressing someone other than myself.  But alas, no. They did mean to talk to me.

Even Brits are more friendly to other Brits here. You hear the tones of another English accent and you start chatting to them no matter what and walk away as unlikely chums.

Back in the UK we're far more likely to shove someone down the escalators of the Underground than we are of making smalltalk with strangers.

Think about it. If I passed a stranger in the street back home I'd generally look at the pavement and scuttle along. If I was feeling particularly adventurous maybe I'd attempt a smile.

Here it's everyone talks to everyone, long conversations with waiting staff and parking operatives, and "ohmygawd I LURVE your accent!"

Within an hour of landing in this country I was asked what a Donnex's catchphrase was. I had not the foggiest what this chap from the rental car company was on about until he said "EXTERMINATE!". It then occurred to me that he must have meant a Dalek.

Some stranger walked up to me a couple of days ago at the swimming pool and asked what Premier League football team I supported. They laughed when they said football, as if we Brits were the ones that christened a sport which predominantly uses hands "football".

I had to disappoint him in saying I honestly couldn't give a flying toss about a spherical ball moving up and down a grassy field.

Thinking about it, I'm not very British. I don't even like tea which apparently just strips me of my nationality straight away.

Thankfully I've managed to find out how to mask my IP address on my laptop so we've been able to keep up with all our favour BBC shows. Luther, Call The Midwife, Doctor Who, Sherlock. We've stayed up to date on all our British faves.

A man from Northern USA said to my family the other day that you can always spot a Brit because they'll be the ones wearing socks on the beach. Usually black. True to his word my dad was wearing socks, only they were white.

I haven't worn socks since I got here. I'm really failing on the whole British thing I believe.

Corridor Wars and the Battle of Beauty

I haven't posted in a while. I apologise for this but I've been a bit busy.

I'm here now. That's what counts, aye?

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what I'm posting about so I figured I'd just let the words leave my fingertips and see where exactly we end up once I'm finished. 

Something I have noticed at school is that everyone lied to me.

I was told all the younger years would be scared of me, dodging me in corridors and scuttling away frightened every time my gaze fixed upon their tiny faces.

Is this the case?

No. No it is not.

Quite on the contrary, these small children just shove me out of the way as if I wasn't even there. 

I'm late for lessons 100% of the time, not because I have abysmal time keeping skills, or dawdle in the corridors, or anything swaggy and IDGAF like that.

I'm late because all the little kids shove me in to walls.

They walk in rows. They walk down narrow corridor in lines, obstructing the whole path and I'm like arrrrgh where do I even go? 

I said "excuse me" the other day and a younger student had a go at me. I felt quite violated and ashamed. Not going to lie about it.

So now I roam the corridors clutching my travel mug tightly to my chest, sporting a fearful expression and prepared to throw hot chocolate over any unfavorable character.

Okay, that's a lie. I wouldn't really throw hot chocolate over a child. But it does get agitating, especially with sarcastic teachers.

"Well good evening, Robyn. Might I ask where you've been?"

*shifty look left. Shifty look right*
"Well the corridor was kinda busy...."

They never buy it.

It doesn't help being near enough the same height/shorter than the majority of them.

I found out how tall I actually am the other day and let's just say I was not darn well impressed.

So having been one of the tallest in my year for a long time everyone was fairly confident I'd be tall enough to be a model. What a disappointment.

I was at the nurse's having a check up for medication (yay...) and she checked my BMI. My weight I scrunched my eyes up so I didn't have to look. My height.....

I stood up against the wall measure, the nurse brought the measurey thing down on to my head.

"One hundred and sixty-three centimetres!"

Half an hour later I googled what this is in feet.

5ft4. What.

I could swear I was 5ft6 at one point. After the vertebral disk injury a couple of years ago I must have shrunk. It's the only explanation.....

So yeah, now I'm one of the midgets.

So yeah, schools pretty stressful at the moment. OBVIOUSLY that's the worst of it though. Not the mountains of homework or anything.

My salvation is my free periods, where I can chill out a bit, slowly work on something while noshing on something that'll make life seem so much better, and giggling away with my girlies,

In a couple of weeks we've all got GCSE presentation evening, so everyone's all having kittens about what dress to wear to it.

This includes me, as my mother decided to buy some the other day which don't look toooo bad on me.

Naturally, I asked my friends and boyfriend, and while Alex was saying I should go for the red one, my girl mates were like "not that one"

So I'm like ahhhh. I guess I'll go in my pyjamas.

I dressed up fairly nice the other week for my cousin Becky's birthday party. It was at a cocktail bar I ended up getting served at and I had a tad too many.

Apparently I was stroking Alex's leg telling him I wanted to kiss him. Nice to know I turn into one hella creepy bitch when drunk. 

It was a great evening though soooo whateverrrr.

After his initial laughing at me, he said it was "kinda cute".

I'm sorry but no.... I just sound like some whacko molester.

All I remember is walking out my house looking and feeling pretty damn awesome and walking back in again feeling very giggly, loved-up and looking like the Joker.

Anyway we all had a great time and I did get to kiss him. So all was well xD

All's well that ends well.

A Damaged Pride Amongst Other Things

So on Saturday I had my first day off in a considerably extended period of time.

So how, do you assume, I spent my relaxing day off?

Going on a wondrous adventure with my boyfriend?

Shopping with my girl mates and having a right old laugh?

Chilling in front of Netflix in my PJs with a steaming cup of luxury hot chocolate?

THINK AGAIN!

I figured a nice way to spend my day off would be at the MIU of my local hospital.

For those with less hospital experience, that's the minor injuries unit.

How, you might ask, did I end up in said predicament?

Well...

You see...

I flew down my cellar steps like the second coming of Lucifer.

Yes. I swear on my life. That's what happened.

I thought, "Well hey, what's the point in going all the way upstairs to get my own shoes when I can just slip my dad's on quickly for nipping down the cellar!"

That thought process, while having occurred and in fact succeeded on multiple occasions, in this instance, was nothing short of insanity.

I got to the second step down and I'm fairly certain I must have slipped.

I'm not entirely certain because I don't really remember what happened up to That Fucking Moment.

That Fucking Moment where you realise.... you fucked up.

You fucked up BIG TIME!

So I sort of became concious that I was falling and that immediate doom was inevitable a few milliseconds before my back collided with the brick step with an incredible force.

Did it stop there?

No it did not.

In the true style of the pull of gravity, I continued my downstairs descent with a "DONK DONK DONK DONK DONK"

The whole "DONK" thing?

Yeah. That was the sound of my spine hitting brick. Somewhere amongst that was also my right elbow hitting brick.

There was basically a lot of me hitting brick.

After I'd stopped donking down the steps, I omitted such a noise that my sister described as a "hurty whale" and led my brother to the belief that a dog had somehow got in to the cellar.

Flattered, as you can imagine.

Anyway, I finally managed to move, found myself unable to move my elbow, laugh, cough or sit down.

So I ended up waiting in the hospital for a considerable amount of time, being told it was ligament and muscle damage in my arm, and told that the muscles in my back, had once again, torn.

Having recently been diagnosed with hypermobility syndrome, this didn't really come as much of a shock.

What was rather shocking though was having to pee in a paper dish and walk out of the toilet, rather skeptical that the thing was going to even hold, and hand it to the nurse looking after me while trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible.

Yep. Had to have my pee checked for blood to make sure my kidneys hadn't taken too much of a bashing. Awkward much.

Anyway, I was sent home with a sling and a considerable dent in my pride.

A Mini Me

Most people have a lot of funny stories from when they were kids but having been talking to my mum, I was honestly such a classic *embarrassing* child it even cracks me up!

So I spent the first few years of my life living in a teeny village alongside the Kentish downs, so it was essentially like living under a very green and spacious rock.

So I saw mostly the same people day in, day out basically. However I did learn things through the TV which made me feel awful smart. I was one of those inquisitive little children that asked questions about literally EVERYTHING. I had to know the ins and outs of just about anything and everything.

Even from a young age I liked swimming, so there I was, swimming with my mum, armbands on, and who do I see other than a black man.

So I'd learnt about different skin colours on the TV but I hadn't really seen it first hand so according to my mum, my little chubby three-year old face lit up and I paddled off before she could do anything about it, to talk to the poor chap.

"You're black, aren't you?" I said, very proud of myself.

"Yes I am," He replied. "And what colour are you?"

My face shone even more and I flicked my head in a very know-all fashion.

"Oh, I'm SILVER!"

Silver. I said I was silver.

Silver. 

SILVER???

Oh my word. Wasn't I just wonderful?

I was also fairly demanding. I still am, really. Reply to my message, hug me, love me... JOKING. Or am I? I'll leave you to suss that one out...

If I wanted something, I wanted it and I would go to extreme lengths to ensure I got what I wanted. So, when I was three I actually lived in Kavala, in Greece for several months because of a work placement my dad had got. So my life was pretty damn chill, beach every day, sandcastles every day, paddling, glorious sunshine. The picture-perfect life, when you think about it.

But I wanted an ice-cream, even though I'd already had one. So my mum said, "No, Robyn, you can't have another one, play nicely now please."

But that wasn't good enough for me.

I waddled up to the kiosk, approached the man who was second-in-line and yelled "BUY ME AN ICE-CREAM, NOW!!"

And to the poor guy's credit, he did. 

So I walked back to mum, happily slurping away at my ice-cream, which shortly followed with a full-blown interrogation as to where I'd got it from.

"That man bought it for me, mummy!"

Just dropped him right in it. I was such a little shit!

So mum had to pay the bloke back and I got away with my ice-cream, although I did get in a LOT of trouble.

Like, a hella lot.

But the "now" thing kind of was kind of a thing for me. We were at some barbecue, I was two years old I think? Anyway, I went up to my mum and I said, "Mummy, I want another drink!"

So, my mother being a wonderful model parent for all the people surrounding us, replied "And what's the magic word, Robyn?"

So I stood up tall and went "NOW!!!" 

Everyone nearby scarpered pretty quickly, like oooh, how embarrassing. I had that effect. I made people walk away from us, I was so embarrassing.

But my all-time personal favourite has to be the time we went to B&Q. Again, I was two and I was stuck at that awkward stage where I called every lady "mummy" and every man "daddy". So mum was trying to get me to kick the habit, like "No Robyn, that's a lady."

This one time though I got it spot on.

So we were browsing for God-knows what around B&Q and the sales assistant walks over and politely asks "Hello there, is there anything I can help you with today?"

My arms dropped down by my sides. My eyes widened like saucers. My jaw hit the floor.

I lifted one arm, pointed at the sales assistant and yelled, at the absolute top of my voice,

"MAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!"

For what was stood in front of me, was reasonably obviously, a male transvestite looking absolutely mortified.

So what did my mum do?

She scooped me up under one arm.

And she ran as fast as she could to get the hell out of there.

She couldn't exactly tell me off; I was merely being honest.

The moral of the story is: don't get caught with me out and about in public, because I have a talent for showing people up.

Yup. That's me.

A Shakespearean Adventure

So last week I went up to London to see Shakespeare's Measure For Measure at the REAL ACTUAL Globe Theatre!

Well. You know. Like the 5th restoration of it.

So I got to go to school in jeans, a T-shirt a hoodie and my beloved Converse.

I walked to meet my friend Jaz and her jaw hit the floor. Apparently seeing me so un-smart was a bit of a shock.

I was in school for one lesson. That was one hour and twenty minutes of "ROBYN OMG you can't wear jeans! They're gonna send you home!"

Bite me, bitch.

The pals I was with had started a group chat the night before which was an agreement to bring a tonne of sugar filled foods which would probably result in us being so hyper we'd be shaking throughout the duration of the trip. This was with Kim, Georgia, and Laura was accepted in to it shortly afterwards.

This group chat had been affectionately named by me as "The Fornication Foundation".

This seems totally weird unless you're actually familiar with the story of Measure For Measure.

Psst....psst...It's about PRE-MARITAL SEX!

Yeah, so we got on the train and tipped our bags out on the table...

We had 2 chocolate oranges, a box of swizzles favourites, a bag of Doritos, a pack of Oreos, Haribo minions, and then bought some Kinder eggs at the station.

If I've forgotten anything guys just comment because I swear there was more....

So we managed to get to the Globe and after wrestling for some lunch at Eat, we took our places in the courtyard of the theatre, where we faced our next biggest issue.,,

Standing up for three hours.

Uh oh.

So we were up to the left of the stage, leaning right on it. I had to be on my tiptoes, because...well...yeah, but the others coped all right.

Within minutes all of us had spotted the same guy opposite from us at the other side of the theatre.

He was a cross between Stephen Mulhern and Leonardo DiCaprio. Dazzling smile. Beautiful face. We all spent the full hour and three quarters of the first half of the play not really paying attention, but more watching "Fit Guy" as he was affectionately christened.

Whenever he looked in our direction, we all looked at each other and giggled, That's how creepy we are.

Okay, I did actually pay attention to most of the play, but it was Shakespeare, and need I say more?

Plus my back was literally killing me, standing for so damn long.

Anyway, after sitting in a massive heap on the floor of the Globe for like 15 minutes, we were told we had to get up to endure *cough cough* whoops, sorry, I meant ENJOY the second half, which wasn't really half at all, but about a fifth of what the first half had been.

But Fit Guy had disappeared so we were much more concerned about finding him than Lucio's marriage to a whore.

Spoiler alert....

Anyway, the highlight of the play was when a wheelbarrow tipped over and fell on the audience at the front and one of the actors had to come out of character to ensure they were okay.

Leaving the Globe, we found Fit Guy, only up so closed we realised...he was not so fit after all.

In fact, he was around 40 years old, with wrinkles, a balding head, clothes a few sizes too big, and a pot belly.

Bit embarrassing....

So we ran.

I kept getting crushed at Waterloo Station, with people walking in to me at all angles while I yelled something along the lines of:

"People!! Everywhere!! I live in the middle of nowhere! There are more people in this station than in a 5 mile radius of my house! Help!"

The train home was somewhat eventful, after not getting a seat and the others scrounging off of my personal hotspot (I ran out of 3G on Friday guys, cheers xD).

There was also a minor incident of Kim vs her Double Whopper and the onion-that-was-meant-to-be-lettuce. But i won't go in to the gory details

But it was a great day out, with lots of laughs (like me failing at hair tutorials) and lessons (such as age before beauty....)

Love you guys!!

Comical Misfortune

I swear it is literally always me....

Some weird cloud of devastation follows me....

But instead of the simple tragic events, I end up with the tragically comedic and just plain pathetic incidents which, while being funny for the majority of onlookers, for me, really aren't actually all that funny.

So yesterday was pretty standard until I sat down on the common room floor awkwardly and couldn't get back up again.

Smooth, I know.

So my friends Kim and Georgia came over to try and help me up, only my shoes don't have all that much grip...I ended up skidding along the floor and landing in an awkward heap, yelling at them about how a chair with three legs would have provided me with more stability while they tried not to wet themselves.

I am literally the essence of attractive *L'Oreal hair flick*

Merely two hours later, I looked over my shoulder to say goodbye to someone and full-on face-planted a bus stop post, thus rebounding a good metre or so.

The poor chap didn't quite know how to react....

For some reason, I always seem to attempt to get off the train on the wrong side. I'll be frantically pressing the button, wondering why the damn thing isn't opening, before realising that everyone else is offloading on the other side of the train and they're all looking at me as if I've been let out for the day...

Whoopsie daisy....

I also have this habit of trying to be a hella lot cooler than I actually am.

So again, yesterday - t'was not a good day - it chucked it down, and in order to jump over a colossal puddle flooding the entrance to a park I had to walk through, I climbed on top of a wall.

It was only like hip height but still, it was a bit of a struggle.... especially as it was dark and raining and my bag weighed a tonne

Then some weird thing...REALLY weird... possessed me to think "jumping over this puddles gonna be hella swag, I should toats magotes film this to up my street cred"

No.

Just. No.

I commenced filming, jumped off the wall and just carried on going down

And down...

...and down

.......and down

.........and just a bit more

Until I landed in the goddamn puddle.

I filmed myself falling in a puddle. What even am I?

Somehow, I turned my Siri on in my pocket yesterday while talking to my dad and I went to check the time and what has Siri deciphered other than:

"Do you like my dick"

No, Siri. Go home. You're drunk.

Today's incident was so unfortunate that I'm surprised I still have my hair on and a functioning cardiac muscle.

I was at band practise, mid-way through a song. I like to film it so we can look back and figure out weaker points.

The fire alarm went off mid-song

And I jumped a mile and screamed the place down.

The worst part is that the fire alarm goes off every single week, as they test them at 4pm on a Friday. They just did it a bit earlier than usual today....

Thanks a bunch. So now I have a video of me having a heart attack.

I never want to hear "Use Somebody" ever again anymore.

It's just tragic. I'm a drama magnet.

Huelp

Quirks & Perks

So here's a small rant about the quirky little things other people may relate to... Or alternatively I'm just super duper weird. Also a possibility...

Firstly.

Hiccups....

I swear I always get these at the most insanely inappropriate moments. I'll be sat in the middle of a test, and for literally no reason, I'm bouncing up and down like some out-of-control space-hopper gone wrong, going "HIC HIC HIC HIC HIC HIC!"

It's not even remotely discreet. It's like I've been possessed. And then people (aka my so-called "friends") start giggling which draws even more unwanted attention upon myself to the point I'm asked to go and get a drink and control the involuntary spasms racking my body.

Secondly, when someone talks to me whilst I'm not expecting it my response will ALWAYS sound sarcastic. For example, I was approached in the common room the other day by my head of year.

Him: "Oh! Robyn! I've got something in my office for you if you'd like to collect it at lunch." (Being my student card)
Me: "OHHH well doesn't that just sound DELIGHTFUL!" 

And that's one way to piss people off. 

People think I'm doing it on purpose, it's difficult to explain that I was actually being genuine... It's just an anti-awkwardness mechanism.

Next, how could I forget that every time I sneeze, I'm met with a chorus of "Bless you!"

I get it. It's polite. But for some reason it really aggravates me.... I'm just sat there minding my own business and then "ATISHOO!". As if that wasn't already bad enough and I wasn't already drawing enough attention, I get blessed.

Don't bless me. I'm evil. It won't work so well in your favour.... As I've already pointed out, I'm fairly certain I'm possessed... I mean, sarcasm and hiccups don't lead up to nothing.

I don't need a blessing. I need an exorcist.

Also, MY JOINTS!!!

I snap and crack more times a day than a raging psychopath under an extortionate amount of pressure.

It's quite fun in exams and in the cinema.

Just think about it. You're watching an intense horror movie and it's the quiet bit where something's about to jump out...

...and

...CRACK!

If I just rotate my ankle, I get "click click click click" which I often use as a metronome whilst practicing guitar. And I'm not even ashamed to admit it.

But when I wake up and am relentlessly trying to be silent, all my joints going off at once really doesn't help. My hips and shoulders sound like someone being shot.

One time, in German class, my hip went off when I wasn't expecting it, I nearly shat myself, and stacked it as a result....

My doctors and physio keep thinking I'm hyper-mobile or something which would explain the back but I've had all these tests and stuff where a had to stretch my fingers out as far as they would go, and things like that, and I'm not. It's just some whacky thing about me which I could easily live without.

It bothers some people too, when I sit there and push in all my knuckles to make them pop. Personally I don't feel the issue....to me it feels like releasing a demon from my fists.

Does anyone else always start hearing people shouting their name the second they put earphones in or are those just the voices in my head that tell me what to do....?

Recently too, I seem to be getting very emotional about trivial things. My phone will be playing music on shuffle and a song I'm not keen on will come on.

And do I skip the song after rolling my eyes? Sighing? Something remotely normal?

Nope. For some reason I mutter "Oh, why don't you just kill yourself!?" under my breath.

....?....

And I don't even make a conscious decision to say it....it's like WORD SPLURGE!

I mean, nice Robyn. Real damn nice.

Sometimes I also do things for LITERALLY NO REASON.

I'll throw a bottle of water on the floor as hard as I can because a bus hasn't shown up.

I'll be doing homework, walk downstairs, open the fridge, close it, and go back to doing my homework.

I'll just randomly say thinks like "a woba bob bob" because I have nothing better to say.

I'll brush my teeth 3 times because it beats whatever I'm meant to be doing.

I'll creep up behind my friends and hug them to death without them noticing until the very last minute purely because they are my friends and I love them to the moon and back.

Okay, so I lied about the last one. 

I actually just do it to scare the living shit out of them. It's the funniest thing in the world. I mean, their FACES! CLASSIC!

I'm evil, remember? 

The Art of Feminine

Do any of you boys out there realise how difficult it actually is to be a girl?

Yeah, okay, so we've got the whole on-the-surface issues which are brought up a lot, but let me enlighten you with the everyday struggles of a teenage girl.

First and foremost is the issue of our appearance.

We're, in a way, expected to look pretty amazing all of the time, which is pretty shit, not gonna lie here.

If I don't put make up on in the mornings, I face a day of people asking me if I'm alright.

(Did you see my pun there? Eh? Eh? Eh?)

"Yeah, I'm grand thanks. It's just my face unfortunately. I get it, it's disgusting..."

So I have to wake up a full 20 minutes earlier than going au naturel to actually ensure I look like a healthy functioning member of society.

I know. It's all a bit misleading when you think about it...

Anyway. I decided quite recently to revert back to glasses despite the whole "nerd reputation" thing.

I literally was so done with shoving my finger in my eye four times a day just be be able to see in focus.

I know this is also relevant for boys, but wearing glasses just ain't cool. Really lowers the street cred.

Luckily for me, I'm literally so done caring.

Shaving sucks. Like we have to do it every few days and it's just annoying. Yep, guys, okay, you have to shave your faces. BUT... try legs and underarms. I dare you. Or better. Try WAXING!

Now you all must have heard about eyeliner. Basically, it's a bitch. You spend ages getting a perfect shape you just cant repeat symmetrically on the other eye so end up looking like a member of Kiss.

Lipstick tends to come off the second you have something to drink....so either we deal with that or we dehydrate.

Don't get me started on bloody nail varnish.

Apparently now eyebrows are meant to look good now too. Luckily I have a fringe which covers mine sooo, suckers.

I still have to straighten that though to get it to look presentable.

Frizzy hair is a no-no. I have to use de-frizzing products at great expense so I don't look like "Leo the Lion" as I was affectionately known in my first years at secondary. Thanks guys....

Moving on from appearance which takes a shit tonne of time and money, we have the typical gender stereotype: girls are well-behaved, well-mannered, have neat handwriting and don't misbehave nearly as much as boys.

These aren't my words. These are stereotypes.

The hardest part is living up to the expectations. My handwriting looks more like a complex spider diagram than a pattern of letters, which, I get, can be pretty frustrating,,,,

Especially coming back to reading it in the summer for revision... whoops.

The issue is, girls mostly get pressured by other girls, especially about the way they look. It's known as "bitching".

Sadly, it's done behind people's backs which makes is somewhat difficult to actually learn what the real issue is.

Boys are usually pretty straightforward and upfront about things like that. In general, girls....nope. We put up with so much drama because everything is made out like an episode of Eastenders.

Not pointing the finger at everyone. This is just a brief generalization.

High heels are Satan's gift to womankind, along with crop tops and false eyelashes.

For some reason, it's also far easier to be labelled. "Slut", "nerd", "bitch", etc. all seem to be lasting reputations which are hard to shake.

"Weird" is a prime one. Still trying to shake that one off....

HIT IT, T-SWIFT!

There's a fine line between "slut" and "prude" when it comes to clothing, especially skirts. Finding a happy medium tends to be a challenge and does often make me worry.

We're criticized easily on our weight which sucks. Pizza's just so much more understanding than society.

Not to mention we have mood swings. Like we could be ecstatic and optimistic all day, get home, slam a few doors and spend the rest of the night crying about how cute your hamster is.

This actually happens.

I mean I could go on and on and on. But if you're still not entirely convinced.

PERIODS.

I think I'm done here.....

Staying fit....OVERRATED!!!

So I'm doing this instead of my wonderful English homework.

Yay me. Little rebel!

To be fair, it's a comparative essay on two poems with literally nothing in common.... I've written two pages of me completely bullshitting already, I've sort of given up.

So I thought I'd share my experiences of the past few days with you guys, my fellow, invisible readers.

(It would be awesome if someone could comment by the way so that you're not an invisible reader anymore :3 )

So I have a couple of friends who swear that going running makes them feel invincible and just goddamn on top of the world.

So naive little me....

NAIVE LITTLE ME....

....thought, hey, why don't I start getting up a little bit earlier in the mornings and going for a run before school.

WHAT A GOOD IDEA!

I thought it would be nice to be a bit fitter, maybe tone up a few muscles and feel better about myself.

I just feel like a total fucking mess now. Not gonna lie....

It started off pretty good. Just sorta ran across a field next to my house and thought go me, I'm a legend, look at me go... well, time to go home now....

Oh.

I've been out for 50 seconds.....

So I did carry on going for like another 20 minutes, got home and thought fuck me, I'm hungry...

So proceeded to make salted caramel brownies (which were flipping heavenly!!!)

My weight-loss etiquette is super amazing, as you can tell.

My back hurt soooo much after though I actually went back to bed after lunch....

When I first came downstairs in all my gear, little lycra shorts, frizzy hair pulled back and a cami, my parents did a double take.

They were pretty supportive though and I was fairly proud of myself.

Monday morning I woke up at 6:40am and ran 2.5km around my village. It took 20 minutes but hey, I'm not very fit so I was pretty proud. My dad got the biggest shock coming downstairs at 7:15 and finding me all hot and bothered and most shockingly.....awake.

I was way too smiley for a Monday morning though....people began to get worried.

Something that peed me off rather spectacularly though.... The app I used to time me and track my distance also told me how many calories I burned with my work-out.

ONE HUNDRED

AND FIFTY-THREE

MOTHERFUCKING CALORIES

THAT IS IT!

I was so put out. All that effort to only burn like one twentieth of what I'm meant to per day.

So instead of listening to my sore and achey muscles, naturally, I went again this morning (Tuesday).

What a fucking mistake....

After I couldn't walk without stumbling, my legs were so heavy, my hips ached and my ankles burned like hell.

To burn another 150 calories....

I'm taking tomorrow off before I fuck myself up too much...

In all fairness, my legs do seem more toned than before....although that may be my imagination....

Anyway, the point is....exercise is completely overrated, though I will stick to this whole running regime as I have my reasons for wanting to be fitter...

Like doing a cross-channel relay in the summer...

What is wrong with me?

So I have a volunteer job as a lifeguarding teacher, or poolside assistant thingy ma bob...

Basically, I teach kids how to save peoples' lives and it's actually pretty fun.

I qualified as a lifeguard in the summer and I was pretty pleased with myself as it's pretty tough work, especially swimming with clothes on....

I got my job conformation certificate the other day through the post and it says something pretty weird....

"Position applied for: CHILD WORKFORCE"

No. I did not sign up for the flipping child slave trade....

What's wrong with "teacher"?

A 6th Form Reality Check

So there's a common view of 6th formers created with admiration and aspiration by younger students in the school. I know this is a fact. I myself did the same thing.

Lower down the school you look up at 6th formers and think "one day, I want to be just as grown up and clever as they are".

Let's get one thing straight here: noooo you don't!

For starters, we don't have to wear a uniform. 

Great. Fantastic. Wonderful. 

So now I spend half an hour every evening in a pile of clothes and a puddle of tears trying to assess which of my clothes will be deemed suitable, fashionable, don't trigger an alarming sense of paranoia that I'll be sent home for indecent exposure because my shoulder is visible. 

I always looked up to those older kids with the big shiny badges embellished on their chests labelling them as "Area Prefects". I saw them as a figure of authority and hoped that one day I would be picked to be one.

Teacher: "Oh, before we pack up, does anyone mind being an area prefect for the English department? You get a nice badge..."

And it was as easy as that. 

You may think we are oh so lucky, with our free periods and endless amount of extra time. Lies. Again.

"Supervised Study Sessions", so called for the fact that there is never a teacher around for the entire duration of the lesson, are usually spent with people hunched over books desperately trying to keep up with the crashing wave of homework which has washed over the lot of us.

Luckily for me, I do better doing homework at home... So my study sessions usually result in me having what I like to call, "second breakfast".

What schools hide from the younger years is that once you reach the 6th Form, that school healthy regime you've always hated? Well that goes well and truly out of the window. They ensure that you're in great shape when you enter Year 12, but by the time you've reached the end of Year 13, chances are you're going to have Type 2 diabetes and will most likely be morbidly obese.

We all know why that is though. You get so stressed out and tense with all the work you get, they pump you full of endorphins and send you on your way to Happy Land. It keeps us awake so that we can be up until the dead of the night finishing that analytical critique on Pride And Prejudice. It's the only thing between a friendly working environment and 200 simultaneous mental breakdowns within school grounds.

So they make the 6th Form Common Room a feeding ground of pizza, ciabattas, toast, Nutella, brownies, cake, rocky road, Cadbury's hot chocolate, coffee. Like I said, it's the only thing keeping us sane.

While I admit I love the common room during study periods, with its comfy sofas, unwobbly tables, central heating and the pleasant smell of toast, come break and lunch, it becomes something quite different,

People come flocking in, tables fill up, and suddenly, loud, popular music (God forbid) is pouring out the speakers at a ridiculous volume while you try to not be knocked to the ground because, however hard I try, I always seem to be in someone's way. There's loud voices and it becomes in-navigable. You're trapped for eternity. Maybe longer.

Yet stubbornly I persist to go there at breaks and lunchtimes where I am actually free. The sole reasons for this are because a) that's where my friends are and b) tragically, I have nowhere else to go.

Your heart should bleed for me.

When I was in year 9, a little birdie told me that in the 6th form, you were able to access Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo Answers and many many more using the dreaded school WiFi.

Boy was I disappointed to find that the only change was that they'd also managed to make Snapchat inaccessible too.

If anyone ever tried to kid you that there's some sort of smooth transition between GCSE and A level, then honey, you've been lied to.

The transition is like having a carpet ripped out from under your feet and landing flat on your face, breaking every bone in your body in the process.

I wasn't expecting it to be easy, but I was at least expecting a bit of adjustment time....

The teachers also set homework just for the heck of setting homework. It's like they get kicks out of it...

Teacher: "We have a lesson tomorrow so I'll see you then. Oh! Homework! Hmmmm let's see....how about exercises 1-8 on pages 23, 24 and 25 and we'll mark it together next lesson!"

For German especially, it feels like I've gone from describing the weather to writing about things I don't even know in English. We did a translation of an advert about a child shoving porridge into a VCR player the other week. I'm not even kidding. I won't even mention the one about the elderly man driving through a shop window....

They expect us to do volunteering outside of class to show how caring we are for the local community. The past couple of weeks, all I've really cared about is my bed and when dinner is going to be ready. 

How are we meant to have time? They say that we have to spend 3 hours or so a day studying.... As kids we're meant to do an hour of exercise a day. We have school all day. We're meant to relax too. Parents expect us to help out a bit, we have to have dinner, shower, whilst getting 8 hours of sleep a night...

We also have to get jobs to fund our new-found obsessions with school rocky road. And university obviously. That's also pretty important.

I decided to skip out on the exercise bit in particular. Also the sleeping part. Sleep is for the weak.

Thankfully I already volunteer as a swim teacher, which I absolutely love so it's no biggie, but honestly, We're teenagers, not gods.

I still get told I'm not allowed to go to the toilet during a lesson when I'm about to throw up yet I'm expected to be a saint and manage my life spectacularly. 

(FYI, I just stormed out the classroom anyway).

So 6th Form....expectation vs. reality is quite a different tale. While I love my school (most of the time) and I especially love my subjects, I have definitely walked into this blindfolded and walked into several lamp posts.

I mean I'm most annoyed about the whole Snapchat thing but whatever. ;) 

A New Start

So for someone who finds change an incredibly large feat, this past couple of weeks have been rather interesting for me.

First off are the sheer amount of people that have, over the summer, appeared to have decided to no longer be friends with specific people.

Namely me.

Screw them and their negativity. I'm funny sometimes.

However, the biggest change of all is the start of 6th form.

So thankfully I passed all my GCSEs at a B grade or above, which is pretty sweet. It meant I could take any subject that really took my fancy.

Sometimes it amazes me that I did that well. For example, I peered into a dark classroom only the other day and saw the interactive whiteboard moving. Shocked, I jumped on my three friends like "OH MY GOSH GUYS THERE'S A GHOST USING THE COMPUTER!". They all laughed, patted me on the head in the most condescending way possible, and pointed out that the teacher was sat at the computer.

Just something else I'll never live down then....

Over the summer, I spent a lot of time and money buying clothes for the next two years. At my school, we have a kind of uniform thing, and have to dress all business-like.

I took this super seriously, however having now started 6th Form, it would appear that I was in fact one of the only ones who did.... Most people come in wearing skinny jeans.

Whoops... Now I look completely out of place in my pencil skirts and swaggy blazer.

So now every day I have to choose in advance what I'm going to wear because I simply have to be organised. I sit on the floor cross legged for 15 minutes, just thinking about what might make a reasonably attractive outfit, and not make me look like some sort of small child dressing up in mummy's office clothes.

This is a concern I actually have.

And four days in, alas! I'm already becoming stumped for ideas! This really isn't good... I have another year and 8 months of this yet...

For some reason I'm really conscious of wearing the same thing twice. It's a little bit of a stupid worry, but people can be so weird about it! Like, "ew, didn't you wear that dress last week?"

Uhhh, yeah, I did. I mean I washed it and everything though...

For some reason it still bothers me quite a bit. I guess I just don't like those sort of snobby confrontations. It would be a tad awkward and embarrassing.

Another massive change is the fact I only take four subjects now, and I have free periods. It's only the start of it all, so I know it's going to get ridiculously hectic and I won't be saying this, but it's quite chilled out. I'm relaxed. It just seems that most people really aren't.

I'm meeting new people and making new friends too, which is awesome, because I definitely needed to. I did have a bit of a habit of keeping people close who I'm not entirely sure actually gave a toss about me...

Luckily, that's over. I'm stupidly naive but I'm starting to grow up a lot I think. So in the last 6 months, I've changed my name, cut my hair, got a fringe, made my hair go brown, got some totally hipster glasses and developed my own sense of style.

So now I don't dress like a man!

I've loved reinventing myself and changing, but now I'm running out of things to change. I mean, there's foot size reduction surgery... Is that a thing? It should be a thing. If it's not a thing, it seriously ought to be.

So I'm trying more to be pretty, be nice and polite, be funny and laid back. I think I'm doing a pretty good job :)

So all this change at once is sort of inspiring me to reach my full potential as a person I guess. Purge the horrible people from my life, work more on my failing physical health, and get as close to perfect as I'll ever be.

So as I said before, 6th Form is a lot more change than I anticipated. But I think I'm making it a tad harder for myself trying to improve my long run.

Good on me