accio books

Stuff is weird lately. Really, really weird. I'm sort of looking forward to going home next weekend and I'm sort of dreading it.

Anyway.

I'm sat in the library right now, trying to get a head start on the next essay for textual analysis. So far all I've managed to do is check all of my online stuff and decide to write a blog. I guess procrastination at least keeps my loyal readers informed of my life. Hello loyal readers! How are YOU?

Just kidding. I know I don't have any loyal readers.

So November approaches and I've decided to give NaNoWriMo my attention for the second year in a row. I have a tiny bit of a plot and a tiny bit of a character, but so far that's about it. Oh well. It's more than I had last year in some respects.

I kind of decided on a whim that I'd do it. I'd been uhming and ahhing about it for a couple of weeks until I (for want of a better phrase) decided to screw it and just go for it. The little voice in my head that makes me do silly things no longer wants to be a part of my life, but like it or not I've definitely been changed. Life's too short.

I feel that seen as I'm sat here pretending to be scholarly, I should express just how much I adore this library. I don't know how old it is, but it feels old. It's draughty and promises knowledge and inspiration from the moment you step through the double doors. The high ceilings and rows of bookcases interspersed with long tables designed for hours of fervent reading can't help but remind you of the wizarding world that I so unashamedly love. It's laced with possibility and just a tiny sprinkle of magic. One day, something with my name on it will be permitted to sit on one of its creaky wooden shelves. One day.

With any luck I'll be receiving two visitors very shortly, and my I cannot wait.

Now I really should be reading King Lear...

updates

It's been a while since I've updated this thing with any points about my general life. Incoherent ramblings can only go so far, so I think it's about time I wrote something with cold hard facts rather than airy fairy analogies.

Plus, talking about anything other than the cold hard facts makes me head hurt.

American Literature is possibly my favourite thing ever. I can't quite pinpoint what it is about it that I love so much. It makes me feel quite unpatriotic to say that I enjoy it far more than I enjoy any of my other English Literature modules, but there you go. My Professor is everything that a Professor should be. Passionate, encouraging and challenging. I was worried I wouldn't find a brilliant teacher here (I thought after 6 years of the most fantastic teacher in the world at my last school that my luck would run out), but he makes me think and question and really learn.

Other than that, classes in general are going okay. Admittedly Textual Analysis makes me want to slit my wrists every Friday, but I can cope with that. Medieval Literature is all a bit swings and roundabouts at the moment. Interesting seminars, not so interesting lectures.

What else, what else, what else...

I met Philip Pullman!

There was definitely a part of me that considered the phrase "never meet your idols" before we went into the lecture theatre, but he was wonderful. Wise, inspiring and warm. He signed my book afterwards and told me (as it was set in Wales) how to get to the place he was thinking of when writing it. Just in case I ever wanted to explore.

Oh how well you know me Mr Pullman.

November sees the start of NaNoWriMo and I still can't decide whether or not I want to subject myself to that kind of torture for a second year running. We'll see.

There is, of course, a mass of other information that I could impart. Like going to watch Toy Story in 3D, adventuring to Anglesey and Conwy (to a CASTLE!) and generally eating far too much ice cream. But I'll refrain. I will however have a quick moment of pride. I've been to the gym many times. And fitness classes. Kick aerobics* is so many kinds of fantastic, mostly because the instructor uses phrases such as "No pain, no gain!" in real life. She's crazy.

Now I must shower, read, lecture and sleep. Though not necessarily in that order.

*It may in fact be "kickaerobics" (all one word) but I absolutely refuse to spell it like that.

there's no place like it

This will undoubtedly get deleted.

My blog is set to private thanks to my nosey/stalkery family anyway.

I went home last weekend after having spent 3 weeks in a completely different country. I was excited. Friday is my longest day at uni and all I could think about all day was rushing back to my flat to get my stuff to get my train. I love home. I don't understand how you can spend 18 years somewhere and not grow somewhat attached to it. Everyone's so excited to get away from it and have a fresh start and whatever, but I don't get that. The friends that I've known and loved for quite some time now have all gone off to uni and I've barely heard from any of them. I suppose I must be pretty disposable.

And so, to go home to the one person I knew would be feeling similar things to me was ridiculously comforting. I've had best friends in the past and it's never a term I throw around lightly, but oh my is she the best of the best. I was looking forward to seeing my family and the other 3 people that I love and miss constantly, but there was definite concerns with how the reunion with one of them was going to go. I didn't have any worries about this though. She is my sanctuary and it makes me very happy to know that seeing her would be like putting on a comfy old coat. Nobody here could ever compare to that.

The reunion I was worried about? Yeah...weird. It was all confusion and racing hearts and staying up far too late. And this summer was just too good. And I wish I had the backbone to tell him that some things are worth the fight and that missing him is awful but I wouldn't trade it.

I don't know. The wrong person is telling me he misses me and the right person is barely speaking to me. I'm being selfish of course. There are other important things he has to worry about. But...eurgh. This is such a livejournal entry. Sorry. Definite deletion when I finally make this public again.

Kay. Going to go do happy things now.

freedom

I've always been all for education. The best example of this is when I was in primary school and told my favourite teacher that I was glued to the floor and refused to leave.

University is...crazy. It's different and exhilarating and I love learning and reading and learning and talking. I'm so in awe of my Professors and the passion that the other students have for this breathtakingly vast subject is so incredibly exciting. I don't know what I'd be doing if I wasn't studying. I'm not ready to work that's for sure. I love ridiculously late nights and sneaking back into my room. I love silly Harry Potter jokes and serious Harry Potter discussions. I absolutely adore seeing new places and adventuring everywhere (even if it's just to cheap clothes shops). Most of all I like how university makes me feel. Like I'm brilliant and intelligent and fascinating. How much it makes me just want to live and live and live.

And yet.

At home, there are people that make me feel more alive than all the books in the world could do. I want to see the whole world and I want them right by my side. I wish I had the guts to tell them.

Anyway I'm sat listening to Brand New as I now (thanks to the lovely Christopher) own more of their music than I even knew they had. Daisy was a disappointment, but Deja Entendu is ridiculously brilliant so I'll forgive them. Just.

I refuse to stay in tonight. I go back tomorrow morning, and as pathetic and desperate I know it'll make me look I'm probably going to drive a stupidly far way to see someone way better than anyone in Wales ever could hope to be.

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."

fear and loathing

Before I went to university I hated one person. Just the one. Admittedly a disliked a whole host of other people, but I only ever hated one. I felt that was important. Hate's just as monumental as love; and I certainly don't throw that word around lightly either.

If I could stop hating that one person I would. Hate is ugly and vicious and consumes you. But they make it impossible to be just indifferent about. They are beyond forgiveness. But I think it's important to state that I wish I could devote all my energies to loving and to seeing the good in every person that crosses paths with me.

And so it pains me (and oh my does it pain me) to tell you that since coming to university I've discovered I hate two people. Two. That's double! Good going there Sara.

And I don't want to. I want to just not care and not be angered by a lack of respect and a lack of substance and standards. But I can't. In a way I'm glad it annoys me so much, because I don't want to be the type of person that just accepts that some people are a bit shit and that we shouldn't expect more from humanity.

I don't know where I'm going with this. There's not big philosophical point I'm trying to make and I don't think this is even going to be particularly cathartic. But it just makes me sad and it makes me feel like a horrible person, that I have the capacity to hate not just one, but two people.