:-(

I feel absolutely terrible.

According to the fountain of all knowledge and truth, "Despite its unpleasantness, pain is an important part of the existence of humans and other animals...It promotes learning so that repetition of the painful situation will be less likely."

Right... okay... well, that's that. I've learnt my lesson. Next time, I'll remember not to get ill. How stupid of me.

Uuurgh... :-(

Another projection from a small part of my mind

I'd like to thank both Daft Punk and National Rail (the actual National Rail, not a made-up obscure band named after it, although it does sound like a band, doesn't it?) for assisting me in this particular piece of weirness. Oh, and it looks better in real life. Though not any more useful or any less pointless.

This is (just one of the reasons) why I love Brighton

Hey hey,

Had a bit of a mad weekend as usual - far too much to drink on Friday night and also had Eilidh the wee scot (as she is now officially titled) to visit. Went into Brighton to drop her off at the station today, and thought I'd bring my camera out with me - something I've been meaning to do more often. I'm no photographer but after taking pictures nonstop of everything and anything interesting for two months in Alaska this summer, I've started to see all sorts of funny little things in life that I'd like to have a picture memory of - so I'm vowing to try and keep my camera with me at all times from now on.

It was such a cold and dismal autumn day, and after dropping Eilidh off at the train station I was all alone, but somehow Brighton lent me its cheer and I had a nice hour or so just enjoying the Brighton atmosphere.

As I walked down from the station, shivering with my hands in my pockets, I began to hear drums. You never know where they're coming from in a busy street like that - the beat seems to reverberate off of every building so that you can never quite follow the direction of the sound. Walking further, it turned into a song (something by The Beatles) and I discovered the source; a quirky little band playing Beatles and other old 60s covers.

Opposite the band, on the other side of the pedestrianised road, there stood a tantalis ingly tasty-smelling hot chesnut stall, and beside that, Choccywoccydoodah. I really love the feel of Brighton on a day like that - everyone is cold but they still stop to eat hot food and listen to some music.

I honestly can't believe some of the chocolatey creations they come up with in Choccywoccydoodah. Those guys are artists.

Oh, and by the way, if anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, I'd like the entire contents of Choccywoccydoodah, please. (It's not too extravagant to ask for, they only charge about £3000 for some of their larger sculptures!)

On my way back through campus I took this picture, just for the colours:

Now that's just me trying to see the good side of autumn, while combatting S.A.D and rushing home in the freezing cold at four o' clock - to get back before it gets dark at four thirty!

So...

Elections and shit. Nice.

You know what? I was going to talk about the election but since it indirectly lead to a large amount of sleep deprivation which I'm only just catching up with, I feel I've already devoted enough energy toward it. Besides, this isn't a political blog - there are enough of those already! Lewes bonfire night was pretty awesome, even if I was only running on Snickers bars and caffeine at the time.

After a few days of irregular sleep and overdue a bath, I felt disgusting this morning. I had to go out to another of these psychological experiments I've signed up for with the psych lab - you get paid for them and they generally involve eating, which is always good. But this one is a breakfast study, breakfast means morning, morning means "mmmmmeeeerrrrrgh".

So I kinda got out of bed in a zombie-like state, put my clothes on over my pyjamas so it would be extra easy for me to just get straight back in bed after returning. My hair looked something like this:

So I just crammed it all into a hat. I didn't have any clean trousers so I just took a baggy old pair out of the wash, even though they had all sorts of crumbs over them.

At this point I could probably pass pretty well as a tramp. It was fine on the way there because I didn't see anyone I knew, and at the lab itself they treat you like lab rats so if you look like one it just improves your role. On the way back I did see a couple of people I knew, which meant I had temporarily had to pretend not to exist.

I got back, got another 3 hours of beauty sleep, had a bath, and now I'm fine :-) I've decided the vagabond lifestyle, look, and fragrance is not for me. Now I better get ready to go out and pick up Eilidh the wee scot for a night of vodka and fun.

Otherwise, not feeling very creative at this precise moment, but expect something soon :-) (I'm reading Kafka's The Metamorphosis as well as a philosophical book about Lost and Terry Pratchett's new novel too - a step back into reading always fuels my creativity.

I'm already seeing the effect that reading The Metamorphosis is having on my brain - last night I dreamt I had a baby and it started running around and crawling up the walls and ceiling like the Exorcist child. Damn you, Kafka.

Hasta la vista x x

Who knows...

This is what happens when you stay up til 4am, can't get to sleep, and for some reason unknown, decide to be creative.



Then when you wake up you think "I'm sure it had some real significance when I did it!" but can't fathom what the hell it is now.

That never happens to you?

Ah, just me then...

Reflections

This time of my life doesn't even feel real. Coming to university has completely separated me from my previous life, and I'm not even sure of my own identity.

There are some great things happening right now. I've made some good friendships, I have more to do than ever and boredom does not rear its ugly head nearly as much as before. I'm living my own, independent life; I can do what I want to do, whenever I want to do it. I'm starting to discover new music again, something I've not been doing for a year or so.

I feel like I completely wasted my year as a seventeen-year-old, as I wasn't close to my friends and did nothing new, I just studied and drifted through life rather boringly. But when I turned 18, life started up its motors again, I worked harder than ever for my exams, I went on a long ass holiday to Alaska, I came back and actually spent time with my friends, cramming in all the fun I'd avoided for the previous year, I went on a short ass holiday to Spain, I prepared for university.

Now I'm here and the hectic life is continuing. Some things are still on the negative side of the scale though - I'm completely broke and struggling to find a job, but even as I'm applying for these countless jobs, I know that once I start working, unless it's something really fresh, I'll hate it. The chances are I'll be forced to work far too many hours and I'll end up with that same "life is pointless" apathy that working at the same time as studying has lumped me with before.

There are a couple of friends from back home that I really miss. Right now I have a couple of close friends here at Sussex, and a lot of lovely housemates and neighbours that I get on with very well, but I don't really have an "inner circle" group of friends as before. Ironically, when I did have a group of friends like that, I didn't appreciate them enough, I spent the last 2 years distancing myself from my friends and secretly thinking they weren't making an effort to help me, but in reality it was my fault for not talking with them more.

I've always been a person that is very self reflective, always analysing myself and my relationships with others. Maybe it's vanity, maybe it's just that I like to think about things. But thinking about my attitude towards friendship - I'm beginning to think that maybe I just don't want to reach out to hundreds of people for friendship and constantly forge new alliances. Maybe I just want a few close friends, maybe I prefer it that way.

I can see this blog becoming boring to others very quickly - but that doesn't matter. Having an online blog as opposed to a diary helps me motivate myself to write more often, and in the future, I will be grateful I recorded these things - I'm already glad I wrote about my time in Alaska!

I will post pictures at some point too.

Until next time, adios!

Revival!

I last wrote on this blog around 2 months and 2 weeks ago - in reality not a very long time ago - but my memories of Alaska, though clear, seem distant.

So much can change in the space of 2 months. I knew it would, that's why I've been in a constant state of excitement for the last half-a-year. I expected to go to university and all the thrills that come with it, although at the time of writing my last blog post, I wasn't sure which university. But while in Alaska (and it took long enough, talking to school teachers thousands of miles away on the phone)I finally got the AAB results I was waiting for, and here I am now, at Sussex University.

But some things change that you can't expect or prepare for. The day before I moved out of my parents' home and off to university, things began to take a downturn when I received a confusing phonecall from the police. An hour and many more confusing phonecalls later, my mum arrived home early from work, in tears, and I found out that my gran and her sister had been killed in a car accident in Turkey.

For the past month this has affected my mum and her dad terribly, and the funeral was only today. Now I hope our family will be able to begin its healing.

But all the while, I have been settling into a new environment and I have been loving it!

University is awesome. Sussex University is especially awesome, and I am so grateful to be here!

I can't really go into much detail now, I really do have to go to bed shortly, but at least I've given you a brief update and I can get this blog on the road again! (Not that I expect anyone to be interested in my blatherings, but it is nice to have a blog just for my own reflection!)

Nearing the end!

It's been a long holiday and I've loved it!

I only have 3 more days here - I leave at midnight on the Friday 15th - which means I have to be ready at the airport at about 9pm on Thursday 14th. So it seems, Wednesday 13th is my last real day here.

Tomorrow I'm going out for dinner with Fran and Jack as a leaving dinner, and on Wednesday I'm spending the day out with Claire, a friend I made over here (the one I went canoeing with, there's a picture of her somewhere down there). We're going to see Batman and then hang out for the rest of the day, which will be nice, and it will take my mind off of the HUGELY IMMENSE AND EPIC event happening that evening: RESULTS!

Anyway, it's 3am here. Better sleep.

My last couple of excursions...

It's my last week here, and in the past few days my aunt has still been cramming in plenty of things to do! The day after my day at the dog kennels, we took a train and boat tour. Firstly, we took a train, leaving Anchorage at 7am, to Seward - a coastal town which almost reminded me of home. The train trip itself was 4 hours long and not your average boring train journey - it was more of a touristic trip; it was a pretty luxurious train, with a snack bar and a dining car serving posh food, and on the trip there was a kind of commentary on the scenery. And the scenery included glaciers, gorges, rivers...

As well as moose!

When we got to Seward, we went straight to the docks where we boarded the boat for a trip out to Fox Island, a small island nearby, where we ate lunch (Alaskan salmon, yum), and then came back with a tour of the bay. Here's a photo of me and the boat out at Fox Island:

The whole thing was about 6 hours long, and I must admit I did start feeling a little bit seasick near the end - the boat was reeeeally rocky. I did see puffins, sea otters, sea lions, and... a humpback whale, which is a rare sight so I was pretty lucky!



The train journey was pretty much the same on the way back, but with some spectacular sunsets as it approached midnight:

The next day, we got up bright and early (again...) to leave for another camping trip! This time it was just Fran and I, and we were driving up to Denali National Park, which was only a 5 hour drive - a short drive compared to what I've been getting used to out here! We camped there the night, this was our little camp:

And the next day we took another touristy trip, this time an 8 hour bus tour of the park on this cuuuute bus:

The roads were those narrow ones that twist around the mountain, when you look out the window you’re so close to the edge you cant see the road, just the drop. It didn’t help my nerves when people kept seeing moose or bears in the gorge down below, and every single person on the bus ran to the side nearest the edge… It was difficult to get the right angle but you can kind of get the idea from this photograph:

And this picture pretty much summarises the quality of the road:

The weather was pretty crappy so we didn't see much wildlife, apart from an awesome grizzly bear and a few herds of caribou, but they were too far away to photograph - probably a good thing with the grizzly though. But the scenery was still amazing, and just to prove it IS cold here even though it's supposedly summer:

So don't listen to the online weather reports which somehow suggest its not that much cooler than England. It's not! Summer is already over, its already autumn here, and the first snowstorms should be expected in a month.

Fortunately, I'm coming home before then - I'll be arriving back in England on Saturday morning! Yay! I'm getting pretty homesick! And I reeeeeeally miss my doggies!

(Although it will be weird when I come home and all the shops, lodges, hotels and bars don't have antlers all over them for decoration. This is a typical one, it's a cafe/gift shop but they all have them - this one has 8.)

Not long now and I'll be back ...as Annie Lennox said: it's alright, baby's coming back! :-D

2 weeks, 2000 miles: continued (mainly in pictures)

I am tired - I've had no breaks from action-packed activities and sightseeing this week, I got up at 4am today and I got home at midnight - and tomorrow I'm heading out again for 2 more days of camping. I better show you last week though or I’ll never catch up! So this is mainly going to be pictures.

Okay, so when my aunt and uncle picked me up from camp, we drove about 6 or 7 hours up to Dawson City (in Canada). This is Dawson City as you approach it from the mountains:

When you arrive at the city there is no way of driving in. You have to drive onto a ferry which takes you across the river to the city. This is the only way of reaching it. It's a small town (in England terms) of about 2,000 population. But that's pretty huge in Canada terms, it's even more deserted than Alaska! And once, it really was a "city" - it was a huge gold rush town and all the buildings look exactly like they were built in the 1800's (some of them were), and it genuinely feels as though you've gone back in time.

There are a lot of interesting buildings, from "Diamond Tooth Gertie's" gambling hall/bar, to the grocery stores and gift shops, which all fit in with the gold rush era theme. I took pictures of a lot of them, including this one which has a verse by Robert Service (a famous local poet who wrote about life in the gold rush) painted on it. This picture is pretty self explanatory, someone else stole the show from Robert Service's poetry at least:

We went to see a show at the theatre, it was a typical Dawson City show with fiddling and dancing. Actually, pretty much everything was "typical" in Dawson City, everything fit in, even the people.

So we stayed at Dawson City for 2 nights before heading back out on the Demptser highway to the Arctic Circle. I say "highway"... in actual fact the road looked like this the whole way up:

As you can see the road isn't paved. In fact, you can't see the potholes but they're everywhere, and the road was slippery too. It was totally bumpy all the way up and most people lose a tyre or two. We drove slowly so we were okay, but let me tell you, it's a pain in the ass driving for hours: 400 miles up a bumpy highway at only 30 miles an hour. I was already feeling sick at this point. We actually reached the Arctic Circle but missed the sign so I don't have a photo of me with the Arctic Circle sign :-( But we went far beyond it anyway, even into the Northwest Territories (and very few people get to go that far north!). So I do have a photo of me there:

And you can see that it's in the Arctic Circle because there are no trees in the background of that photo - it's tundra. Just to prove how horrible and dirty that highway was, here's the back of the car after driving it:

The car is actually supposed to be bright blue. And that isn't just dust either, it wont even come off with a scraper. It had to be washed twice afterwards.

So, on the way back (and I'm rushing through this and skipping bits - we actually camped for a night in the Arctic Circle - brr!) I was feeling extremely sick. It wasn't carsickness because it started before I got in the car. My head was throbbing, my stomach ached, my throat was sore and I couldn't swallow anything, and I had a fever. I looked at my tonsils in the mirror and it turns out I had tonsilitis... ALL the way home. I tried to sleep most of the way (and it's hours and hours on end of driving, like driving to Scotland and back - twice!). But I did catch some scenery. Here is me trying not to look sick, in front of a glacier:

I put some blusher on before the photo in an attempt to look less like a corpse. I certainly felt like one... But when I got home I took a course of antibiotics so I'm recovering now!

Yesterday we went to a working sled dog kennels! It was amazing! They are cute, friendly, dumb, yet talented dogs.

They all love people. They were all running round and round on their chains and barking, trying to get your attention, and this is what happens when you give it to them:

So, here's the team geared up and ready to go. This was actually the guy's "A-Team" as he called it - his 12 best dogs. These guys will actually be running the great Iditarod race next year so they really are the best of the best:

Here's me about to set of on a ride! Obviously there is no snow in the summer so they can't pull a sled. So to practice they pull this buggy. They are so strong the guy in charge made me keep my foot on the brake while he was harnessing them up, in case they pulled off too soon. Some people have said that "making" the dogs run those long distances in the race is cruel. Well, after visiting a place like this, I can tell you that those people are ridiculous. They don't make the dogs run, they let the dogs run! All they want to do is run! There must have been at least 50 dogs there and when they got the harnesses out, they were all running around in circles, howling and barking and wagging their tails, trying to get picked for the team. And as soon as they're in the harnesses, they are trying to go, go go! They are mental.

They also had puppies, and after the ride we went on a nature trail walk with about 10 of them, as they can't pull a sled unti they're about 7 months old. This one was my favourite:

And with that cute little face, I bid you farewell for tonight. Today I went on a boat trip but I won't blog that, I don't have time. But I can tell you that I did see a humpback whale, sea lions, sea otters, eagles and puffins! Anyway, I'm leaving to go camping for 2 nights tomorrow, and I'll be back on the 8th. So I'll have to update you then!

Goodnight!