ucas kiss my ass

I don’t think I actually have a problem with UCAS itself (I probably do somewhere in the depths of my mind) but I needed a catchy title for my rant about applying for and going to university.

It’s so weird watching all your friends and people our age all over  twitter/tumblr/facebook/ect apply for university and get all their offers (or rejections lol represent) through on the UCAS system. I go to quite a high achieving school so being surrounded by people who are so bright when I'm so mediocre is really difficult sometimes.

I was just talking to one of my close friends about all this and she read me a poem about Paris that went something like “with someone, the city, or yourself/you will fall in love with Paris” and that’s the most poetic shit (in the nicest meaning of the word) I've ever read and it’s really nice to hear something that reminds you that the world’s not as bad as you sometimes think it is.

Every so often everything gets a bit suffocating and I need a little reassurance that, although it may feel like it, in the real world not everything is totally falling apart. Getting stressed about university is understandable when you’ve got offers waiting for you to respond to - but you really shouldn’t rush it. As much as it’s tempting to log into UCAS, reject 3 offers and accept 2 in a rush of spontaneity; I'm trying my best not to. But where do you draw the line between that and choosing a university based on your gut instinct which I feel that you should follow sometimes?? I'm not sure and I definitely don’t have the answers right now, but maybe in a few months I’ll have some answers.

At the same party that I talked about in my last post, I was busy observing everyone and, after doing some twitter research, seeing the same boy who was off his tits on weed post a picture of his acceptance letter from Sheffield for History made me think. I had that moment as I sat in my Harrington sipping my lemonade, about how I’m in the background of everyone else’s life. There were at least 50 people (probably more) at this party and to see each of them doing their own thing, even the people I knew, was really weird because tomorrow they’ll be back in class writing up notes because in September they’ve got places to be. It was an interesting observation that I didn’t dwell upon until today when I started thinking about how close university actually is. I'm trying to see it as this big adventure that’s like the next step in my life (I've just been sick on my keyboard at how bad that cliché was) but it’s a bit difficult sometimes.

I guess that sorting things out, whether it be travelling on a year out, applying for uni, or just getting your shit together, is something we’re all doing right now. That doesn’t mean that you feeling anxious or stressed out is made any less important just because everyone else is going through it. I'm so lucky to have some amazing friends around me who have my back when family doesn’t. And that’s really what's important. When you're on your deathbed, you're going to be thinking about that holiday in Jamaica when you were 21 or the dread for revision classes as exams draw closer or the friendships you made at college or online. I think it’s these little things that really matter and I want to (somehow) remember them all.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to have a less emotive, less scrawly, and quite frankly a less pathetic version of my journal that I carry around with me. I think it’s become something that gives a good reflection of my time as an adolescent. Like, I'm never going to be this age again and I'm quite happy that I've taken the initiative to record what it’s like to be a miserable 18 year old kid in 2015. I hope that one day I’ll be able to stumble across this URL or find my little journals with their spines falling off and read it and be able to look back. It might be cool to have some little tear-stained pages with messy, emotive writing on titled WHY CANT I DRAW THINGS AS PRETTY AS I SEE THEM? But then again it may not be so cool when a 30 year old mouldy leaf falls out from page 19.

love at first sight

The Cure sang about it in Just Like Heaven (“Why won’t you ever know that I'm in love with you”), Drowners sing about it in You Keep Showing Up (“Before anything had happened/I was thinking that the end should be tragic”), even JAWS sing about it the entire way through Speak Too Much, Feel Too Little on their debut album. Love is a hot topic that literally every musician sings about and, although a tad repetitive, I think listeners feel that it’s something that really resonates within them. But love at first sight is something a little different.

There's a bit of a debate as to whether you can actually be looking at someone and realise in that instant that you are in love with them. Personally, I believe that you can have that moment of realisation that, holy shit you might actually be in love with someone, because I've experienced it twice. The fact that it didn’t last isn’t due to the fact that I had the epiphany, it’s for other reasons like moving colleges or just not being dynamic enough, but I guess it’s enough to have had your heart belong to someone else in a metaphorical sense. You can be driving along listening to Two Door Cinema Club staring out the window and realise that you actually do love them and by that points it’s probably too fricken late to do anything about it, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that it happened. The other time it happened to me was when I was standing in the science lab watching everyone else watch the teachers physics experiment and I was looking at this boy who I’d known for years and was like oh fuck I think I love him. It’s really odd. It sounds so cliché but it feels like everything sort of falls into place like where it should be and things make a lot more sense and it’s a bit of a relief to finally make sense of what these feelings were that’d been building up inside of you muddled about inside your head for days, weeks or months.

Last night my friend threw a really successful house party. In History and Economics A2, if they ask you about success, you have to define what you interpret success to be so this is what I want to clear up now. To me, success at a party could be getting absolutely fucked and sometimes that’s fun, other times its more about letting go (not even necessarily with alcohol) and having a good time in a relaxed atmosphere with friends and other people who you love, and other times its more interesting to observe everyone around you doing those other 2 things. Last night I learnt so much about my friends and other people and what it really is like to be an 18 year old kid in 2015. I drank 2 sips of crappy peach snaps, ¾ of a bottle of lemonade and then pissed it all out so, as one of the most sober people at the party, I could be an observer for the night which was really fun to be honest. Sitting about in summer houses watching couples interact, even if it is slightly saddening because you’ve been alone all your life, and watching friends talk over a bottle of crap Aldi wine is so interesting. Going out to the stoners table and just having a cigarette and chatting a little bit is another place to go and see people. Inside at the drinks table and on the dancefloor watching people you know loosen up a bit is funny and insightful and the swivel chairs at the breakfast bar are my favourite place. The upstairs bedrooms are an aspect of parties that I'm yet to explore but I guess these things happen in their own time and if you rush them you’ll probably end up regretting it. But the point I'm really trying to build up to here is, last night I was making a vodka and lemonade and the most breathtaking boy you’ll ever see walked in the room. Now I pretty much knew that from this point on I was fucked because the way he pushed his growing dirty blonde hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand and his this agonising look in his eyes and the fact that he actually pulled off white jeans and combat boots, made me spill lemonade all down the cupboard door. So as I dashed about for a napkin to clean up the mess I’d made I was a just little bit smitten with him and following him about subtly and smoking whenever he was outside smoking wasn’t a good idea because now I never know when the world is going to put us in the same room again.

But sitting in the middle seat of the people’s carrier with my head leant against the head rest driving away from Mersea (we had to leave so early like 23:50 so we didn’t get stuck there because of the tide) was a weird feeling. I felt like I was going in the opposite direction and I should’ve still been in that house trying to look at him over someone’s shoulder or over an ashtray. I guess I'm obsessing over it because it feels so unfinished. It’s like reading a story that someone is posting live on Wattpad or on Tumblr or something and you have no idea what's going to happen because it hasn’t even been written yet.

I've spent many a morning lying on the naked chest of my imaginary S.O. and it comes with being someone of my age I think, maybe it comes from constantly being stuck in this weird mindset that you see so rarely in people of this age. I think that everyone’s a little bit lovesick and the whole world needs a hug or a time out.

heartbreak

I guess heartbreak comes in many different forms. I read about that couple on BuzzFeed who were so in love that, when he popped his cogs, she was mere days after him. The autopsy showed that she literally died from heartbreak and a) that is the cutest thing ever but b) I don't think all heartbreak results in physical death. At least I fricken hope it doesn't.

Recently one of my friends was in a real bad way and I think we both got broken hearts from what went down. She had more understandable reasons for her heartbreak but, when she took confidence in another girl at college, jeez did my heart break in two. I mean we went out with our other best friend on Friday and all was well, but for 2 days last week something changed. We're stronger for it now and that electricity in the air when us three are together is undeniable and I'm glad that we overcame it but, for those two days, my heart was well and truly under her boots.

Heartbreak is a weird feeling. Sometimes your favourite characters split up and by this point you've watched more than enough episodes or read more than enough chapters to be so emotionally invested in their relationship. It's lying on your bed or on your beanbag crying at Netflix, watching films or TV series when we're at our most vulnerable; when we submit ourselves so much into a show your heart gets put in its vice and you're well and truly fucked.

Or sometimes you've just watched your vinyl's spin enough times and you've cried enough tears over Ian Curtis to understand that someone who died 30 odd years ago is so important to you and your heart still cracks. I don't think it's quite the same as full on heartbreak, but your hearts damaged so I'd say it comes under the category of heartbreak or at least heartache. Crying over someone who was dead long before you were born is a weird feeling but watching that Joy Division documentary and then scratching your genuine 1979 JD vinyl the next day is more than enough to cause a little breakdown and for your heart to crack a little deeper.

Sometimes; when your hair just isn't white enough or your jeans just a little too long or your hats a little too wide or your tshirt covered in a little too much make up at the neck line, it all gets a bit crushing. The minor imperfections all take their toll when you have to deal with them for just a little too long and, the sheer quantity rather than their importance, gets a little too much as you cry into you contact lens pot. Ironically adding to the problem because now you have to go and clean that before you can stick your lenses back in it.

The impending stress of college gives me heartbreak no end. The constant knock down of your essay not being synoptic enough, or your coursework being too long, or your teacher being too shit, or the fucking uniform policy is enough to send anyone into overdrive. The relentlessness of going to college every day is exhausting and the more I go and the more points I rack up for attendance, the more my heart breaks and the more my individuality is a little bit more repressed. This is the biggest heartbreak at the minute for 18 year old me.

And just to add to it, when you're stood up by a boy who you think may provide a few answers or just a breath of fresh air; sucks big time. When you use a wet wipe to clean the mud off your doc martens and get one of you best friends to pin up your stupidly frizzy blonde hair, and wait outside of Starbucks for 15 minutes to get a text blowing you off - is a heartbreak. It's no big deal; it's not like I'm expecting a hand written letter and a bunch of yellow roses in apology, it's just another knock back which adds to the pile. And to receive a Snapchat of his lush watch 4 weeks later just doesn't cut it.

All in all, heartbreak is stressful and saddening but maybe when you move to a new city and sit in your crumby studio flat looking out at the city landscape in your oversized jumper and knickers - you might finally be in love with something that is the cello tape to your broken heart.