Winter Solstice

I have always made a point to celebrate in some way the winter solstice. This can seam a bit wired as I am a Christian and that is not something that is normally done.

But I like the idea of it.

The winter solstice for me isn’t just the longest day of the year; it is us coming out of the dark.

In so many ways I think of the solstice as more important than New Year. A New Year is just the beginning of a set of days that were chosen long ago but the solstice happens despite human interference.

It is the world it self making a new start and coming out of the dark.

Not everyone in the world has the same calendar as I do in the western world. The longest day, or shortest day in the southern hemisphere, is something that we all experience.

I am very happy to get out of the dark and start a fresh.

Though as I say this I still make new years resolutions… but this years I am at a loss on what to do. Why the hell not? May have to stay for another year!

An Act of Random Kindness

Throughout the last few weeks riots hit our capital, there has been looting and fights and London was on fire due to the riots.

Young people have been given a bad name due to this but I am not going to write about my opinion on the matter because it has been and hopefully gone for good.

But I am going to write about is how we can help clear up after the riots and how we can prevent them in future time. And I know what you are thinking how can this be done? How can one person or even two change the world?

It is easy one act at a time.

Today I went to the hospital, the car park was full but happily a woman and her daughter was just leaving but before the woman moved her car she sent her daughter out to give us her parking ticket that had an hours time left on it.

This was one act of random kindness, we didn’t know the mother and daughter but still they did this.

I know it doesn’t seam like that much of a deal in retrospective but if we all collaborated together and helped everyone else out then the world would be a better place to live in.

Young people everywhere need to prove that we are not like those who started the riots and if we simply do small random acts this will show that young people do care and that we can be a better world because of it.

It could be a simple as picking up litter and putting it in to the bin or giving a few pounds to charity sometimes or helping an older person with their shopping.

If we all club together we can clear up this world and make it a better place and if we do this now as the new generation then future generation can see our kindness and be better in the years to come.

Art of Learning

Over my time in school I have been taught everything from quantum physics to how to do a lay-up in basket ball to the French revolution to how to write a sonnet properly.

It has taught me a lot of useful knowledge and in some cases such as how to do long division and how to make scones.

And it has also taught me some not so useful knowledge like random Latin phrases, Nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te, and how columbus clouds become those types of clouds.

But the most useful thing that any school can teach you is how to learn.

It is very common that over your life the tings that you learn in school you will forget and you will teach your self 80% of what you will know.

This is normal but if your school doesn’t teach you how to learn by your self then the teachers haven’t done a very good job.

My teachers have taught me how to learn on my own, they have given me a good way to learn on my own and most importantly they have given me a want or more specifically a need to learn more.

These three factors can make you in to a better and more rounded individual because you will have the knowledge that you need to have in life but you would have learn it on your own so you have the advantage because you would have learnt it from your mistakes not from someone else’s.

I’m not saying that being taught is a bad thing; for example even though I will be learning to drive soon and I have been taught in theory how to do it I will still need a teacher to help me learn properly.

Another good example of this was yesterday at work, I was waitressing as normal and got in to a conversation with one of my colleagues about the fact after almost a year of working there I didn’t know how to use the coffee machine.

I had seen people use it every time I had worked there but I’d never been taught properly. My colleague very nicely showed me how to do it and even though this was my first time doing it I knew how to do it because I had learnt it my own but her help was much needed.

This had lead me to think of all the things that I have taught myself over the years but over all the things that I have learnt I always need some base to work with.

I wouldn’t know how to dance if it wasn’t for my old ballet teacher.

I wouldn’t know how to write a sonnet if it wasn’t for my English teacher.

I wouldn’t know how to balance equations if it wasn't for my sister.

We all need some form of teaching in life but I think in life we will all be finely educated if we are taught to teach ourselves.

Love Story Introduction

Love.

It is the most beautiful yet painful emotion we will ever feel. It lifts us up yet can shoot us down. It can solve all obstacles yet can fall at the final hurdle. It can last forever or last just days.

Love is the one thing I believe in above all others; without love we are nothing, with love we can be everything.

We try to strive for love and happiness above all other things in life. Personally I think that is you love then happiness will come along at the same time. Once you have love, even if it is not returned, the world seams to be a better place.

I am no expert on love. My experiences have always amounted to nothing, the small crushes to being completely in love with my best friend.

But this story is not about crushes or small teenage love affairs this is about one love for one man, to whom I am still in love with, and this book is my way of saying three words that I have never spoken to anyone:

I love you.  

This is the start of a love story that I am writing at the moment.

I was writing a ‘Lord of the Rings’ meet ‘Sucker Punch’ meet ‘The Lion that Witch and the Wardrobe’ type book. But after three starts and it not really sounding very good and me not wanting to write I have decided to write a love story instead.

This intro and background is all I am divulging about the book at the moment, I haven’t yet decided even on character names or anything. Though the main character and narator may be called Rebekah after Isaac’s wife who was modest and kind; and that’s the type of person I am going for.

This book is mainly for my own benefit because I want to write something.

Though it is a bit strange me writing a love story as I have no knowledge of the subject in great detail. But I will try anyway!

The book starts with the epigraph “There is no remedy for love but to love more” by Henry David Thoreau.

I decided on this because although she is no expert about love she still believes in love above all things. The book won’t just be about her love for one man but love for many different things.

So the quotation is appropriate because I think the love that Thoreau is talking about it not just romantic love but love in the most general way be it for a man or family or for your best friend.

I believe that the only way to be happy in life it to love everything and everyone so even when love is unkind, love more and life will be better.

Change? Or Change!

Through out the past week or so things have been coming to an end for me; be it the end of a saga of films that I grew up on or it being my first year of sixth form.

The end of something is hard and it will always be hard.

It is strange how I have felt over my life about change and things ending.

I have always hated change because I always love the same routine and I find it always hard to fall out of routines.

Yet I love change in other ways and even though I don’t like being pushed out of my comfort zone I try to welcome change; or try to convince myself that change is the best thing for me even though I don’t want change to happen.

The end of a this year wont signal much change for me yet next year I will be leaving home and going off to university or whatever I decide to do.

But next year I will have so much change on my hands I won’t know how to cope.

And once again my mind is split into two ways: there’s the side that welcomes change and will scream ‘So long you losers’ as I leave secondary school forever. Yet there is the other side of me that will cry my eyes out when I leave.

Change and things ending will always lead to something new. I know that and will forever know that no matter how much the routine part of my brain wants to deny it.

Before I left school I had to take down my art space that was full of my work from this year. An entire years worth of work down in ten minutes leaving three blank walls.

I realised when I stepped away from the blank walls that this was it everything had I had done in a year and it was gone from the wall and it was left blank. But then I remembered that something will take its place in a few months time and I accepted that the blank wall will not last forever and something will fill it.

Change will happen and no matter how daunting the rest of my life is I know that change is the best thing for us; no matter how big or small that change is.

I want nothing to change at the moment; I’m very happy in my own little bubble. But we need change to grow and become better and more rounded people and without change the world would be very boring and not half as fulfilling if we decide to do something that may scare us.

Change terrifies me but I have always said if I do something that terrifies me then no matter what happens I will look back at that choice and think it was the best thing for me to do.

Because I took that step and went and did something scary instead of keeping in my comfort zone.

So the next few years terrify me but I will take that big step and no matter how things turn out I will be glad that I took that step.

Questions?

When sorting out my book case to organise my summer/ English literature reading pile, pile is the right word it is about twenty-two books long at the moment and still growing. I found two pieces of paper that had questions and answers that I filled out when I was on a camp when I was 14.

These questions made me wonder: I am almost three years older so I have changed my answers that much?

1. Well my legal name is still the same yet on this blog and my YouTube I am Vicki Éowyn Evans. There is reason to this middle name that I will eventually cover in the near future.
2. An ice-cream.
3. My crayon would be blue but now it is more specifically baby blue, or sky blue. This is because every time since I have come back from Slovenia, a year ago, when seeing a sky blue I think of the lake and the beauty of the place.
4. Grey, well somethings never change.
5. Last person on the phone… my sister asking her to pick me up from school. Probably not as interesting conversation as I would have had with Lucy.
6. Eyes are still the same. Someone once said the eyes are the window in to someone else soul; know the eyes and you’ll now the person.
7. Today I am suffering with a cold but other wise I am like I said fine.
8. Drink has to be a coke nothing fancy no lemon or anything just straight normal Coca Cola from the bottle. Though I still have a soft stop for the flat white.
9. Favourite sport will have to go to Formula One despite not being able to drive.
10. Blond with a hint of ginger.
11. Blue as that never changes.
12. Sister and she is 20.
13. Month has to be August still.
14. Chocolate all the way.
15. Scott Pilgrim vs the World. One of my very favourite films last year.
16. I don’t seam to have a favourite day now; I went over this a few times and couldn’t decide.
17. With this question I took it as me asking a guy out not a friend out, and I will admit yes I am to shy to ask someone out.
18. Happy Ending movies, no matter how much I grow up a fairy tale will always be the better story.
19. Summer.
20. Chocolate.
21. The Gallagher Girls books. Books about a kick-ass teenage spy.
22. I still hate mouse mats.
23. Star Wars Trivia Pursuit.
24. Played Portal 2, watched stuff on YouTube and stared to re organise my book case.
25. Coffee.
26. Writing, more on this question later.
27. My mix CD that I made many artists including: Taylor Swift, KT Tunstall, Goldfrapp, Wonderland, Ellie Goulding and Utada Hikaru
28. Gallifreyan lettering that is green and black.
29. Coffee still.
30. Pick it up and make a wish.
31. Salmon or tuna dependant on how I feel.
32. Nothing.
33. Everything and everyone.

What I love about these sort of question answer things is how much you can tell about a person they are from the answers they give, so this was a test to see how much I have changed, personality, hobby and interest wise, in three years.

But what I found out was that although I have changed in so many ways over the past three years almost to the point I don’t really recognise myself sometimes I am still the same person in so many ways.

Even if it is my preference for coffee over tea.

So maybe we all don’t change that much in our lives; we of course change physically or mentally due to the places that we go to. But our fundamental personalities are the same and stay a constant through your life.

It is often said that you are not the person who you were and the past should not control you, but just simply looking at 33 simple questions I realise I need to discover who I was before I find the person who I am or will be.

You need to know where you are and where you have been to move forward.

A Personal Statment about Personal Statments

Throughout these past few weeks my teachers have been talking about Personal Statements that are to be sent off to the university of your choice to try to get a place at that universe.

Throughout this time people have been talking about what to put on your personal statement and what you can say to get accepted. Yet all the statements that I have read have basically said the exact same thing just in slightly different ways.

This made me think of how do people stand out when it comes to personal statements?

We have also been having talks about people going on gap years and how that has helped them get in to university. Yet none of them talk about how it has helped them as a person and how the gap year has changed them.

These were selfless, brave people who went to Africa and build schools and taught at them once they had finished and yet none of them mentioned how that changed them as a person.

I feel through the past few weeks that everything we have been doing is to jump through hoops and the teachers haven’t given much consideration about how a gap year or other volunteer work may change you as a person not just help you have a push in the door for university.

I find this strange because if your sole motivation is to just get in to university and nothing else then your life will be forever about you career, this is fine for some people but not for me.

If your motivations for charity work are just for something to write on a form then you won’t get that much out of it.

I do a student leadership program and I do it not for something to put on my personal statement but because I think that I will personally get something out of it that will help me grow as a person, but if my motivations were different then I don’t think I would get as much out of it.

I do the things in my life because I want to do them not because of other factors and if they are for ulterior motives then I wouldn’t think that what I am doing is a good use of my time because I wouldn’t be getting much out of things.

I’m sure that the people who came in to speak to us were changed by their experiences but it would have been much better to hear about that than how they learnt about team work and how that fact got them in to university.

So when writing my personal statement I won’t say that being in a leadership program has helped me learn to lead people and work as a team, I’ll talk about how I have seen people grow to be more mature adults through the time that I have been with them.

That to me is more interesting that I think I have helped or inspired someone’s life than I have learnt team working skills.

To Everyone in My Life - Thank You

Today I became ‘that writer sitting in a coffee shop’.

I wrote about my three certainties of my life yet I failed to mention this one. I will be at one point an aspiring writer with a laptop writing and wondering when or if I would be published. And that day was that day I became that girl (minus the laptop).

But the statement still rings true.

I think I am finally growing up and being the person that I want to be yet I think I wouldn’t be the same person without the people in my life.

I began to think about this because soon people will be going off to university or moving away and in that group of 18 year olds lie two very important people to me; though I think they both don’t know it.

And this lead me to wonder something I have always thought about: what or who would I be like if it wasn’t for certain people. There is one person in particular that this thought often occurred to me when thinking about her.

This is odd in a way because I only really knew her for best part of a year yet I was always inspired by her and at the age of 11 really wanted to be her.

She changed my life because she told me that when she was my age at the time she was juts like me. She was once, like me, shy and a bit of an outsider yet she became the strong, confident woman that I have always looked up to.

It is amazing how one person can change and affect you life in such a big way. When she told me that she was once like me I was comforted by that fact because I knew that one day I would be stronger because of those few awkward and lonely years. Stronger like she was for it.

I will thank her everyday for being such an inspiration in my life.

The people around me have helped me form how I am and I love them for that. Be it good or bad influences I would not be the person or writer I am today if it wasn’t for them.

I’m not fully grown to the person who I will forever be, no one is at 17, but I’m on my way. And I will accept all help given to me by the people in my life to make me a stronger person.

People come in to our lives for a reason not just a random occurrence and because of that fact I accept everyone who I meet in life to be someone who will teach me something about life or about myself.

Thank you to all who are in my life, you have made me who I am and I am grateful for that.

Generated by rhymezone.com - A Poem

So here I am stuck on Writing
Looking for words there’s no Sighting.
             I am Fighting
   with this poem (a Slighting
remark) in dim Lighting.
     Chewing not Biting
over words. Like a child Kiting
 the words flow free, so Inviting.
But not really Exciting!
          
But hey, I’ve seen worse Writing.



I wrote this poem last night in about five minutes.
I knew I wanted to write yesterday yet I had nothing to write about. I was listening to Charlie McDonnell’s song ‘Rhymezone.com’ on his album ‘This Is Me’ a song all about the website and how it has helped him with his writing and with that song I decided to try out rhymezone.com and see if it could help me with my writing.

I simply typed in ‘writing’ in to the rhyme search bar and seeing what came up and made my poem by the words that came up.

I wrote down the rhymes and wrote the poem around that and came up with this. It admittedly isn’t the best poem that I have ever written but for something that I did just to be a bit silly I think is sort of good.