Metablogpost

This blog is such a weird space. It started off as an online journal with pictures of my trip to Alaska when I was 18. (If you don't believe me, check the archives!)

Then, when I went to university it turned into a blog full of my depressive, philosophical ramblings. I should have been using it to chronicle all the awesome stuff which goes on in university life, but that didn't really happen.

Then there was a gap of over a year.

So what now?

My first blog post after 17 months of blogospherical silence

It's March 2011 and it seems hard to believe that my last entry was October 2009. How was it that I didn't make a single entry for the entire of 2010? Maybe I lost my vanity for a whole year. After all, that is the reason for blogs, right? The idea that I have something to say that is worth posting publicly. Otherwise we'd just keep private, offline diaries.

Well, this winter I started writing in a diary again. A real one - pen and paper. I haven't written a diary since I was about 15. It used to be about celebrity crushes, how bored I am in school, and arguments with friends. Some parts are also written in secret codes that I don't understand anymore, and I don't think I left myself a key. Now my diary has mainly been about driving lessons, how bored I am in lectures, arguments with my boyfriend, and my general worries and ambitions.

I'm still studying Philosophy. I'm still wondering why I'm studying Philosophy. I enjoy searching for meaning in life but I'm not sure if I truly enjoy reading dense academic texts. They're not written to be entertaining and while thought-provoking, they're not always inspiring. I'm scared of reading phenomenology texts or continental philosophy because it seems difficult to penetrate.

I don't know what I want to do with my future. I don't know what is even available to me. I guess I will end up working for "The Man", in some corporation or other institution.

At this precise moment in time my thought on life is this:

I feel as if I am detached from the entire universe, and it is a vast jigsaw puzzle with a seemingly infinite number of pieces. Some of the pieces are in places, in patches here and there, so it seems that there is a little bit of order.

But overall it is all so huge and there are a mind-boggling number of pieces. At the same time though, it feels like the jigsaw puzzle is at least theoretically possible to solve - all the pieces are there, but they are scrambled beyond belief.

Here I am trying to figure out what the big picture would turn out to be - and how do all the pieces fit together to form a real, meaningful image? How do I fit into it, how does everyone else fit into it: stars and planets, cups and tables, Barack Obama and my next-door neighbour, McDonalds and crisp packets, daffodils and ants?

But this is just my thought on life this evening. Tomorrow it will be something different. I have decided to write in this blog again so there will be an online record of a few of the thoughts that originate in my strange little head.

Objectivity or Subjectivity?

I'm trying to be all clever and academic this year so I can actually get a good degree... so here's a philosophical question posed by a tutor that I have attempted to answer... Objectivity or Subjectivity?

A great poet and a scientist stand in front of a beautiful tree, and their reactions are observed.


The poet feels inspired by a sense of hope and growth, and that he is in the presence of Mother Nature. Or perhaps he knows that the tree was planted as some sort of memorial to a friend, and it invokes sadness. Maybe it is early Spring and the new buds remind him of new life and fresh beginnings.

The scientist observes the species of the tree, its stage of development, the way the chlorophyll absorbs sunlight to sustain it, how the tree will benefit us by removing carbon dioxide from the air, and the energy we can use by burning its wood.

So which perspective is more useful to us as philosophers? Looking subjectively at the tree, the poet conveys a greater sense of meaning through symbolism and association. But the scientist's observations are more precise and we gain verifiable, substantial information.

We obviously need both perspectives for a deeper understanding of life, so perhaps our aim should be to primarily view upon things objectively, but to remember that everything has a subjective interpretation that provides just as much meaning.

Franz Ferdinand, I salute you...

Okay, okay, calm down Rebekah. It's just Franz Ferdinand... But no!

I am literally so excited about their latest album it's literally making me want to use the word "literally" incorrectly... No seriously, I'm so excited about it I felt like telling everyone. I'm not a sophisticated music-reviewer so this is just my personal ramblings : )

Firstly, I know it's not even "new" - it came out in January, but hey, I've been busy, I can't help being a bit behind the times. The fact is, I was at Glastonbury when I suddenly realised that Franz Ferdinand were not simply one of those 2004 bands to be forgotten about. I loved them when I was 14, but for the last couple of years I'd accindentally thrown them in the boring, generic indie-pop bin to compost beside the Kaiser Chiefs. It was definitely accidental. They were awesome then and they are awesomer now.

At Glastonbury when I noticed their new progressive style, not to mention fantastic playing, and a set which included a lengthy drum/percussion instrumental involving the whole band, it clicked that my 14-year-old music taste couldn't have been that misguided after all. I acquired the album as soon as I got back from the muddy festival and I've finally given it a good listen - and what I hear stuns me more than their live performance did.

They're still Franz Ferdinand: same intelligent lyrics, and Kapranos' cheeky-yet-sexy vocals remain, together with the 60s guitar sounds. The injection of electro into their music is brilliant and fitting, and I am close to ecstatic that they discovered the power of synthesisers. Yet the electro aspect does not suprise me so much as this album's sudden inclusion of trance, psychadelia and dub! Admittedly I have the two-disc "special edition" of the album which includes extra, even crazier tracks, but across the entire album the bass is ramped up, and the synthesisers are making you jig around with glee. For a concept album, it's pretty erratic, they've crammed many genres into it, but you can still tell it's Franz Ferdinand, and somehow they've made the techno and dub sounds fit perfectly. It makes a truckload of sense that their new producer previously worked with Hot Chip.

Anyways, Please listen to it. There is a lot of variety squeezed into one album - if you're looking for chart hits, listen to No You Girls or Ulysses. If you're after old-style Franz Ferdinand with a classic rock sound, listen to Bite Hard. But if you're looking for a taste of their new sounds, particularly recommend Lucid Dreams, which explodes into electro half-way through, Die on the Floor which progresses into four-to-the-floor trance (infectious bassline included), or Katherine Hit Me, which is pretty much exclusively dub.


Oh yeah, did I mention Alex Kapranos is the best-dressed man in the entertainment industry? No? Well that too. They just don't stop being awesome. I am so glad I rediscovered this band.

Today

Today is my last day of being 18... I guess that's not really a big deal. It just means I only have one year left of being able to blame things on "teenage angst"...

I haven't written on this blog since I decided life was going to improve... I'd say it actually has, apart from the fact the exams are closer than ever. I can't believe I'm already so close to the end of my first year at university.

I don't really have that much time to write right now, maybe in the week I'll update properly though.

Bekah

High five.

I'm at a turning point! It's not winter any more! Life is going to change for the better from now on, because I have decided it will! : )

High five, world!

Dora the Explorer vs. sexual objectification of women

That's IT! Prepare for a major rant on one of my niggling personal hates. Something I've just read online has kicked me way off the edge and I'm about to sound off.

ENOUGH apathy, it's time for me to dust off my opinionated-bitch hat that I seem to have forgotten about recently... An old schoolmate on facebook reminded me of the time the army came into our school to drum up interest in future recruits, and I was majorly pissed off because I thought it was wrong, and I was really outspoken about it. That's the old me! I used to be the one that wasn't afraid to be different say how I felt!

Well lets all give a warm "welcome back" to the old Rebekah 'cause she's about to speak up.

Lets start by warning you that I'm not some mental femenist extremist. I'm fine with porn and the like. What pisses me off big time is the way little girls are being bought up increasingly sexualised in the name of profit. I'm not saying this for some moral or religious end, sex is awesome and we all know it, and I wouldn't want girls growing up thinking sex is a bad thing.

No, what pisses me off about it is that no matter how brilliantly a kid's parents bring them up, they're still infected by this media-driven consumerist bile that makes girls (and boys) grow up with the idea that looking sexy (i.e. appetising to men) is their primary purpose, and any other talents or ambitions are secondary. Its all in the name of capitalism.

I'll give you an example of what I mean. Some feminists say Barbie is a bad and unrealistic role model for girls, that if her proportions were life-size she'd be about 9ft tall. I disagree. Barbie may be the stereotypical bimbo we all love to hate, but I have evidence that she was not just a pretty face. No, she has had a more fulfilled career than any frumpy career-obsessed feminist out there. Here are just a tiny few of the jobs our dear Barbie has enjoyed in her 59 year life of plastic perfection:

Doctor Barbie, Veterinarian Barbie, United States Air Force Barbie, Astronaught Barbie, Nascar driver Barbie, even Paleontologist Barbie! And if you don't believe me, here's a copy of her CV in Wikipedia article form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie%27s_careers

So we've established that I approve of Barbie. I have nothing against prettiness. At least Barbie and her plethora of top jobs shows girls that women can take on the same variety of careers and roles that men can. Trouble is, dolls like Barbie are actually on the decline. After being the top-selling toy for decades, she's been dethroned, and by the most hideous and disgusting little shits ever to disgrace the world of toys. That's right, Bratz. They've been the best selling dolls in the UK for a couple of years now.

"Bratz dolls come dressed in sexualized clothing such as miniskirts, fishnet stockings, and feather boas. Although these dolls may present no more sexualization of girls or women than is seen in MTV videos, it is worrisome when dolls designed specifically for 4- to 8-year-olds are associated with an objectified adult sexuality" - American Psychological Association

Oh yeah, and did I tell you their obsessive mantra, their primary slogan? "Passion for Fashion!!!"

Fuck that shit!

Seriously, for FUCK'S sake! Parents buy these things for their kids?! So an entire generation of girls is being bought up OBSESSED with ultra-sexiness and NOTHING else. And I'm NOT blaming men, I'm not in the field of thought that believes this is one big conspiracy run by males to subjugate women. No, this is not even about sex, it's about PROFIT.

I hate it! I absoultely fucking hate it! Everything that surrounds a girl as she grows up is drowning her in consumerism. Buy all these sexy clothes and products and make sure you see all the right films and spend money on all the right things, because that's the only way you'll ever be sexy, and that's the only way you'll EVER be valued by anyone. Advertising and the media says fuck careers, fuck ambition, no matter how intelligent or talented you are, you're NOTHING if you don't look sexy and own all these expensive things that will make you look hot.

Don't think I'm obsessed with dolls and toys. That's not what this is about. It's not just dolls. It's everything, kids are drowning in it. All the cute teen rom-com films where the clever, talented yet slightly geeky girl only gets her "happy ending" when she's had her hair-straightened, gone on a huge shopping spree (always accompanied by the same old cheeky lets-use-dad's-credit-card joke), become the sexiest girl in school, and won over the hottest guy in school.

Nearly every female protagonist in a kid's film(and "grown up" films too) is ultra pretty. The ugly woman is always the enemy or the bad-guys hideous love interest. Meanwhile, male protagonists can be as butt ugly as you want. A beast, an ogre, Quasimodo, doesn't matter because guys can be appealing on talent or personality, whereas if a girl isn't physically gorgeous, she's nothing.

Can I just tell you what it aws that inspired me to write this rant down? It was Dora the Explorer. Dora the Explorer has always been awesome, in my opinion. She's kind of a tomboy but still popular and cute. She does explorer-y outdoors things, makes friends, solves puzzles, speaks two languages and inspires kids to do the same. Little girls can watch and know that they're capable of doing all these cool things too.

But guess what? It's too good to be true. After all, she is the posession of a couple of the same corporations that bring us all the other shit, Nickelodeon and Mattell. Yep, they just made a press release announcing a "makeover" for Dora. Well, now they've got their "sister" show (ha) with Dora's male counterpart Diego continuing with the adverturey stuff, why waste what could be a massive profit maker, purely in the name of conserving a generation of girls' self-worth?

"The new Dora, who will be revealed in the fall, lives in the big city and goes to middle school. She still solves mysteries but she's abandoned outdoor adventure for shopping, jewelry and fashion."

I have now lost faith in humanity. They haven't actually revealed her new look yet, only a sillhouette as a little teaser. Check it out (beside the old outdoorsy tomboy Dora):





















That's not an image someone's made as a joke, that's the real thing sent out with their press release.

I'm actually lost for words at how stupid this is. I know you might think I'm totally overreacting, but I find this is just a symbol of our societies current values, this is just another example.

I know it might be ironic that I'm pretty vain myself, I like to look hot and I won't go into my sexual fantasies (which probably completely betray the essence of everything I say here). But the fact is that even if I could be the sexiest woman on the planet, I would never want to sacrifice personality, intelligence, or ambition. High-five if you happen to be both hot and clever, but if not, I'd rather be "intelligent and interesting yet ugly" than "beautiful and fashionable but dumb and shallow".

Ugh, it's so late at night, and I could rant about this forever. In fact, this is just a summary of something I've been theorising over and talking about quietly for a couple of years now. I struggle to write a 1500 word philosophy essay but I could easily write a real essay about this, including references and serious research.

I might come back to this with more examples of media ludicrousy later. Its not just girls that get this consumer brainwashing, but adults even more so, especially women. It's just that kids brains are too soft and squishy to resist advertising like we should be able to.

Who'd want to bring a child into a world that sucks as much as this? If you bring kids up in an anti-consumerist, non-conformist way, they'll just suffer cause they wont fit in and other kids wont like them. If you let their squishy brains get infected by the media brainwashing, then their lives will still suck cause their self esteem will be kept at a permanent low-level to create the pefect conditions for optimum profit.

I don't see any solution either. So, in conclusion, don't have kids! Anyway, all this opinionated ranting has made me tired. Hope I haven't bored you too much.

Night!

(Disclaimer: if I ever do or say anything which seems to contradict the opinions I've just written, whatever, we're all hypocrites sometimes. I still reserve the right to laugh at ugly people, turn myself into a sex object, work for an evil corporation if they pay me, or buy expensive consumer goods.)

Can't sleep tonight, zombified blogging instead.

Insert interesting and positive-sounding first sentence here, just to give the reader a bit of hope my blog won't be totally depressing today... (There are some good bits! And I promise I'll try harder next time to say something nice!)

I swear, I do try and think of good things to post on my here, something interesting or creative - but I always end up using this poor little blog as my little emergency rail, something to grab onto as I feel the ground slipping away beneath me into a chasm of crappiness and doubt. I mean, I've also tried writing in my diary (the old fashioned kind where you use a pen) to get all the moanings out of the way, so I don't have to keep spewing out emotional guff here. But, alas, it didn't work, sometimes I feel like this blog is the only way.

I'm not completely negative you know! Some cool things happen, I mean, I have my first radio show on Saturday at 10pm, which I will probably talk about some more on Saturday before I do the show. I'm a bit nervous, (even though no-one really listens) and this could either be really good or really bad, but I'm quite enthusiastic. You never know :)

Should I become a Buddhist or something? Seek enlightenment? I sometimes think I might just need a cheap way of injecting meaning into my life. I mean, Siddhattha Gotamalived on one grain of rice a day for a while before he became the Buddha, before he really got on the right track to enlightenment. I'm going to quite close to that level of starvation if I don't find a job soon, so I'm already on my way.

Some days I feel happy, some days I love the world, some days I'm almost confident and I forget my insecurities. But sometimes I just feel like the lonliest creature in the world. After a few months of pathetically trying to improve, I don't feel any better, maybe I should give up trying to change things on this level, maybe I should look beyond this plane and look for some kind of spiritual energy to put things in perspective. (Don't misinterpret this though, just because I might be thinking spiritually for five minutes, I still say 'fuck you' to most organised religion).

I was supposed to go to bed hours ago but I've had a bit of insomnia for the last couple of nights (annoying, cause I thought I was getting more sensible with my sleeping habits!) and the other night I kept getting up. I counted all the bedroom lights I could see in the part of East Slope visible from my window. I thought, those are other people like me, people that are still awake at 3am, 4am. I wonder what they're doing - writing an essay, reading, sitting there wishing they could sleep, or maybe just stuck in an internet coma. Each time I look out my window there are fewer lights. The last look, before I finally went to bed successfully, there were 10 other people awake somewhere in their East Slope rooms. I guess thats 10 out of... at least a hundred people, maybe more.

Another pointless blog post by yours truly,

Lots of (unrequited) love,
Bekah

P.S. I MUST remember to post something that's actually INTERESTING on here some day!

Tell me, how can I be free?

When you write these blogs, you get a little "title" box to fill in above the main post - I never fill it in 'til after I've finished writing the post, because I never know what I'm going to end up writing about. I wonder what it will be today.

Well, I just got back from a talk arranged by a guy who's starting up a journalism society here, he got a Guardian journalist named Nick Davies in for a very, very interesting talk on corruption in the media, particularly newspapers. I won't go into detail because I wouldn't be able to do justice to the guy, but I will say that after listening to him talk, I definitely want to read his book. And perhaps consider a career in journalism, out of a vain desire to promote "the truth" and change the world a little. (Ha. Like I'm ever going to be motivated and efficient enough... Sigh.)

So that was the latest little thing I've tried as part of my vague effort to "do" things and experience life and uni, instead of just drifting through these important years of my life stuck in my own little world within my mind. I thought, it won't be forever that I'll have the opportunity to go and listen to these interesting speakers from around the country and world, so maybe I should start going to more of these public talks. There was only about 20 people attending, so plenty of space and time to ask questions and get inspired.

I'm waiting to hear back from URF, our student radio station, about getting a slot for a Saturday show. So hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be on air. This may or may not lead to fail, but it won't be an epic fail, because no-one really listens to the student radio anyway, especially not on Saturdays. But it's something fun to do, right?

I guess I should be working on my Philsophy essay right now, but it's quite hard and boring, and I haven't updated this blog for a while. Also, I started feeling a bit... meh... so I thought "quick, quick, do something, anything, before you get sucked into the big black wormhole of suckiness and then nothing gets done for a whole week!" So writing this blog is temporarily postponing a fight with my own head :-) Ah, the joys of being insane.

Some people punch a pillow, get drunk, or have a lengthy chat with Dr. Quack, I just write on my blog. Yeah, it is public, but I've always been an attention seeking drama queen, what's wrong with the world having access to some of my craziness? If you ever have a shortage of madness, you know where to come.

Am I being a boring person at the moment? I want to be one of those people who make the lives of everyone around them more exciting, but its not quite happening that much at the moment. I can be like that, but I don't get the opportunity much when I'm poor, stuck indoors, and bogged down with essays and assignments. I want to do something crazy and fun! I want to be unleashed from my cage!

How can I do this? I feel like I have to get out of the country to be free - but I'm poor so I can't. How can I be free? How can I get more from life... without giving all my money to The Man?

There are all sorts of little things I sometimes wish I could do, things that make me happy, small release. Swimming (even though I'm not a good swimmer), dancing on a sandy beach, watching the sun rise, riding my bike along the seafront and feeling the wind in my hair, dancing anywhere, doing a handstand, going on a rollercoaster, listening to music while doing all these things...

Well, it's nearly the end of winter anyway - good thing too.

I need to do amazing things, I swear it, I have to. I want to go round the world and flash everyone a smile - that way, even if I don't change anything, at least a good few people will have seen one extra smile in their lifetime.

All sorts of things...

So, I've been totally on the oppposite end of the depressive spectrum today, thankfully - been totally wired and inspired all day. I achieved a reasonable amount. None of the stuff I SHOULD be achieving (such as getting a job or studying) but eh, that stuff is boring. I've been bouncing around to my music all day and spring cleaned and tidied my entire room, even though I originally set out to just sort out my desk drawers, I had a great dinner out of hardly any ingredients (getting to the poverty line right now) and I made up my mind to actually try and do things with my life.

That decision came from finding this old book that all my teachers and friends signed at the end of school and sixth form..Some people wrote all sorts of nice things about how far they thought I'd go in life. And I thought, everyone used to have such high expectations for me, and recently I've lost a lot of my sense of aspiration.

I don't think I should throw all that away. I should try and be the best I can be. That means I have to take some risks and forget my temporary lack of confidence. I should get out and do something. Which is why I've decided to... well, thats part of my sneaky plan. I won't reveal what it is until I'm a little more convinced it won't fail miserably ;-) So don't give it away, people I've told. (Means you, Sophie and Emma.) Anyways, I'm determined to do at least something creative with my life. I just need to find my place, and I may as well start now while its not too late.

Also I've been a bit slack with my "more photos" objective. Here's a photo of yours truly... after a long explanation :P

In my sudden rush of creativity and inspiration, not only did I have a nice idea for a novel which I will probably never write, but I also had this dumb idea for a piece of art, (and I wouldn't take the word "art" too seriously here), which I started drawing, and then remembered that I'm too rubbish at drawing to do justice to it. I mean, it did look pretty good in my head. I wont bother explaining my exact imagination but it had a woman in it, and I'm so terrible at drawing anything real, like people. I'm better at abstract doodles. (Lame, I know). If I said the photo was going to be a levitating (possibly fairy) lady DJ in space playing on invisible floating decks, that is a sillier sounding image of what I had in mind. If I could transpose the image in my head into reality it would have looked so cool, I swear.

Anyway, I thought, maybe I could get lots of pictures off the internet and form the picture from a collage of photos instead. Then I realised it would look crap. Then I thought, what I really need is someone to pose the way I'm imagining, then I can try and draw it and copy it. Then I thought, maybe it would be better as a photo anyway, or maybe a combination of more than one photo and some other effects to get what I was aiming for. Then I realised I didn't have a model so it was all imaginary. Then for a while I thought, I would be the ideal model because I know exactly what I've got in mind. Then I realised I didn't have a photographer. Then I thought, oh damn I have a crap camera and no photography skills. Then I thought "sod it" and ended up photographing myself and thus ending up feeling very vain.

I realised, even though one of my favourite photographers may be totally awesome at self portrait, I am useless at all kinds of photography plus I just look silly. (Person I'm referring to: Icelandic lady named Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir: link to some of her stuff )

I ended up giving up on my original idea. It was too hard. Oh well. Grumps.


Goodnight,

Bekah

Guitars picks and shoelaces

So... I've been pretty unproductive today.

Yesterday was awesme cause Lizzy came over to visit, from Chichester, and she is my second oldest friend. Our friendship was founded when we were 11, staying up late in our dorm room at a "gifted and talented" summer school at Rodean, blowing raspberries and making fart noises, and laughing our heads off all night - also featuring in a play about smugglers... I guess we've matured slightly, but not too much. I'd say we were on the gifted side of the "gifted and talented", gifted with insanity, that is.

Anyway, we spent the day in Brighton with Emma and ate exceedingly delicious fudge. Also, I bought a few guitar picks to replace the ones that got eaten by my dog at Christmas. I was looking for some funky shoelaces to jazz up some boring black trainers I've got but I didn't see any. This demonstrates my new low budget: last term, when I went into town I was buying guitars or clothes - this term I am buying guitar picks, and shoelaces...

Back to self-analysis. If I can't do it on my own blog, I can't do it anywhere. I think the reason I need friends like that is because I am something of an attention seeker. Not the show off kind, but I'm just the girl that talks all the time in seminars when everyone else is shy, I like praise and I'm one of those people who feels slightly hurt on receiving "constructive" criticism. I don't like being ignored.

I think that's why I've lost confidence recently. Back home, I was usually the centre of attention whenever I wanted to be. There are too many people here!

I'm also starting to think I'm just generally down at the moment. If I'm not upset about one thing, I'm upset about something else (although, with periods of normality and contentedness peppered inbetween). Now I've seen friends yesterday and had a good time, I should be happy. But now I'm moping about other stuff. The trouble with having these depressive episodes is that it messes with my mind, because now I don't know if things are genuinely bad or if they're just in my head. It makes me feel powerless. I feel like I can't talk about anything I'm getting upset about directly, because if IS just in my head, and it's not a real issue people will get fed up with me being insecure and think I'm all needy and over-sensitive. It's a circle of doubt and negativity and I'm stuck in my own head.

I even feel guilty about my long passages of self-reflection on here - but I guess I shouldn't this is my own blog, I'm allowed to talk about myself somewhere, right? Wht I really need is a pet to spew all my problems to! Preferably a hedgehog.

Thanks for the comments on my last post by the way, I found them really comforting and helpful. I guess I'm the kind of person that needs reassurance and a figurative shoulder to cry on sometimes.

Also, the kind of person that needs chocolate. I really, really, really, REALLY could do with a big fat bar of Galaxy or a Toblerone right now. Maybe some chocolate buttons and jaffa cakes too. But a) I can't afford those kind of luxuries and b) its 2am so the shop's closed even if I did magically find a couple of quid wedged down the back of my comfy chair/rattling around in my guitar/stuck to the ceiling. Ah, comfort food.

(Actually, talking of unrealistic desires - I do need a job at the moment, maybe I could become one of aristocratic Carolyn's fantasy house staff in exchange for Galaxy bars and Toblerone!)


I promise to make my next blog post lighthearted and happy,

Bekah

It's a long and personal entry today...

I used to be happy with the person I am. Especially over the last year or so, I became more and more confident. When I was staying in Alaska, I met so many new people in all sorts of situations, I made so many friends, in so many situations.

There was one girl named Randi who worked in the visitor centre in Palmer. I stopped in there for a while one day while I had explored the entire town (Palmer and Wasilla being the biggest "cities" in the area, even then they only had populations of around three or four thousand people.) I was waiting for my aunt to finish work nearby, so I hung out looking at the tiny museum they had in the visitor centre, spending as much time as possible so I wouldn't have to go outside and wait in the cold.

Anyway, after she asked how I was and noticed my English accent, me and Randi got talking, for about an hour at least (it wasn't very busy in the visitor centre that day) and we swapped numbers. She was the same age as me, and she was starting Uni in the autumn too, she was going all the way to Boston to study music, she was already in an awesome jazz band. We were going to go to a local festival together but in the end she couldn't make it and my aunt and uncle had planned something else that weekend - a party and cookout up at their cabin with a few of their friends.

In fact, I wrote about that party on this same blog back in July 2008 when I was there:

"On Saturday, Fran and Jack threw a party up at their cabin – loads of people were invited but not many turned up; Fran was a bit slow in confirming the date and giving directions, and a lot of people were going off to some event out of town."

One woman my aunt knew bought her daughter, Claire, who was about the same age as me, so we had some fun and went out to canoe on their lake. She had to leave early though, to go to a rave in Anchorage - which she did invite me to but I knew my aunt wouldn't have let me. (Even though I was already 18, she was quite protective because I was not her daughter and she felt responsible for me.) I did see Claire a few other times, she was awesome and I need to get back in touch with her.

I was getting kind of bored when two guys who were about 19 showed up, expecting a massive party with loads of young people, but there were only a few of us and no-one else at the party even knew them (it turned out a woman my aunt invited couldn't make it but thought it would be a big party so sent her son and his friend anyway). It was my lucky day, cause being the only one there under 30, I was getting kind of bored. And because of both that, and the fact I was by default an interesting person - simply by being a cute English girl - these guys were practically kissing my feet and I got them both to roast me lots of marshmallows, make me lots of smores, and row me round the entire lake twice. One of them ended up calling me back a few days later and for one week I got a lot of free visits to funfairs, restaurants and cinemas out of that guy, as well as totally pissing my aunt off by going back to his place and not quite coming back home in time for her curfew.

Another day I went into Anchorage to go shopping and hang out with two girls I'd never met before, which came about because one of them was thinking of going to university in England and her mum knew my aunt, so they arranged a meeting for us. All of these people got my number (I had a temporary "cell phone" my aunt gave me for me to use out there, so I've lost contact with them all now) and I saw most of them again.

When I worked at the field school in Canada I was thrown into close living conditions with about 8 other students (they'd all graduated from different U.S. universities, all about 3 or 4 years older than me), at camp you have to get up at 6am, work, cook, eat, get muddy and play together until about 2am, with no breaks for solitude and you make friends very quickly. The whole experience was cold, muddy, and awesome fun. By the end of the week, none of us were sleeping cold or alone in our tents, everyone at camp seemed to pair off with someone of the opposite sex. It was often unclear whether the noise coming from outside your tent was a moose, or just another couple "keeping warm"...

(My aunt was extremely annoyed to find my little tent empty when she came to pick me up at the end of the week and things were tense for nearly our whole road trip, which turned out to be less fun than it could have been - because I also caught glandular fever along with everyone else at the camp. Which was a) because everyone was sleeping with eachother and b) because we all ate out of the same pot, never had enough water to wash our hands, and shared muddy utensils which never got washed up with warm water.)

It's ridiculous how many friends I made in two months, in a totally alien place where I knew no-one. I didn't look super cool, I wore scruffy clothes to keep warm most of the time, but over there people didn't judge you on your clothes, your taste in music, or anything else (apart from your political views, which you should definitely keep shut about in the States).

I came home from Alaska more confident and friendly than ever. I couldn't wait to meet new people, I wanted to smile and say hi to people I saw at shops and bus stops, I wanted to chat and make friends with everyone. I had great exam results and I couldn't wait to come to uni.

I've been here for about 4 months now, I've met hundreds of people and had so many new experiences. But I still haven't made any close friends. I didn't even realise this for a while. I was swept up in the tumultuous wave of socialising and events, surrounded by plenty of people to go to go out with to house parties and nights out. Now I don't want to do that, and I don't have enough money to, I just want someone to chill out with and chat to about anything and everything in my room. I am a crazy, weird and lively person, I always have been, and my friends were about the same, I could say and do any random thing I had an impulse to do, and we'd all laugh together.

I used to be happy with the person I am.

In a way, I still love me. I step outside of myself and look at myself as though I were someone else. I see an awesome person that is a lot of fun to be with. I see someone small but cute and playful with a weird sense of humour, the kind of person I just want to hug and have good times with. If I could meet myself, we'd get on great and we'd be best friends. The fact I think about that quite often just proves what a mental case I am.

The trouble is, I don't want to change. I like being myself. I don't want to put on an act. When I think of something interesting or fun, I want to say it, or do it. If I'm on a beach listening to music through my headphones, or if I hear a funky band playing in town, and I feel like getting up and dancing, I want to do it. Why should I have to care what other people think? I bet plenty of people feel like dancing in public sometimes, the difference between them and me is that they will stop themselves, and I won't.

It's such a short life, why should I refrain from doing things I want to do just because other people might think it's silly or weird. Why should I let others kill my personal fun and happiness just because they are scared to enjoy life themselves, for fear of what other people will think of them? Because of this outlook on life, I am now struggling with myself. I'm not having fun anymore, because people don't have fun with me. It's not fun being this person when no-one else seems to understand.

I've lost my self-esteem. I've lost my friendliness. I'm not the lively person I used to be. I'm an unwatered, neglected plant, starving for attention and encouragement. I'm the dying embers at the bottom of a fire whose warmth is no longer appreciated. Am I doing something wrong? At first I thought I might not be looking hard enough, but now feel like I might be damaging things further by thinking too deeply about frienship. Do I need to change who I am?

I feel like I'm being slightly selfish by writing this, because it's not true that I have no-one here. There is a very lovely person next door to me who I appreciate and care about very much. But I sometimes worry that because of the person I am, even they would be happier without me.

It's been a long post today and I don't expect anyone to read all this. But just by writing some of these things down instead of being caught in an endless loop of inner self-reflection, I feel calmer and my eyes are now dry.

Students...

I have got to say that Sussex university is home to the most stereotypical studentyness you can imagine... This week is a perfect example... Gaza protesters...

















Basically a group of protesters have set up an "occupation" - in other words, they've completely commandeered one of the two most major lecture theatres on campus. They're camping there permanently for a week, even through the night, I think. Even when lectures are on they hang around at the back of the hall - with a policy of not disrupting classes (there was a lecture starting when I took these pictures which is why there are fewer protesters) - although I have heard it has been a disruption.

My initial reaction was "cool, good luck with that", I read their "demands" and they seemd fair. They want Sussex to release an official statement agains the attacks, they want Sussex to boycott any Israeli products sold on campus stores, they want to give free scholarships to some students from Gaza University (which was hit during the bombing), etc. etc.

I had to have a nose in at the occupation in Arts A... Now I'm pretty warm on the hippy thermometer, but even I couldn't help but laugh. Think of an utterly stereotypical protesting hippy student, and you will be picturing the sight in the lecture theatre. Dreadlocked, baggy-clothed promoters of peace, acoustic guitars being tinkered with, the lot. Unfortunately I didnt have my camera handy until things had got a bit quieter.

Interestingly, a lot of students in my lectures were not sympathetic with them. They see the occupiers as self-righteous, annoying, and pointless. Lots of people were saying "what can the uni do?" and "I dont mind them protesting but its getting in the way of our classes".

I kind of disagreed with the skeptics at first, but now I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure if uni is the right place to carry this out. True, a couple of other UK universities did cave in to the protesters early on and meet their "demands", and I don't think that's bad. But is it really wrong for us to allow the university a little political neutrality? I'm not sure if it's appropriate for a university to take sides when general peace is the overriding aim.

The guardian have featured an article on universities' efforts here (mainly about King's College, but mentioning Sussex).

I'm not unsympathetic to their vision, as it were, I'm just undecided on whether I agree with all their demands, or with their take-over of the building.

P.S. I counted 10 "as it were"s in todays Philosophy lecture with our new, mad philosophy lecturer. He looks like a cross between a 17th century philosopher and an 80s doctor who. If Philosophy were to be embodied into a living and breathing being, he would be it. Anyway, it must be catching cause as you can see, I just unintentionally said "as it were" in my own blog. Ugh.

Photo

I've been meaning to take my camera everywhere I go, because although I'm not a great photographer whenever I don't have it, I always see oddly funny or interesting things I'd love to have photographed.

I've also been meaning to post on my blog more.

So, here goes my new project - try take at least one photo every day and post it on here regularly. Obviously this is inspired by the guy who took a polaroid every day of his life for years and years and they were recently discovered and put online. Although, that was actually a sad story, because in the pictures you see him get slowly more ill and then he dies of cancer just after you see a picture of him getting married.

Anyways, unlike that guy, my project is probably doomed to fail. I don't say this for any specific reason, it's just probability - most of the projects and hobbies I start end up being abandoned in the end because I suffer from horrible lack of motivation and enthusiasm (although if you completely reversed the meaning of that sentence, you'd be reading my CV - it's all lies! Hmm, I hope no prospective employers read this.).

But oh well, at least its something to aim towards, something which will get me writing and taking more photos, which means I'll be doing SOMETHING creative with my time.

I have spent nearly all day in my room. So here is today's.


(note: I didn't say the pictures would all be interesting or exciting :P)

Bah

It's the new year and I was all positive. Yes, that's the past tense right there.

On the plus side I'm probably going to do much better academically this term, and I'm enjoying class more. I'm in the right field now and I should be okay in that sphere of life.

Everything seemed to be going great, until I realised I'm slowly sliding into the "meh" zone of mind again. And I know why. It's because I am social fuck-up.

Everyone else seems to have formed great big happy families, holding hands as they skip into their beautiful sunset of second-year accommodation, their only trouble being which glorius student townhouse they pick and its proximity to the pub and the university.

Yeah...

All I have is myself. Maybe I should just rent a shitty single bedsit and rot away alone. Can you taste the bitterness in the single tear running down my face? Good.

Okay, that did sound pretty emo. I'm feeling crap and I'll probably regret posting this blog later, but who cares, no-one reads it anyway... Okay, fair enough, that's taking the emo thing too far now. *Ahem*.

Wow, someone actually came over to give me a hug. Faith in humanity slightly restored. Going to bake cookies.

x

Nearing the end

Well here we are... It's nearly the end of 2008. Now is the time I should probably reflect on the year.

I guess it hasn't been a totally sucky year. Wait, that is still pretty negative. It's been a pretty good year, in many (but not all) aspects. There, that's as positive as I get!

Well it has been pretty good. I managed to get to France, Spain, Alaska and Canada, which is awesome. And I doubt I'll be able to afford a single holiday in 2009, or even for a few years now, so it's probably good that I managed to get out of England a bit this year.

Top three awesome things that happened this year:

1) Finishing my A-levels and getting into Sussex (even if I'd have liked to get one more A...)

2) Two months in Alaska... cold but amazingly, stunningly beautiful. I miss the mountains :-(

3) Leaving home and starting uni! I know I chose the wrong course... but it has still been awesome and I also have the best next-door neighbour ever.

Not worthy of a list, non-awesome things that happened this year include my gran and aunt's car accident, being really poor all the time, and not getting out of a horrible relationship sooner.

But next year there's plenty to look forward to! (When you ignore the whole being-totally-poor thing)

1) Lost Season 5. Okay, so you make think I'm lame for having this as a priority. But I can't help it, I'm addicted, and it's so close now!

2) Starting a new course - yeah Philosophy is not gonna be easy, especially after missing a term, but I'm looking forward to studying something I'm actually interested in again.

3) Later on in the year, getting a flat in Brighton! Woo! (If I manage find someone who actually wants to share with me *sob*)

4) ....Hmm, I've run out. Maybe I'm not in such an optimistic mood today. Usually I have tonnes to look forward to.

Oh well, that just leaves me with my favourite list, which is New Year's Resolutions! They're fun because they make you feel like you've made a conscious effort to improve yourself, while later in the year you can look back and laugh at how naive you were! No really, I do actually enjoy making new years resolutions. Making being the key word...not the keeping.

So here it is, in no particular order apart from what comes into my head:

Bekah's amazing New Year's Resolutions for 2009!

1) Keep my room tidy - this one is the same every year. But this time I really mean it!

2) Study harder at uni - try not to get below 60% in assignments, and don't miss classes.

3) Don't spend money on crap (this should be easy since you now have NO money anyway)

4) Get a job and try and save for some kind of holiday in 2009

5) Try and be more slightly more friendly and outgoing instead of enigmatic and weird out of sheer laziness

6) Grow my hair (and possibly try and keep it one colour for a while)

7) Keep practicing guitar, , which comes under being more creative in general.

8) Don't stay up past midnight if I have lectures the next day

9) Don't stay in bed past 12pm

10) And at number 10, the bonus resolution for 2009 - suggested by Leigh - is to cuddle Leigh. (Well I had to have one easy one on here!)

Mainly though, I thought I should at least match the amount of effort I put in at uni to the huge amount of money it's costing me...

And that's my resolutions 09. If I think of any more important ones I've forgotten, I'll add later.

Goodbye 2008. You were okay at first but you gradually got crap Like, what's with all the economical downturn shit? I mean, apart from the whole Obama becoming president thing, you haven't given the world much to look forward to in 2009 - the last year of the "noughties". But lets just see what happens, shall we? Who knows, we might even reverse global warming or halt world poverty. But I doubt it.

See you on the other side, everyone!

Home

It feels odd to call this place home now, when really university is more like my real home these days. I guess I do have stronger connections with the friends I have back here, as well as my family, but the lifestyle is very different to what I have become used to on campus.

It's initally pretty nice to be back. I missed my dogs a lot, it's cool having them around again, even if one of them is violently opposed to and frightened of my guitar (already lost one guitar pick to her ravenous, all-consuming jaws. Seriously, that dog will eat anything, she even tried to eat a razor blade the other week). And it's been cool hanging out with my stepbrother for a bit too. But things suddenly went weird when at approximately 10pm, everyone went to bed.

I mean, WTF? I'd completely forgotten how early parents go to bed. What the hell is that about? 10pm, in the holiday, and no-one to hang out with, nothing to do... I've got plans for the weekend but it was weird stepping back into reality and realising that its not normal to still be hanging out and thinking of making dinner at 1am.

Also, there is a whole fridge full of food. But wait, this is the weird thing. Instead of having a fridge full, yet with only a mouldy tomato and an airtight container of leftover baked beans actually belonging to me, the fridge is actually full of food that is technically mine :-) Yay! Having lived on almost exclusively toast for the past week, I nommed through the rest of a leftover tuna pasta bake I found in there, only to realise later it had probably been there a few days, and was probably meant for the dogs...

I've discovered my crappy, crappy guitar playing is enough to impress a nine year old boy. Although after trying to teach him the Smoke on the water riff for about an hour while watching the poor dude helplessly grapple left-handedly with a guitar twice his size I handed in my teaching cap. It was a fun way of totally freaking the dog out for a while though :-)

I'm missing Brighthelm and my boy-next-door already! And I'm bored, its too late at night to do anything, since any of my favourite activities inevitably involve making lots of noise (Yes, ALL of my favourite activities - heh).

A very important observation on life.

Okay, I know I was gonna follow up on the whole stupid idea thing, but it was a stupid idea, so forget it, because I have just made a weird observation which MUST be written down before I forget about this amazing development in culinary philosophy.

You know when you're about to finish a packet of crisps or a biscuit, and when you go to eat the last bit, you realise you already ate it? And you get that weird empty feeling because you were expecting more?

Well it happens nearly every single time I absent mindedly eat a jaffa cake. Weird. Perhaps it's because they're so deliciously light, or because they only contain one gram of fat (that is why they are recommended by sports nutritionists!), but every time I eat one, I start looking around for the other half of it. It's kind of like when you get a leg amputated and then you feel a phantom leg for years afterwards.

I feel like I have a load of phantom jaffa cake halves haunting me. What's with that? Am I the only one that gets this problem? Also, it's so easy to eat a whole pack in one go without realising!

My final observation is that while I have been spending hours and hours struggling over what to write in an essay before writing only a hundred or so words - I can somehow write 200 words about jaffa cakes in less than two minutes. Writers block can therefore be cured by jaffa cakes (but only if you want to write about snack food).

Maybe I should be a junk food critic!

I am the queen of stupid ideas

Hmm, I was staying up late tonight for various reasons, and then it started getting really late, and I decided something... Instead of going to bed, in two hours when the sun is about to come up, I'm going to get changed back out of my pyjamas again, into some warm clothes. I'm going to go and make myself a flask of tea, bring a bag with my mp3 player, camera and diary, and go up to watch the sun rise on the downs.

I don't have anyone to go with but that might be the beauty of it. I plan on continuing with my Daft Punk session and particularly I want to listen to Voyager.

Only a couple of hours more... Anyway, its Saturday tomorrow. Saturday is nothing or anything day, Sunday is work day.

I will update you on how this latest stupid idea goes later. Expect "for god's sake, why am I always having these stupid ideas", or something along those lines!

Luvina

Here's something I did for my Spanish seminar. After reading a short story by magical realist Juan Rulfo, we had to do a drawing, collage, poem, song - whatever we wanted, to represent his mystical land, Luvina. Luvina is supposed to be a sad, dreary, barren place where there is always a cold wind blowing. This was the best I could come up with in a short space of time:


I know, its pretty crappy. It does look a bit better in real life where you don't noticed the rumpled paper so much, but it's still pretty crappy. Oh well. The writing is a quote from the story. It roughly translates as:

"You asked me how long I spent in Luvina, true...?"


"...The truth is, I don't know"