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.

My Old Self

I feel like my old self again.

This sentence is weird in itself because over the past few months I thought I felt like myself but it wasn’t until I did something that made me feel truly myself.

The thing in question was me writing a essay for Philosophy. Mundane and boring was this moment in time until I turned on the music I wanted to listen to: The Ocarina of Time soundtrack. This was the one thing that I used to do when writing an essay. I guess nostalgia helps me with an essay.

At this moment I realised that I wasn’t really myself over the past few months, I say months best part of a year. Myself being the hundred of contradictions that I already mentioned in my stereotypes post.

But it was at that moment that I felt like myself again just for simply doing something that I hadn’t done in a year that I did subconsciously.

And that’s when I realised that I should be every contradiction that I am.

I should be the nerd with a manicure.

I should be the girl who walks around in 2 inch heals but still plays Call of Duty.

I should be the girl who paints her nails whist watching Formula One qualifying.

I should be the girl who swoons at a sale on a pair of cute shoes then swoons at a Nissan GTR in the same moment.

For the past few months I have been the more girly girl side of me and that doesn’t seam right to me because I am missing out a whole half of who I am.

My sister said to me the other day “How can you be a nerd and still be such a fashion victim?”

Well sisterling… watch me.

I will be every aspect of me from now on.

I stared this blog to work out who I am but this is who I am the girl who is so well rounded it is impossible to define me.

That’s maybe why I can’t think of putting myself in to one particular job or career because I’m simply interested in too many things.

But that’s what I need to do sample everything. You can’t wait around for the muse of inspiration with writing the same goes for life. I need to get out, sample everything I love and everything that I am interested in and someday I will know what I want to be.

But for now I am just a nerd with a manicure. Shouldn’t work, but sort of does.

Three Certain Things

I’ve often said that I don’t know what to do in the future but there are only three things I am certain of:

1.      There will be a time where I am aimlessly walking around the middle of a huge city with a portfolio full of art stuff or a manuscript in my hand.

2.      Doing some form of crazy stunt/protest in honour of Greenpeace or similarly related group.

3.      I will live in another country or go travelling around the world.

These definite aspects of my life I will do even if I don’t want to. These are the subconscious thing that I will do even if I don’t plan them.

Of course there are many things that I will want to do in my life that are not listed like going to the British Grand Prix or go to every continent or have breakfast at Tiffany’s.

As much as you may think these three things are not overly unrelated.

Of course walking around with my life’s work in my hand and nowhere to go isn’t the thing I am really looking forward to but there will be a time in every writer’s life where that will be true.

The whole Greenpeace thing isn’t that certain but anyone who really knows me knows that I will do any random thing if it is honour of saving the environment.

And travelling the world is the most certain. I’ve expressed already how much I want to see the world and wanting to experience everything in the world but is not want it’s a need with me.

The two other things are things that you could say come with my interests and skills but travelling the world is a greater part of me than anything else in my personality. It is because of my constant need to experience everything that I am the way that I am.

And experiencing everything will lead me to help protect the world with Greenpeace because I want people in the future to know the world that I do now.

And it is because of my need to document everything in my life that I will write and try to get published.

I want to document my life story because I am one girl who simply wants to do everything and who knows maybe that will be good to read.

One shy small town girl setting off for everywhere.

My First Poetry Reading

For those who don’t know I am involved with a poetry group that Martin Malone runs in my school. And a few weeks ago Mr Malone (I can’t call him Martin it sounds wrong to me) asks the group of four if we would like to go to his poetry reading and possibly read out poetry while we were there.

Now can I just point out that I am not the most confident person in the world I am probably the least confident out of the four of us who were asked to read. I have trouble reading in our small group with a teacher and three people who I basically have known for best part of six years.

So even the thought of reading in front of complete strangers terrified me.

But not only are they strangers, these people are published poets and reader of poetry and had such knowledge of the subject and that thought alone that experts on the subject would hear my poetry terrified me.

 
The other problem that I had when Mr Malone asked me was which poems am I going to read?

I knew that I would read ‘Odds’ but other than that I had no idea. I didn’t want to read something too personal, thought that didn’t happen; I ended up reading ‘Tommy’ mainly because speaking in disjointed Japanese wouldn’t help my confidence.

All in all the poetry reading went well; I read my set and didn’t slip up and spoke fine. Ok it could have gone better. I could have spoken louder or clearer or not held my poems in such a way that everyone realised I was shaking because I was so nervous.

Can I just mention there were about 20 people at this poetry reading.

 
But after everything was done I really felt proud of myself there was a time about an hour before I was meant to go out I really didn’t want to read but I just threw myself at the challenge and I wouldn’t have wished it to go any different.

This spark of confidence has served me well. I realise that I can do things that I know are very scary to me and that I can get through those challenges and come out the other end very proud of myself.

So thank you to Mr Malone for letting me read and I hope that I have more opportunities to do things like this in the future because believe me it did me a world of good.

House with a View - Part Two



Last Night at Twlight

So yet again I had a sunset like no other.



I have been to the other side of the world seen sunsets over the Bay of Islands in New Zealand, I have watched the sun going down over the sea in Coratia and a sunset haze over the London skyline.

But nothing toped last night.

I wrote about my love for the view and the amazing place that I live in yet I failed to mention that as soon as I can I will be out of Cumbira like a shot.

Some people ask me why I would go when I live in such a beautiful place.

But I say that I have to go, leaving is a need not a want.

Last Night at about 10:30

I need to see the rest of the world. And not just fly over it.

There are so many amazing beautiful places in the world and I know I live in one of them but I want to see everything.

It may seam like I have travelled everywhere when you are reading thins blog but I have only been to: Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France, Belgium, Jersey and New Zealand.

I know people who have been to nearly every country and I envy them for it.

This morning at 8

The world is such a beautiful place and I want to see more of it.

In my eyes there is not much keeping me to Penrith and Cumbia and with that it gives me the total freedom to go wherever I want.

I don't know what I want to do with my life but if I go to somewhere that could inspire me I can find out what I want to do and who I am.

A House with a View

Derwent Water when it was frozen 

I live undoubtedly in one of the most beautiful places in England.

I used to live in Chester not overly industrial but views like in Cumbria were hard to come by and when I first moved to Penrith I was awestruck by the beauty.

Every weekend my mum, sister and me went out to the lakes and just spent months just looking at the beauty of the place.

I also a few days after moving remember asking one of my new friends at Primary School what it felt like to live in such a beautiful place. She said she didn’t really think of it that often.

I found this really odd at the time.

Yet living in Cumbria for such a long time has given me the same attitude of my friend.

The view form the rock

The beauty is there; I wake up to a view of the Ullswater fells every day but I don’t think of it as overly beautiful now.

I don’t know why.

It could be going to other countries has coloured my option of this one; Slovenia and New Zealand to be the two main culprits.

The view of north from the rock at sunset

Or because I am immune to the beauty now.

I don’t know.

I swore I would never have that attitude of “Beauty… meh”. But over the last eight years I have developed it.

There is a place just up form the road from my house. It is basically a field that people go to walk dogs and play football.

 

The rock

Last week when me and two of my best friends had a sleep over together we all randomly decided to go up there at eleven o’clock at night.

Whilst there we were talking about the beauty of the place we were in. And it was there on a rock at eleven o’clock at night with the sun setting and a twilight haze over the mountains I realised my love for the Lake District again.

I hope the love stays because hundreds of people would love to live where I do, not many people can say they wake up to one of the most amazing views in England everyday.

The view form my bedroom in Winter

View from my window in Spring

Equal by Death – A Poem

Row upon row of Men.

            Every Man different

   made equal by Death.

 
In life They were different
            Stature, Personality, Status;
    Now this is gone
Left equal through a grave

They are not the same

  Yet all similar in three ways:

            They Served.

            They Fought.

            They were Brave.

This poem was one of two that I wrote when I was in Belgium for the World War One battlefields tour that I went on with my school.

I remember writing this on a coach being very cold and tired but inspired to write.

Throughout the week that I was in Belgium I had seen hundreds of graves, graves that were all the same. Each man had an equal grave.

It was poetic in a way because it showed that no matter who the men were they would all be remembered equally; all equally brave.

Whenever I look back on the photos of the graves and Tyne Cot I think of this poem I wrote, especially the first line. Because in Tyne Cot there was rows upon rows of graves as far as the eye could see.

I remember walking around to the entrance to Tyne Cot, you have to walk around the outside down to the bottom of the road then you can go to the cemetery and the walls are really high walking around but half way down the path you have the first look of the graves.

When we were walking down we were all talking in groups laughing and talking but the second that we saw the graves everyone stopped and stared even if it was only for a second.

We stared at the number of graves. We had already been to the Menin Gate and seen all the names on the walls but it was so different seeing the numbers as graves.

I will always look back on my time in Belgium to be one of the most heart breaking journeys of my life. I had known the casualties but seeing the graves is so different.

I’ll never forget the time my time in Belgium and France as Siegfried Sassoon said in his poem ‘Aftermath’: Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

Early Morning Walk - A Poem

Spring time, misty sky

  A girl playing with a friend newly found.

            I sit and view this scene of

   happiness, while a lamb feeds off her mothers milk.

Farmer, good man, great father,

   sees his daughter and watches her with

            concerned eyes. She rides with elegance and

grace as the horse trots down the road.

This poem was formed in my poetry group, we were given the last lines and we had to form the poem around those lines and we had about 10 minutes to write it in.

When I was writing the poem I was thinking of a country scene because of the words: milk, sky and road.

It was originally going to be a poem about someone observing a play ground scene but it formed in to a country scene that I am so familiar to.

For those who don’t know I live in Cumbria which is very rural and the other half of my life I lived in Chester, not as rural but still had a few sheep here and there. So country scenes are always something that I am exposed to and this is the very first attempt to write a country scene poem.

I am trying to write more poems about where I live because I can take all the photos in the world of where I live but I think poems express feeling beyond a photo or painting could ever do.

So that can be my challenge to write another poem about the country.

Encounter with a Thrush – A Poem

You land on my grass; you hop about as I paint. I see you outside. You fly to the tree, you fly near me. I look over and see you. I smile, I stare.

We exchange glances, then you leave. I smile and wish I could be that free.

I wrote this on a Monday afternoon after I realised I didn’t have a poem to bring to my poetry group on Tuesday.

So looking out of the window for ideas I saw this cute baby thrush.

And I thought that would be fine to write a poem about.

So after writing the poem in my normal way I realised it was better fitted as a prose poem so I made it in to that.

Also an un-known fact about me was that I wrote my GCSE English creative writing exam piece in a similar style. I started to rhyme and then couldn’t get out of it. I don’t know if it made any difference to my mark but I still got a B so I’m happy.

Tommy - A Poem

I hadn’t seen you in five years

and then I found you…

        On Facebook.

First contact with you,

            Oldest friend

Reminiscing about you

That very first memory…

      Just walking to school.

When you said to me…

      ‘When we’re married, can we live in London?’

Our last time together…

       A simple hug and a good-bye.

Checked your pictures,

   Still as I remember.

            Only more mature.

the same eyes and smile.

I miss my old life and you.

I miss you, Tommy, my first love.

This poem is dedicated to one of my best friends, Tommy. Other than a few simple lines written to each other on Facebook I haven’t seen or spoken to him in over eight years.

But still to this day I will remember him.

I’ll remember him as a friend how was always there, a friend who found me again, and the friend who was my only childhood love.

For Utada Hikaru, Thank You - A Poem

In a language far too foreign,

            you speak more clearly than anyone.

Your words inspire me

            to Write, to Dream, to Love.

So may truths behind your words,

            They lift me up

I decode your words as

       they decode my life.

With a few simple words

      (that help me let go)

Jibu no utsukushisa mada shiranai no

            But it’s only love

For those who don’t know me I love Japan and Japanese culture and half a year ago I asked on a forum for Japanese female singers and one person suggested Utada Hikaru more specifically her song ‘Beautiful World’.

Once I listed to it once I fell in love with the song and indecently her music.

Even though ‘Beautiful World’ is in a totally different language and I have to google the lyrics just to remotely understand them; Utada Hikaru’s lyrics are more true to me than any other artist.

‘Jibu no utsukushisa mada shiranai no’ means ‘you don’t even know how beautiful you are’

A lyric that every one can relate to, even in the smallest way.

Not to go in to too much detail but I wrote this poem sat alone in the morning on a Thursday and I didn’t feel to great about who I am or what I looked like or basically anything about me.

So I decided to turn on my iPod put it on shuffle and just listen to forget everything. And as you guessed ‘Beautiful World’ came on.

Once the lyric was sung I was happy again.

I remembered that I am beautiful and creative and all the special talent I was born with made me special.

So this is why this poem is for Utada Hikaru because I owe her for that lyric.

Thank you Utada Hikaru, for everything.

Odds - A Poem

How to decode

   The flip of a coin.

Even Odds.

I say instantly

Coins hate me

    you choose.

My fear of odds.

‘Odds’ is one of those poems that I wrote in the shortest time possible. This is down to two things the first is it is one of the shortest poems I have ever written (if you exclude the hundreds of Haikus) but also it is short due to the fact I don’t think it needs to be any longer!

The poem started of from the words ‘Coins hate me, you choose’ this is something I have always said when having to flip a coin in some form of decision making.

I don’t know what stated my fear of odds when it comes to coins but with any other aspect of my life I will always try to break and beat the odds of a situation.

Recently I have been starting work on a project for art with the theme of Alice in Wonderland. I am making all five dresses that I will need for the project and my best friend said to me I was insane for even trying.

I’m still going with the dress making and I enjoy doing it but some part of me doesn’t just want to do the dresses because I like making them but because I want to beat the odds.

Dolce Far Niente

Before I start can I just express my love for the Italians.

I love everything about Italy and the people, from the amazing food, the wonderful aarchitecture, the friendly people and the beautiful language.

But what I love most is the way of life in Italy.

But I don’t live in Italy, and I wont until I learn Italian and finish school, but I am living by the Italians and most importanly one phrase:

Dolce Far Niente

Basic translation: The sweetness of nothing.

Translation to life:

GIVE YOUR SELF A BREAK!

During the past few weeks I have not had a day to my self and because of this I can’t foucus on anything.

And I mean ANYTHING!

So I am burned out (as the Americans call it) so I will live by the Italian I will enjoy life and not work so hard I have no time to think about anything.

So one more motto for the next few weeks!

Dolce Far Niente! Ciao!

Songwriting

And so those who know me very well would know that I dabble in song writing, this fact about me I don't tend to display as what I write isn't a song more a poem to music, and not very long poems at that.

But I am expressing this part of my life on the internet because it is somewhat relevant to what I am doing, or try to do at the moment.

I am simply trying to write a song about me and my life. Not the boring then I went to school and did some homework, slumped in front of the television and then went to sleep type life but what my life has been like.

I have thought throughout my entire life that song was the best way to express yourself. Songs can lift or alter your mood.

When I feel upset Take That’s ‘Shine’ can always lift my mood. When I feel like an outcast Amy Stud’s ‘Misfit’ helps me remember that it’s ok to be a misfit. And when I feel like dancing around like a lunatic Natasha Bedingfield’s ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ always provides the right soundtrack for that.

So I want to express myself through a song.

But I don’t know how to start. I have the idea of what I would like the song to be about but I can’t get going.

My dear Siegfried Sassoon said that you should not wait around for the great muse of inspiration to hit you, you have to work for your poetry like a military drill.

So when I have a spare few hours I will try to write the song and hopefully the idea for the song and the whole theme of that unit will come out of the song.

And so a New Year

And a new year has been brought on us.

A new time, a new life, a fresh start.

So a new time I could vow to be a better person, or to go running everyday, or make sure that I read more or something like that, but this new year I wont vow to do things like that.

My main goal is not to regret doing anything this year, if an opportunity comes my way I will try to take it.

Someone ask me to eat sushi, fine I will.

Someone asks me to go rock climbing, fine I will.

Someone asks me to do anything new or even remotely exciting, I will.

(but perhaps not skydiving)

New moto for this year: Why the hell not?!