Breakfast Musings

When I lay in bed of a night, just before I drift off to sleep, my brain starts to slowly regress into that of a five year old. The topic of interest for my infantile self last night was breakfast food. I've got some crumpets in the cupboard at the moment which were quite dissapointing and I was beginning to regret not getting the scotch pancakes instead. Then I remembered a food from my actual childhood that had long since been forgotten. Piklets. I'm sure these actually existed and are not just something that I made up in a drowsy, half asleep state. They taste like, well, they're like softer crumpets in the shape of pancakes. And that's it really, that's all they are, even more dissapointing crumpets, because you're expecting pancakes, and what you get is spongy, floury nothing. That's when I wondered, did piklets get their name from the fact that they're a cross between crumpets and pancakes? Did the piklet naming comittee almost settle on crumpcakes instead? Perhaps then you wouldn't be quite so dissapointed, because at least crumpcakes sounds like they'd be made of sawdust, which frankly they might as well be.
 As it goes, this was a fairly concise and intelligible train of thought. The only trouble with it was that throughout the half an hour or so that it lasted, the word 'crumpets' was replaced with the word 'crumplets'. A small slip, but it wasn't until I woke up the next morning that I realised that 'crumplets' are neither a word nor a food, and I suddenly felt stupid enough to actually be a five year old.

A nod to the Brits

So, I've been watching David Mitchell's Soapbox (if you dont know what that is or who he is, youtube it, you wont be dissapointed) and smirking happily at the humour that is so cynical, grumpy and brilliant it can produce no other response. Listening to Mr Mitchell moan intellectually at the world around him always puts me in a mind frame to do the same (though I tend to fail terribly).
    Later, when moaning to myself about some nonsense or other, I thought that its the kind of thing I would usually put on facebook, but as I'm trying to wean myself off facebook, I thought I'd share it with you good people. Then it hit me, would you understand what I was talking about? This particular moan is orientated somewhat towards a British audience, and those readers of you around the globe would have very little idea what I was talking about. Then it hit me, again, I doubt I have any readers, and those of you lovely enough to be consuming this, or stupid enough to stumble across it and give it a shot, are probably British anyway. So here it goes-

Richard Hammond; who does he think he is? Don't get me wrong, I've always liked the guy, he's fairly charming and comical, and a little bit cute, but only on Top Gear. He's someone who knew something about cars and was brought into the public eye to talk about them. He isn't a talk show host, he isn't a writer. He shouldnt be making documentories, or kids' shows, or science programmes, or game shows. I like little Hammond, or 'Hamster' as we all grew to know him, but I've lost all respect for him since he decided to stick his spoon into every televisual pot.

As for the others, I've never really had a soft spot for Jeremy Clarkson, I find him possibly the most irritating of the trio, but his articles are ammusing, and some what similar to the previously mentioned soapbox of Mr Mitchell (if not a little bit less intelligent, and a little bit more crass). James May? Endearing in a way that only your plaid-slipper-wearing uncle can be. A man that you want to give a cup of tea to and nod at while he regails you with tales of his 'youth'. Despite that, he made a very entertaining programme about toys of the past, and I think one about Lego, both good enough in an end-of -the-weekend-sunday-night kind of way.

To sum up, my problem with Hammond isn't that he's tried to broaden his career by dispersing his talents elsewhere, it's the fact that he has no other talents. The other Top Gear boys moved on, but they did it well. He's merely trying to branch into the world of badly written, poorly presented, 5 o clock afternoon programmes that only school kids and your granny watch.

At a loose end

Today my rant shall not be pre-planned nor on a specific subject. Today I rant straight from my brain, to express my sudden loss of purpose.
It saddens me slightly that I dont consider my purpose to work hard or get good grades or be a good person. The only thing I have to show for my life of the last 3 months is a mass of texts. It's all I do. Every second of my life since him has been either texting or waiting for a text. It's unbelievable how sad that really is. Only twice during this time has this privilege been taken from me, and they were hard hours. I know it shouldn't matter. I know I should be better than this. That my life should amount to more.
But it doesnt. And I dont care.

Now I sit and wait for a text that will never come. It's only for a day, only while his phone is flat, but it means that I now dont have contact with him until the next time I see him. I'm at an unbearable loose end. I'm living in limbo.

Did my life consist of more before him? Was I happy then? The answer to both is probably 'yes', and means that I was possibly a little less crazy back then. But this is relationships, isn't it? This is what you do.
I can't go back now, not even if I wanted to. This is my life, this is the person I am; insane and needy and whiney. All because I cant read those little letters on the screen that tell me he's out there, and that I can be with him soon.

Are we who we think we are?

In trying to discover who we are, or who we think we are, we often get it wrong. We describe ourselves with generalised terms like 'bubbly' when what we really mean is loud, or annoying, or affraid-to-grow-up.

We call upon friends to describe us, who call us smart, or talented, or say (and this is the real kicker) that we 'have other good qualities', when we know theyre only trying to be nice.

We can place labels on ourselves so that we fit more easily into the society created around us, but we always back it up by saying that we're really unique and different, and no label could define us anyway.

If all else fails, and we still haven't got a full enough idea of who we are, we can always project our personalities onto the characters of others. We say that we're just like Lizzie Bennett, or perhaps, more likely with today's generation, Hannah Montana. We're just the same, because like them we also don't conform to society and are independant // have an attitude problem and sing.
     Worse still, the moment comes when we find someone and simply slot them into this little fantasy world that we are mistaken in thinking is our own.  When first I met the other half we thought we were Edward and Bella, just because of little things. I had to explain to my Mum that it was like being the modern day Romeo and Juliet. Yet before, I was Sylvia Plath. I was Sylvia waiting for my Ted. That all went out the window when I met him, but now I've come to realise how closely it fits. How similar he is to Ted Hughes.

So while I'm aware that things often go wrong when we try to pin poin ourselves, I'm quite happy being Ted and Sylvia, just for now.

Lower your standards. Live your life.

Do you ever lower your standards to fit the life you're currently living? That's what I do. If something I want is a little out of reach and I think I won't get it, or am too lazy to try, I'll lower my expectations so that I don't have to bother.

It's what I'm doing at the moment with A level history course work. So I'm predicted a B right? But if I REALLY tried I could probably get an A.  Last year I got a C, and I'm currently working at a D. I know that if I put some effort in this weekend I could get my course work (which is half of my final grade) up at least 1 grade if not 2. But I really can't be bothered. This is where I start justifying the grade I would get if I didnt try, and convincing myself that it's not really worth it anyway. 'If you get a C in the exam you'll still come out with a C overall. Even if you got a D in the exam you'd probably still get a C. Don't bother too much. You'd never manage a B overall anyway'.

It's not the best way to live your life. It's not the most accomplishing way to live your life. But it sure as hell is the easiest.

A life-time in three months

It will soon be three months ago that I met, who was soon to be, my boyfriend. Three months. How long is three months?

 A third of a pregnancy. 2 terms at school. 2 lots of summer holiday. 48 hair washes. 12 changes of nail vanish. A quater of a year.
Nothing in the scheme of things.

In this, I have lived a life-time.

Not in a bad way. Not in a way that suggests things have been so hideous that time has dragged to extreme proportions. No. Quite the opposite. So much has changed in this time that I can barely remember the life I used to live. In fact it was a talk with him about how we are like best friends, that reminded me of my first post, and resulted in my writing this. It's strange how sometimes, weeks will pass, months will pass, sometimes even years will pass without anything significant happening. Without anything joyous or brilliant or important. Those times will pass without recognition, and in a blink of an eye.

But these three months? They have been the best and worst of my life. They are cemented in my mind as the days that changed my life forever. The days that saw me giddy with euphoria, stupid with anger, scared at things to come, and content at the realisation that everything will be ok.

Yes, Ive lived a life-time in these last three months, but it was a good life.