‘Tut, tut, child! Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’

Also known as, life the past couple of weeks:

• It’s amazing how many Union Jacks are tacked up around London at the moment. It’s almost enough to make me feel I’m stuck in a mirror house.
• I finished just two books in May, though I was reading about five. It has been many, many years since I read so little in a month. I suppose sitting your final exams of an undergraduate degree does that to you, but man. Two books. So awful, I’m making sure I don’t make that mistake this month. 
• My grades come out next week. I am very, very nervous. It has not been an easy year. I really hope I’ve passed everything and get to graduate.
• I hate that I don’t have a job lined up after graduation, and that I might have to move back home. I really, really don’t want to.
• Why are jobs so difficult to find?
• I’m kind of in love with Patti Smith after finishing Just Kids.
• London weather has really been all over the map this week.
• I did a big loop around my neighbourhood tonight because I couldn’t sit still, and I just thought, man. It’s so goddamn beautiful.
• I’m looking forward to July. I’m going on holiday and to see a lot of old friends and it’s going to be really, really great to be able to chill with them.
• It’s weird to listen to cars going by and sirens and the everyday bustle of London in the middle of the night when my little university town is normally really silent at this hour, save for the drunken singing.
• I kind of want to go dancing in an open-air space.
• Letting people go is a strange thing.

Things I learnt last night:

• If you stand in the middle of the beach after midnight, where there are no lights except some distant ones twinkling, the immensity of the sea and the world really dawns on you. Especially as someone who is used to thinking that the world is a very small place.
• The sea in Scotland is still very cold in April (well, this isn’t news) but sometimes it’s worth braving to feel the tide rushing in at you and climbing up your legs in one swift motion.
• It’s wonderful to be able to walk down the beach and sing out loud without worrying that I’m going to wake anyone.
• It’s fun to dance and do jumps I haven’t done since I was very young (when I was training as a figure skater) on wet, dewy grass as you stare at the sea. I haven’t done a loop or an axel in a very long time, and although I didn’t have skates on, it was so nice.
• It really is not a good idea to call a friend at 2am and ask him to come meet you at the beach. Even if his girlfriend likes you, she will not take it well.
• I frequently wonder amongst all the destruction and deception and unhappiness, what is worth living for? I haven’t yet found an answer better than this: it is in the small moments when the world is full of hope, even if that hope is misplaced. Contrary to what we’re told day in and out, everything doesn’t always turn out okay, there are people who are unfairly victimised and treated badly in this world, there are people who never find someone to love for the rest of their lives. But there are these moments, when the wind is blowing up your coat, and your hair is wrapping itself around your face, and there is a wall of water heading straight at you as the tide is coming in, that the adrenaline kicks in and life is very wonderful.

People who deserve everlasting happiness and adoration.

• The person(s) who invented glasses (and then following that, contact lenses). 
• The person(s) who invented air conditioning (I suppose central heating, too, but once fire was discovered we were pretty much good. Thanks, Prometheus.) 
• The person(s) who invented birth control to be taken/used in a safe and easy way.

There’s no particular reason for this list, my mind was just wandering, and I realised how much I personally benefit from these peoples’ genius and hard work. Being able to see when my eyesight is naturally quite atrocious is a wonderful gift I take daily for granted. When I’m back in the Middle East in the sweltering summers, I would probably die of sunstroke without being able to stay indoors and keep the air conditioning on. And while I don’t currently take any birth control, the fact that I will be able to control my reproduction and whether I want to reproduce at all is empowering and enables me to have a full life. 

What inventions are you thankful for that we take for granted? No one say Internet/telephone because those are things we actually think of as inventions, rather than things that have become so commonplace we forget someone had to invent them.

Pro Tips of the Day

Also known as, what not to do.

• Don’t look over someone’s shoulder at the post office queue and remark that you live near to where they’re sending their parcel. It’s fucking creepy (a guy did this to me today).
• Don’t tell a friend that you had a dream about him. Boys apparently don’t take this too well, even if the dream was of a non-sexy variety (I did this today. Massive bad idea).
• Don’t tell someone that you’d do more to save your book collection than to save them. Even in jest this doesn’t go down well.

Quick life updates.

• Poetry conference in Doha went exceedingly well, I’ll have a separate post about that when I have the energy to write it.
• I’m now in Bahrain for a week.
• I had dental surgery yesterday to remove wisdom teeth. I know it’s a common procedure and not exactly an awfully big deal but I’m in a lot of pain, unfortunately. Hopefully it will pass soon.
• Having someone pull a tooth out of your mouth as you watch is terrifying.
• I have a couple of essays to do that are due soon, so I don’t imagine I’ll be around much. I do have a bunch of quotes typed up and stuff so I’ll post those.
• I’m really quite hungry, but unable to eat anything other than soup and ice cream (which, surprisingly, gets boring fast when you can’t consume actual nourishment) for a few days.
• I’m beginning to freak out over what I’m doing after graduation, and my dad is beginning to ask.
• I wonder how long, I have no idea will serve before I have to chose something.
• Reading several books by Virginia Woolf and Richard Yates (I’m writing an essay on them) at once doesn’t do a whole lot for a cheerful outlook on life.
• I rectified this by starting to reread The Gift by Alison Croggon. It’s not a cheerful book, but sometimes you really just need to read a book that will completely absorb you and that you know well.
• I hope many of you didn’t fall for too many April Fool’s jokes. My friends had several good ones up their sleeves, but the worst/best was my friend John, who said, I can’t believe they’re making a new season of Firefly. My heart stopped for a full minute and I almost gasped for joy, but then my mind considered all the logistics (like half the actors being contracted with other shows) and I realised it was an April Fool’s joke. I’m not sure I’ll be forgiving him anytime soon.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Life over the last few days:

• I got my itinerary for the book launch. I’m definitely on a panel discussion, and I’m reading four poems. Flying across the world for a four-day launch? Still can’t believe it.
• This whole thing has made me go through some of my poetry to decide what to read, and I really want to start writing vigorously again, and possibly submitting to anthologies or journals. 
• I think I may have convinced my father that it’s a good idea for me to live in Paris after graduation, even if it’s only for three months. Amazingly, he didn’t even argue!
• I’m also looking at jobs, though, and possibly doing a teacher’s diploma or something so that I can be qualified for something.
• I’m snowed under with work, and lots of reading, and I need to find a new study schedule because the one I’m operating on right now (which basically gives me several hours a day to myself/socialise) isn’t cutting it anymore. I’m really sad that I’m going to have to give something up.
• Lots of toothache. Went to the dentist to get it fixed, she said she’d fixed it, but when I was eating three hours later my entire tooth fell out. I’m so upset about this I can’t even talk about it rationally.
• I’m turning 22 on Saturday and just random events from this week (primarily my tooth, to be honest) has made me want to cancel the party. I’m not going to, because I think I’ll regret it later, but I really want to right now.

“If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Taking a leaf out of Vonnegut’s book, and trying to appreciate the moments when they’re there. I had a mostly shit day (study-related, nothing else) where I felt like the biggest idiot known to mankind because there was something I wasn’t quite grasping, and because I was convinced (in the manic manner of exams) that if I didn’t understand this one point I couldn’t possibly understand anything else and as a result I would fail my exam (which is on Wednesday).

But:

• I had a dinner date with a friend, and he came round.
• This friend looks a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch. I made him come watch Sherlock with me because it’s just hilarious to me to sit next to Sherlock lookalike while watching the show.
• It was a good episode.
• I made us burritos for dinner and I had brownies left over from yesterday, so we had those with milk for dessert.
• We talked for several hours, both throughout the show and afterwards. 
• I realised how much I’d miss him when we graduate.
• We sang Early One Morning together. 
• We talked about life and relationships and sex and people and personalities and what makes someone attractive and degrees and parents and siblings and holidays and weather.
• We yelled at each other because we disagree on a lot of things.
• We laughed at each other a lot because we don’t care that we disagree.
• We talked about the fact that there is nothing more ridiculous than human existence and how this has been talked about before, obviously, because neither of us are pioneers but it’s not talked about or considered nearly enough.
• We talked about being the product of our generations and how differently or similarly we would’ve turned out in any other decade or century or society. 
• He played my guitar to me because I’m still not good by anybody’s standards.
• We talked about books. Specifically books he borrowed off me.
• We listened to jazz in comfortable silence.
• We hugged goodbye in a way that only good friends know how to hug.

An exceedingly ordinary day. But isn’t that sometimes just what the doctor ordered?

As my (uni) friends and I have been discussing what the hell to do with our lives once we graduate this year, I find it incredibly, incredibly amusing to know that among my closest friends who have graduated (English unis are three years, Scottish ones four), I can count:

• a part-time professional boxer
• a professional golfer
• a drummer (with a side job teaching music theory)
• a teacher of English in Tokyo 
• a teacher of Korean in the Ukraine
• a banker
• a lawyer
• a publicist

Not to mention the “normal” jobs in shops and offices, as well as the fair few who are doing postgrad. It’s just absolutely baffling to me that we’re all old enough to be starting our careers (IT IS NOT OKAY! I’M NOT READY!), and just the bizarre choices some of my friends have made. Got to say though, I love it.

Also, I had a really awful migraine this morning to I missed my exam and spent most of the day in bed, but had to venture out in the late afternoon to prove to the uni that I wasn’t lying about being ill. On the way home I popped into Tesco to buy a few things. I definitely wasn’t in a good mood because I still had a throbbing head and I could barely keep my eyes open, but I feel like people were being deliberately stupid today. Especially two girls standing behind me in the queue for the cashier. 

Also, tumblr informs me this is my 3,500th post. I can’t even begin to comprehend that.

Thoughts (Also Known As, “A Deranged Mind”)

• I wonder if I could invent something that would be kind of like an injection into the base of one’s neck, right into the stem, which could infuse knowledge. Like, you tip all the revision into a injection and you inject yourself. Or, or! A nifty way to get black magic so that I could do like Willow from Buffy when she just puts her hands into the books and absorbs everything. That would be awesome.
• I thought I wanted a sugary incentive to study, so I made cookies, but now I don’t want them. Not only do I not want them, but I actually want to not even have them in the house. I know, crazy.
• I started working out how much I’ve been spending on heating and almost cried so I gave up. What’s that you say? If I ignore the problem, it will go away? Yes. Yes it will.
• I took a break from studying today to scrub my cooker clean. It’s so shiny and clean! Now I want to mop and scrub the kitchen floor. You know there’s a problem when this is more appealing than revision.
• I was talking to a couple of my Social Anthropology lecturers today, and they affirmed that I could use personal experience and certain relevant facts from other subjects if I could make them relevant. Just as I was about to start doing a happy dance, one of them adds, “Once you’ve laid out all the theory and ethnography the question asks for, of course.” No shit, Sherlock! Of course if I wanted to write added information you wouldn’t mind! I almost kicked him.
• One of the topics I’m studying for Philosophy is whether time travel is theoretically possible. Of course, all that’s actually happening is that I keep daydream about the Doctor and putting things like “You can if you use a TARDIS!” in the margins. Back when we were being lectured, I did try to explain to the lecturer (who previous to this topic liked me, I am not sure he does now) that of course it was possible because how else would the Doctor exist? He thinks I’m mental.
• I’m not willing to give up the fantasy that the Doctor really exists. I HAVE INFORMATION TO CORROBORATE MY MADNESS. 
• Also, there’s this (actual, philosophical) theory of time travel where (I am obviously simplifying here) you need to travel for 23 hours in order to arrive 22 hours into the future. Could I, for my exam, say that I spent the week prior to my exam trying to achieve this, and thus did not revise? I’d offer to do a write up of my findings instead. Which, of course, would be nothing — but surely a scientifically valid nothing! I eliminated a possibility! 
• I really, really hate exam time. 
• I think I’ll have fish and chips for supper.

Life:

• I have four exams, each worse than the previous one, starting on the 11th. 
• Fuck.
• Revision is happening in the most haphazard way. I barely know what I’ve revised. I need to get organised. 
• Taking an ill-deserved break tonight to get some Indian takeaway and watch Sherlock.
• I feel supremely guilty because it’s an hour and a half. But it’s Sherlock, so, you know. Priorities. Also, tumblr is fabulous at producing spoilers ten minutes after it’s aired, and Sherlock and Doctor Who are two series I get very, very irritable about if I’m spoiled. Not that I’m great about spoilers anyway.
• I’m tired and cranky.
• Exams in January are a shit idea.
• My brain is dead.