All-singing, all-acting, all-writing, all-blogging, all mouth and a little bit of trousers, a little bit of everything all rolled into one. I'd say I'm like Marmite, but then I'd have to hate myself.
… my life, that is. Finally, my last written assignment for university this year is completed (but not yet submitted), and my final performance is a week today. Then it’s a case of sticking around for an open day a week on Saturday, going to see Hairspray in the evening (yay!) and then home for the summer!
Am I excited…. yes and no. I can’t wait to be home, because there’s so much exciting stuff going to happen, but I’ll miss my friends. I’ll miss having my own space, but I won’t miss having to kill my own spiders (found the first one of the year yesterday, a giant one that made me cry until I threw a box of washing powder at it, and I’m still not sure it’s dead). I’ll miss my course, but I won’t miss being weighed down with the work of it all.
Has university changed me? Definitely. For the better? I certainly think and hope so. More on that in a later post, though.
As for what this means for me, it means I can focus on getting better – and maybe getting a scan organised, if the doctors ever get around to it, so someone can actually stop me from being in so much pain. It also means I can do more writing – both fiction and my new venture, a comedy singer/sort-of-songwriter thing that I tried out at a comedy night. It went well, which has spurred me on to write more – videos to follow. It means I can relax and spend more time with Daf, my family and my friends, and I think that’s what I’m looking forwards to most of all 🙂
So outside the rain is falling, the sky is murky and there’s a very miserable atmosphere. Inside, things aren’t much better. I’m feeling miserable today because I don’t feel well, I’m tired and I’m missing Daf very much. Friday feels like ages away and there’s so much to do until then that it all feels a little overwhelming. We’ve started getting information about our modules and while I’m glad there’s no exams this year, the amount of coursework and practical work makes it sound like a lot. I’m used to coursework – when you do three essay subjects for A Level, you can’t really get away from having to write loads of essays – but I feel like I’m out of practice. Also, it’s like going from GCSE to A-Level – I guess you’re writing at a whole new level now, needing to use a more complicated vocabulary, etc. This time it’s even more complicated – we have to do “Harvard referencing”, whatever that is (I know what referencing is, but not sure what’s special about the Harvard variety), so at the moment it’s all a bit overwhelming and I’m just hoping I can cope.
Had some information about the Great Birmingham Run on the 21st October; found out that the day after I have lectures from 11am-5pm, which could be interesting when all I’m sure I’ll want to do is have a foot massage and then curl up in bed and sleep for a week. I’m still feeling fairly confident that I can do it. Without having a car handy, I’ve had to walk absolutely everywhere – the only place I’ve gone by bus has been home, which is two hours away by bus so I think you can forgive me for not walking that. I’ve also been going swimming once a week, which seems to be improving my stamina and helping me tone up a bit.
So, it’s still quite a busy time for me. I finished “Where She Went” and I will review it soon, but it might have to wait until the weekend.
I had my first exam today! Drama, the re-sit of the paper I did in January and I’m so pleased with the questions, they were so much better than last time and exactly what I’d hoped for. I’m not entirely sure how I did – I messed up timing with painkillers and ended up doing the last half an hour or so with a few concentration lapses because I was in pain, and time constraints are evil on that exam because there’s so much to do, but I’m hoping it’ll be enough to get me maybe a B, which is great because it brings me closer to getting into university. My hand is killing me from all the writing I’ve done, but I’ve got eighteen days to recover before my next exam (Psychology, which is also a mass of writing to do but I’m feeling prepared for that one), and then two days until Epic Exam #3, English. Then I’m done with exams and college!
The words were really flowing yesterday – I was finding it really easy to write, I knew where the story I’m writing was going and everything and yet today, when I tried, it just didn’t work – the characters are completely different to how they were yesterday for some reason, I just can’t write them in the same way. I guess maybe the sheer amount of writing I’ve done today has taken it out of me and I need to give it a break. I’m still hoping to post them up here soon so that rather than me just blabbering on about my writing like I have done for the past few months, I’m actually going to post some writing up, which is what this blog was originally intended for. When I’m better, I am going to work on sorting out videos of me singing to come up on here too, I promise 🙂 Things got a little sidetracked by my misbehaving kidneys, and they’re still refusing to toe the line but we’ll get there eventually.
So, I think it’s best to leave the writing for tonight and maybe tomorrow – or maybe to just have a whole weekend away from writing and needing to think too much, and just doing things I enjoy. Face painting this weekend, pwning some n00bz on Black Ops tomorrow and then a week off to recharge my batteries and do some more revision to make sure I’m as ready as possible for the exams. It’s kind of hit me today just how important these exams are, and I’m not going to take them lightly.
Oh, and for those of you awaiting a new “inspirational pictures” post (yeah, I see you all, getting to my blog by searching google for numerous variants on the phrase “inspirational pictures”, and I’m sorry I’ve not posted any more recently but I haven’t been feeling inspirational!), it will be along soon. Not sure when, but soon.
And now, in conclusion, the mushy section of this blog post. I’ve been with my boyfriend for seventeen months yesterday (the 31st) and he’s made me so happy in those seventeen months, I don’t know what I’d do without him, so if he reads this (and I hope he reads this, because I read his blog 😉 ) I love you and thank you for everything you do for me and, to quote the vernacular, this one’s for you 😉
Sorry I’ve neglected this blog so much recently. I knew exams were going to be mad but I had no idea how much. College has been an epic fail thanks to this illness so I’ve been revising like mad to make sure I have a chance of getting into uni! Add that with trying to have a social life, and yeah – it’s been crazy, and I think I’m starting to burn out. All this revision is catching up with me, I’ve ended up with one hell of a cold which, combined with having awful pains in my back every time I sneeze, Â isn’t fantastic. Really hoping things will get sorted soon, or that if they don’t I can maybe apply for special consideration because of how ill I’ve been.
On a brighter note, it’s sunny outside! Yeah, I’m inside revising but I’ve got a t shirt and shorts on and it’s lovely and warm and bright outside, which cheers me up a bit and makes revision a bit more bearable. I just hope that by the time my exams are over we’ll still have such nice weather, so that I can actually enjoy it – especially on holiday for my birthday in July!
I think the wait until August is going to be a really nervewracking one – before I was so confident for my exams, but now I’m terrified because although I know I am prepared because of the amount of revision I’m doing, I still feel somehow like I should be doing more (not sure what else I can do, really, other than go to college, which doesn’t really feel like an option the way I feel at the minute!). So expect either no posts at all as I spend all day, every day rocking backwards and forwards in a gibbering heap because I’m so nervous, or lots of frightened “ohmygosh I’m gonna fail” posts. Normal service will be resumed in September.
Well – not exactly busy. I’ve been keeping busy, but it’s hardly been anything exciting – lots and lots of revision and writing essays ready for my exams which start in a couple of weeks, and not much else. On the health front, there’s still not an awful lot of improvement, I’d hoped it would have all cleared up (to be honest, it should have cleared up within 24 hours of starting the the first course of antibiotics, but of course it didn’t and we went through that whole palaver that has now lasted nearly two months), but now I’m waiting for more scans and stuff which is fun, fun, fun right in the middle of exams season. I haven’t been to college for a while but I’m making sure that I keep going with work and essays – I’m not jeopardizing my chances of university for anything, especially not stubborn pain that won’t go away.
As you can imagine, writing is still on hiatus, as it has been for about two months now. It’s not that I can’t think of what to write – I know what I want to write, but I can’t translate it from thoughts to actual words. My new laptop should make it a bit easier once I’m back in the groove of writing, because I thrive when I’m listening to music and writing at the same time, and with my old one it kept freezing so I couldn’t really do much! I think, to get myself back in the swing, when I’ve got the two week break from exams after my first exam on the 31st, I’ll write the short story I’ve had the idea for – it’s only a really short one, but it’s related to the series of novels so it might help me to get back in the swing of things.
Anyway, I won’t keep you all reading any longer – I’m sure you all have something more important to be doing, just as I need to be getting on with more essays (I’m determined to get an A in Psychology!), as much as I wish I could just write blogs all day.
the life of a moomin 