On a slightly happier note, because I feel like I may have drained a part of your souls with the last post, can anyone tell me what this is from? I starred out the name to make it less obvious. Winner gets... some Tasha-loving.

'You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn’t true. I know a lot about love. I’ve seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate… It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves… You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and… What I’m trying to say, ******* is… I think I love you. Is this love, *******? I never imagined I’d know it for myself. My heart… It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it’s trying to escape because it doesn’t belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I’d wish for nothing in exchange - no gifts. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.'

Mama Said There'll Be Days Like This

From the start, today was never going to be a good day... I was awake till some ridiculous hour coughing and wheezing so woke up tired, groggy and unrefreshed. Common for me on Monday mornings but I still felt urgh. Just as I was about to leave for school, my bedroom mirror – which admittedly is propped up at an awkward angle against my lamp, yet normally is fine when it falls - out of nowhere slid to the floor and shattered. I then stood there staring intently at it and fuming heavily, properly rooted to the spot. I could kneel down, pick up the shards of glass, probably cut my fingers in the process and make myself late. This was not appealing. I swung around and walked out the room deciding to deal with it after school. I think this was a wise decision as far as mental health is concerned – there is only so much one can take! Anyone that comments this blog wishing to inform me I now have 7 years bad luck can go sleep in a hole. I’m pretty sure I’m still working off a previous 7 years.

Of course though, because the Universe is cruel and spiteful, my morning so far had apparently not inflicted on me sufficient pain and I preceded to endure one of the worst walks of my life. Why, in the 21^st century, is there no contraption for keeping dry that can sustain wind?! Come on science, this is not too much to ask! Wind is not a new problem! Hoods fly off and umbrellas turn into bowls. I have a curse with umbrellas anyway, but my umbrella this morning was simply refusing to behave. I looked like a crazy person wrestling with it and screaming at it the entire walk and getting soaked in the process. And why, why¸do my headphones feel the need to fall out at every moment that my umbrella fucks up – that is just not fair! What a way to spend your half-birthday eh?!

This child understands.

Sharing A Moment

Here's a very piddly anecdote from my morning today. It really is nothing remarkable but I just feel like telling it. :)

You should know that on school day mornings I give 'anti-social' a whole new meaning. My family are genuinely lucky to hear a grunt out of me. It's weird cause after leaving and just a ten minute walk to Beth's I become quite communicative and normal!

So I'm in my bedroom - shoes on, coat on, hat on - ready to embark on the day and I stick my ipod on. First song of today's shuffle: 'She's Leaving Home - Syreeta'.

First line of song - Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins

Hehe 'it's wednesday morning now, how appropriate' remarks my brain, which is clearly not particularly sophisticated at this hour in the day, so is easily amazed. (I choose to ignore the time not being 5 o'clock.)

Then, as I shut my door came the line Silently closing her bedroom door

I have no clue what is coming next but am listening quite eagerly now, enjoying the little joke with myself as I gallop (am late) downstairs to get something from the kitchen. And hey ho, what line do I hear while doing so? She goes downstairs to the kitchen...

Then as I'm leaving and locking the front door -

Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.

Ahhh mornings.

I'm getting a feeling that was one of those anecdotes that are uniquely self-pleasing and don't really work when re-told.

I'm blogging right now not because I have anything in mind to talk about in the slightest but just because I feel like it, and procrastination seems to be going well for me this evening so why stop now?!

Going to see New Moon tomorrow. I am aware of how much aggravation people that come and see the Harry Potter films without having read the books can cause and I know that I'm one of those exact people with Twilight, so I apologise to anyone that I sit in the cinema with tomorrow and I cleary just don't 'get' stuff. I'm only there really for Taylor Lautner and popcorn... Why haven't I read them, you may be asking? Or maybe you don't care at all. But I'll pretend you thought the first thing to give me something to write about. I don't really have an answer to be honest. My relationship with the books is as follows:

Summer of 2008: In Croatia, Katie is reading some random book about Vampires. Dom and I read extracts over her shoulder and mock it heartily. I seem to remember there was some Katie-sulking after that.(No-one sulks better, I'm telling you!)

Over the next year: Some friends read it, obsessed over and loved it. I gathered the general gist of what happens in the story.

Christmas holiday 2008: The first film came out. Wasn't particularly planning on seeing it but ended up going with cousin, godmum and friends. A lot of wine was consumed throughout the film but from what I remember I found it not bad but not amazing.

Over 2009: I start to majorly dislike Robert Pattison. I loved him years ago though - back when I got his autograph at the Harry Potter premier and he was young little Cedric! Oh and at some point a year 7 girl I read with in Paired Reading at school was reading it so I read a random chapter (in the first one) with her. My impressions were that Bella was ridiculously annoying and the 'oh my god Edward you're amazing' comments I'd heard were not even exaggerated! But on the other hand it made for a good read and was definitely page-turning.

So there you have it - my completely non-remarkable, relatively neutral relationship with the Twilight phenomenon. Basically, I haven't read them at the moment and have no burning desire to. But I know if I did, they would almost definitely be a guulty pleasure that I'd end up loving!

I genuinely don't have a lot else to say. Don't know what I'm doing exactly this weekend but am looking forward to it massively anyway. School is long and work is longer. Also, my reference still isn't finished which means my UCAS isn't done. On the one hand this is stressful as other people are getting offers and ting! But on the other hand Mr. Lemma is being so particular and putting so much effort into it! He's amazing! And I read it today and I wanted to cry it was so nice! (And over-exaggerated!!!) But the plan is for him to send it onto Ms. Akhurst tomorrow and then fingers crossed it won't take long for her to check and send it for good....ah!

So tiny titbits from the week? Um we got some new comfy chairs in the common room. This is a very good thing. It said 'boomtown' in our French textbook. Beth and I laughed. Ew we also hate our new French class dynamic. All is different and wrong. I hope they don't find this. Um, my mondays and tuesdays are officially two days of pure hell every week. They will never become easy to get through. Oh, Alice, Felix and I experienced a disaster we have vowed not to speak of. Ever. I refuse to break that here. It's kind of like in Friends with Monica, Chandler and Joey after the beach. Sorry - I hate it when people do that type of thing, like "oooo I've gotta secret. But I can't say...!" Like seriously, just fuck off. Don't bring it up then? But now I did that. So soz. I rekindled my love for Parma Ham. It's up there as a joint favourite food with Plantain! My bedroom is messy. I want to write a Christmas list soon. I love Glee and True Blood. OK - time to relieve you of what Mr. Drummond would call my 'butterfly brain'. Oh yes, a histry class in-joke...

Tonks update: She is chewing the bars so loudly right now. A very grating sound. I made her the cutest little snack the other day of chopped up brocolli, cheese, lettuce and sugar snaps. My dad saw me preparing it in her little food bowl and was just like to me, that is not a substantial snack! Ha, the very thought that that would be enough to fill me up is just too ridiculously funny.

Song of now: I so nearly picked a Glee song or a couple of other stuff... but I'm gonna go for: This Is The Life - Amy MacDonald. Can't seem to stop playing it.

Armadillos

I am in an incredible mood at the moment! Probably cause there’s lots going on and shiz.

Last night Max had his 18^th in a back room of a pub very near my house, The Rising Sun. It’s a pub I walk past on a daily basis, Irish and ‘old man-y’ but I had never been in (except as a small child apparently with the padre, sitting in the beer garden) and my dad kind of avoids it too as he describes it as one of those places you walk into and they all know each other and silence falls over the place as everyone looks at you. Awkward! But anyway, that is very off topic! So yeah, was really nice last night – mostly school people (and a few asides which caused for interesting times which I really am not going to go into...). Had some funny conversations and bondings, formed a new ‘street gang’ with Hamid, Ricardo and Bruno and by the end, we’d finally got everyone dancing (after it being like all the girls and Aaron all night). When Dancing in the Moonlight came on I kept on catching everyone’s eyes and everyone was just beaming! It is such a happy song. Then someone turned the lights off and twas good. The sickest part was my 2 minute bop home. I could hear a rendition of ‘happy birthday Max!’ and lots of ‘wooing’ all the way from my street as the others gathered outside the pub before leaving. Made me realise how loud we are. Sorry citizens of London!

Last weekend, which I kept meaning to blog about but never did, was ‘Norfolk 09 babay’. It was sooooooo good. I think I use the word ‘good’ a bit too much on this blog. My primary school teachers would be so disappointed. Anyway, Sarah has this amazing sweet little, low-ceilinged, many-roomed house in the middle of a bunch of fields in Norfolk and the crewdem (minus Lauren unfortunately, so 10 of us) went down there for a prolonged weekend celebration of her 18^th. When we got back people kept asking me what we did there? And I am just like ‘Ummmmmm........?’. Doesn't sound like we did much at all :P It went really fast!

Well we left after school on Friday and got two trains to Sheringham where by the time we got there, it was already dark. We traipsed to the supermarket, the fish+chip shop and then got taxis to her house where we plonked down our food, cranked open beers and feasted – making a series of enthusiastic exclamations about being there and toasts to Sarah. That Friday night got funner and blurrier... and was so hilarious! There were a whole load of jokes and highlights but any of you lot that were there know that Sarah’s krumping was out of this world! The anthem of the night was this song...

We are such feminists. But that is where the facebook album name ‘Cooking, Cleaning and Vagina’, which caused a lot of confused people, came from by the way!

Saturday we woke up, gathered in duvets in the living room and watched Notting Hill while Alice made us cooked breakfasts! :P We later walked the trek to the bus stop, encountered a mean bus driver, went into town, had very country-ish scones with jam and cream in a little tea shop which we took up most of... with the most timid waiter you will ever meet! We looked in some of the shops, bought more food and drink, and headed back home, by which time it was evening again somehow! So time for rave number 2 of course! Although first came dinner and a mass viewing of X Factor and presents from Japan and birthday cake for Sarah (when her hair managed to catch fire!). Saturday night we spent a few hours sitting round ranting and talking first rather than dancing, but of course that progressed later on to wild dancing! A few hours down the line, half the peeps had retreated to bed, some were napping on the stained and dirty carpet and a few of us were intently discussing music through delirious tiredness before surrendering to sleep.

My asthma had been pretty bad that weekend so Sunday morning I woke up first, gasping and desperate for a drink, so I headed downstairs (due to the set out of the house I had to pass through other bedrooms to get there which required a very stelth operation!) and the site of downstairs was... ridiculous! I literally just stood there gaping for a good 2 minutes. I have no clue how 10 people could have made such a mess! But anyway, we tidied it up eventually, although made a few more spillages in the tidying process... and then watched Chicago, which I had never seen fully through and is AMAZING. Sunday was a jam, and some of us headed to take everything to recycling and ended up being gone for rather too long as we had the most jokes walk ever! The whole thing was in American accents. We stopped at every opportunity for a crazy photo shoot or a musical rendition and best of all, everytime a car (which we called an ‘armadillo’) drove past we ran into ‘formation’ by the side of the road to protect ourselves... getting an amass of strange, bewildered looks.

Here is basically what formation looks like, although this is before we truly perfected it, so imagine this but more tight and hunched over and professional looking, with out heads tucked in :P

The journey home was long – taxi, train, coach, train, coach, car! It felt like we were travelling for days. We also had a frantic moment in a cafe when we had about 5 minutes till our train and most people hadn’t got their food yet, and we were running around like animals stuffing food into take away boxes, chucking money at the till, wrapping burgers in napkins for the road and altogether bemusing the couple sitting in the cafe watching us. We also played a lot of games in Norfolk, mostly orchestrated by games-mistro Flora. We played Word Assocation at every opportunity, cause we are cool like that. And we played many rounds of Mafia which I’d always heard about but never played before, which was a full-on accusation and ganging up and screeching match! Not to forget ‘eyes’ and ‘wa’ – other classic Norfolk games!

It was just the nicest weekend of getting away and not touching any work and having fun. All week I’ve been remembering snippets from it and cracking up to myself.

Tonight, Sarah is having an 18^th partaaay. Yes, we already celebrated it in Norfolk and yes, we are doing so again tonight. OK?! Norfolk was just girls so two celebrations are needed! Her actual birthday isn’t even until the 25^th :P! So tonight shall definitely be fun – us VIP friends are bopping round early to watch X Factor beforehand...

Tomorrow I’m going round to the grandparentals house and so really today is all the time I have to do all my work. Something tells me I’m not in a particularly productive mindset today though. I think this it because it’s nearly 2 and all I’ve managed to do is have breakfast and listen to motown. I should wrap up this blog soon but am wracking/racking (I don’t KNOW!) my brain for what else to mention. Yesterday I got my first in a series of 3 HPV jabs and MY ARM IS SO SORE! Seriously isn’t fun.

OK so am gonna skip Tonks and Music for now! But it isn't gone forever!!! (I love how I'm acting like you guys actually care! :P)

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee xxx

Mercredi et Jeudi

It is late and I should be sleeping – but this feels like one of those now or never posts. The last two nights have been muchas fun.

Last night Lauren and I went to see Shappi Khorsandi at the Soho Theatre. I absolutely love her she was so hilarious! We were also sitting at the front row and Shappi spoke to us the entire way through!!! Was so random, she kept accidently calling people Natasha and after doing it like a fourth time, she was like ‘Why am I doing this?! Is there anyone here actually called Natasha?!’ and I was like ‘wooooooooooo ,ME!’ – what a connection eh?! But yeah, she was so quick-witted and had amazing delivery! We hung around in the bar after to slyly wait for her to come out... but she didn’t and we thought it’d be too sad to wait for too long...

Tonight was Bonfire Night. It is one of my favourite festivities. I think I say that about all of them... but no it really is! I love getting all wrapped up in hats and hoodies, writing my name with a sparkler, walking down a street on your way out and watching fireworks in all directions around you, hair stinking for weeks no matter how many times you wash it and roasting (or in my case, incinerating) marshmallows on the bonfire. It may be silly but another thing I love is that it is a British celebration, and Americans give you blank looks if you mention November 5^th to them. Like, Halloween is fun, but is clearly trumped by American Halloween. Christmas and Easter are fun but mark things that mean nothing to me. But Bonfire Night is y’know, a little memory of a well-known story of something that happened in England once. And that’s all it’s pretending to be! We don’t have an Independence Day or anything okay, we need something!

My main association with November 5^th is my friend Hester’s family used to host everybody at their house for a night of hotdogs and fireworks and bonfire and fun. It was like the event of the year when I was in Primary School! :P Anyway this year, like last year, Hester had our friends round at hers and it was a nice, jammed evening, despite all nearly being blown to pieces by out-of-date fireworks.

Another reason I love it is I just love this time of year! Everything is so pretty! Even walking to school each morning at an ungodly hour is made prettier and funner by kicking the leaves. Yes I still do that! I love the wrapping up and the dark evenings and the smell of those evenings. Yes, I’m a freak. Plus I saw the Oxford Street lights the other night and it’s all so festive and magical it can’t help but make you feel so happy! (and yes... excited for Christmas already..!)

Tomorrow I am heading off to Sarah’s house in Norfolk for the weekend along with 9 other 17/18 year old gyals. I think that’s enough said to be honest. We arrive back ridiculously late on Sunday night/Monday morning after some treacherous coach journey home... and Monday I shall be... wrecked. Oh my god, I just realised I’m hungry. Is this a joke?! Today I had Rice Krispies for breakfast, a hot baked potato at school with cheese and beans, a snack of pitta bread and cheese after school, a good-sized dinner at home with Katie and dad, a hotdog at Hester’s, various snacks at Hester’s, and still, still, I am hungry. Well as much as my hunger is usually a driving force in me, I think right now my laziness is just about in the lead, and so I’ll have to wait for breakfast... This is the quickest post I’ve ever written so I hope it’s possible to read as the laziness emotion is dictating that I don’t read it through...

I will see you all on the other side of Norfolk 09 (‘baby’). Wish me luck.

I hope you've noticed my blog titles are rarely relavent to the post. Bananas.

It's the last day of halfterm. This makes me sad. It also means this'll be a short post because I have an entire halfterm's work calling my name. But this week has been such an escape from anything school related which was too good! Halloween was incredibly fun yesterday. When else can you hang out in a room with a leopard who kept thinking she was a lion, a ninja tiger, 3 bears - one of which was also a marshmallow/the Empire State building/farmer, a zombie hippy who died at Altamont, a Karate kid, Medusa and a standard Hester! I absolutely love fancy dress and went as a Zombie-Goth. Surprising how much stuff I had in my bedroom for dressing up, maybe I'm actually a goth at heart. So anyway, it was just 5 of us that went out in the end, though we were't particularly sure where we were heading and ended up in some club in Notting Hill. Proper fun!

I didn't blog about Live at the Apollo or anything else from half-term, like an for-old-times-sake OC Day and earning £50 catering for a fun fun office! But all of those were fun! Sorry I just can't really be bothered to delve into the old memory and pluck you out details right now... Apart from that I was an abolute full-frontal slob this week, no literally... the incredible sight that is my bedroom reflects how much of a pig I've been this week. No sorry, that gives pigs a bad name. I'm like an unemployed 45 year old guy still living at home reading comicbooks lazy. I have never experienced such laziness in my whole entire life, and that's saying something. It wasn't even the productive laziness where you watch lots of films so at least feel acomplished. It was like internet, food and lots of sleep. I'm not even that up-to-date with my multitude of TV programmes! Though I am with Flashforward and True-Blood - who's watching?! I love them! On the plus, I've listened to lots of new music this week which is good.

I changed my earrings yesterday which has provided hours of trying on fun. Bought 3 pairs from Portobello yesterday. Love them!

OK, so Happy November! Roll on Bonfire Night and Norfolk next weekend! Welcome back Japaners! HUGE good luck to NaNoWriMo-ers! This includes my sister, Grace, Abbi, Saoirse, Lucy, Sanna and the bloggers and youtubers I follow who are partaking and won't see this but good luck anyway, like Kristina (http://italktosnakes.blogspot.com/)and other FiveAwesomeGirls (http://www.youtube.com/fiveawesomegirls)

Tonks Update: Cleaned out her cage yesterday for the first time in a little too long. I was taking the dirty cage down to empty out into the compost bin and found myself standing in the kitchen. So jokes when your brain takes you to the wrong place and you look down at what you're holding and where you're standing and have that old 'I'm a muppet' realisation.

Song of the moment: This fun little feature is turning into a properly stressful decision for me at the end of every post! OK, well the song I'm listening to right now is Jay-Z's 'December 4th'. Love the voice-over from the madre. Actually no, I just remembered I had a live-lounge spree and got some amazing new ones! I'm gonna go for The Script covering Lose Yourself! Enjoy!

Then again, the song I've been singing round the house 24/7 is Michael Bublé's 'I Just Haven't Met You Yet'!