A Refreshing Change

After a few negative blog posts (if I’m being honest, I think they are all pretty negative) I have decided to compile a list of things that I like/that make me happy/that I appreciate. I hope I can sustain the list for an adequate amount of time as I am aware of how easy I found it to compose a list of things I do not like…

• Inevitably, it must begin with the cold side of the pillow
• When my fridge at uni has food in it (which is rare)
• When there is money in my bank account (also rare)
• When it’s my birthday and I get presents
• Home and away (and sometimes Neighbours)
• James the giant panda
• 99 ice creams (before they started to cost more than 99p)
• Submitting essays (getting them back should be added to my negative list)
• Falling on the sofa just after the cushions have been plumped up
• The smell of chlorine
• A full tank of petrol (if I haven’t had to pay for it)
• The Wit & Wisdom column in The Week (and obviously all the educational bits too)
• Waking up in the middle of the night and realizing you still have loads of sleeping time before morning
• My youngest sister, Gemma (added on request)
• When my bread isn’t moldy
• When my hair smells nice
• Bananas
• My other sister, Belinda (for good measure)
• Drinking my tea when it’s the perfect temperature
• Looking at everyone else’s faces in the cinema
• Funny youtube videos
• Getting complimented for cooking/just generally getting complimented
• When I understand something in my Latin grammar class (rare)
• Completing a crossword
• Coca cola when I’m hung-over
• Every day that I am not hung-over
• Getting texts
• My potato masher (a JosephJoseph potato smasher – can do no wrong)
• Finishing a book
• Gold fish
• (And talking about myself, evidently)

The Train Journey

There are many reasons why I don't like trains. Here is a handful.

Buying tickets is painfully expensive, even with a railcard. I once forgot my railcard and it was cheaper to buy another one than it was to top up my ticket price. Fortunately I get so scared of missing my train, I generally arrive at the station a solid hour in advance of the expected departure time, so I had ample time to spend £6 (what an annoying number) on passport photos and £30 on a laminated bit of card, made more frustrating by the fact that I knew I had both at home. Usually though, I do not have anything to do in my hour-long wait. I get a coffee from an un-named coffee house and then sit/perch/lean on whatever I can find on the platform. The last train I got was running 27 minutes late. That means I was sitting on the platform for 1 hour and 27 minutes. As a general rule, when the train pulls into the station, human empathy is dismissed and I now know the true meaning of “it’s a dog eat dog world”. I try my best to avoid the kafuffle of suitcases/prams/babies/people ramming themselves into a carriage all at once (type ‘Japanese train station during rush hour’ into youtube). Stress continues for a short while as the seat reservations are invariably out of order, there is no space whatsoever in the luggage racks and even walking down the aisle seems to parody that funny youtube video of a cat getting stuck in a jumper sleeve. I am one of the lucky/sensible ones, who always books a seat. And you’d think that once you were sitting down the stress would be over. Well, it’s generally not. I always seem to end up sitting next to that inconsiderate commuter who eats egg sandwiches and doritos whilst drinking coffee and talking very loudly into their snazzy phone and tapping away at a stupid little mini-computer – whose screen can hardly even be seen – or worse, an iPad. Normally I end up in a backwards facing seat. A noisy child is never far away. Sometimes they have siblings. I am also constantly terrified that I will miss my stop and am sometimes too scared to listen to music in case I fall asleep, despite the fact that my train journey is about 4 hours long. I am also scared I will miss my connection. When I don’t miss my connection (which is always, as I have never actually missed it), I get scared I will get a train going in the opposite direction to Bath, and always have to say a little prayer that I am on the right train. Nervous anticipation ensues. So far though, I have never got on the wrong train, and have always made it home in some manner or other, even if I did once get a lift with a stranger. But that will be a story for another day because I should probably get back to my revision.

Things that I really don't like

• Opening milk bottles
• Busy supermarkets
• Being bored
• Being told that only boring people get bored
• Forgetting to take my washing out of the washing machine so it smells like wet dog and I have to wash it again
• Not having any money
• Needy people
• When you don’t wash up your cereal bowl straight away and then when it comes to washing it a day later, the cereal is caked on like limpets in a rock pool
• BBM – a never ending challenge to pretend to care about someone other than yourself
• When I run out of clean mugs
• When my boiled egg pops and it sprouts a lock of white eggy hair (see recent twitter post)
• Twitter?
• When the wind blows my hair into my eyes/mouth/face/other people’s faces
• Train journeys
• When we ceremoniously sit down to watch a television programme and then talk through 82% of it
• Eating spaghetti or beans
• Damp hands
• Clammy hands
• Saving the best bit of a meal until the end and then being too full to eat it
• The fact that I thought this would be quite a succinct list but that actually I feel I could go on for a while yet…

Sleep: A natural state of rest for mind and body

Spend all day semi-concentrating on life because I’m tired. Decide not to watch to the end of the film I started watching so I can get an early night. Make hot water bottle and go upstairs. Get ready for bed. Get all the stuff off my bed that has accumulated over the past 14 hours. Get into bed. Waste a bit of time on facebook because I don’t like the awkwardness of facebook not being the last thing I think about. Turn off laptop. Plug charger into phone. Turn off lamp. Shut eyes. Oh shit I need to set an alarm. Lamp on. Set alarm for what seems like not enough hours away. Lamp off. Shut eyes. Sleep. Oh wait. No just one more thought, I mustn’t forget tomorrow I need email the joint honours department. But before I do that I actually have to email my personal tutor and ask that question that seemed so relevant at the time but that I’ve now forgotten. And then tomorrow is my last day before my exam so I have loads of work to do. Don’t think about that now, just sleep and worry about it in the morning. But I mustn’t forget to look up that quote that I really need to remember for my exam. Thinking about it, I should probably look up all the quotes that I really need to remember for my exam. Maybe I’ll make a quick to do list. Lamp on. Exercise my incredible capacity to plan my day minute by minute. Eyes accustom to light. Feel awake again. Send a quick text. Wait for response but decide that actually it’s not worth it. Turn out light. Eyes can’t shut. Lying in fear of falling asleep and then being woken up by text. Put phone on silent. Eyes can’t shut. Eyes stuck focusing on phone waiting for red light to flash. Don’t be silly, just go to sleep. Roll over. Have a quick check of phone every 5 mins or so. Thinking all the stupid thoughts everyone thinks when it’s nighttime and you know you don’t really have to worry about them. But then start to worry about them. Then hear a noise. Think of all the possible scenarios the noise could have arisen from. Decide there’s probably someone living under my bed. Hide entire body under duvet and try not to breathe noisily. Get really hot and realize I’m being stupid. Emerge and roll over. Just drifting into much needed sleep. Feel eyes shutting blissfully. See a red flash out of the corner of my eye.

Second to none.

This will only be brief, but I just wanted to quickly highlight the malleability of our perceptions of the world around us. I have recently read a fair few articles celebrating the life of/mourning the loss of the great Christopher Hitchens, and the most successful by far – in its apparent aims and achievements – was Ian McEwan in the Guardian; ‘The consummate writer, the brilliant friend’. Unfortunately, everything I read subsequently seemed inadequate in content, language and reflection. I read one that quite frankly gave the impression that the journalist just had nothing better to do with their time. Similarly, Attenborough’s latest television hit, ‘Frozen Planet’ made it very challenging to remain objective. I could not help but marvel at the ability of a production team to manipulate my emotions so strongly. If I see baby polar bears first, growing up and getting hungry, I completely understand and can utterly justify their need to consume baby seals (they’re not that cute when they grow up anyway). But show me the seals first, striving to grow strong and learning to fend for themselves, and suddenly how could these torturous, beastly, ghastly, grizzly bears tear up a baby seal with such ferocity and then stand so proudly with blood-stained fur and pose in an air of arrogance for the camera?

As much as I understand that the adult mentality should try to remain objective, and see every aspect from all angles, it’s not always that easy. So this is just a note of recognition for all the things you see second. I salute you for bearing such prejudiced opinions thrust upon you by bad journalism and television producers.

It's beginning to look a little bit like Christmas

I never thought I’d say this, but Christmas does actually just get more stressful and less interesting the older you get. Parents always used to say this to me and I’d scorn at such blasphemy. But this year, maturity is creeping up on me. I am well past the age of even slightly believing in Father Christmas, as are both my younger siblings. I am beginning to appreciate what a chore it is having family to stay; weeks of cleaning in anticipation, providing enough food for a small, but incredibly fussy country, buying things for people other than yourself, always maintaining an air of politeness even when you really can’t be arsed. I am actually dreading the year I decide not to go home for Christmas because that will be the year my parents start coming to me. As well as this, with age, the things you want for Christmas cannot be bought at ToysRUs. My current Christmas list consists of: 4000 words of English essay, a boyfriend (he doesn’t have to perfect yet, just something to pass the time), however I’d also like more time because there never seem to be enough hours in the day, if petrol prices could deflate that would be fantastic, if I could mentally simulate exercising from the sofa and lose weight that would also be very helpful, and quite frankly I’m surprised that no one has come up with a Matilda-esque device so I can be the ultimate sloth and not get up for anything. In short I have come to the conclusion that the older you get, the more you wish that Father Christmas did exist and miracles could happen. I think I have more hope now than I did ten years ago. I am not sure that this bodes terribly well for the future, but hey! At least I’m getting into the Christmas spirit.

Best before:-

Food shopping. Most paradoxical emotion-inducing exercise I have to deal with in my tough life as a student. Firstly there is never a good time to go. Supermarkets are always busy; have you ever tried to squeeze between a precarious stack of toilet roll and a mum-trolley-small-child combination? Impossible. And you can’t go before you eat because you’re too hungry and risk purchasing enough food to feed a small colony of dinosaurs for three days. On the other hand, you can’t go after you’ve eaten because very often you (although maybe just me) are then too full to even contemplate looking at food, and come away having purchased only a bag of lettuce and can of diet coke.

So, having established there is never a good time to go to a supermarket, I recently tried my hand at online food shopping. Tescos claim you can shop until they drop. Well I can tell you one thing; I may not have been physically tired, but my brain was well on its way to melt-down and I was just about ready to launch myself out of my bedroom window after this experience. You have to know precisely what you want in order to search for it and add it to your virtual basket. So after two and a half painstaking hours of imagining I was walking round a supermarket in order to remember what food I wanted to buy, I finally had a full basket/the cost was beginning to soar, at which point I decided to call it a day. I selected my delivery slot, entered all my personal details, created various accounts, almost blocked my online banking in the process, only for the site to crash and the contents of my basket to disappear. So back to reality and a three-dimensional supermarket, whereupon I decided it wasn’t so bad after all. I went armed, ready with my super-duper bags for life to make the walk home as pain free as possible. Had a surprisingly successful shop, basket was moderately healthy and not too heavy. Next stop, check out. PAINFUL, but quick, and if you’re paying by card, the experience is soon forgotten, like removing a plaster, getting out of bed in the morning or the first shot of vodka of the night. Last hurdle, or so I thought, was getting home, which, with the aid of my serious bagz 4 lyf was made relatively easy. I will not even begin to discuss the trauma of unpacking your shopping once purchased and home. But it just so turns out, that the last and quite unexpected hurdle was the most challenging of the lot. I was caught off-guard, and suddenly, despite my gold-medal deserving performance thus far, my shoelace came un-done, and needless to say, it was all downhill from there. I had forgotten to check any of the sell by dates, which meant that after all my hard work of budgeting and finding healthy food that would last me a week or two, I had to eat almost half of what I had bought by the following day. I had a difficult task on my hands. That night I had a meal consisting of an entire pot of hummus, a packet of thinly sliced ‘chicken’ (god knows what it actually is), a loaf of bread, five Fox’s chocolate bars, a bag of potatoes and four pints of milk. I decided that I could leave the mushrooms for an extra day.

So what is the moral of this story? There are many; don’t go food shopping a) before eating, b) after eating, c) when mums are there, or anyone else in fact, d) online and e) without bags for life. And when you’re there, think to the future; about paying – quickly- leaving –quickly- getting home –quickly- unpacking –quickly. But not so quickly that you forget to check the sell by dates.